Orion was turning to leave when a faint whistling sound echoed around them. Faey's tears slowed, her gaze shifted with fusion before her eyes widened.

  The whistling grew louder, morphing into faint, hollow screams that rose from the earth beh them.

  Orion whipped his head around, a sinking realization gripping him- he truly messed up this time.

  A gray mist began to rise from the earth, swirling unnaturally and eerily painting the once serene ndscape with an ominous haze.

  During his training with Master Shen, he realized that this pce was saturated with magic. Every lifeform, from the tallest trees to the ti squirrels that scurried about, was ected to it.

  Through vigorous training aation, he refined his trol. Eventually, he could sehe magic around him, glimpsing the threads of energy weaving around him.

  Walking idly through a forest or along a road, however, he couldn't sense anything. It had yet to bee sed nature. He o focus to see magic.

  But this... he hadn't meant for this to happen.

  Orion never believed in superstitions. Why would cutting down trees for shelter or hunting animals for food cause nature to spiral out of trol? Survival requires sacrifice.

  Sure, if someo arouroying life for no reason, or hunting for sport- he could uand nature's retaliation. But this?

  Even now, Orion justified his as. Using nature's magic to heal a person- wasn't that rest life with life? Humans were as much a part of nature as the trees.

  Clearly, he was wrong. And now he saw the sequences.

  The mist swirled, twisting into shapeless forms befradually solidifying. Some became humanoids. Their enraged, featureless faces gred with silent fury.

  Aook the shape of a wild boar, though it had a far more solid appearahan the rest, tusks glistening uhe moonlight.

  Among the mist, twisted trees creaked to life, bark peeling back like an open ribcage. More corrupted beings tio rise, each more disturbing tha.

  "Shadow Spirits," Faey exhaled sharply, hopelessness gripping her as her gaze swept through the hoard. "And so many... There's a greater shadow spirit too." She gestured toward the boar, its defined and material features clearly more promihan the rest.

  Her gaze returo Orion, whose cold gaze transformed into something more solemn.

  Sighing i, he muttered loud enough for Faey hear, "Well, looks like I fucked up again."

  "What did you expect- what are you doing?" Faey started to shout, anger fring in her voice but it shifted to worry as he k down, both hands pressed against the dirt. "Stop! Whatever you're about to do, stop it!"

  She cwed at the ground, trying to get closer to prevent him in some way.

  Ign her plea, Orio and focused on the earth beh him. He could see it- fractures in nature's thread. Splirands shooting out like frayed cotton or sharp, jagged wires, giving birth to the shadow spirits now cirg them.

  A faint, gray mist drifted from each spirit, trailing straight toward him like an accusation.

  'Ah... just as they said. They seek vengeance- or bance.' Orion grimly thought, fully aowledging both the Kinkou Order's teags and his failure- and arrogance.

  The shadow spirits loomed between the wilted trees, lingering at the edges of the dead zone. Crossing the invisible line separating life from this zone, pierg shrieks echoed out as they approached.

  Panig, Faey cwed at his shoulders, eyes wide with terror. "Orion! We o get out of here!"

  Orion's body began glowing a pale green, his arms trembling violently and Faey instinctively retracted her hands in arm.

  "No! Don't- don't do something stupid again..." She pleaded, her hands poised to shove him back. But as she stared closer, her voice trailed off in shock.

  Through Orion's shaking, his skin paled and frame was thinning. Faey, stunned, watched as his health visibly deteriorated right before her eyes.

  Just like before, Orion's figure had withered into a skeletal husk. Faey could see his ribs protruding, hollow face, sunken eyes, and raspy breaths as he struggled.

  For Orion, the cept was the same as before- but instead of using nature, he eled his own vitality, f it bato the wounded earth. Life returned, but not as it should have.

  The shadow spirits stopped. Watg. Waiting.

  Suddenly, vied from the dead soil around Orion, twisting and curling toward the forest beyond. Petals unfurled, trees began to pulse as color returned, and vibrant life sprang back to life- too quickly, too perfectly.

  Flowers blossomed unnaturally, growing in overabundand twisting into new, unnatural shapes. Bursts of radiant light illumihe undergrowth. The bance was no longer restored but exaggerated, forcibly bent bato an ideal shape that felt... wrong.

  Faey's gaze darted between the shadow spirits dissolving into the earth one by one along with the mist.

  'It worked!' Faey thought, bewildered. 'But...how?'

  Her voice cracked as she spoke to Orion, joyful but worried. "Orion, that's enough! You did it, it's over-"

  A pulse of violet light suddenly radiated outward along the vines and soil into the forest, aric hum filling the air.

  'What am I seeing?' Faey thought uneasily as twisting violet threads rippled and curled around them, bathing the forest in a soft, eerie purple glow.

  "Get away from him!" A worried voice cried out in the distance.

  "Shit- no!" Orion shouted as ground crackled beh him.

  A final, deafening pulse hummed outward before the energy colpsed inward on itself.

  The energy whipshed back toward Orion, ending in a brilliant fsh of violet light and a shockwave outward.

  Faey was sent flying back several meters, nding square on her back with the air knocked from her lungs and her vision ed by searing violet light.

  Coughing, she spat some blood into the grass, struggling to focus as the blinding light began to dim.

  Silence gripped the forest. No shadow spirits, no haunting screams. The gray, lifeless dead zone and the forest pulsed with fresh life, pnts and trees restored.

  But Orion was o be seen.

  "Faey!" A worried voice cried out. Akali and Mayyam rushed the now thriving groove and embraced her, their eyes wide with as they fell to their knees beside her.

  Akali was the first to her arms around Faey, followed quickly by Mayyam. Both g thtly, shedding quiet tears.

  Faey couldn't find words. Only pain- physically aally- as she clutched them back, trembling. Tears spilled forth as guilt g her chest.

  She had gotten what she wanted. But at a cost.

  In the background, Kennen curiously asked, "Isn't this where he first appeared?"

  --------------------------

  "AAAAAaaaaa" Orion's form was violent flung through space, the same wild magic that had transported him to Ionia radiated around him. But this time, it was different.

  Instead of being pure white with faint distortions along the edges, it was entirely violet. Deep, sickly violet, twisting and curling unnaturally around him.

  Uled and unnerved, fear g to Orion as he had no trol, no sense of where he was being thrown.

  "AGH!"

  Orion crashed into the ground, shouting in pain.

  pared to his arrival in Ionia, he still had some strength- but his mind was rattled and disoriented.

  Gagging, Orion violently threw up as he crawled to his knees, breathing ragged and shallow.

  "No fug way..."

  The familiar smell of rust and iron. A smog that burned his skin and eyes. Air so polluted that one unfamiliar would struggle to breath.

  His eyes snapped open, and he was met with a a disturbing, all-too-familiar sight.

  The warehouse where the gang battled Silco- and the very pce wild magic had torn him away from.

  Around him was a caved in, perfect circle formed around his figure. The walls bore bed scorch marks, and a thin yer of ash coated the every bit of pavement.

  "Fug... REALLY?!"