? ─── ?? ? ?? ─── ?

  They woke in silence. No cock’s crow, no scent of cooking food. Not a single sound of life. The silence pressed against their chests like the air inside a coffin that had long been waiting for its final occupant.

  The air in the house was bitter—not from stench, but from a presence. The presence of things that should not be: fear, loss, and the words yesterday had left on the walls like scars.

  After the previous day, no one had words, and no one had an appetite. Breakfast was never even proposed.

  Odd pulled on his cloak and glanced at Irellis. She sat by the window, motionless, staring into the fog. Not a movement, not a sigh. Only a quiet, heavy presence. Violetta stood in the corner near the door like a shadow, ready to vanish at the slightest stir.

  They left the house like ghosts, leaving behind ruined rooms, dead silence, and the words carved into the walls that no one would ever erase. The house became a corpse again; only their footsteps remained alive.

  The sun had already risen over the debris, casting long beams between charred rafters. The ruins, like petrified waves, stretched up the slopes. Stone stairs covered in moss, broken beams, cracked slabs bleached by the sun. It all breathed—not with life, but with presence. The past watched them as they left, a silent reminder: You are intruders here.

  Brenn walked ahead, listening to the stone crunching underfoot, the wind sliding between the wreckage, and the echoes that seemed to carry memories instead of just sound. His face didn't just sink into shadow; it merged with it. Exhaustion had eaten into him, not just physically, but deeper, corroding his very soul.

  “The city is like a dead man with his eyes wide open,” he muttered, stopping. Before them loomed a tower—black, scorched, like a cross over the grave of someone great but long forgotten.

  A gust of wind swept up a cloud of dust. Behind a half-ruined arch, something flickered—the cold glint of metal, strict lines, the dark geometry of steel. Down below, several hundred paces away amidst the mangled street, they were marching.

  The Inquisitors.

  Despite the dim light, their armor glowed as if through murky glass. Their faces were frozen, immobile. It was obvious: they had not come of their own free will.

  Susie moved in front, her face a petrified mask. Reaper Vane followed. His armor didn't reflect light—it swallowed it. Even the shadows seemed terrified as he passed. He was living death, the embodiment of a silent verdict.

  ? ─── ?? ? ?? ─── ?

  “They’ve caught up,” Odd said quietly. His voice was hoarse, as if his throat had turned to sand. “Either we’re too slow, or they’re too stubborn.”

  “Both,” Irellis replied. Her eyes shimmered with tension, her gaze darting between the silhouettes in the distance, searching for a weakness. “But look at their faces. They aren't certain. Something is holding them back.”

  “This is dragon land,” Brenn said, his voice low and hollow like a subterranean hum. “The territory of old nests, curses, and wyverns. Even birds don't fly here. The air reeks of scorched bone. It's not us they fear—it's what lives here.”

  Violetta lifted her head. her gaze locked onto the dark stone arches rising over the narrow path like a gateway to another world. Not a new one, no. Ancient. Raw. Wild. A world where other laws still reigned—bloody, old, and forgotten. She felt it in her gut. As if something had reached inside her and firmly, commandingly gripped her ribs from within.

  “This way,” she snapped, her voice short and decisive.

  The group turned off the main street, passing through the arch. The air changed instantly: it became bitter, like smoke from an ancient pyre. A different, acrid tang hung in it now—sharp, like a snapped bone. It was the faint but unmistakable scent of sulfur—the smell of wyverns mixed with the aroma of ash and rot.

  Sounds died out as if muffled by felt. Even their footsteps failed to echo. The cliffs on either side of the path were sharp, like broken fangs. The sky seemed closer, hanging by thin veins just above their heads. Everything here screamed without a word: You do not belong.

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  A clamor rose behind them—footsteps, clipped orders, muffled arguments. The Inquisitors froze before the arch as if before a black line they dared not cross. One raised a hand—a hesitant, strained gesture. Another glanced at Susie. A third took a half-step back but froze, as if feeling a cold gaze between his shoulder blades.

  Susie stood motionless. Her face was like stone—smooth, dark, devoid of the slightest shadow of emotion. She wasn't looking at the ruins or the darkness ahead. Before her inner eye stood another—the one who sat on the throne, whose voice was heavier than any fear.

  “Move,” she said flatly.

  “But…” someone tried to protest.

  “Forward. Or he will flay us alive.”

  Vane moved first. His silhouette glided forward as if the earth had no power over him. Silence closed in behind him like a funeral shroud. The others followed—each step heavy, filled with indecision. And indecision is merely another form of fear. Yet, they stepped. One pace. Two. After that, there was no way back.

  And then it came.

  The roar.

  It wasn't just a sound—it was an impact. Not a cry, but an explosion of fury from a world tired of being silent. It knocked the breath from their lungs; thoughts scattered as if struck by a hail of stones. The air vibrated. Dust trickled from the cracks in the cliffs.

  From behind the ridge, slowly, like the shadow of a lost world, it emerged: the wyvern.

  Gigantic. Black as a night where the stars forgot to be born. Its scales shimmered like polished obsidian, and within the fissures between the plates, something orange smoldered—a living heat that could melt stone. Its wings unfurled slowly, wide as the leathern sails of a ghost ship.

  Its eyes were two amber suns with nothing living inside them. Its breath was hot, but not warm—there was neither life nor mercy in it. Only death breathing. Ripples of air trembled as if before the end of the world, and the people trembled with them.

  The wyvern flew low, its wingtips nearly brushing the tops of the cliffs. It didn't hurry, didn't snarl, didn't attack. It merely observed—carefully, cautiously, as if deciding whom to incinerate first. Everyone felt it. Everyone upon whom its shadow fell tightened their jaw and reflexively ducked, trying to become smaller, invisible.

  One of the Inquisitors, barely a whisper, as if praying to a senseless god, let out:

  “We’re fucked...”

  The second swallowed hard, not from thirst, but from the realization: this wasn't a battle. This was a sentence. The third just stood there like an empty husk, mouth agape, his spirit already departed.

  But the wyvern ignored them. Its gaze settled on someone else.

  It banked in the sky—a fluid maneuver that kicked up dust, churned the air, and blanketed the people in the grime of ancient earth. Then the beast dove straight for Violetta.

  The landing was like a meteorite strike. A boom rolled through the gorge; the earth shook as if under the feet of titans, and a cloud of dust and snow billowed to the sky, momentarily obscuring everything but the beast.

  The group tensed. Muscles coiled for a final stand. Someone gripped a sword hilt—instinct overmastering reason. Others froze. Even the mages, who yesterday believed themselves masters of fate, now gulped air like drowning men.

  But the monster did not attack.

  It stood in the middle of the snowy plain, dark as a rift in reality itself, and looked at Violetta. Her pupils narrowed into thin slits; her breath caught—not from fear, but from the inexplicable sensation that she stood before something that did not belong to this world.

  And suddenly—everything froze.

  Sound vanished. The howl of the wind, the crunch of snow, even her own pulse—all went quiet. The air became viscous like water, dense and cool, as if she had been wrapped in an invisible curtain of ice and glass. In this frozen space, only the gaze remained—ancient, primal, far too deep for an animal.

  The wyvern’s eyes widened. The glint within them changed. It wasn't aggression, nor curiosity—it was recognition. If it could have spoken, it would have whispered:

  “I remember you.”

  But it did not see a girl or a sorceress.

  It saw something else—something much darker. It saw its own death.

  The wyvern curled its maw as if smiling. Its gaze, slow and deliberate, turned away from Violetta—and settled on the Inquisitors.

  Then came a roar like an explosion. It wasn't a sound; it was a blade severing the soul. Its depth made teeth rattle, hearts stop, and knees buckle.

  And then—movement. Not a leap, not even a takeoff. It was a lunge that held the quality of the first light and the breath of the end all at once. A massive wing swept out, and the patch of earth where men had stood a second ago crumbled into dust, as if swept from the map of the world.

  The wyvern descended upon them not as an animal, but as a force of nature. Its fury was primal, boundless, devoid of logic. It was a rage that required no explanation.

  Vane lunged forward—too late. Susie gripped her rod so hard her knuckles turned white, but she couldn't even utter a word. The Inquisitors tried to form a line as they had been taught—precise, coordinated, orderly. But their formation was designed for men. Not for a living storm.

  Darkness and flame swallowed them.

  “Run,” Violetta said shortly, her hand signaling without hesitation.

  There was no fear in her voice. No pity, either. Only action—precise, calm, like a law of nature.

  The group moved. Behind them, the fight continued—devoid of hope, devoid of heroism. Not a battle, but a meat grinder. The thud of wings, scorching air, explosions of magic, screams, the crunch of bone—it all melded into a savage symphony of extinction, echoing over the valley like a song of the end.

  The group raced upward toward the mountain ridge. Every step was against the wind, against despair, against the weight of memory. The world shrank to a single desire—to survive.

  They pushed deeper into the territory of predatory monsters, fleeing from the real ones.