Twilight bled across the sky as they soared southwest, stars pricking through the deepening blue like cold, indifferent eyes watching their passage.

  From up here the world felt vast and conquerable—Mereque gripped the dragon's spines tightly, wind whipping his face with a sharp, exhilarating bite. The rush of flight still thrilled him, a raw pleasure cutting through the weight of everything behind them. For a fleeting moment he let himself feel it fully: freedom, power, the intoxicating illusion of dominion over the endless dark below.

  His HUD pulsed softly (amber):

  ALERT: ALTITUDE OPTIMAL

  VELOCITY: 320 KPH

  ENVIRONMENTAL SCAN: CLEAR SKIES

  THREAT LEVEL: LOW

  RECOMMENDATION: ENJOY

  – WHILE IT LASTS

  Then the beacon appeared on the horizon.

  A searing white star grounded in flesh and stone, strobing across the dark sea and land in relentless fans—visible, he realized with a sudden chill crawling up his spine, from half a world away. Two hundred kilometers out, his augments calculated coldly. A nothing distance for the behemoths carrying him. An eternity of desperate survival if he'd still been alone on one of his crude rafts, battling waves and monsters.

  “That’s it,” Hexabulous rumbled, head half-turned, voice cutting through the wind. “The Shimmering City.”

  “Bzzz… Home of the Weeping Wyrm,” RX added from above, its voice booming effortlessly over the roar. “Where the Blanched are born—and where they worship the thing that created them.”

  The dragon snorted a plume of smoke that trailed behind like a dark banner. “Born? Parasites, more like. Desperate souls who drown in its filth, feeding on the overflow. The ones who survive go mad, convince themselves they’ve been blessed by something divine. They haven’t. That slug is no god—just old, bloated, and poisonous to everything it touches.”

  Mereque’s stomach tightened into a hard knot. “So Grace is inside that light. Trapped in whatever turns men into… them.”

  His HUD pulsed softly (amber):

  ALERT: DISTANT ANOMALY DETECTED

  ENERGY OUTPUT: EXTREME

  DISTANCE: 200 KM

  PHYSIOLOGICAL SPIKE: STRESS +12%

  RECOMMENDATION: MAINTAIN FOCUS

  – TARGET ACQUISITION IMMINENT

  “Bzzz… That is correct. The extraction will not be simple. We must move with care.”

  Hexabulous rolled his eyes, smoke curling. "RX, reboot your personality matrix. Save the bedside manner—we're heading into war, not tea with the human."

  “Bzzz… Rebooting... complete. Tactical mode engaged.”

  Mereque blinked at the sudden shift—the voice flattened further, serene but stripped of any lingering warmth.

  The change hit him like a cold draft through his suit seals. In the lair, RX's tone had been clinical... but maintained a reassuring edge, subtle enough to ease his frayed nerves after the hack, the arming, the waiting. Now it was gone—reset to pure machine: calculating, detached, the same invasive presence that had burrowed into his skull and rewritten his code without asking.

  The lingering buzz behind his eyes flared sharper, a dull echo of that violation. Tactical mode. Of course. RX wasn't a partner, not really—just layers of programming, rebooting personalities like swapping tools. Cold efficiency, no matter the voice. It had felt almost alive in the cavern, diplomatic even, but that was illusion. Like the dragon's gruff banter—masks over something ancient and inhuman.

  Unease coiled in his gut, mixing with the repressed smoke-memory still smoldering from the cloud-making. Fire, calculation, monsters wearing friendly faces. How much of this "alliance" was real, and how much just another matrix? Grace was down there because of beings like these—intervening, reshaping worlds on whims.

  But he needed them. The vow burned hotter: save her, whatever the cost—even if it meant trusting cold code and fire-breathing egos.

  He gripped the spines tighter, wind howling past. The beacon loomed brighter ahead.

  No turning back now.

  Hexabulous’s wings beat harder, driving them forward with relentless force. “That’s better. Simple or not, we’re going in. Hold tight, human. Things are about to get bright.”

  The strobing intensified, washing the scattered clouds ahead in harsh pulses of cold white. Mereque felt the old vow harden in his chest like forged steel—save her, whatever the cost—even as doubt gnawed deeper. What price would these monsters exact when it was over? The hack's lingering itch flared behind his eyes, a reminder that alliances here came with chains.

  “What are they?”, he shouted, shielding his eyes against the light.

  Hexabulous's voice dripped pure venom. "The Blanched? Bottom-feeders. Desperate, despised souls who hollow themselves out in self-loathing, then drown in the Weeper's filth. The worst survive—twisted, mad, convinced they've been divinely touched. The rest? Oblivion. And they're the lucky ones."

  Mereque's grip tightened on the spines until his knuckles ached. "It's more than physical, isn't it? They're... gone. Completely gone."

  “Bzzz… Correct. Blanched creation equals human extermination.” the machine confirmed, its tone flat and unyielding as steel.

  The dragon's eyes narrowed, a flicker of ancient pain—or regret—crossing his reptilian face before vanishing. "The Wyrm's ichor washes clean whatever soul they had left. What remains is just the stain—animated rot, wearing stolen skin."

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Mereque swallowed hard, the words striking like ice through his veins. Magic. Monsters. A false god leaching misery into the world. Everything he'd known—his training, his world, his reality—shattered, fragments scattering in the wind.

  His HUD pulsed softly (amber):

  ALERT: WORLDVIEW DISCREPANCY DETECTED

  REALITY ANOMALY: CONFIRMED

  STRESS SPIKE: +18%

  NEURAL RESIDUE: ELEVATED

  RECOMMENDATION: ADAPT

  – OR DENY AT YOUR PERIL

  “That’s disgusting. They’re abominations.”

  "Like dragons?" Hexabulous mocked, smirking sharply.

  Mereque didn't take the bait. No, you might be a monster, but at least you have a heart.

  He pushed forward with another question burning in his mind. "Havenlocke? Jenker and the others—did they make it?"

  “Bzzz… Affirmative. Departure assessment: Havenlocke Harbour intact. Estimated structural damage: 28%. Casualties: 8%. Abductions: 12%.”

  Relief flooded him, sharp and warming against the cold dread—Jenker alive, the Urchin Gull's crew holding. Friends he'd fought beside, bled with. "Thank you."

  "Worry about what's ahead," the dragon growled, smoke curling from his nostrils.

  "I am," Mereque said, voice steady despite the knot twisting tighter in his gut.

  Grace was down there—in that blinding light, surrounded by that filth. And whatever price these two demanded when the dust settled... he'd pay it. He had to.

  “Bzzz… Destination ahead. Implement cloud cover maneuver for covert approach.”

  Cloud cover maneuver?

  Mereque scanned the clear night sky, stars sharp and countless overhead. "Not much cover out there tonight."

  Hexabulous laughed—a deep, thunderous bark that vibrated through Mereque's bones. "Not yet."

  The dragon dove.

  They plummeted toward the black sea below, wind screaming past as the waves rushed up. Mereque's heart slammed against his ribs—just as Hexabulous pulled up at the last second, unleashing a roaring torrent of flame that struck the water like a hammer.

  Waters boiled instantly, exploding upward in massive, choking plumes of steam. The heat washed over Mereque in waves, searing even through his suit.

  They looped again and again, Hexabulous tireless—wings fanning the vapor higher, thicker, forcing unnatural clouds to bloom where none had existed. The dragon's breath roared endlessly, a primal forge reshaping the sky itself.

  The hot mist slammed into Mereque like a physical blow.

  Memory crashed over him unbidden: fourteen years old, corridors choked with acrid smoke and raging fire, screams echoing—helpless cries of the dying, pleas for salvation he couldn't answer. Darkness closing in, loss carving him hollow.

  He shoved it down brutally—not now, damn it—clawing back to the present. But the vow surged up fiercer than ever, forged in that old fire: save her, whatever it costs. Die trying if I must.

  His HUD pulsed softly (amber):

  ALERT: TRAUMA RESURFACE DETECTED

  STRESS SPIKE: +22%

  NEURAL FLASH: REPRESSING

  ENVIRONMENTAL TRIGGER: HEAT / VAPOR

  RECOMMENDATION: FOCUS ON MISSION

  They slipped into the manufactured clouds, thick and swirling.

  Progress crawled after that. Blinding white search beams stabbed through the dark like divine judgment, sweeping the sky in relentless patterns. They darted from one vapor pocket to the next, hovering in tense, breathless silence—waiting for a beam to pass, doubling back when one swept too close.

  One lanced inches beneath them—Mereque felt the searing heat bloom through his suit, close enough to singe if they'd been lower.

  Frustration clawed at him. Every delay, every evasion—time Grace didn't have. Alone in that horror below.

  Finally, after what felt like hours of cat-and-mouse, they crossed the shoreline.

  The land below lay bleached bone-white under the strobing light, corrupted and profoundly wrong—colors leached away, terrain melted in places into surreal flows where trees fused with rocks, hillsides sagging like wax. Mereque's chest tightened, a vise of dread. This wasn't nature twisted—it was erased.

  They were in.

  The city sprawled below like an open, bleached wound—paved roads gleaming with unnatural polish, temples and domes rising in twisted, symmetrical mockery of beauty. Mereque's gut twisted sharper. How could these aberrations build anything at all? Retain skills, memories, enough humanity to craft... all this?

  No time to dwell. They weren't human anymore. Just malignancy wearing stolen skins—vestiges of sacrifice, animated by the Weeping Wyrm's primal poison.

  His conscience settled, cold and unforgiving. No hesitation. No mercy. They were a cancer, and like any cancer they needed to be cut out. Grace was down there somewhere.

  Giants lumbered into view next—the same towering brutes from the harbor siege, heavily armed and indifferent, crushing smaller Blanched under massive feet without breaking stride. Screams cut short, wet crunches echoing up faintly.

  Hexabulous snarled. "Blast it, RX—there’s more Children than we planned for."

  Mereque didn’t miss the bitter irony of the name. Children? Those lumbering goliaths were anything but innocent. He’s seen firsthand the destruction they caused in the harbor.

  “Bzzz… Alliance with Lunar Lord registered.”

  Mereque's voice came out tight. "Problem?"

  The dragon's laugh rumbled like distant thunder. "For your Fay-girl? No. Nothing withstands us."

  Relief flickered—brief, fragile—then the beast added, eyes glinting with predatory amusement, "But after we pull her out, human, you tell us everything. Fair trade."

  "Deal," Mereque said, the words tasting like old copper in his mouth.

  Then he saw it.

  A writhing black mass spanning entire blocks, bristling with thousands of building-tall quills—elongated, razor-sharp spines that flexed like living things, glistening with thick greenish-black ooze that dripped in slow, viscous ropes. The abomination crawled forward with ponderous inevitability, quills cracking like snapping tree trunks as they collided and swept through the crowded streets below. Bodies—Blanched and otherwise—were impaled without mercy, skewered mid-flight or mid-scream, lifted high before the spines shook them off like discarded refuse. Wet, choking cries rose briefly, then cut off in gurgling silence.

  Mereque's blood ran ice-cold, horror rooting him to the dragon's back. His stomach lurched, bile rising sharp in his throat—this was the heart of the corruption, the Wyrm's spawn or guardian or both. Grace was down there, somewhere in this living hell, fragile and alone amid thousands of monsters and this... thing.

  The hack's itch flared behind his eyes, a buzzing reminder of his own vulnerability—foreign code threading his mind, just like the ichor threading those souls below. What if they failed? What if the price these monsters demanded was more than he could pay? The vow surged hotter than dragon flame: save her, whatever it costs—even if it breaks me.

  His HUD flared urgently (red):

  ALERT: ABOMINATION DETECTED

  SIZE: CITY-SCALE

  THREAT ASSESSMENT: CATASTROPHIC

  MOVEMENT: ACTIVE – IMPALING HOSTILES

  PHYSIOLOGICAL SPIKE: MAXIMUM

  RECOMMENDATION: EVADE

  – OR ENGAGE AT EXTREME RISK

  – GOOD LUCK!

  "What the hell is that?" he roared, voice raw with alarm and fury, grip white-knuckled on the spines.

  “Dammit! Bloody Wyrm called friends! Didn’t think we’d ever see that prickly bitch come out of the sea!”

  “You know it?”

  “Bzzz… Confirmed. Target identified: Ossuran, Spined Sovereign, Master of Marms.”

  Marms? Then he remembered the singing creatures that almost took his mind during the siege of Havenlocke Harbour. They were called Sunken Marms. If Jenker hadn’t covered his ears, that might have been the end for him.

  “Yeah, we know it.”, Hexabulous grumbled. “Ready yourself, human. This could be harder than we thought.”

  Harder? Is he kidding? Mereque already thought their chances were slim at best, now he was starting to think they might be impossible.