The dawn light barely filtered through the inn's windows. It was a faint, hazy clarity, as if the sun itself hesitated to touch a world that, unknowingly, had already begun to crumble. The air smelled of wood, dried herbs, and suspended dust. Everything was in a contained, expectant silence.
The Last woke with a start.
His breathing was erratic, as if he had been holding his breath for centuries. He sat up with difficulty. Every muscle seemed to fight against him. The wooden ceiling above his head was unfamiliar, the atmosphere too quiet. For a moment, he didn't know where he was... or who he had been.
The sting of pain anchored him to reality.
He looked around: Tyron stood by the window, arms crossed, like a watchful statue. Kaela sat, clutching her bow, eyes fixed on him, observing every gesture. Rynn, by the side of the bed, exhaled in relief at seeing him come to.
"W-What... what happened?" The Last asked, his voice barely a trembling thread.
None responded immediately.
A strange silence fell over the room. It wasn't uncomfortable... it was reverent. As if everyone knew that what they had to say couldn't be summarized in simple words.
The Last remembered what happened with the village sage and raised a trembling hand. He tried to cast a simple light spell. Nothing. Not a flicker. Not a spark. It was as if the universe had closed a door.
The energy... it had disappeared.
"No way..." he murmured, looking at his own hands as if they belonged to someone else. "No... I don't feel the mana. Nothing. Zero."
Kaela approached, placed a hand on his shoulder. Firm. Human. Real.
"You're alive," she said softly, but without mercy. "That's more than many could say. What happened... wasn't your fault."
The Last didn't respond. His gaze was lost, fixed on something no one else could see. An invisible weight crushed him. An echo of impotence, so deep it seemed bottomless, his eyes filled with contained rage for having been unable to do anything.
Tyron finally broke the silence.
"We can't stay here. The village sage... what he became... that wasn't human. Not a common curse. I felt magic, yes, but it was different. Something strange. It's unlike anything we've seen. Not even like the Demon King."
Rynn nodded gravely, still unable to erase the expression of bewilderment from his face.
"His flesh changed in front of us. His voice... ceased to be his own. It was as if something was speaking him. Using him or something."
A tremor crossed the room. It didn't come from the ground. It came from the memory.
Before they could say more, a strange creaking filled the air. The walls groaned. The floor vibrated. A shudder. Short, dry, but deep.
The inn shook for a second. Objects fell. Lamps tinkled. Dust rained from the rafters.
Kaela instinctively drew an arrow.
Tyron turned to the window. The sky, cloudy just seconds ago, now showed an impossible pattern: spiraling clouds... as if drawn from outside the world.
The Last closed his eyes.
He felt something. Not with magic. Not with logic. With... intuition. With a fear that had no origin.
"It wasn't a tremor," he whispered. "It was a blow. As if something enormous had fallen onto the earth. And I felt it. But not with my senses... it was as if something touched my soul."
Silence returned, this time more oppressive.
"We leave at dawn," Tyron said. "No more wandering blindly. The Royal Sage has to know something. And if not... the Sage of Old Times surely does."
"Do you really think either of them will understand what we saw?" Rynn asked, still unmoving.
Tyron shrugged. There was no good answer.
"The villagers mentioned that the royal sages were saying something about mana instability. They have to know more than they're letting on. Get everything ready," he finally ordered.
But before leaving, The Last went outside alone. He wasn't looking for answers. He just needed air. Space. Silence.
The sky remained just as strange, deformed, as if the world were failing from within. The clouds looked like open wounds. No birds were heard. The wind didn't stir.
And then... something. A chill.
It wasn't magic. It wasn't logic. Just a brutal certainty: someone was watching him.
From afar. From somewhere where nothing human could exist.
He didn't know who. He didn't know how. But that gaze had belonged to him from before. As if it knew him better than he knew himself.
He clenched his fists.
"Damn it..." he muttered, fueled by anger.
He wanted to scream, to do something. But there was nothing left he could do. He had no magic. He had no answers. He didn't even have a clear objective.
And just as he turned to go back to the others... another tremor.
Stronger. Deeper. As if the world was breaking from within.
The ground groaned. The walls of the inn they were staying in vibrated. A window shattered on the ground floor. Kaela's horse neighed in fear.
The Last stood still. He didn't run. He didn't speak.
He just looked up at the sky.
"What the hell is happening...?" he whispered.
It wasn't a coincidence. It wasn't natural. It was a warning.
Hours later, with everything ready, the group mounted in silence.
Kaela said not a word. Rynn stared at the ground, as if fearing what he would find if he looked up. Tyron rode in front, more tense than ever.
The Last was the last to get on his horse.
He didn't seem the same. Not confused, not fearful.
Now he was angry. Firm. Awake.
Ready to break something.
The journey to the Kingdom's castle was just beginning.
But the world... was no longer the same.
And on a distant plane, a formless shadow watched.
It didn't smile at what was coming.
But because everything before it... had already begun.
The path to the Kingdom was an old route, forgotten by modern maps. It cut through broken forests, hills eroded by ancient magic, and abandoned villages where only stones and echoes remained.
The four rode in silence.
Rynn didn't cast spells. Tyron didn't speak. Kaela looked at no one.
And The Last... just stared ahead, his teeth clenched.
Two hours had passed since the second tremor. The air was no longer the same. There was a silent electricity, as if the world held its breath. Time seemed to stretch. The sun stayed in the same spot, too bright yet without heat.
"Do you feel it?" Kaela murmured, breaking the silence.
"Yes," Tyron replied immediately. "I've felt it for a while."
"It's not magic," Rynn added, without lifting his head. "It's... something behind everything. As if what we see isn't real."
No one responded.
The forest they bordered was dense, but unnatural. Leafless trees, black roots that seemed to spread like broken veins in the earth. On one trunk, they saw symbols carved with desperation. Not in a known language. Not even magical. Something more primitive.
The Last said nothing, but he felt it. That weight in his chest. That pressure behind his skull. As if something wanted to escape him.
Suddenly, a crow descended from above and landed right in front of the group. It was deformed. It had more than one eye. Its feathers moved as if breathing. And when it opened its beak, it didn't caw.
It spoke.
"It's coming. You're not ready."
Kaela's horse reared in terror. Rynn fell to the ground. Tyron drew his sword instantly.
A dry crack echoed through the air. It didn't come from a tree or a branch... it was something deeper. Something that didn't fit.
"Did you feel that?" Tyron spun abruptly, his arcane rifle already resting on his shoulder.
Rynn nodded, pale. "The vibrations... they're coming from the west. It's like... an echo, but sickly."
Kaela didn't respond. She had already taken two steps forward, shield raised, eyes fixed on the mist dancing over the damp forest floor.
The tremor returned, closer. And then, as if reality itself had been torn by invisible claws, something leaped from the rift opened in mid-air. A deformed, viscous, grotesque silhouette. Its body had no clear shape: it writhed as if in constant mutation. From it oozed a thick, acid-like substance that made the ground bubble upon contact.
Before anyone could react, the creature charged Kaela, grabbing her with a deformed mass that seemed to be both a claw and a tongue. The viscous substance clung to her armor and began to corrode it instantly.
"Damn it!" Kaela screamed in fury, trying to break free, but the acid had already reached her leg.
The Last lunged with his sword, but upon contact, the blade sparked and began to melt with a screeching sound. He cursed under his breath, helpless.
"Tyron!" Rynn shouted. Tyron had already loaded his rifle with energy amplified by her. He fired. The impact was direct to the beast's side.
A burst of purple light pushed it back... but it didn't release Kaela's leg. "NO!" Rynn screamed. With a wet sound, the limb detached from Kaela's body. Blood splattered in all directions.
The beast recoiled slightly... and began to shake the severed leg from side to side, like an animal playing with a piece of meat. The scene was brutal. Inhuman. Horribly... real.
Kaela screamed, not from fear, but from raw rage and pain, biting her forearm to keep from passing out. Tyron froze for a second. Rynn gasped. No one spoke. They all knew they would die if they stayed.
"Get her out of here! NOW!" The Last roared, placing himself between the creature and the others.
"We're not leaving you!" Rynn yelled, about to run toward him.
"This isn't a goddamn discussion! Kaela needs help or she'll bleed out here! Move, dammit!"
Rynn looked at him, understood, and in a second, she and Tyron carried Kaela, who could barely maintain consciousness.
The Last turned towards the beast. The creature seemed to smell the blood, or the pain, or both. Its body writhed as if its structure wasn't made for this reality. It mutated. Now it had more legs. More eyes. More... everything. An interdimensional monster, compressed by One's seal, now unleashed, adapted by this dimension. As if its body had absorbed pieces of all native beasts and adopted their senses.
The mist thickened. The Last breathed with difficulty, not from fear, but from the sheer pressure the creature generated just by existing.
Rynn stopped once more, still not far off. "I give you one last blessing! Don't die, you idiot!" A burst of magic enveloped The Last. His body felt lighter. Faster. His skin glowed for an instant with a magic shield that slowly faded. Enough.
"Let's dance, you piece of shit," he whispered.
He moved through the trees. He lunged after the creature, drawing it in. He wasn't going to defeat it with brute force. He had nothing to. But the forest was full of broken branches, roots, unstable terrain... and a small abandoned shelter not far off, with explosive energy residues used for arcane mining. The Last had passed through there. Once. If he could draw it in. If he could distract it. If he could force an error... He wasn't going to be a hero. Just the last one left alive enough to try.
Meanwhile, more or less far away but still nearby...
Rynn wasn't listening to Kaela.
Nor to Tyron.
Kaela's voice dragged behind her like a poisoned murmur:
"It's not his duty. We already did what we could. Rynn! You can't save everyone!"
But Rynn was already stepping into the forest. Not with resolution, but with a bitter mix of contained rage and something akin to fear.
Kaela caught up to her, limping, leaning on an improvised staff. Her missing leg was a silent presence, heavier than words.
"Are you going to risk yourself again?" she said. Her eyes gleamed with moisture. "After what happened with him? Tyron's shot didn't work. You powered it. And all it did was push it back... just enough to tear this off me."
She pointed to the void where her leg used to be.
"I know," Rynn said, without turning. "That's why I have to do it right this time."
The trees leaned as if the air was tired of itself. Every step was a constant pressure against the throat. Residual mana. Magical distortion. And something more... the sensation of being watched by something that didn't yet exist.
He found it in a deformed clearing, surrounded by trees torn as if an inner storm had erupted.
The Last was on the ground, wrestling with a shapeless beast. Its claws snapped inches from his neck, while he held it back with both hands, his forearms bleeding, his teeth clenched. Above, a silver glow: Rynn's blessing, that barrier of light between planes, trembling under the creature's weight.
A vibration.
A dry crack.
And one of the claws pierced the edge of the shield. The beast was about to break through.
"The Last!" Rynn cried, and extended both hands. "Velum Temporis."
The spell froze the moment.
But not entirely.
The creature flickered. Not like a normal being caught in a spell, but as if it were slipping between temporal frames, distorting the spell's boundary with its mere presence.
Rynn lowered her guard for just an instant to help him up. He didn't need an explanation.
"How long can you hold it like this?" he asked, panting.
"Not long. It's not completely within time. It shouldn't be able to move, but it vibrates... as if it's trying to corrupt the spell's timeline."
The Last knelt down.
"It's more solid now. I feel it. When it threw me to the ground, it didn't pierce the shield. It pushed me hard, but the blow was physical. It's incarnated... for now."
"Then this is when we can kill it," Rynn said.
She paused. Then she looked at the horizon, as if seeing again Tyron's shot shattering the air, the blessed explosion, Kaela's scream.
"Tyron's shot didn't work because at that moment, it didn't have a body at all. It was like a shadow barely touching flesh. Now... now it leaves marks. Now it can bleed."
The Last lowered his gaze, thoughtfully, and with effort pulled out a small, black metal capsule, cracked with red runes.
"This... I found it in one of the cabins near the old path," he said, his voice hoarse. "I came through here some time ago, when we were looking for shelter. I think they used it for mining, one that's further down the cliff. There were more, but... they're gone now. I don't understand what happened."
Rynn observed the object. The metal seemed to pulse softly, as if it harbored something that wanted to break free.
"Are you sure this can work?"
"No. But if you power it, hopefully it'll do enough damage to force it to disappear. Or at least, to make it retreat."
"I'll have to release the spell," she said, breathless. "I can't maintain the temporal prison and power the charge at the same time."
He nodded. He was already getting up, though with effort. His legs trembled. But his eyes were firm.
"Then it'll be just one chance," The Last said.
Rynn nodded, speechless. Her breath trembled. The improvised artifact sparked in her hands. They didn't know if it would work. They only knew it was that... or nothing.
But they activated it anyway.
The explosion was brutal. A burst of energy violently tore through the monster, burning part of its dark flesh. A blast of white light with golden edges ripped through the creature, incinerating it from within. The monster shrieked, a cacophony of shredded voices, and part of its torso—a section riddled with incessantly murmuring mouths—disintegrated into a burning black cloud.
For an instant, the world seemed to stop. However, it did not fall.
And then, without warning, the being reacted.
It didn't roar, it didn't complain. It simply turned its nearest head, covered by a cracked bone helmet, and lunged directly at Rynn. Each of its limbs struck the ground with unnatural force. Its talons gleamed.
But The Last was already waiting.
He interceded with a silent fury, as if his body knew what to do before his mind did. He leaped at the monster with pure force, delivering a brutal punch to one of its multiple heads. The impact was so sharp and violent that a crunch like splintering bones was heard. The monster's dark skin caved in, one of its faces grotesquely deformed, and it was thrown backward with violence.
The Last landed badly. One knee touched the ground. But he did not fall.
And then, amidst the smoke and embers of the confrontation, they appeared.
"Kaela! Come on, quick!" shouted Tyron, carrying her by the shoulder. She limped, but kept her gaze fixed on the creature.
Kaela leaned on him, barely able to walk, but her gaze was hard, firm, almost defiant. Tyron dropped his rifle and rested it on some debris. The barrel was already vibrating with condensed energy.
"Run out of ideas?" The Last asked, without taking his eyes off the creature.
Tyron smiled wearily.
"You punched it bare-handed?" he asked without looking at him, as he charged the weapon.
"It had a face to spare," The Last said, spitting blood.
"I guess that counts as a tactic."
"I only have one... And it's stupid enough to work."
He aimed. The central rune of the rifle ignited with a crimson hue, as if it contained a beast of its own.
"You don't leave a comrade behind. Because if one dies, it's our turn next."
The shot was sharp, like the beat of a war drum. A projectile wrapped in arcane lines flew directly into the monster's skull, piercing it completely. The creature convulsed, as if something inside it tried to break free. It fell onto its own limbs, letting out an indescribable sound. The mouths closed. The faces went dark. The body lay motionless, like an empty skin.
Silence.
Only ragged breaths.
Only ashes floating like dead dust.
Rynn fell to a seated position, head bowed. The Last still breathed with difficulty, his fist clenched and bloody. Tyron looked at the creature's body with a frown. Kaela, still leaning, didn't take her eyes off the corpse, as if waiting for it to move again.
"What the hell was that?" Tyron asked, without sarcasm this time.
"That thing..." Rynn murmured, looking at the smoking corpse. "It wasn't like the one in the village."
"No," Kaela confirmed. "This one was different. More corporeal. More... formed."
Tyron spat on the ground. "I don't like that at all. But it did resemble it in one way. That form... that thing that deformed and changed as if it was searching for a stable shape. We'd seen that before."
Rynn nodded. "In the forest. When The Last stayed behind."
Everyone looked towards The Last.
"The Village Sage," The Last murmured. "Perhaps that ritual... that symbol he left on me... It was a sealing."
"There, it didn't have a defined body," Rynn added. "It changed, like dense smoke with claws. Attacks passed through it... but something in it persisted. As if it didn't need flesh."
Kaela frowned. "Do you think that's why you can't use your powers?" Kaela asked, her voice a mere thread.
Tyron scoffed. "What if it's not the same one, but they come from the same place?"
"The same origin? Perhaps. It's not common magic... but it is something very ancient. Very structured," Rynn said.
"We have no proof," The Last interjected, finally. "But if what we saw in this forest is related to the village sage... then we're facing something that isn't natural. Not magical."
Rynn glanced at him sideways. "Do you think it has to do with your seal?"
"It's a possibility," he replied, without hesitation. "That symbol, what the Village Sage did... It was all very precise. As if he knew exactly what he was sealing."
Kaela ran a hand across her forehead. "Then, when we get to the castle... we'll talk to the sages. And also to the Sage of Old Times. We have to understand this before another one appears."
"And we have to tell them everything," Rynn added, serious. "What happened with the sage, what happened in this forest... this isn't a magical error. It's something bigger."
Tyron lowered his head, closing his eyes for an instant, and hoisted his rifle onto his shoulder. "I hope they have answers... Because if not, we're screwed. Because if the next one is worse than this... it's going to cost us more than a limping leg."
As they gathered the remains, no one noticed the pair of eyes that blinked among the trees.