The road to the Eastern Caldera was a desolate expanse of broken stone and charred earth, stretching endlessly beneath a sky smudged with ash and fading light. Every step forward felt like a defiance of fate—a challenge hurled into the face of gods and monsters alike.
Darian rode at the front of the Vanguard, his armor reforged, polished to a dark gleam that caught the flicker of distant fires. The Shard of Eternis pulsed faintly on his chestplate, bound there by sigils etched in both blood and spirit. It whispered to him now—not in words, but in feelings: hunger, power, memory.
Behind him, the Vanguard moved like a shadow across the land. Not in neat ranks, but in clustered bands—war-hardened, battle-tested. Every soldier bore the scars of survival, their eyes trained on the horizon where smoke curled like fingers from the mountains beyond.
