POV: Kaito Mugenrei
The fire had long died, but the smoke lingered — thin ribbons drifting low, as if reluctant to leave the graves they'd been summoned for.
Kaito walked ahead without speaking. His greatsword was slung across his back again, the edge dulled by ash. Each step crunched through frozen earth, each breath a pale ghost. Behind him, Anzuyi moved like a second shadow — close enough to guard, distant enough not to intrude.
They didn't speak for hours. The road north had turned into nothing more than broken stone veins under ice, and the trees had begun to change — bark blackened, veins of red pulsing faintly beneath the surface. It wasn't natural. Even Anzuyi, who rarely reacted to anything, slowed her pace.
"Mana burns," she murmured finally.
Kaito tilted his head. "Residual corruption?"
"Not residual," she said quietly. "Feeding."
He stopped. There — under the snow — faint, rhythmic vibrations. Not footsteps. Not heartbeat. Something slower, deeper. A pulse through the ground itself.
They crouched, watching the forest tremble. And then, from between the trees, came a flicker of movement — a shape half-human, half-shadow, dragging a rusted banner through the frost. The insignia on the cloth was neither Valerian nor Bustleburg. It was a serpent devouring its own tail.
Kaito's hand went to his sword. "Not theirs," he muttered. "Something else."
The creature's head twitched at the sound. It turned — and its face was a melted parody of a soldier's, jaw fused, eyes hollow with glowing threads of red mana leaking through cracks. The body staggered forward, twitching like a puppet that had forgotten its strings.
Anzuyi whispered, "Necrotic construct. Mana-fed."
"Made from the fallen," Kaito said. His grip tightened. "So the north didn't just fall — it was repurposed."
The thing lunged.
Snow exploded. Kaito's blade moved in a single horizontal arc, cutting through black mist and bone, but the corpse didn't fall — it simply reformed, smoke coiling into a new shape. Anzuyi's daggers flashed in a cross pattern, slicing through the haze, forcing it to disperse with a metallic hiss.
For a moment, silence returned. Then the pulse came again — stronger now, like a heartbeat beneath the world.
Anzuyi's eyes flicked to him. "We need to leave."
Kaito didn't move. He stared at the drifting remains of the creature. The ashes trembled, forming faint sigils that burned before vanishing.
"Report to Iroko," she pressed. "This isn't human warfare."
Kaito exhaled, the fog of his breath curling through the cold. "No. This is something older." He looked north, past the ridge, where faint light pulsed like veins under snow. "And whatever feeds it… is awake."
The northern wind carried whispers — too deliberate to be mere wind. It threaded through the burnt forest, brushing past bones half-buried in snow, past collapsed towers now strangled by frostroot vines.
Kaito and Anzuyi moved in silence. The path wound downward into a ravine veined with old trade roads — once the arteries of Bustleburg's wealth, now overgrown with death and time. The faint pulse beneath the ground grew steadier with every step.
Anzuyi paused, crouching low. "Movement. Thirty meters. Big."
Kaito followed her gaze. At first, it was just snow shifting in uneven rhythm — then a shape rose from beneath it. Massive. Horned. Breathing.
The ground cracked open like a ribcage.
From the pit crawled something too large for the human mind to process all at once — a mound of flesh bound in frost and iron chains. Its eyes were coal-red, burning through the fog.
"...Ogre," Kaito whispered.
But even as he said it, he knew that wasn't quite right. Its body bore signs of decay — scars stitched with molten runes. Its mouth opened, and the breath that poured out was not mist, but mana — raw, corrupted, shimmering like oil.
Anzuyi's voice was nearly soundless. "That's not just an ogre. That's a Tyrant-class vessel."
Kaito felt something cold coil in his chest — not fear, but memory. The last time he'd faced ogres, he'd been helpless. A nameless soldier watching his home burn. Now, though, his black blade pulsed faintly, like it recognized the same blood.
The Tyrant roared. The sound cracked the frost from the trees.
"Fall back," Anzuyi hissed.
Kaito didn't move.
He stepped forward instead — deliberate, measured, the way a swordsman steps into his grave willingly. His voice came low and steady: "If we run, it follows. If I stay, it ends here."
Anzuyi's daggers were already drawn. "You'll die."
"Then I'll die standing," he said simply.
There was no drama in the words — just fact.
The Tyrant moved first, swinging a rusted iron club that could have flattened a wagon. Kaito met it with the flat of his blade, the impact shaking the ground. The recoil forced him to his knees — but he pushed upward, twisting the greatsword in a sweeping counter. The air screamed from the force.
Anzuyi vanished from sight, her steps silent as breath. She struck at the creature's flank, twin daggers slicing runes across its hide — but the wounds closed almost instantly, healed by the pulsing mana within.
"It's feeding from below!" she shouted. "Something's channeling it!"
Kaito's gaze snapped to the pit — to a network of glowing veins that snaked into the Tyrant's flesh. He exhaled slowly. "Then I'll cut the source."
He leapt. The greatsword whistled through the air, black edge gleaming like obsidian glass. When it struck the ground, it carved through the mana veins in a single, explosive stroke.
The forest howled.
The veins ruptured — light pouring upward like liquid fire — and the Tyrant convulsed, bellowing in pain. Its chains snapped, and the monster lunged wildly. One swing caught Kaito across the chest, sending him crashing through a ruined wall. The sound of metal against stone echoed like thunder.
For a moment, the world tilted — ringing, burning. Then Kaito rose again, blood tracing down his neck, eyes cold and focused. His voice was barely a whisper:
"Never again."
He charged.
This time, he met the Ogre Tyrant head-on, the black sword crackling with residual energy from the ruptured veins. The blow cleaved through its arm, its shoulder, then its skull — until the beast fell, heavy as collapsing mountains.
Snow and ash fell together, like rain.
Anzuyi appeared beside him, blades still drawn. "...You're insane."
Kaito wiped the blood from his lip, expression unreadable. "Maybe." He looked north again, toward the faint lights beyond the ridge. "But not finished."
Anzuyi hesitated, her usual silence breaking for only a moment. "There are more."
He nodded. "I know."
In the distance, multiple silhouettes stirred — ogres, hundreds of them, their roars echoing through the valleys.
Kaito's fingers tightened around his sword. "Let them come."
Anzuyi's breath caught — the faintest tremor of something like fear. "You can't fight them all."
Kaito's gaze stayed fixed on the advancing horde. "I don't expect to win," he said. "I just expect to end it."
He stepped forward into the snow, the black blade dragging a faint scar behind him.
The ogres roared.
The sky split with their fury.
And Kaito Mugenrei walked into them — one man against a storm of monsters.
The world swallowed the clash in silence.