Chapter 293

While Kaguya and Vito fought under a curtain of dust, the collision of their strength shaking a small corner of the eighteenth floor, the rest of the team was trapped in a conflict of their own….a desperate struggle against the witch, Alfia.

“Haah!”

Ryuu and Alise came at their foe from opposite angles, a blur of wood and fire.

Alfia, however, moved with the measured calm of an untouchable goddess.

She gently brushed aside Ryuu’s wooden sword with an open palm, while trapping Alise’s magically heated blade between two slender, delicate fingers.

“Argh! Why are you so fast? It’s so irritating! And how come you’re not feeling the heat from my sword? Is that your magic-nullifying power as well?!” Alise complained, her face flushed with exertion.

“Do not bombard me with questions, child. All it means is that you are weak.”

The witch’s voice was as cold as frost in a drought, laden with palpable disappointment.

“However,” she conceded, her eyes briefly scanning Alise.

“Your speed and power have definitely improved, red one. You must possess a rare skill.”

Ryuu was also powering herself up with mind load, but the increase in Alise’s stats was too drastic to explain any other way.

“Heh.” Alise chuckled, pulling a smug grin.

“How observant of you! Yes, my skill, Lubrude Bequia, lets me…”

“Alise! Don’t just blurt out what your skills do to the enemy!”

Clair’s sharp voice cut across the battlefield, silencing the talkative captain of the Astraea familia.

Clair followed her reprimand with a blindingly fast stab, forcing Alfia to release the immobilized Crimson Order and step back, effortlessly avoiding the combined blow from Ryuu and Clair.

“You are especially noisy,” Alfia said with a deep sigh, as if the sounds of battle were a personal insult.

“I must be rid of you at once.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment, thank you very much!” chirped Alise, her feisty grin broadening. “After all, being noisy lets me distract you like this!”

Alfia knit her brows dubiously, and a second later, her suspicions were answered when another fiery-haired figure leaped out from behind her.

“Raaaahhh!!”

“!”

Nikolaos emerged from the veil of dust and sparks that hid this form, driving forward with a desperate attack.

Alfia reacted without a moment’s delay, spinning around to catch the body blow squarely on her elbow.

“A shield bash? Are you pretending to be a dwarf, beast-boy?”

“Shut it, you beautiful yet crazy lady. I’m just doing what I am supposed to do… But damn, nothing fazes you, does it? I should have known, but still…”

Nikolaos didn’t continue speaking as he instantly unleashed the explosive enchantment he had placed on the shield.

Boom!

A powerful explosion ripped through the air.

Flames immediately consumed Alfia, their searing heat momentarily blinding the onlookers, while the knockback forcefully pushed Nikolaos a short distance backward.

He immediately jumped further back, scrambling to a safe distance, knowing a single counterattack from the witch would be the end of him.

His face was screwed up in frustration as he looked down at the battered shield in his hands…..the one Lyra had handed him mere seconds ago.

“I didn’t expect the explosion to do absolutely no damage, but at least I finally figured it out, though.”

“Figured out what?” replied Alfia, who stood miraculously untouched, her closed eyes scrunching together in irritation.

“That thing you got that nullifies magic….it isn't a barrier spell,” Nikolaos declared, his voice ringing with discovery.

“It’s likely a type of passive, constant enchantment.”

“…………” Alfia seemed to tremble ever so slightly in response to Nikolaos’s declaration.

It was the first reaction that could genuinely be called surprise.

“What do you mean, Nikolaos?” Alise demanded, confused.

“You know how when she activates her barrier, she holds out her hand and chants? Well, it’s all just nonsense to make it look like she’s casting a spell.”

Alise thought back to when Alfia had been attacked by Riveria, the other mages, and Nikolaos’s recent fiery assault.

At those times, the witch had acted exactly as Nikolaos said, seeming to cast an ultrafast barrier spell immediately following an offensive one.

“Yeah…and when I attacked her with my fire-enchanted sword, the heat didn’t seem to bother her at all! But now that I think about it, I remember the flames disappeared right where she touched the blade, even though she didn’t cast any kind of barrier that time.”

Nikolaos nodded sharply.

“So that’s it, that’s what I was missing,” Lyra chimed in, stepping forward.

She had suspected a constant defense, but Nikolaos’s observation provided the proof.

“So it’s like your fire enchantment, or the Sword Princess’s wind. Only, hers is invisible, always protecting her from any magic.” Lyra simplified the explanation for the rest of the team.

Everyone stood around the battlefield, huffing for breath, listening to Nikolaos and Lyra’s explanation.

They all wore the same look of dawning surprise, which then turned to resolute understanding.

“I get it,” Clair whispered.

“So it’s not that she’s incredibly fast at switching between offense and defense; it’s that her defense is always on.”

“This explains why you seem to be able to cast two spells at once!” Neze exclaimed, connecting the pieces.

‘Yup, she is in fact not like Draco nii, but still scary nonetheless,’ Nikolaos thought grimly.

There was a short pause as Alfia remained utterly silent, absorbing their deduction.

“…What of it?” she said at last, her voice regaining its icy composure.

“Simply understanding changes nothing.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” said Lyra.

“But we know one more thing, at least. So long as we are fighting, you can’t turn that magic armor off. You got to keep it up the entire time.”

If Alfia made one mistake when fighting their team of twelve (Kaguya occupied with Vito), she would inevitably be hit by a spell.

And magic, no matter how small the origin, was deadly.

That was why short-term buffs and concentrated attacks were so valuable in a dungeon raid.

No matter what Alfia did, there was always that chance…even if only a tiny, tiny chance…..that a spell would finally land and result in her defeat.

If Alfia wanted to eliminate that chance, she needed her ever-present armor.

“You haven’t shown it, but an enchantment that nullifies magic can’t come cheap, eh? How much do you want to bet it’s tanking your magic reserves as we speak?” Lyra challenged.

“Lyra, you mean…?”

“Yep. All we got to do is keep up the assault, and sooner or later, she’s going to hit mind down.”

“So it all comes down to who can last longer? Well, that’s nice and simple!” exclaimed Alise, the stress immediately clearing from her expression.

“That’s one more path to victory confirmed!”

The battle had been wearing on for some time now, and it stood to reason that Alfia’s constant magic consumption far outclassed the total reserve of the entire team.

“You hate noise so much, you’re prepared to pay whatever it takes to keep the walls of your silent paradise intact…” muttered Ryuu, realizing the deeper psychological cost.

“That is your weakness!”

Alfia finally parted her lips to speak.

“Correct,” she said, the word clipped and precise.

“As painful as it is to admit, that pallum and beast-boy have surprised me for a second time.”

A hint of genuine praise laced her tone, yet both Nikolaos and Lyra knew better than to indulge in her words; finding a weakness didn’t close the enormous gap in power.

“So, what do you want to do, queenie? We can keep doing this until one of us gives up the ghost, or you can drop your enchantment and finally face that noise you’re so scared of.” Lyra said, breaking the strained silence.

This was a calculated strategy.

Lyra certainly wanted to taunt the witch into removing her armor and offering even a sliver of vulnerability.

But if Alfia didn’t take the bait, that was fine; they would stick to the original plan of wearing her out, only now there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

Revealing the Level Seven’s trick had galvanized the team, raising their morale so high that it hardly mattered whether the odds had truly shifted yet.

However…

“…You all seem to be misapprehending the situation here.”

In truth, Lyra and Nikolaos, despite their fervent efforts, had only just begun to chip away at the mystery surrounding the witch’s peculiar silence.

Their latest discovery, a mere fragment of understanding, was about to unravel everything they thought they knew.

Alfia, her expression unreadable, had offered a chilling prelude.

“What I call noise is not your artless cacophony, wretched though it is… It is the hateful tune of my own existence.”

She paused, allowing the words to settle before unleashing a far more devastating truth.

“You have correctly uncovered the true nature of my Silentium Eden. While it protects me, all forms of magic are automatically nullified.”

A hand went to her chest, her voice unsettlingly soft, a stark contrast to the power she wielded. “That includes the magic originating from within. Do you understand what that means?”

She raised her head, her gaze sweeping over them.

“While it cannot nullify it completely, this enchantment drastically reduces the power of my own magic.”

The moment the implications dawned on them, every face in the company blanched.

The breath caught in Lyra’s throat, a cold dread seeping into her bones.

“My silence is no armor,” Alfia declared, her voice ringing with a newfound gravity.

“It is a double-edged sword. A seal upon all hateful noise, including my own.”

This was the crucial point Lyra and Nikolaos had utterly failed to grasp.

Without a word, Alise’s usual witty composure shattered.

‘Wait, but that means…’ Lyra shivered in fear, realization gripping her.

“All those crazy attacks she’s been pelting us with…” Nikolaos felt despair creep up his fur like frostbite, a chilling revelation.

‘Bloody hell, that’s her weakened state?! She hasn’t even been using her full power?!’

“Listen now, and listen well,” Alfia commanded, her voice cutting through the rising panic.

“For this is the noise that gives me such grief.”

Barely audible, a faint sound rang out, and the invisible shroud covering Alfia’s form flickered, an illusion dissolving.

The next moment, tremendous blasts of raw magic billowed out from her, a tempest unleashed.

“She undid the protection?!” Clair exclaimed, her voice barely heard above the sudden roar. “This gale!” Lyra yelled, fighting against the surging energies.

“It’s all the magical energy that was being kept inside!”

A terrible thought seized Alise, and she instinctively screamed, “Get back, everyone! Get away from her!”

But the witch’s cruel voice cut through the chaos.

“It’s too late,” she said.

Breaking her veil of silence, she lifted one arm in the team’s direction.

“Gospel: Satanas Verion.”

First came her usual ultrashort chant, then the true name of destruction.

For a brief, terrifying instant, the world was robbed of sound, a vacuum before the storm.

Then came the gospel.

It was destructive and deafening, the soft timbre of a ringing bell concealing a magical scream of pure annihilation.

The followers of justice didn’t even have a chance to raise their voices before a colossal wave of sound engulfed them, dragging them into a vortex of destruction.

“Wha…?!” Kaguya clapped her hands over her ears, leaping away as a dust-filled gale hit her like a tidal wave.

The entire floor shook violently.

For a moment, even Delphyne’s desperate cries couldn’t be heard above the onslaught.

A flood of sound waves pounded their eardrums, vibrating through bone and sinew, as the ground trembled like a major earthquake.

After being tossed repeatedly, Kaguya finally clawed her way to her feet, looking up through the settling dust.

She found nothing but a fan-shaped zone of death.

“Captain…? Lyra…? Clair…?!”

There was no answer to her frenzied cries, only Vito’s maniacal laughter.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Is there no limit to their power?!!”

Even as the blast waves washed over him, he cackled like a man unhinged, embracing the destruction.

“There can be no future for Orario while those fallen heroes stand with us!”

Soon, the dust cleared, revealing Alfia as the sole figure still standing amidst the devastation. The followers of justice were strewn across the shattered ground, or lying among fragments of broken crystals, like so many tattered rags.

The witch gazed at what she had wrought, sorrow etched in her eyes.

“All my power can do…all it has ever done…is take.”…

……………………………………………………………………………………………………

The earth groaned, not with the now familiar rumble of the dungeon, but with a sharp, resonant tremor that vibrated through the very stones of Orario.

This was the witch’s power, unleashed, and its raw might echoed even on the surface.

In the opulent, echoing hall of the Casino, Asfi gripped a gilded table, her features etched with alarm.

“This quake… It isn’t like anything else we’ve felt so far!” she exclaimed, her gaze fixed on the swaying chandeliers.

Beside her, Falgar muttered, "Was it the strike team, or the monsters? Or something else entirely…?”

The unsettling vibration, brief but potent, left a chilling question hanging in the air.

Miles away, within the sturdy walls of the Ganesha familia’s home, Shakti’s eyes narrowed. “Did the enemy manage to break through?” she pondered, feeling the unique pulse of the tremor. Unlike the protracted, rumblings of dungeon beasts that shook the city, this quake arrived with a disturbing frequency, a staccato rhythm that instantly put every seasoned adventurer on edge, even if its source remained a mystery.

As adventurers and evilus alike instinctively scanned the ash-laden sky for answers, the guttural roars of monsters continued their grim symphony through the city streets.

Yet, amidst the rising chaos, only one face bore a smile.

“Sounds like things are getting pretty lively down there,” sneered Valletta, her gaze fixed on Babel.

“Guess it’s all going according to plan, right, Lord Erebus?”

A frightened subordinate stammered, “L-Lady Valletta, what was that?!”

Valletta merely chuckled, her eyes gleaming with a dangerous intensity.

“Don’t get cold feet now. That’s the countdown to victory. The more the city shakes, the closer we are to winning.”

She offered no comfort, her ferocious glint unnerving the cultist more than the quake itself. “Still, if you guys are scared, then the adventurers must be shitting their pants. Their morale should be dropping like a stone right now.”

The tide of war was a capricious beast, every minute detail capable of tipping the scales.

Valletta understood that these unnatural tremors were eroding the hard-won faith cultivated by Finn’s meticulous strategy.

“Now’s the time!” she howled, a chilling command in her voice.

“Finn’s made his move… now let’s make ours! Hey, you! Get in contact with Jura’s people!”

The cultist’s face drained of color.

“Th…the tamers…? Y-you mean…?!”

Valletta’s cruel smile confirmed his darkest fears, a predator’s grin.

“Yeah. We’re going to play one of our cards. Let the elite monsters loose!”…

……………………………………………………………………………………………………

Clang-clang-clang!

The harsh, insistent clangor of the alarm bell tore through the embattled city, a chilling declaration of a new, urgent threat.

Asfi, her sword still humming from the final, decisive strike that dispatched her opponent, whirled towards the sound.

Beside her, Falgar, the War Tiger, sheathed his great-sword with a thud that echoed the finality of their recent skirmish.

"The watchtowers!" Asfi cried, her voice cutting through the din of battle.

Falgar’s brow furrowed.

"Enemy reinforcements?"

His roar was laced with disbelief.

"It can’t be! There’s still more of them?!"

Before Asfi could voice her own rising dread, a scout, breathless and mud-splattered, skidded to a halt before them.

"A massive horde of monsters is approaching from the southeast, sir! Including several colossal species we haven’t encountered in this battle so far!"

“Tch! Nothing that should pose a threat,” Falgar dismissed, his confidence bordering on arrogance.

“Let’s move to intercept before their numbers grow too great!”

Removing his great-sword from its scabbard with a click, he set off at once, a whirlwind of muscle and purpose.

Until now, the sheer density of monsters in the lower streets had forced the adventurers into a desperate rooftop struggle.

Magic and arrows had their limits, however, at Finn’s urging, they had focused relentlessly on culling the creatures below.

Finally, with the streets somewhat cleared, a renewed eagerness had swept through their ranks, a shared hunger to reclaim their city, to drive the monstrous invaders back into the depths from which they’d surely sprung.

Yet, amidst this surge of determination, Asfi paused.

A prickle of unease traced its way down her spine.

"That’s strange," she murmured, her gaze scanning the unfolding chaos.

"Something doesn't feel right."

The 'evilus,' their sworn enemies, were behaving oddly.

They weren't engaging in direct combat with the same ferocity, instead, they seemed to be deliberately creating paths, focusing their efforts on shoring up their own defenses, a bizarre change of tactics.

The reason for their unusual cooperation soon became horrifyingly clear.

"Take this, you fiend!"

A battle cry, brimming with overconfidence, preceded a flash of movement.

An upper-class adventurer, eager for glory, shot past their front lines to engage a new enemy single-handedly.

"Roaaaaaaaahhh!!"

A cleanly severed arm, still gripping a hilt, flew past Asfi’s eyes, a grotesque projectile against the crimson sky.

"Huh…? Aaaaaaaghhh!!"

The adventurer’s dawning horror was cut short as he was crushed, his screams choked, between the monstrous jaws of a beast unlike any seen before.

His dying shriek was merely the first in a chorus of terror that erupted as adventurers all around them began to fall.

"What?!" Falgar exclaimed, his booming voice tinged with genuine shock as he barely managed to block a lizardman’s attack.

The force of the blow was staggering, and the sheer number of wounded allies now littering the battleground was simply unbelievable.

The newly arrived monsters, a wave of unprecedented ferocity, were already dominating the area around the Casino, tearing through their ranks with terrifying ease.

"They’re overwhelming us!" Asfi cried out, looking down from the rooftops alongside a contingent of terrified mages.

"They’re nothing like the monsters we’ve dealt with so far… What’s happening?!"

The desperate questions echoed across the cityscape.

All across the city, the adventurers were gripped by panic.

Screams of despair issued from each of the five strongholds, including the home of the Loki familia to the north.

It was there that the dwarf Dyne, breathless and grim-faced, delivered dire news to his ally. "Noir! The monsters have stepped up their assault! We can’t hold them off!"

"What?!" Noir wheeled around, his surprise quickly morphing into fury.

Just then, an Amazon warrior added her own chilling report.

"They’re tearing through our defensive garrison! At this rate, the stronghold will fall!"

"Grh…!" Noir trembled, his impotent rage a stark contrast to the relentless advance of the monsters.

Meanwhile, at the home of the Ganesha familia, a scout, trembling with a dawning realization, cried out:

"W-we’ve spotted tamers at the rear of the charge! They seem to be controlling the monsters!" Ganesha himself stood at the battlements, a god surveying the carnage below with a scrutinizing gaze.

"From the monster’s behavior, these tamers clearly aren’t as skilled as Shakti and her crew," the god reasoned, his voice a low growl of confusion.

"So why are the monsters so powerful?!"

He gazed into the distance, where he could clearly discern the evilus tamers cracking their whips. Indeed, their skill appeared remarkably lacking.

Monster taming was one of the most dangerous professions, and unskilled practitioners generally met a grisly end in the jaws of their disgruntled targets.

Strangely, however, these powerful, newly arrived monsters were not rebelling against their amateur masters.

Instead, they appeared oddly docile, almost entranced.

Shakti was doing her best to respond effectively.

"Grr…! Send out our troops! Do not let those beasts come near the fortifications!"

Then, hearing the desperate screams of her allies, she shot off herself toward the monster horde.

Among the evilus, and especially their tamers, tensions ran high.

"Damn you, Valletta, making me do this shit…"

Despite the intense heat emanating from the colossal red dragon he rode, a cold, anxious sweat had broken out on the brow of Jura, a tamer from the Rudra familia.

His beast ears twitched involuntarily each time the dragon looked up at him with its unsettling, lifeless eyes.

He felt like just another beast in a cage, bound by unseen forces, no different from his mount.

"Argh! Let’s just get this over with!"

The beast-person tamer cast aside his misgivings, the crimson whip in his hand crackling with a sinister magic.

The red dragon, wearing a heavy collar around its neck, roared its obedience and began its charge, while dozens of winged lizards….wyverns….took to the skies, their leathery wings beating a thunderous rhythm.

"They’ve got wyverns, too?!" Falgar exclaimed in renewed surprise, witnessing the aerial assault approaching the Casino.

"Did they bring them all the way from the Valley of Dragons?!"

The mages on the rooftops, their faces pale with dread, began launching their spells at the airborne attackers.

Asfi, watching alongside Falgar, had initially come to the same conclusion regarding the wyverns' origin, but… If so, they were too strong!

‘They shouldn’t be able to break through a defensive line held by upper-class adventurers!’

She defended the mages with a flurry of explosives and blade-work, her mind racing, unable to reconcile the unprecedented power with their current understanding.

That was when a massive fireball from one of the aerial beasts detonated on the main street, incinerating everything in its path.

"Gaaaaagh!"

"Somebody heeelp!!"

The monsters were mercilessly slaughtering her allies.

The colour drained from Asfi’s face as the tide of war steadily, inexorably, shifted against them.

"Could it be…?" she whispered, a chilling realization dawning on her.

"Are all these monsters…irregulars?!"

"Nope, wrong!" Valletta’s voice, a sickeningly gleeful purr, echoed in no one’s ears but her own, a private address to the terror and confusion she knew the adventurers all felt.

"They’re just plain old dungeon monsters! I mean, I guess we’ve been training them in Knossos, but what difference does that make to you guys?!"

Now that one of her hidden cards had been revealed, Valletta flashed a sinister, triumphant grin. Everywhere she looked, she could see monsters preying on adventurers, bathing the streets in fresh blood.

She was relishing every moment.

"Good thing I told Ikelos’s goons to get all these monsters together. Some of them came all the way from the deep levels!"

Valletta had meticulously orchestrated this devastating assault.

She had tasked Haze and other hunters of the Ikelos Familia with the perilous mission of capturing monsters from the deepest, most dangerous levels of the dungeon.

Meanwhile, Jura and the rest of the Rudra familia were assigned the crucial role of taming and controlling the extraordinarily powerful specimens.

To facilitate this near-impossible feat, Valletta had strong-armed a hexer possessing the advanced ability ‘Enigma’ into creating a prototype magic item…the very crimson whip that Jura now wielded.

It allowed any monster to be tamed, regardless of the tamer’s skill or the beast’s inherent ferocity.

It was a triumph of dark synergy, a culmination of twisted teamwork from the diverse familias that formed the evilus coalition.

"Kill, my monsters, kill!" Valletta howled, her voice a crescendo of pure malice.

"Make that Finn cry!"…

……………………………………………………………………………………..

The air in the secluded chamber of the Ganesha familia estate hung thick and heavy, smelling faintly of sweat and medicinal herbs.

Deep within, Draco lay sprawled beneath a thin blanket, his muscles bunched tight.

Although unconscious, his body was a battlefield, registering every wave of fever and discomfort with involuntary groans and sporadic twitches.

The silence was broken only by the soft scrape of the door sliding open.

Adi stepped inside, carrying a basin of chilled water and a folded piece of linen.

She approached the bedside, her gaze focusing on the flush staining Draco’s cheeks.

Splash!

Adi dipped the cloth into the basin, the sound sharp in the quiet room.

She wrung the water from the linen before gently placing the cold compress squarely on Draco’s burning forehead.

From a wooden rack near the doorway, two small flames erupted in worried sound: Squeak! Chirp!

Vesta, the male firebird, and Yara, the female, perched side-by-side, their intense, bead-like eyes fixated on Adi’s movements.

These were Draco’s tamed companions, currently serving as vigilant guards.

It had been weeks since their master had last tended to them, and in that vacuum, Adi had taken over their daily care.

This familiarity prevented an immediate, fiery assault, but they could not interpret her current actions, mistaking the compress for a form of subtle attack.

“It’s alright, Vesta, Yara,” Adi murmured, her voice soft but firm, intending to soothe their agitation.

“I am just healing him. Hopefully, he will get well soon.”

She doubted they understood the semantics of her words, yet the steady, earnest tone seemed to register.

The frantic chirping subsided, replaced by the quiet ruffle of feathers.

Adi wiped the persistent sweat from Draco’s neck, replaced the cloth with a freshly cooled one, and then placed her hand lightly over his chest.

A faint, emerald glow emanated from her palm….healing magic, potent enough to stave off the worst of the ailment.

After several minutes, she drew her hand back, her gaze drifting toward the high, arched window.

Outside, the sounds of the ongoing conflict in Orario were once again intensifying, a clear signal that something catastrophic had occurred.

‘I hope everyone is doing well,’ she thought, a flicker of genuine sadness crossing her features.

Adi knew her presence would soon be required.

Shakti, her sister and the pillar of the Ganesha familia, had strictly restricted Adi’s participation to healing roles only.

The recent lull in fighting had afforded her this brief respite to tend to Draco, but that window was clearly slamming shut.

The old Adi, guided purely by instinct and compassion, would have rushed headlong into the fray moments ago.

But the trauma of her last brush with death had tempered that immediate impulse, forcing her to consider every action and its potential consequences.

Just as she mused on the harrowing state of the frontlines, a figure materialized a short distance from the doorway…..a breathless messenger.

Vesta and Yara instantly stiffened, their chirps silent, their heads tilting to track the new arrival’s every move.

“What is it?” Adi asked, rising cautiously.

“Your help has been requested on the frontlines,” the messenger announced, struggling to catch his breath.

“W-what happened? Did my sister allow this?” Adi demanded, her earlier hesitation replaced by mounting alarm.

“Yes. The Evilus have unleashed irregular monsters within the city, and the casualties are rising exponentially. All available healers are urgently requested at the front aid stations.”

“I see.”

Adi moved fluidly, snatching up the sleek, newly forged sword she had kept leaning against the wall.

She reached the door, but paused at the threshold, turning back to look at the motionless form of her patient.

“Please get well soon,” she muttered, her voice barely audible.

“Orario…..and your familia….needs you.”

With that final entreaty, she stepped out onto the porch.

She took only two steps before a cold knot formed in her stomach.

Whenever Adi entered or left the room, the firebirds unfailingly greeted her or chirped their farewell.

Now, there was only a deep, unnatural silence.

Adi whipped her head around, glancing back at the nesting rack.

The sight stopped her heart.

The firebirds were not watching her; they were shivering violently, their feathered bodies drawn tight against the wood, staring fixedly past her shoulder.

Following their petrified gaze, Adi’s eyes fell upon a dark silhouette standing on the very edge of the porch, blocking the path back into the chamber.

The figure was disconcerting: tall, unnaturally still, wielding a polished silver spear that seemed to drink the light.

They were cloaked entirely in tattered cloth and heavy bandages, leaving only two vacant slits for eyes that held no discernible emotion.

Adi immediately raised her new sword, the polished steel glinting defensively.

Beads of icy sweat instantly streamed down her temples, even before the figure moved.

‘Since when was he there?’

The question screamed silently in her mind.

If not for the terrified silence of Vesta and Yara, she would have simply walked past the harbinger of death without ever knowing he lurked close enough to strike.

“Ah, looks like I got caught,” the bandaged figure spoke, the voice dry and entirely devoid of urgency, as if commenting on poor weather.

“What to do about this.”……..

A/N: Feel free to read ahead on pat3on, donate and read 1 extra chapter as a free member.