Lindarion stepped beside her, his coat drawn close, sword hidden. He looked into the abyss not with caution but with hunger. The void stared back at him, but unlike Nysha, he did not blink.

Ashwing hissed once, then curled tighter in his pocket, claws scratching faintly at the cloth.

Nysha pulled the shadow wider, weaving words under her breath. The air shook with the strain. She bit down on her lip hard enough to break skin, the iron tang of blood drifting between them.

"Don't drift. If you lose me, you won't—" she began.

Lindarion stepped forward.

The darkness peeled for him. Where Nysha wrestled with the wild edges, stitching unstable lines together, his presence flattened them to silence. The shrieking echoes died. The pull that clawed at her spine eased, smothered.

Nysha froze, hands suspended mid-gesture, staring as the shadows turned placid around him. No ripples. No resistance.

"…you're not holding it back," she whispered. Her throat worked. "You're—commanding it."

He did not answer. He entered.

The abyss swallowed them whole.

⸻

There was no air inside shadow, no ground, no up or down. Only motion without direction, cold that pressed into bone. The abyss writhed against Nysha's wards, clawing, biting. She leaned into Lindarion, instinct more than choice. His aura bled out, unasked, and the shadows recoiled like dogs before the lash.

[System Notice: Shadow traversal stabilized. Risk of dismemberment: null.]

The system's words were clean, detached, almost smug. Lindarion ignored them.

Instead, he listened.

The void spoke. Not in words, but in impressions, fragments, memories long dead, whispers carved into the marrow of night. For others, they were madness. For him, they bent like reeds, then broke.

Nysha's voice cracked beside him. "No… no one should be able to—"

He glanced down. Her face was pale, lips parted as if she wanted to scream but the sound had been stolen. Her red eyes locked on him, wide with something between awe and terror.

Lindarion tightened his grip on her wrist and dragged her faster. The shadows bent willingly, opening into a tunnel, clear, stable. He walked as though on solid ground while Nysha stumbled to keep pace.

'The abyss knows me,' he thought, grim satisfaction curling his lips. 'And it fears.'

⸻

They fell out of the dark.

Nysha collapsed first, knees scraping gravel, palms braced against dead earth. She coughed, bile rising in her throat. Lindarion stepped out clean, coat unwrinkled, boots steady, eyes already scanning the horizon.

The sky was ash. Not the soft grey of storms but the heavy black of something burned until only char remained. The horizon glowed faintly, not with sunlight, but with fire smoldering from what had once been homes.

The air stank. Not woodsmoke, flesh.

Nysha pressed her fist against her mouth, gagging. Ashwing darted from Lindarion's pocket, scales flaring crimson for an instant before he shrank back into his lizard guise, pupils narrowing to slits. He hissed toward the horizon.

Lindarion's eyes narrowed.

The land was fractured. What once had been farmland was nothing but furrows of scorched mud, pools of liquid mana burning faintly like oil. Trees were twisted into shapes that should not be, their trunks spiraling, split open as if something had clawed its way out from inside.

And corpses.

Not intact. Not recognizable. But bodies nonetheless, human mostly, limbs torn, jaws unhinged, ribcages hollowed out.

[Quest Progression: Human Casualty Count – Critical.]

The system's notification pulsed at the edge of his vision. He ignored it.

Instead, he crouched, fingers brushing the ground where blood had seeped into dirt. It pulsed faintly still. Wrong. Warped.

Nysha wiped her mouth, stumbling to her feet. "Mutations," she whispered, voice raw. "I told you. This is what's left when they're done."

Her words shivered.

Lindarion straightened, cloak whispering. His eyes swept over the ruin.

'So it's true. Not demons. Not beasts. But something worse.'

He turned his gaze further. In the distance, faint traces of light flickered underground, hidden, faint, scattered. Survivors, burrowed like rats beneath the earth.

He could almost hear their screams carried by the wind.

Nysha stepped beside him, her face bloodless, her hands tightening around her robe. "You see? There's nothing to save here. You can't—"

He cut her off. "Silence."

She flinched, words dying in her throat.

Lindarion stepped forward, Ashwing scrambling back into his pocket. The sword beneath his coat pulsed once, faintly, as though stirring at the scent of carrion.

[Warning: Bloodlust increasing.]

He ignored it.

Nysha reached out as if to stop him, but her fingers curled back before touching his sleeve. She could only follow, her breath shallow, as he moved toward the ruin with the quiet certainty of a man who had already decided what he would destroy.

The shadows thickened around his feet as though the land itself recognized him.

—

The earth shook before the walls gave way.

Stone crumbled. Dust roared into the lungs of men who had not drawn clean breath in weeks. The sky above was fire, but it was the white figure that stole their voices.

Maeven.

Hair pale as frost, falling loose around shoulders that did not bow. His eyes were empty. Not blind, not dull, empty, as though nothing of flesh or soul remained inside. He did not raise his voice when he spoke, but the sound carried, curling through the smoke.

"Run."

The word was not mercy. It was mockery.

The walls split further. From the cracks came shapes that had no shape. Limbs bent the wrong way. Jaws splitting down to collarbones. Skin raw, burning with mana scalded wrong. They moved like men, but faster. Stronger. Hungrier.

Extreme mutations.

The defenders braced.

Steel clashed against warped flesh, but the sound was wrong, not metal on muscle, but like striking wet stone. Blades bent. Arms snapped. The mutants pressed forward, their screams a chorus, not of pain, but of hunger.

Captain Veynar staggered back, shield raised, his boots sinking into blood-soaked mud. He had fought demons before. He had fought bandits, beasts, even magi gone mad. But this, this was slaughter.

"Hold the line!" His throat tore with the order. "Hold—"

A mutant barreled through the shield wall, claws shearing through steel. Blood sprayed. Men fell screaming.

Veynar's sword lashed out. The blade bit deep into the thing's chest, but instead of falling, it pressed forward. Its ribs opened, blooming like a flower around the steel, locking the weapon in place. A second arm burst from its spine and tore down at his helm.

He ducked, barely. The claw grazed his cheek, carving flesh.

"Archers!" he bellowed.

But there were no arrows left. The quivers were ash, the bows splintered. The last volley had been loosed hours ago, swallowed by the tide.

Maeven stepped closer.

Not in haste, not in stride. He walked as though through gardens, his pale boots untouched by filth. The mutants parted for him, not daring to touch, circling like hounds waiting for scraps.

Veynar tore free his blade, eyes locking on that white figure. "Monster," he spat, voice raw.

Maeven tilted his head, considering. "No," he said softly. "Not monster. Evolution."

A flick of his hand.

The mutants surged again.