Night creeped over the world, disgustingly heavy and sticky. Dark clung to the skin like sweat. Breath felt too loud in the throat.

  Up ahead Torr Tenebris loomed like a broken crown against the horizon, its spires a jagged silhouette against a sickly purple sky.

  The village appeared behind the thinning layers of trees.

  Anders noticed it the moment his feet stepped to the pavement, something shifting before it came.

  The mage went paralyzed. Mid-step, spine stiffening as if ice bloomed from inside, fettering his movements. He canted his head, listening.

  Then turned slowly toward the tower, eyes wide.

  “Something’s moving,” he said, barely audible. “Behind the stone. I can feel it—”

  Then it pulsed—not sound, not wind—just... pressure. A ripple. A heartbeat that didn’t belong to any god still loved by the world.

  Anders gasped.

  His knees buckled, hands flying to his temples. He dropped like fate had let go of the thread.

  “Boy—!” Sol moved instantly, catching him before his head hit the dirt, voice sharpened with sudden fear. Something Caelus clearly heard but could hardly believe.

  Anders gritted his teeth, breath hissing through them like steam.

  “It’s coming from the Tower,” he husked, squirming. “It’s—it’s not magic, it’s something— .”

  The Weave ruptured.

  It didn’t roll. It erupted.

  A wave of force blasted outward from Tenebris with the weight of an earthquake.

  The ground trembled beneath their boots. And through it all—A sound came.

  Low. Deep. A rumble so slow and massive it bypassed the ears and went straight to the bones.

  The air warped.

  And above them the tower glowed.

  Sickly and green, spoiled starlight.

  A pulse of color that should not exist.

  It faded just as fast as it came, but no one moved.

  Sol’s hand stayed firm on Anders’ shoulder, steadying him.

  The mage sucked in a breath, blinking fast, shaken but conscious.

  “That’s new,” he muttered. “That’s so new.”

  Everyone understood.

  Shit was about to get bad.

  Weapons came out like clockwork.

  Even Sol’s expression changed—shoulders tensing, lips thinning, alarm carved into every line of his sharp features. Nolan rested his hammer across one shoulder, gaze locked on the tower like they had a score to settle. Varg reached for his bow without a word.

  Anders took his staff from behind his back. A rare sigh. Cael has never seen the mage actually use it.

  What was the point anyway? Magic flew through the wielder, staff or not.

  But the staff didn’t look like a decoration, its lower end looked more similar to a sword than a pole. And Anders didn’t look like a fragile scholar either.

  They moved as one, stepping into the village.

  Stillness.

  Silence.

  They passed empty homes. Broken windows. Forgotten prayer flags swaying in the breeze like they were waiting for something to answer. The angles of the buildings leaned too far inward, as though they were listening.

  Then—

  A scream shattered the night.

  Piercing. Jagged. It tore through the silence with the sound of bone scraping metal.

  From the house.

  That damned hoarder’s house at the tree line. The one with the corpses. The one that had reeked of wrong since the moment they saw it.

  The man inside was screaming. And they stepped by just in time to see why.

  They saw him at the window. Pale. Wide-eyed. Backing up.

  He turned, bucked straight toward the woods as if the very sky was falling behind him.

  And maybe it was…

  But he never made it. Turned too late.

  The house came alive.

  A dozen pale arms—inhumanly long—shot from the open doorway as the jaws of some impossible beast.

  They grabbed him—arms, legs, torso.

  Dragged him back.

  He didn’t even scream.

  Gone.

  The door slammed shut behind him on its own.

  Then the windows filled.

  Not with movement.

  Not with shadow.

  With blood.

  A slow ooze, spilling down the glass from within. Thick. Viscous. Red so dark it looked black in the moonlight.

  Cael’s stomach turned, cold shivers running down his limbs. The sight made no sound, but it felt loud. He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t look away.

  Something primal inside him remembered running from places like this. But his feet wouldn’t move.

  And then came the real screaming—from everywhere.

  From the edge of the woods. From under the soil. From the burial pits outside town.

  The dead had arrived.

  It began with one corpse.

  Then two. Then twelve.

  From the forgotten corners of gardens and alleys, from the damn house, from the shallow graves and hoarded bodies—they rose.

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  Some still wore faces, half-human and familiar in a way that made Caelus' guts twist into knots. Some wore none at all—skin sloughed off, eyes hollow, mouths permanently locked in soundless shrieks.

  Shriekers.

  Too many.

  And they weren’t disoriented or starving this time.

  They were directed.

  Something had called them. Something had pointed.

  Straight toward the outlanders.

  They came in waves. Fast. Clawing. Unrelenting.

  And the mercenaries didn’t flinch.

  No clean lines. No strategy.

  It was survival.

  Steel met rotten flesh.

  Blood—some red, some black—painted the dirt.

  Caelus fought with decades old instinct, but his eyes kept dragging elsewhere.

  Varg stood near the far edge of the formation, bow singing, axe hooked at the crook of his elbow.

  Each arrow landed with precision, splitting through eyes and throats.

  But it wasn’t enough. The circle closed. Too many. Too close.

  He switched mid-motion, tossing the bow behind him without ceremony and drawing his axe with a growl, ears pinned, canines bared.

  The shift was brutal.

  He carved through the enemy like a silent, unblinking force.

  Not roaring. Not taunting. Just killing. And Varg grinned like something feral, not with glee, but with pure malice.

  Anders stood near Caelus, staff gripped like a spear. He didn't chant. He didn't posture.

  He moved like a storm.

  His staff wasn’t just a conduit—it was a weapon. The stone on its crown glowed as the air turned ice-cold, magic spiraling into his limbs with patterns of hoarfrost.

  He spun it fast, knocking heads, slicing necks with the swordlike bottom edge.

  Every turn sent bursts of frost like hurled glass—sharp, surgical, lethal.

  Then—

  He slammed the butt of the staff into the earth.

  Ice exploded forward in a jagged wave—spikes ripping up from the ground like frozen teeth layer by layer.

  Three—no, five—Shriekers were impaled mid-leap, skewered and thrown back into the air, pulled apart mid-fall.

  Anders didn’t even pause.

  Something shifted.

  Solferen.

  If Cael had called him a demon before—he hadn’t known what he meant. He turned just in time to see it.

  No smirk. No quips.

  Only eyes glowing from within, burning sunlight filtered through blood and gold.

  All five chakrams were in motion—spinning, slicing, keening death through the air. Every heartbeat—release. Catch. Release again.

  They didn’t scatter.

  They circled.

  Wide arcs. High velocity.

  A barrier.

  They swept around the party like orbiting stars, cutting down anything that got too close.

  Each one returned to Sol’s hands—just long enough to be launched again.

  Each breath, another body fell. Another arc redrawn in the sky.

  Cael felt the hair on his arms rise on end.

  This is what they meant by godlike.

  Nolan, blood-slicked and roaring, was a storm on two legs.

  His hammer—massive, iron, too heavy for most men to lift—spun like a toy in his hands Every swing crushed. Every impact sent bodies flying.

  One leapt onto his back—he flipped it over his shoulder and caved its chest in with a single blow.

  He didn’t dodge.

  He absorbed.

  Armor groaning under weight, cloak soaked with ichor, hair matted to his face, gold eye shining like a wolf’s in the dark. His head constantly on a swivel, his body remembered what his sight could not. The head turned, the blade followed, a little too aggressive as a compensation.

  He kept the flank clear. Barely.

  They pushed.

  Back toward the village’s entrance. Out of the tighter alleys. Out of the clutch of the dead.

  But it wasn’t clean.

  It wasn’t easy.

  Every wound slowed them. Every breath dragged.

  And then—just when it seemed the wave slowed, the field quieted and Cael dared to breathe…

  The shadows stirred.

  Not creatures.

  Not men.

  Shadows.

  Noticed too late.

  Nolan grunted. Swung his hammer. A shrieker exploded in front of him.

  He didn’t see the thing curling around his ankle.

  Not a limb. Not a vine.

  Something else.

  Darkness with shape.

  He looked down—too late.

  “Shit!”

  He barely had time to blink. One moment, he was standing firm, hammer dripping black blood, a mangled Shrieker corpse at his feet. The next—

  The world moved from under his feet.

  Something yanked. Hard.

  Nolan’s body was pulled backward—slammed into the ground with bone-rattling force, iron scraping stone.

  “THORN—!” Varg shouted.

  Gone.

  Dragged. Ripped backward into the darkness like some sacrificial offering, armor shrieking in protest, fingers scrabbling for grip—none found. Like he weighed nothing.

  He didn’t even have time to scream before the shadows devoured him.

  But the scream came.

  From deep in the dark. A raw, echoing howl of agony. A sound no one should make.

  It cut off.

  Like a switch flipped.

  The battlefield went silent for a breath. Even the Shriekers seemed to still, as if the darkness itself held its breath to savor the sound.

  It punched the air out of Caelus.

  A soundless void where Nolan had stood. The scream came seconds later, but Cael’s body had already reacted—his knees locked, heart pounding in his throat.

  He felt the urge to vomit. To cry. To grab someone and beg them to fix it. But he stood, useless, hands shaking at his sides.

  And then chaos resumed—only now, the fear was real.

  Because Nolan was no novice. No green-footed recruit.

  He was a warhound. A monster. A templar-turned-beast.

  And even he was not safe from what lived beneath.

  “TORCHES. NOW!” Sol’s voice cracked as a whip through the dark. Not a command—an instinct. A scream from the gut.

  Before anyone could react, he was gone—hurling himself into the shadows, chasing the scream like he had no concept of self-preservation. He rushed forward with inhuman speed, where the trenches in the ground led to, disappearing into the darkness.

  Cael barely had time to blink.

  Anders stood petrified beside him, fingers trembling. “W-What just—?”

  Varg was already gone. A blur. A bolt through the night. He didn’t run—he vanished. Wind screamed behind him as he sped toward the tavern, the only place still lit. Torches. Fire. Salvation.

  Caelus spun, still mid battle. Anders shouted something. The last of the creatures lunged—and Cael brought his blade down hard.

  Steel met skull.

  Blood sprayed the dirt.

  Varg returned a second later—torch in hand, feet barely touching the ground.

  He passed them like lightning. Like a beast on the hunt.

  A streak of light, charging straight into the dark after Sol.

  Cael turned back—just in time to see them drag Nolan out of the shadows.

  Or what was left of him.

  Not dead.

  But not awake. Armor bent, skin torn, eyes closed. Sol, bearing obvious wounds that were not there before, was holding him.

  One arm under Nolan’s shoulders, one under his legs, lifting him like his muscles didn’t scream under the weight.

  He was yelling commands—actually yelling—and it wasn’t for show. It wasn’t to taunt.

  It was panic.

  Caelus had seen Sol move like a dancer, a liar, a killer. But never like this—

  a man carrying his own soul in someone else’s broken ribs.

  “By the Light—” He bolted forward, instinct overriding every lesson drilled into his bones.

  “DON’T TOUCH HIM!” Sol’s voice was a roar this time—harsh, cracking, desperate.

  Cael stopped so fast he nearly fell.

  The blood. The blood was everywhere. It pooled under Nolan’s back, soaked through his shirt, smeared Sol’s chest and arms. And all Cael could think was—he’s a fleshshifter.

  One drop. That’s all it takes.

  And Sol was covered in it.

  Still—he didn’t hesitate. He gritted his teeth and lifted Nolan’s limp body onto his shoulder with one swift motion, blood cascading down his back, down his side, soaking into his leathers, down his spine, into the gashes on his skin.

  He didn’t care.

  “Shit—Shit—he’s bleeding too fast—” Anders gasped, voice pitching higher with each word.

  “FREEZE THE WOUNDS!” Sol snarled. “NOW!”

  “WHERE ARE THE WOUNDS?!” Anders panicked, eyes scanning the ruined mess of Nolan’s torso. “I CAN’T SEE IT—THERE’S TOO MUCH—!”

  Varg snarled.

  Literally snarled—a sound ripped from the bottom of his chest.

  The elf was already on him—Feral, unhinged, roaring.

  “FUCKING MOVE I SAID—” he tore at Nolan’s armor with his bare hands, ripping leather and metal with sheer brute force.

  Blood gushed. Onto Varg. Onto the ground. Onto Sol.

  They didn’t care.

  Armor flew. Gauntlets hit the dirt.

  He was peeling Nolan apart like fish skin, no grace, no tact—only need.

  “Come on, come on—stay with me, you bastard,” Varg growled, eyes wide, wild. His hands slick with red and shaking.

  Anders didn’t wait anymore.

  He shoved his hands forward. Magic bloomed.

  A rush of cold. Ice spiraling with silver mist.

  The wounds began to seal—flesh locking in place, not healing, just freezing shut. A temporary hold. A tourniquet made of magic.

  “IT’S HOLDING,” Anders cried out. “I THINK—IT’S HOLDING!”

  They didn’t stop.

  They ran.

  Someone yelled for the horses.

  Caelus turned and realized—they were already moving.

  Sol whistled once—sharp and long.

  Velmari burst through the trees, teeth bared, hooves smashing the dirt. It dropped into a bow before Sol without hesitation.

  Sol threw Nolan onto its back with terrifying care, leapt after him, and shouted a command in a tongue Cael didn’t recognize.

  The beast took off like a launched arrow.

  “GO!” Sol screamed over his shoulder.

  Varg was already mounting mid-run.

  They didn’t mount—they leapt. Horses screamed beneath them, spooked by blood, by magic, by the pressure still lingering from the Tower.

  Caelus’ mare bucked, half-wild with fear, but he yanked the reins and dug in his knees.