A few days had gone by since Raven and Lucia's reunion, and the fox compound had settled into an unusual calm. There was still plenty left unresolved between Raven, Lucia, and Silver, but for the first time in years, they had the luxury of time. Conversations long delayed could wait until morning, and questions no longer demanded urgent answers.
That calm shattered with a knock at the gate. Scarlet went to answer it herself. Talon was standing there.
The blind information broker had arrived alone, travel dust still clinging to his clothes. His covered eyes revealed nothing, but his expression was enough.
Scarlet instantly sensed this wasn't a friendly call.
"Talon."
"I've got some news for you."
She pushed the gate open a little wider.
"What's going on?"
"A few days back, the Holy Vallahia Empire was attacked."
Scarlet's eyes narrowed.
"By whom?"
"That's the thing—nobody knows."
Talon had pieced together accounts from refugees, merchants, and surviving soldiers. The details varied, but the core of the story remained the same.
Creatures no one recognized had appeared in the northern territories.
Ordinary weapons could wound them, but rarely stopped them. Aura techniques worked inconsistently. Worse, prolonged fighting seemed to favor the creatures rather than the defenders.
"They drain mana," Talon said. "From attacks, from people, maybe even from the land itself. The longer they stay in one place, the more everything around them weakens."
Scarlet froze.
Talon went on.
"Several settlements have already been abandoned. Vallahia's forces are trying to contain it, but no one really knows what they're up against."
"Where was the first attack?"
Talon paused.
That pause unsettled Scarlet more than anything else he'd said.
"North of Vallahia."
Scarlet's grip on her tessen tightened.
"How far north?"
"The reports say they're beyond the imperial border."
Talon's voice dropped.
"From the elven domain."
Scarlet's face went pale. She stayed silent for a few moments, but Talon noticed the change immediately.
She didn't answer.
"Teleportation stone."
"Scarlet—"
"Now, Talon."
Her voice carried no impatience—only fear.
Talon reached under his cloak and pulled out one of his remaining stones. Scarlet snatched it from his hand.
Dark stone. Silver markings. The familiar eye-shaped pattern etched across its surface.
She was already channeling mana into it when Talon grabbed her wrist before the spell completed.
"You don't know what's waiting there."
Scarlet met his gaze.
Talon released her.
Scarlet glanced back at the compound just once. The stone flared, and she slipped quickly beyond the barrier of the Sien Domain. Then, she was gone. Talon stayed at the gate, listening to the silence she left in her wake. Footsteps echoed from the courtyard, and June emerged first, with Julie right behind her. They both froze when they spotted him. Julie's gaze drifted past Talon, toward the deserted path.
"Was that master Scarlet?"
Talon nodded as June's gaze fixed on the lingering traces of spatial mana.
"Where did she go?"
Silver was crossing the courtyard when he caught the reply, his pace slowing.
Unaware of the shift in Silver's expression, Talon went on. "The Holy Vallahia Empire is under attack. Unknown creatures have appeared from the direction of the elven domain."
Silver came to a full stop. Julie's brow furrowed.
"What kind of creatures?"
"We don't know," Talon said, repeating what he'd already told Scarlet.
Creatures that were nearly impossible to kill. Creatures that drained the strength of anyone who faced them. Creatures that fed on mana. The final words seemed to fade beneath the pounding of Silver's heartbeat. His crimson eyes widened. For years, Pandora's warning had been nothing more than that—a warning. A calamity meant for some far-off future. Silver's thoughts turned inward.
Pandora.
There was no quick reply, and it made him uneasy.
You said we had time.
Something ancient stirred deep inside him. Then Pandora's voice broke the silence—no trace of mockery, no hint of comfort, only a chilling certainty.
I was wrong.
Silver's hand tightened.
The creatures Talon described…
Yes.
Pandora didn't allow him to finish.
Mana Devourers.
Silver looked toward the gate Scarlet had disappeared through.
They're here already?
After a long pause, Pandora finally spoke.
If they're openly attacking human territory, they didn't arrive today.
Silver felt a chill run through him. He understood now. The north. The elves. The place where the creatures were said to have come from. The Holy Vallahia Empire wasn't necessarily where the invasion had started—just where the rest of the world had finally taken notice. His gaze grew steely.
Then what happened to the elves?
Pandora stayed silent. He didn't have to say anything. Outside the compound, the festivities for Sien's new Demon King had only just wrapped up. The demon clans thought a new era had dawned. They had no idea how right they were. The Mana Devourers weren't some distant threat anymore—they had arrived.
Talon decided without hesitation. If Scarlet had charged into the Holy Vallahia Empire without waiting for more details, there was only one person who could make her drop everything so suddenly—Cornelius. Silver knew it too.
Scarlet had crossed between Sien and the human territories for years just to check on him from afar. If reports of mana-draining creatures had reached her alongside news that the attacks were spreading through Vallahia, she would never have remained in the domain waiting for confirmation.
Talon pulled out another teleportation stone, and June and Julie quickly joined Silver without a second thought.
Space warped beneath streaks of silver, squeezing into a fleeting moment of weightlessness before depositing them inside Talon's home in the Vallahian capital.
They arrived to the sound of bells.
Not the usual city bells.
Warnings.
Talon was already heading for the door when another alarm blared somewhere across the capital.
They stepped outside.
The city was different.
Vallahia's capital had once been packed with people, merchants, and carriages. Silver remembered streets where crossing meant dodging traffic and arguing with half a dozen impatient drivers.
Now those same streets were overflowing for another reason.
Fear.
Families hurried south carrying whatever possessions they could manage. Soldiers pushed against the opposite flow, moving north in organized units. Storefronts had been abandoned or barricaded. Carts blocked intersections where frightened residents had simply left them.
Somewhere farther into the city, screams echoed. Smoke curled up between distant rooftops. The attack hadn't destroyed the capital, and somehow that made it worse. The city was alive enough to realize what was happening to it. Talon moved fast, with Silver, June, and Julie close behind. Cornelius lived deeper in the capital, far from the northern districts where the fighting was fiercest. Normally, getting there would have been simple.
Today, every road felt like a challenge. They passed wounded soldiers heading the other way—one in armor blotched with strange black stains, another staring blankly as a healer tried again and again to channel mana into him, the light fading each time. Silver felt Pandora shift inside him but stayed silent. They moved on. The farther north they went, the clearer the destruction became—shattered windows, cracked walls, discarded weapons, and dark scorch marks marring the stone.
Something about the destruction felt off. Silver had witnessed the aftermath of aura battles before—powerful fighters always left mana behind. Heat from fire would linger, darkness would cling to shadows, and the wind would remain unsettled. Even after the fighting stopped, traces of the combatants usually stayed. But here, whole stretches of the street felt empty. Not calm, but hollow, as if the mana had been scraped right out of the air. Pandora had gone utterly silent, and that silence clung to Silver until Talon suddenly raised a hand. Everyone froze.
They had entered a narrow street between two rows of damaged buildings.
No civilians.
No soldiers.
The warning bells sounded distant here.
A shape stepped from an alley ahead.
Then another.
Four wolves padded into the street. They were large frost wolf breeds—at least, they had been once. Now their bodies were thin beneath their fur, and their movements came in slight, jerky corrections, as if their limbs reacted just a moment too late. Black veins snaked beneath patches of exposed skin.
Their eyes were the worst part—void of anything animal. June's four tails fanned out slowly behind her as Julie sank into a low stance. Talon stepped forward, positioning himself between the creatures and the three younger demons.
He didn't have to explain his plan. He wanted them to keep moving toward Cornelius. Silver stayed put, as did the twins. Talon glanced over his shoulder, but Silver gave a single shake of his head. "We stay together." That ended the matter. The nearest wolf crouched low, and Pandora finally broke the silence.
Look carefully.
Silver focused. At first, he noticed only the corrupted animal. Then, his darkness affinity picked up on something beneath the surface—a second presence. It was woven throughout the wolf's body. Not mana, but something feeding on it. His stomach tightened.
Devourer?
What remains after one has fed.
Pandora's voice was colder than Silver had heard it in years.
Those wolves have already been emptied. Their mana is gone. The corruption entered what remained and continues to move the bodies.
Silver stared at them. These weren't Mana Devourers disguised as wolves. They were real wolves that had crossed paths with Mana Devourers—and lost. That thought was even worse.
"They're corrupted."
June looked toward him.
Silver kept his attention forward.
"The Devourers drained them first. Whatever is moving those bodies isn't the wolf anymore."
That was all he had time to explain.
The first creature lunged, darting across the street in a sudden blur of speed. Julie intercepted, her heel slamming into its shoulder and knocking it off course, but it landed with an unnatural twist and came charging back. June unleashed a burst of foxfire, the controlled flames striking its chest and forcing it to recoil—only for the fire to weaken moments later. She instantly cut off the mana flow, having felt something inside the creature tug at her foxfire. Meanwhile, the second wolf went for Silver, darkness curling along his arm before Pandora's voice cut through his thoughts.
Minimal contact.
Silver switched tactics. Instead of unleashing darkness, he slammed his staff into the creature's ribs with raw force. It crashed through a wooden stall but was back on its feet almost instantly—no hesitation, no sign of pain. Talon's eyes tracked all four creatures, his face growing darker. The wolves weren't especially strong on their own, but anything typically used to take down a monster quickly turned risky against them. Aura only made them stronger, and elemental techniques lost power the moment they made contact.
Physical injuries hardly slowed bodies that had lost all concern for survival. The four wolves fanned out, then charged together. Silver and the twins closed ranks, while Talon stood motionless.
Years ago, Silver had known him as an information broker—a blind man with connections that spanned across kingdoms. He always seemed to know which road was safe, which rumor carried weight, and who was lying. Silver had only glimpsed enough to recognize Talon, but Talon had never revealed everything. Now, his expression made one thing certain.
Darkness pooled behind him, not bursting outward like an aura, but creeping in silence. Shapes slipped free from his shadow—one, then three, then seven—until dozens emerged. Black wings stretched wide.
June's gaze snapped toward them, and Julie instinctively took a step back. Crows. They poured out of the darkness around Talon until the street above was choked with the rush of wings. There were far too many. They wheeled overhead in eerie silence. A shiver ran down Silver's spine. This wasn't illusion magic.
Every crow was tangible enough to carry darkness mana intertwined with wind.
Talon raised two fingers. If he couldn't handle them physically and elemental mana was being absorbed, then maybe overwhelming them would work.
The air shifted.
Wind swirled around the flock.
Not a storm.
Not a wide current.
Slender lines of compressed air formed along individual wings, nearly invisible except where dust split apart below them.
Pandora recognized the principle instantly.
Blades.
The wolves charged, and Talon simply lowered his hand as the flock swooped down. The first crow swept past a wolf, leaving a thin line etched in the stone behind it. Another came from a different angle, then ten more followed, until the street was a storm of black wings. Wind howled through the buildings as Silver shielded his face and June pulled Julie back. The wolves vanished into the swirling chaos—no explosions, no bursts of mana—just sharp flashes of compressed wind slicing through them from every direction. In moments, it was over. Talon closed his hand, and every crow rose into the sky at once. Silence fell.
The corrupted wolves collapsed onto the street, unable to give chase. Black vapor seeped from their remains as Talon's expression hardened. The crows turned, and the vapor tried to flee, but it never had a chance. Blades of wind tore through the dark mist, ripping apart the corruption until the strange presence Silver had felt was gone. Only then did the crows stop, fading one by one into darkness. Talon lowered his hand. June stared, Julie remained silent, and even Silver forgot to move.
They had hardly known Talon, and never realized he could be this dangerous. His breathing grew a little heavier, his shoulders tense. Silver understood—there was a price to that technique. Talon hadn't kept it hidden out of weakness, but because using it meant things had already turned serious. He turned toward them.
"We move." No one argued. They left the street behind, and Silver glanced back only once. The image of those dark crows stuck with him, along with Pandora's explanation. Those had been ordinary wolves—living beings with their own mana. The Devourers had drained them, leaving behind shells that could still spread corruption. And these were just the first to reach the capital. Silver's mind drifted back to what Talon had said in Sien: the attacks came from the north, from the direction of the elven domain.
Pandora.
I know.
If those wolves were already completely drained…
Pandora remained silent.
Silver realized the truth on his own—the Devourers had been feeding long before Vallahia even knew they existed. They pushed deeper into the capital, the streets growing more battered as they neared Cornelius's district. Soldiers appeared more often, but so did abandoned defenses. Silver could feel where powerful aura techniques had been unleashed, only for the lingering mana to fade away unnaturally fast. Then a familiar sensation hit him—fire.
He stopped, and June sensed it too. Scarlet. Faint traces of her mana lingered ahead; she had passed through recently. Silver broke into a sprint, the others close behind. At the next intersection, they saw the road to Cornelius's home. Part of the street had caved in, a nearby building's outer wall was gone, and scorch marks blackened the stone. Scarlet's fire mana was stronger here. Silver's heart raced. She'd reached Cornelius—or at least his street. Pandora stirred once more, her presence suddenly sharp and intent.
Silver slowed his pace. The others walked on a few steps before noticing he had stopped, his gaze locked straight ahead. Something was there—past the smoke, past the shattered stretch of road. Not another corrupted wolf; this was different. The pressure in the air was unlike before. The creatures they'd fought felt like empty shells holding bits of something alien. This presence had no host. It didn't need one. Pandora's voice slipped into Silver's mind.
Do not confuse what you just fought with the creatures that created them.
A shadowy figure emerged from the haze. Silver's hand clenched tighter around his staff. The corrupted wolves had once been innocent. What lay ahead—was a Mana Devourer.