ust lingered in the air as Eiden walked away from the monster's twisted corpse. Each step raised small gray clouds, as though the city breathed with him—or in defiance of him. The silence returned slowly, but not as it had been before. What once felt tense and expectant now seemed thoughtful, almost measured, as if Larkos had watched the fight and needed a moment to decide what it made of him.
He touched the cut on his cheek. The dried blood tugged at his skin, sharp with every shift of his jaw. His right arm throbbed too, as though the light had scorched the muscle from the inside. Welcome to the real world. The thought escaped him like a sigh.
He kept moving through the broken streets. Every corner he had passed earlier now felt different—not because the city had changed, but because he had. He had killed something that wasn't a scripted opponent or a predictable enemy. A creature that existed by its own rules—one meant to devour, not teach.
The square with the deep claw marks opened before him. Earlier it had stirred a faint sadness; now it held something heavier. An echo. A silent pulse in the stones, like the fading impression of something massive that had once pressed down on them. Larkos wasn't empty. It never had been.
He stopped before a house leaning under its own cracked weight. The door lay torn from its hinges; the windows had burst outward. Toys lay broken among the debris, a clay bowl smashed into pieces, a blanket worn thin by use. These weren't traces of death. They were traces of people forced to flee.
He swallowed, his throat tight. The memory of the false child crept back—the uncanny stillness, the mimicry of a voice it didn't own. If the townspeople had fled years ago, how long had that thing been wearing that shape? How many had followed it toward their end?
He didn't try to answer.
He quickened his pace. The carved arrow on the outer wall still guided him toward the eastern path, a trail that left the city and declined into the valley. He could already see the first stretch of open land when the wind shifted again.
A smell reached him.
Not the rot of the monster behind him.
Not the stale dust of the ruins.
Something sharper. Metallic. Faintly acidic.
It made the hair on his arms rise.Not again.
He flexed his fingers but held still.
Nothing emerged.
The sound arrived first—a dull thud, and another. Heavy weight against broken stone. Dragging, not stepping.
He slipped behind the collapsed arch where he had trapped the previous creature and peered through a narrow gap in the rubble. At first, he saw nothing but the fractured street, the lingering dust, the stretch of shadow.
Then a shape moved.
A hunched figure, massive at the shoulders, its spine jutting like twisted branches. Long legs. Arms thin as dead wood. It dragged a rusted chain behind it, the metal scraping and clanging with each uneven step.
CLANG.CLANG.CLANG.
It didn't see him.
Eiden's stomach tightened. This wasn't a remnant or a scavenger. It wore no human disguise, made no attempt at deception. It hunted plainly. Whatever was left.
It lurched past, its body folding inward as if it hated its own shape. When it turned the corner, Eiden saw it clearly—skin stretched thin over bone, a jaw pulled far too long, eyes sunken like extinguished embers. And the chain, dragging behind as though it had forgotten how to let go.
Only when the creature vanished between ruined homes did Eiden allow himself to breathe. His fingers shook; he pressed his hand to the ground until the tremor eased.
"Right," he whispered, exhaustion softening his voice. "That's enough for one day."
He stepped out from his hiding place. The city seemed darker despite the sun still shining overhead. The air felt thick, and sounds traveled oddly, like echoes warped through memory.
The broken outer wall finally came into view. Beyond it lay open land—the threshold between the graveyard Larkos had become and the world still alive outside it. He stopped at the boundary and turned back.
The ruined houses.The fractured streets.The shattered square.The places where the boy named Eiden had once played.Now claimed by things that didn't belong to any world he knew.
"I'll be back," he said. Whether the words were for the city or for himself, he couldn't tell.
He stepped past the wall.
The air changed immediately—cleaner, lighter, untainted by dust or shadow. Sunlight reached him fully for the first time that day, warm against his skin instead of filtered through ruin.
Ahead, the road east stretched toward the distant hills.
Toward the refuge.Toward the survivors.Toward answers.And, with luck… allies.
Eiden tightened the makeshift bandage on his cheek and set off. Each step carried him farther from Larkos.
But each step also carried him toward what waited next—the next tower,the next battle,the true beginning of everything.