The streets coiled again, bending in a way that made Lindarion’s stomach turn. Sothing about the layout of this place was wrong, not chaotic, just... calculated in a language he didn’t understand.
Ashwing shifted again in his pocket. Still in lizard form, coiled like a heatless ember.
"Too many eyes," the dragon muttered.
’Let them watch.’
The system wasn’t translating much anymore, just flickers at the edges of words, impressions more than understanding. It was enough. He didn’t need full sentences to read tension.
The city was pressing in.
Then—
A sound.
Fast. Sharp.
A shadow detached from the corner of a stone arch and stepped into his path.
Another demon. Shorter this ti. Slighter build, but with a hunched gait like sothing used to crawling. Pale grey skin, jaw narrow and angular, teeth too long even behind its lips. Red eyes didn’t glow, they burned.
It didn’t speak.
Just moved.
Fast.
A blur of movent and a low hiss. One clawed hand lashed for Lindarion’s throat.
Too late.
His hand moved first.
Not with hesitation.
Not with warning.
With intention.
Gold flared from his palm.
Divine affinity, quiet, searing, clean.
No flash. No chant. Just pure judgnt condensed to a breath.
The mont the demon’s hand neared him—
—its chest caved inward.
Like it had been struck by the judgnt of a star.
The sound it made wasn’t pain.
It was confusion.
Then silence.
The demon dropped, steam rising from a hole the size of a fist clean through its torso.
No blood. The wound had been cauterized the instant it ford.
Ashwing hissed low, "You didn’t even blink."
Lindarion stared down at the corpse. The divine glow still traced across his fingers, dimming slow.
’It wasn’t the first. It won’t be the last.’
He didn’t linger. Didn’t drag the mont. Just stepped past the still-smoking body and slipped back into the maze of ash-colored streets.
A few shadows behind the windows vanished. One door creaked softly shut.
No alarm. No sirens. No reaction.
But he could feel it now.
The pressure in the air shifting.
They knew.
Sothing had seen that.
And whatever passed for order in this place—
Would co looking.
"You still think we shouldn’t leave?" Ashwing whispered.
Lindarion didn’t answer.
Because he knew.
They were already too far in.
And whatever ruled this city had just noticed them.
—
The air thinned once they passed the outer ring of the city.
It wasn’t elevation. Just sothing missing.
Sound, maybe. Or intent.
They moved through cracked stone paths, all half-swallowed by pale vines and ash-covered moss. Buildings were fewer out here. No torches. No windows.
Just the faint outline of old shrines and toppled archways, so shaped like wings, so like claws.
Whatever civilization had built this place, it had long since buried the mory of gods.
Ashwing leapt from his pocket, stretched once, and expanded to the size of a housecat. His wings flicked out lazily, brushing low fog.
"You sure this place isn’t cursed?"
Lindarion didn’t stop walking. "It’s not cursed."
"You said that fast."
"I’m not sure."
The dragon grunted. "Better."
They found it on the hill just west of the ridgeline.
A broken temple.
Round, not square. No windows. Just a dod roof that had split down the middle, letting in streaks of sick-colored starlight.
Faded banners still hung from iron rods at the sides. The language was the sa, foreign, spiked, unreadable.
Lindarion stepped through the shattered threshold. His boots crunched old gravel and sothing older. Not bones. Just pieces of whatever faith used to live here.
The inside was simple.
One altar.
No idol.
No magic.
But it had walls. And cover.
It would do.
Ashwing circled once, then hopped up onto a stone brazier and coiled around it. "Slls like stale mana and regret."
"Good," Lindarion said. "That ans no one else wants it."
He dropped his pack.
Took off the outer coat, bloodstained, ripped at the collar, and folded it beside one of the cracked pillars.
The do above let moonlight cut through like knives.
Lindarion sat cross-legged beneath it, hands on his knees.
For a mont, he didn’t think.
Didn’t feel.
Just breathed.
Ashwing didn’t speak.
The silence was the first clean thing they’d had in days.
Eventually, Lindarion opened his eyes again.
The system pulsed faintly in the back of his mind, almost an afterthought. No ssages. No prompts. Just... presence.
’Still here, huh,’ he thought dryly.
Nothing responded.
Good.
The glow from the city still lingered far below the hill. Not fla. Just a dull red haze pulsing from its center like a heartbeat without a chest.
Lindarion watched it from the broken arch.
His fingers tapped once on the stone beside him.
"They’re building sothing," he said.
Ashwing didn’t answer at first.
Then: "You think it’s just this city?"
"No."
"Think it’s the whole continent?"
Lindarion looked up at the warped stars.
Red. Grey. Pale silver.
Nothing familiar.
Nothing elven.
"I think this isn’t a continent."
Ashwing’s wings stiffened. "What, then?"
Lindarion didn’t answer.
Because he didn’t know.
But his gut told him this place, this land they’d flown to in desperation, wasn’t part of the maps.
Not forgotten.
Erased.
—
The moonlight shifted through the cracked do above, sharp and cold. Lindarion stared at it a few seconds longer, then stood and stepped down from the altar dais.
Ashwing raised his head. "Don’t tell you’re going deeper."
"There’s a stairwell behind the wall. I felt a draft."
"You ’felt a draft’," the dragon muttered, hopping off the brazier. "How heroic."
Lindarion ignored him.
He moved to the far right side of the temple interior, behind a collapsed set of support columns. There, half-swallowed by ivy and dust, the outline of a stone door sat recessed into the wall, no handle, no latch.
Just age.
He pressed a hand to it.
A dull vibration humd against his palm. Not magic. Not even proper mana. Just the sensation of pressure.
’Sothing’s underneath.’
He shifted his stance. Let divine affinity pool under his fingertips, not in a blast, not to attack, just enough warmth to nudge the chanisms inside. The stone resisted for a heartbeat. Then it cracked.
A groaning echo slid through the temple as the doorway split open.
Stairs spiraled down into darkness.
He turned back to Ashwing. "You coming or staying?"
"I’d love to stay. But I’m cursed with loyalty."
"Tragic."
He descended.
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