The day had slipped away quietly, like a heavy sheet slowly pulled from a body. The sky had turned copper, then ashen blue, until night finally took its place, without clamor or wind.
They had gathered in a narrow clearing, sheltered beneath a moss-covered rocky overhang. Nothing moved around them. No birds, no cries. The land had fallen silent, as though kneeling before the full moon preparing to rise.
This ti, there was no crackling fire. They couldn’t risk lighting one.
Only a few smothered embers in a shallow trench dug into the ground. The important thing was not to signal their presence—but above all, to make use of the little ti they had left before night transford into sothing else.
Seated in a circle, the three figures did not speak.
Each had before them one or two anima gems—pale, vibrating crystals, torn from bodies they hadn’t had ti to mourn.
They absorbed them in silence, taking turns, feeling the essence flow through their ridians, slowly reinforcing the invisible frawork of their being. A dull warmth, sotis painful, spreading all the way to their core.
Dylan had kept his back straight despite exhaustion. The pain in his right arm was still sharp. He didn’t speak of it. The wound he had taken in Élisa’s place was already fading, and the claw marks on his chest had completely disappeared. At least he could say he was in decent shape—for now.
Beside him, Maggie was digesting the absorption of the specter’s gem—the one that had clawed Dylan. She didn’t flinch, her eyes half-closed, arms crossed, as if reading her body’s reactions line by line.
Élisa, anwhile, barely paid attention to her turn. No sooner had she finished absorbing one gem than she was already channeling the accumulated essence into the bracelet on her right wrist—a gift from Lady Ondine. A delicate piece of pale, almost translucent tal, etched with veins of an ancient language.
She frowned, lips pressed tight.
Each ti she sent the essence into it, a pulse flickered within the bracelet. A fragile, almost timid inner light. And then... nothing. Just emptiness. The artifact dimd as if a candle had been snuffed out.
So she began again.
Another gem. Another wave of essence. Again, that sensation of a bottomless pit into which she poured everything she had, with no imdiate return. It was a spiritual artifact—she was sure of it. But an especially greedy one. Perhaps even dangerous, if she stubbornly tried to activate it without understanding.
But she didn’t have the luxury of waiting.
She continued.
Absorbing, channeling, exhausting herself. And starting over.
Fatigue was etched on her face. The pallor of her cheeks, the sweat beading despite the night’s chill. Yet her gaze hadn’t wavered. She refused to give up.
Knowing Lady Ondine would never give them sothing useless, knowing they would face a fourth-rank creature—this bracelet had to conceal sothing that could help them.
That was the reason for her relentless effort.
Élisa closed her eyes one last ti. She tried again, sending a steadier, more concentrated thread of essence. The bracelet trembled, the veins in the tal pulsing with a pale red glow... then faded. Nothing. Like a heart refusing to beat.
She clenched her teeth. Muttered a curse under her breath. Then let her arm drop.
She had tried everything. It was useless to waste more essence tonight.
So they regrouped.
Not to make a plan. Saying they had a plan would be a lie. What they had was ti. Ti stolen from fear, stolen from the moon, from the certainty of a night that would show them no rcy.
Maggie leaned back against a rock, her axe resting against her thigh, arms crossed, eyes closed. Élisa sat beside her, back hunched, legs folded beneath her. And Dylan... he stayed apart. Not far, but just enough in the shadows. As if unsure whether he still had a place in this circle.
His head was lowered, chin nearly touching his chest. His gray eyes fixed on the ground, expressionless but not empty. Haunted. Haunted by sothing that had followed him here.
He had seen her. Not in her demonic childlike form, not the fragile figure they had encountered—but another. The one that revealed her true demonic nature. The one hidden behind porcelain features. A grotesque, monstrous, writhing shape, with a voice and a smile. A creature no human should ever face without losing their mind. And she had called him by na.
And to think a fragnt of that abomination lived inside him.
A shiver ran down his spine—not from cold, but from deep revulsion. As if his own body rejected the idea. As if it wanted to spit out that piece of shadow embedded in his flesh.
He had chosen to say nothing. To keep silent. What he had seen, what he had heard—it wouldn’t change anything. His companions didn’t need that. He had to be stable. Useful. Strong. Even if, deep down, he trembled like a child afraid to open a door.
So he said nothing.
They remained like that for a while. Three figures lost beneath a sky darkening by the minute, in a world suspended on the edge of a breath.
And in the distance, the Guardian had risen long ago.
He no longer moved.
His massive silhouette stood frozen in the mist at the center of the Heroes’ Graveyard. He was there, upright, impassive, swords planted in the ground around him like unbreakable promises.
He didn’t even hold his sword like a fighter. It rested in his hand, heavy, silent, and his helt, tilted toward the sky, watched the rising moon. He said nothing. He did nothing.
But everything around him seed to have stilled.
Even the wind had stopped blowing.
Even the branches had ceased trembling.
The world held its breath.
Then, in that absolute silence, a scream tore through the air—so inhuman, as if the fabric of the world had been ripped in two.
The howl reverberated like an invisible wave, chilling the skin, freezing lungs, scraping at the very essence of life. It wasn’t alone. Others followed. Deeper. Closer. The trees shuddered again—not from wind, but from the footsteps of sothing. Or several sothings.
The moon, now full and round above the graveyard, hung cruel in its light, almost carnivorous. Its glow didn’t caress the earth—it devoured it. Every stone, every root seed to flinch under its silent bite. As if it was awakening what still slept. What had been thought dead or forgotten.
Sounds ca from the woods. Snapping branches. Heavy footsteps. Distorted echoes. Blurred shapes began to erge. First two. Then five. Then a dozen.
Beasts.
But not like those from the morning.
These were no longer natural. They were deford, skin stretched over bones too long. Their eyes glead with a hollow light, devoid of intelligence—only that pure hunger, straight from the depths of the moon itself. The spiritual energy saturating the air drove them mad. Ravenous. Insensible to pain, to numbers, to strategy. They were no longer creatures. Just mouths. Claws. Instrunts of a blind will.
They ran. Not in a line. Not in a pack. Like a tide. Toward life. Toward sound. Toward anything that still breathed.
And the graveyard called to them.
Maggie had leapt to her feet. Her eyes were already scouring the shadows. Her fingers trembled slightly around the haft of her axe.
Dylan had frozen, heart hamring. Not from imdiate fear, but from the brutal certainty that they would be overwheld. That this was no longer a skirmish. But a siege. A deluge.
Élisa had crouched, daggers in hand, her breath already too quick. Her eyes searched for an escape. But there was none.
The mist had thickened, forming a wall around the center of the graveyard—as if the Guardian himself commanded it. But the beasts didn’t care. They were closing in fast. They could sll flesh. tal. Essence.
They wouldn’t stop.
The first one lunged.
A simian creature, its torso split open like a second maw, burst forward with a grotesque, hacking screech. It aid for the heart of the graveyard, where the mist hung still, soft, almost beautiful in its density. It plunged in, jaws wide.
And did not co back out.
There was no impact—just a rush of air, then a brutal hiss.
As if the air itself had been torn.
A sharp, clean, unreal sound.
Then, a piece fell to the ground.
The creature’s head rolled out of the mist.
Just the head. Severed cleanly. Neat. The eye still open, frozen in an expression of icy incomprehension. As if, even in death, it didn’t understand what had just happened.
All the others halted for an instant, then turned their gazes as one. Toward the heart of the fog.
And there... it was no longer still.
The Guardian had finally drawn his blade.
His jian glead with a dull, reflectionless sheen. He didn’t hold it raised, not in a guard. He held it low, parallel to the ground. An ancient stance. ditative. Terrifying. His helt remained tilted toward the moon. He wasn’t even looking at the creatures.
It was unnecessary.
He had already seen them coming.
And he was used to it.
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