The silence hadn’t quite left them as they resud their march.
Maggie led the way, shoulders tight, her gaze drifting toward Dylan at intervals — watchful, wary. Elisa took the rear, eyes sharp, as if guarding both of them at once.
Dylan walked in the middle, quiet, his steps unsure, shoulders hunched — as though sothing, or soone, was weighing him down.
No one spoke for a while.
Only their footsteps in the dust kept ti with the low moan of the wind.
Then Elisa finally broke the silence, voice careful, half-thinking aloud:
"So... we’re really going through with the Heroes’ Graveyard?"
Maggie nodded without looking back.
"Yeah. You said we might find sothing there to make him stronger, right?"
Elisa sighed.
"I did... I’m just surprised you went along with it."
She quickened her pace to match Maggie’s.
"Those weapons — they’re sacred. Every blade carries the na of a clan, a family crest, sotis even spells bound to bloodlines. Just touching them’s a taboo in so regions. Taking one? That’s a death sentence."
"Who’s gonna know it was us?" Maggie shot back.
She glanced briefly at Dylan.
"We’re not here to be polite. We need power. Fast. If it ans robbing the dead, I’ll sleep just fine."
Elisa raised an eyebrow, half amused, half worried.
"You’ll sleep less fine when a clan of Bersarks cos after you for desecrating their sacred tomb."
"Let them try," Maggie muttered through clenched teeth.
Another silence settled, lighter this ti.
The tension hadn’t gone — it had just... shifted shape.
A decision had been made. And now, each of them carried it.
Dylan stumbled over a loose stone, caught himself, and kept walking like nothing happened.
Maggie’s brow furrowed. Her hand moved instinctively to her weapon.
Elisa touched her arm, gently.
"He’s still fighting. We just have to hold on, Maggie.
Three days... it’s nothing.
And it’s everything."
"Hence the graveyard," Maggie murmured.
Elisa nodded.
"That place is a red zone. Yeah, it’s dangerous. But it’s also the best place to hunt high-grade anima. Out there, we don’t have to hold back."
She cast a glance at Dylan.
"If we can get him to absorb enough essence stones... his soul might get strong enough to push back.
Not erase her.
But maybe contain what she left behind."
"You’re trying to bulk up his soul?" Maggie scoffed, the hint of a smirk returning.
"Exactly. Forge it in fire — before she does it her way."
Maggie nodded slowly. For once, she had nothing to argue.
In the distance, the horizon began to warp.
Stone pillars erged from the mist like the teeth of so buried giant.
The Heroes’ Graveyard was near.
---
The gargantuan shape of the overturned skull slowly faded, swallowed by the layers of fog.
The trio didn’t slow down.
They let their bodies sink without hesitation into the icy grip of the mist, like crossing a forbidden threshold.
The world dissolved around them.
Their silhouettes blended into the grimy white, swallowed by a veil between two realms. Every step beca an act of will, every movent an assertion of existence.
They walked blind, eyes wide open but useless, feeling the ground with the tips of their feet to avoid tripping over a gravestone, a weapon fragnt — or worse.
At tis, they brushed against each other, pressed shoulder to shoulder to avoid getting lost. The slightest touch beca an anchor.
They held the line, backs straight, as if sheer resolve could defy the fog.
No one dared to speak.
The silence wasn’t heavy anymore — it was inhabited.
Each crunch of gravel underfoot ca with an echo none of them recognized as their own.
Each breath ford a cloud that vanished too fast, as if sothing unseen had snatched it away.
And all of them, silently, braced themselves.
Because in this place, even the dead sotis forgot they were supposed to stay that way.
The fog thickened.
Around them, blades jutted from the ground like silent beacons — so whole, stabbed clean into the black earth; others broken, rusted, worn by ti... or sothing worse.
Fragnts of halberds, swords broad as torsos, spears carved with ancient sigils — all still bore the faded nas of the fallen heroes laid to rest here.
And everywhere, silence.
A silence broken, at tis, by murmurs with no source.
Too faint to understand.
Too close to ignore.
Still, they pressed on, walking between the weapons like wandering through the bones of a giant’s graveyard.
Their eyes scanned left, right, with each step.
No one spoke, but every hand was ready.
Maggie already had her axe drawn.
Elisa’s fingers hovered near the hilts of her daggers.
Even Dylan seed tense, his pupils contracted in the half-light.
And then they saw it.
A figure, seated on a split black boulder.
Motionless.
Head bowed, arms resting on its knees — like an abandoned statue in the heart of the mist.
Around it, the weapons in the ground seed to tilt ever so slightly, as if bending toward its presence.
Its back was broad. Too broad.
Its grey skin was laced with black veins that pulsed slowly.
It wore scaled armor, partly lted and fused with its flesh.
A helt, cracked halfway, revealed an unnaturally elongated jaw.
It didn’t move.
They froze.
Elisa whispered, voice barely audible:
"Third rank. Minimum."
Their breath caught.
A long shiver ran through Maggie. Her instincts were already screaming.
This thing wasn’t just powerful.
It was old.
A living relic.
A guardian, maybe.
Then — as if it had sensed them... or heard their thoughts — the creature slowly raised its head.
Two glowing slits erged beneath the fractured helt.
It didn’t move right away.
But the weight of its gaze was enough to make them step back, as if pulled by a reversed magnet.
Maggie murmured,
"We fall back. Now."
Without another word, they retreated step by step, never turning their backs.
The creature didn’t move.
But it watched them.
Like an executioner recognizing his next.
They walked backward in silence, muscles tense, breath shallow, every step deliberate.
The fog didn’t help. It moved around them like a living thing, twisting and folding in on itself, distorting their sense of direction.
The grave-marked landscape blurred into monochro — steel, stone, and shadow. Behind them, the creature remained seated, still as death.
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