The Whisper Guild base was as busy as it had been when Lyrielle and Kai left.
The main hall had been transformed. Tables dragged from the archive rooms were pushed against the walls and turned into temporary beds, each one holding someone wounded, someone dying, or someone already gone. Healers moved between the cots with soft, exhausted light glowing from their palms. The air was thick with the smell of sweat, crushed herbs, and blood that had dried into the stone. Morning light streamed through the high windows, catching the dust motes that drifted above the chaos.
Aries sat near the back, in a quieter corner where the noise faded. Raya lay on a table in front of her, still unconscious. Her breathing was shallow but steady. Her face was pale, her dark hair spread across the rough cloth of the pillow. Aries patted her hair softly—a slow, repetitive motion—and watched the room around her.
Then she saw Lysander approaching.
She felt herself tense. Not because of the man himself, but because of what Lyrielle had said about him. And because of what Kai had told her—that he had eyes for her.
"How is she doing?" Lysander asked, stopping a few feet away.
"She's out of the woods now that she's received some treatment." Aries didn't look up. She kept her gaze fixed on Raya, her hand still moving through her hair. "She should be regaining consciousness soon."
"I wouldn't get my hopes up, though." Lysander tilted his head, bending slightly at the waist to get a better look at Raya's face.
Aries's hand stopped. "Is something wrong?"
"Not that there's something wrong," he said. "But most times, patients who suffer from severe aura depletion tend to enter comatose states."
"But she's not going to enter that state, right?"
There was a pause. Lysander's emerald eyes met hers—green, sparkling, and fixed on him with an urgency she didn't bother to hide.
"There's a higher chance she will," he said.
"But there's a chance that she won't enter a comatose state?" Her voice was sharp now.
"Yes." He said it plainly. No softening.
"Then that's enough for me." Aries resumed patting Raya's hair, her jaw set.
Lysander watched the gesture—the slow, gentle rhythm of her hand against Raya's dark hair. A faint smirk touched his lips. He turned to leave.
"When are you going to send help to the Lady Lyrielle and the Hero Rowan?"
He stopped. Took a deep breath and exhaled draggingly, his shoulders rising and falling with the effort of patience.
"I already told you all that we are tight on hands. I've already managed to gather a few to help with the injured." He turned his head just enough to look at her over his shoulder. "What more do you want?"
"The Lady Lyrielle doesn't seem to trust you."
"I hold no resentment for that." His voice was flat. "I couldn't be bothered."
"Look—" Aries pressed her fingers to her temple. "I have a headache the size of an entire kingdom right now."
Lysander chuckled. A short, quiet sound. She glared at him, then continued.
"Everything that has happened up till now—and your response to the situation—is very suspicious. I grew up thinking that guilds were supposed to stand up and help people in situations like this. But that's not what I've been presented with so far."
"The world isn't all black and white, Aries."
He let her name roll off his tongue, drawing it out slightly. It was the first time he had called her by it.
Aries didn't flinch. "No matter what, I do hope you're not a bad person. Because if you were, you wouldn't have helped me with my friends here." She gestured toward Raya, patting her hair again. "I don't know your reasons for doing what you're doing. But you still have to help those fighting at the mountain at one point."
"Sometimes luck isn't on our side," he replied, turning halfway toward her. His long black hair shifted, catching the light from the high windows.
"And that's why we have hope. It's a fickle thing, but it's there when we need it most. Because without it, we can never find the luck we're looking for."
And as though on cue, Raya gasped.
It was a deep, sudden intake of air—the sound of someone breaking the surface of water. Aries turned, her hand frozen mid-stroke, and watched Raya's eyelids flicker against the sunlight.
"Where am I?" Raya stuttered.
"Huh." Lysander's smirk returned. "Seems your hopes made you lucky."
He stepped closer, leaning down to inspect Raya's face.
"You're safe, Raynell," Aries said, squeezing her shoulder gently.
At that moment, Eliza appeared. She wove through the crowd of healers and injured, her red hair a streak of color in the grey hall. She reached Lysander and signaled to him. He bent his neck, letting her whisper into his ear.
Whatever she said was brief. His expression didn't change.
"Well, there seems to be some luck coming my way too," he said, to no one in particular. He straightened, looking down at Aries with a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "And I didn't even have to hope."
He turned and walked away with Eliza, disappearing through the doorway into the deeper corridors of the guild.
"Aries, where am I?" Raya asked again, trying to push herself up on her elbows. Her face tightened with pain.
"In town. You had aura depletion, so we brought you here."
"Was it that serious?"
"You almost died. Does that answer your question?"
Raya went still. Her eyes moved across the ceiling, taking in the high stone arches, the dust motes, the distant sounds of groaning and quiet conversation.
"Where is everyone?" she asked.
Aries took a deep breath. She wasn't completely sure how to answer that.
On the mountain, the fight had become something else.
Silas kept firing—tentacle after tentacle, poison-tipped whips of green liquid cutting through the air with a wet, tearing sound. Each one struck the ground where Koby had been standing a heartbeat before, gouging fresh craters into the stone.
And Koby kept dodging.
He moved like something that had forgotten it was supposed to be wounded. His injuries from Rowan's hit—the ruined ribs, the shattered bones—were vanishing beneath the dark aura that wrapped around him, sealing over and healing as if they had never been there. He was faster than before. Much faster.
Coming within a few meters of Silas's tentacle range, they finally met in a trade of blows. Koby activated his hatchets, the twin blades glowing with that unnatural black-blue light, parrying the strikes as they lashed out. Each block sent a shockwave rippling through the rubble. Each miss from Silas carved through stone and debris in devastating destruction, sending chunks of rock flying into the air.
Silas fired one tentacle toward Koby's chest.
Koby deflected it with his left hatchet. Another came from the side—he caught it with his right.
But the tentacles didn't just move out of the way. They flowed like water. Poison, to be exact. They gathered around Koby's hands, wrapping tight, and the smell of burning flesh filled the air.
Koby hissed, his grip faltering.
Silas lifted him. The tentacles connected to his body, suspending Koby in the air like a hooked fish.
"You can't control the immense power pouring out of your body right now, can you?!" Silas yelled. His face was a mask of menacing triumph. He extended one tentacle, gathering a concentrated blast of poison—no bigger than a pebble—at its tip.
"One hit from this should make you unconscious. Then I can take you."
He prepared to fire it toward Koby's chest.
And in that second—just as the pebble-sized blast left the tentacle—there was a wave of movement.
James appeared beside Silas.
He was in a slight squat, his sword held in a quick-draw motion, his breath exhaling in a slow, steady stream. His eyes were fixed on Silas's left side.
"Second Technique: Moon Sweeping."
The aura flowing through James's sword flickered. It shifted from its natural blue to a bright, burning white. The blade slashed across Silas's left hand, burning as it cut through flesh and bone. Blood sprayed. Silas screamed, losing his balance—and the poison beam fired wide, missing Koby entirely and shattering against the rocks behind him.
In that same motion, James turned. He cut through the tentacles holding Koby up—one, then another—his blade burning through them like a hot knife through wax. Koby dropped, hitting the ground in a crouch.
James exhaled. The breath came out foggy in the cold air.
"You talk too much," he said.
He swung his sword behind him, blocking a blow from the now-descending Koby. The shock of the impact pushed him backward, his boots skidding through the rubble.
James tried to concentrate. He was trying to avoid panic, because he knew—one single misstep from him meant death.
He guided his longsword in a circular motion, preparing to block another attack. The blade glowed brightly with streaks of light.
Meanwhile, Silas looked down at his hand.
It was hanging by bone and a thin strip of flesh. The kid hadn't cut clean through—but it was a bad injury, the kind that ended careers. But what shocked him wasn't his arm.
It was his tentacles.
"How did he cut my tentacles?" Silas muttered, watching James struggle against Koby. He shouldn't be able to manipulate aura coating on that level yet.
Unless.
"Could it be?" Silas's eyes widened. Then a smile spread across his ruined face as he pressed his poison against his own wound, searing it shut. "The light affinity?"
He laughed—a low, raw sound.
"Things are getting more exciting."
Koby kept pressuring James. Hit after hit, each one pushing James further back. James couldn't counter or block all of the attacks, so he focused on the lethal ones only—which was still a majority of the blows. The bright light still shimmered along his longsword, and then, finally, James managed to draw in one of Koby's attacks.
He weaved it successfully, slipping past Koby's guard to his right side—the blind spot—and slashed him across the underarm.
Koby grunted. Blood seeped from the wound.
And not too long after, dark aura started to cover it up.
"Koby, get a hold of yourself, or I'll put you in a situation where you can't move," James said, his grip tightening on the hilt.
"That's some big words, blondie." Silas came in a burst, his fist swinging toward James. "Try to back it up, will ya?"
James lost his concentration. The bright light on his sword vanished. He tried to raise his arm to block, but the punch broke it—he heard the crack, felt the bone give way. And as he tried to swing at Silas, a tentacle drilled into his shoulder.
James screamed. His sword slipped from his fingers.
The tentacle was cut before it could drill any deeper.
Koby. He kicked James away with brutal force—sending him plummeting across the rubble—and then dashed for Silas, parrying each attack that came his way. Silas pulled a tentacle back to shield his body as Koby's dark-aura-coated hatchets swung in.
But upon reaching Silas, Koby didn't blindly hack at the tentacles.
He started spinning his hatchets. Hitting the tentacles once. Then twice. As if testing them.
Silas saw the opening and struck Koby's unguarded body. Koby struck again—Silas swiped the arm away and created a concentrated poison blast.
And then he saw it.
Koby's other arm let go of its hatchet. And created a spiral rend.
Silas had already launched his arm forward. He couldn't withdraw in time.
The spiral rend exploded.
The poison blast was no match for it. His hand combusted instantly. Koby's dark aura scales shattered from the force of the collision, and the blast rocked the surrounding mountain.
On the ground, James was breathing heavily from his wounds. He saw the spreading explosion and immediately moved backwards to avoid the blast radius—but he wasn't quick enough. The shattering debris hit his body, knocking him to the ground. He gritted his teeth, waiting for the burn of the explosion to consume him.
He closed his eyes.
The pain never came.
A few seconds passed. He opened his eyes.
The blast was contained inside an air bubble. And the bubble was compressing—squeezing the blast down into a sphere, tighter and tighter.
James looked up.
Rowan was in the sky, flying above the ruins of Blackstone Mountain.
Markings similar to the ones Silas had on his back—the ones from fusing with Nithfang—covered Rowan's body. But instead of green, Rowan's markings glowed gold. His eyes shone bright, a golden light that cut through the smoke and dust.
He directed the air bubble upward, into the sky above him.
And let it explode there.
With those movements, Rowan coughed up what looked like a gallon of blood. More blood sputtered from the hole in his chest.
On the ground, Silas and Koby were a mess.
Silas had green globs all over him—leftovers of his tentacles. Almost his entire body was charred from the burn of the blast. Half his face was already gone, and he was giving a low moan.
Koby had taken the brunt of the blast using his scaly, monstrous form—and hadn't come out unscathed. His scales were all but burnt away. The red, fleshy part of his skin remained, blood streaking it, and remnants of dark aura worked their way across the wounds, trying to heal.
Then Koby saw Rowan afloat in the sky.
Saint Realm. Golden light. The markings.
It was as though something inside Koby lost it.
Koby squeezed his palm. More dark aura spread out of him—thicker, darker, pulsing in waves that distorted the air around him.
And then the entity inside Koby screamed.
The sound came from everywhere at once. Not from his mouth. From the world around him. A shriek in a language that none of them could understand—a language older than Camelot, older than the kingdoms, older than anything that had a name.
And within that scream, one word broke through. Clear. Recognizable. A name.
"Pelgaya!!"