Kael stands beside his motorcar in silence after the police vehicle disappears into the crowded streets.
Cold winter wind moves through the avenue, brushing against his coat while the noise of the city continues around him. Merchants resume shouting. Horse carriages creak across stone roads. Somewhere nearby, a newspaper boy calls out the day's headlines.
But Kael's thoughts remain elsewhere.
Devil's Forest.
The words linger heavily in his mind.
Ash from lightning-struck wood.
Without it, one part of the ritual remains incomplete.
His fingers tap lightly against the folded paper parcel still resting inside his coat pocket, where the convex lens remains wrapped carefully beneath layers of brown paper.
For several long seconds, he says nothing.
Then he exhales quietly.
There is only one place left to go.
Hellsedge.
The final city of Eryndor.
Or rather, the place that still dares to call itself a city.
Kael opens the motorcar door and steps inside.
The engine roars softly to life beneath him, vibrating through the metal frame like a restrained beast awakening from sleep. He grips the steering wheel and slowly guides the vehicle back onto the road.
The deeper districts of the capital gradually fade behind him.
The elegant Edwardian architecture begins disappearing little by little. Wide polished roads narrow into rougher paths. Decorative iron street lamps become fewer. The buildings lose their refinement.
And as the city thins behind him, the atmosphere itself seems to change.
The sky grows dimmer beneath layers of heavy winter clouds.
Hours pass.
The further Kael travels, the emptier the roads become.
Eventually, distant outlines begin appearing on the horizon.
Hellsedge.
At first glance, it barely resembles a proper city at all.
The settlement sprawls unevenly across a bleak stretch of land near the outer edges of Eryndor, where cold winds sweep endlessly through crooked streets and leaning buildings. Smoke rises weakly from scattered chimneys, dissolving into the grey sky above like fading ghosts.
Many of the buildings appear worn down by time itself.
Cracked brick walls.
Broken signboards.
Windows patched with old wood instead of glass.
Rust stains spread along metal gutters like dried blood.
Even the roads seem exhausted.
Mud gathers thickly between broken cobblestones while narrow alleys twist between tightly packed structures where sunlight struggles to enter.
This is Hellsedge.
The city nearest to Devil's Forest.
And the most abandoned place in all of Eryndor.
People still live here.
But barely.
The desperate gather in Hellsedge because nowhere else accepts them. Failed workers. Smugglers. Debt-ridden families. Men running from old crimes. Women abandoned by fortune. Children growing up beneath leaking roofs and smoke stained ceilings.
In other kingdoms, such a place would already have collapsed into chaos.
But this is Eryndor.
Even here, the kingdom's laws still hold their iron grip over the land.
Which is exactly why Hellsedge's crime rate is considered horrifying by Eryndorian standards.
Kidnappings occur three or four times a year.
Robberies happen perhaps ten or eleven times.
Murders occur once every five years.
And crimes far darker than robbery are so rare that even one case in decades becomes whispered about throughout the kingdom.
Elsewhere in the world, such numbers might seem impossibly low.
But in Eryndor, where strict laws and brutal punishments have shaped society for generations, even this amount stains the city's reputation like ink spilled across white cloth.
The laws are strict.
The people are stubborn.
And Hellsedge exists somewhere between obedience and collapse.
Kael's motorcar rolls slowly past the crooked entrance sign hanging near the roadside.
The wooden board creaks faintly in the cold wind.
WELCOME TO HELLEDGE.
Several letters have already faded away.
The sound of Kael's motorcar spreads through Hellsedge long before the vehicle itself fully enters the broken streets.
The deep mechanical rumble echoes between ruined buildings and narrow alleyways like something foreign to the dying city.
One by one, people begin appearing.
A curtain shifts aside inside a cracked window.
A door creaks open halfway.
Several children with dirt-smudged faces step barefoot onto the muddy roadside, staring silently at the passing vehicle with wide eyes filled more with curiosity than excitement.
Adults emerge more cautiously.
Thin men wearing worn coats patched together from mismatched fabric pieces.
Women wrapped in faded shawls, their dresses frayed near the hems from years of use.
Old workers whose hands remain blackened permanently by soot and factory ash.
Most of their clothes are dirty.
Some are torn.
Many look as though they have spent years surviving instead of living.
The streets themselves feel exhausted.
Wooden houses lean unevenly against one another like tired bodies struggling to remain standing. Rusted pipes jut from walls. Laundry hangs between windows beneath the grey sky, swaying weakly in the cold wind.
And yet, despite their appearance, the people watch quietly.
No one throws stones.
No one attempts theft.
No one rushes toward the expensive motorcar passing through their streets.
Because this is still Eryndor.
Even desperation fears punishment here.
Kael notices them.
But he does not stop.
His expression remains calm as he guides the motorcar deeper through the city, ignoring the hollow stares following him from both sides of the road.
Eventually, the last ruined buildings begin thinning behind him.
The roads become emptier.
Colder.
And then he sees it.
Devil's Forest.
Even from a distance, the forest feels wrong.
The trees rise unnaturally tall against the horizon, their black trunks twisting upward like giant claws scratching at the darkening sky. The branches are bare despite the season not being harsh enough to strip them completely. They seem dead.
Or perhaps sleeping.
A thick fog lingers faintly between the trees, moving slowly across the forest floor as though the land itself is breathing.
The closer Kael drives, the quieter the world becomes.
Birdsong disappears.
Wind weakens.
Even the engine of the motorcar suddenly feels too loud against the unnatural silence surrounding the forest.
Then the barricades appear.
Massive wooden barriers surround the outer boundary of Devil's Forest entirely, stretching across the landscape in long defensive lines reinforced with iron chains and sharpened stakes driven deep into the frozen ground.
The wood is weathered badly.
Some sections bear deep claw marks.
Others look partially burned.
Near the main entrance stands a large warning sign hanging crookedly from two dark wooden posts.
The words painted across it have faded with age and rain, yet they remain readable.
DANGEROUS TO ENTER
DEVIL'S MIGHT ATTACK YOU
The final word has almost completely peeled away.
No guards stand nearby.
No soldiers patrol the entrance.
No workers maintain the barricades.
Nothing.
Because nobody willingly comes here.
Not anymore.
Kael slowly brings the motorcar to a stop before the entrance.
The engine dies.
And silence immediately swallows everything.
Kael opens the motorcar door and steps out slowly onto the frozen ground.
The moment his shoes touch the earth outside, the silence becomes far more noticeable.
Not ordinary silence.
Not the peaceful quiet of snowfall or empty countryside.
This silence feels unnatural.
Heavy.
As though sound itself refuses to remain near the forest.
Kael looks around.
There is no one.
Not a single guard near the barricades.
Not a traveler.
Not even the distant movement of an animal crossing the fields beyond Hellsedge.
Nothing.
Even the sky above seems strangely still.
And then he notices something else.
There are no birds.
No crows perched along the barricades.
No insects humming beneath the dead grass.
No rustling hidden between the trees.
The forest ahead stands completely motionless, its blackened trunks rising through the pale fog like silent giants watching from afar.
Cold wind brushes past him.
Sharper than before.
The temperature near Devil's Forest feels noticeably lower than the city behind him, as though warmth itself avoids this place. His breath becomes visible immediately, pale mist leaving his lips with every slow exhale.
Kael reaches back into the motorcar and pulls out his jacket from the rear seat.
The thick dark fabric feels cold against his hands. He slips it on carefully, adjusting the collar near his throat before fastening the front buttons one by one. The extra layer dulls the freezing air slightly, though not enough to remove the strange chill lingering around the forest entrance.
For a brief moment, he stands there quietly.
Looking ahead.
Beyond the barricades.
Toward the forest no one willingly enters.
Then he walks forward.
The entrance gate stands tall before him, built from reinforced iron bars attached to thick wooden supports darkened by age and weather. Rust gathers near the hinges in reddish streaks while old chains hang loosely along the sides.
Kael places his hand against the gate.
The metal feels ice cold.
He pushes.
The hinges groan immediately.
A long, harsh creaking sound breaks through the silence as the gate slowly opens inward, the noise echoing faintly into the depths of the forest before vanishing completely.
Cold fog drifts through the widening gap.
Kael steps forward without hesitation.
And enters Devil's Forest alone.
The moment he crosses beyond the gate, the atmosphere changes completely.
The air becomes heavier.
Darker.
The trees tower overhead so densely that even daylight struggles to pass between the tangled branches above. Thin mist curls around the roots and dead leaves covering the ground, moving silently around his feet with each step he takes.
Behind him, the gate slowly swings back on its own.
Creeeak.
The sound echoes softly through the forest.
Then stops.
And once again, silence remains.
Kael continues walking deeper into Devil's Forest, his footsteps pressing softly against the layer of damp leaves and dead branches covering the ground.
The further he goes, the less the outside world feels real.
The barricades disappear behind the fog first.
Then the entrance gate.
And eventually even the faint outline of the road vanishes completely, swallowed by the pale mist drifting endlessly between the trees.
The forest grows denser.
The trees here stand unnaturally close together, their trunks twisted and dark as if burned long ago yet never fully consumed. Thick roots rise from the earth like giant veins, breaking through the frozen soil in uneven patterns that force Kael to watch every step carefully.
The fog becomes heavier with every passing minute.
At first it merely lingers near the ground.
Then it rises.
Slowly.
Until pale white mist curls around his knees and drifts across his chest in thin waves, obscuring the deeper parts of the forest ahead. Visibility shortens more and more until the nearest trees appear like faded silhouettes instead of solid forms.
Even the air changes.
The cold intensifies gradually at first.
Then unnaturally fast.
Each breath begins to sting slightly inside his lungs. Frost gathers faintly along the edges of nearby branches despite the season not being cold enough for snow. Kael pulls his jacket closer around himself, yet the freezing sensation continues slipping through the fabric like invisible fingers.
And then—
A sound emerges somewhere deeper within the forest.
Kael stops walking.
The noise comes again.
Low.
Distant.
Not loud enough to identify clearly.
At first it almost resembles wind moving through hollow trees.
But there is no wind.
The branches above remain perfectly still.
The sound stretches faintly through the fog again, longer this time. A strange mixture between a whisper and an animal cry, uneven and distorted in a way that makes it impossible to tell whether it comes from something living… or something imitating life.
The forest remains motionless afterward.
Too motionless.
Kael slowly turns his gaze toward the deeper fog ahead.
Nothing appears.
Only pale mist shifting silently between black trees.
Then another sound comes from somewhere to his left.
Closer.
A soft crack.
Like something stepping on a branch.
Kael's eyes narrow slightly.
But when he looks toward the source, he sees nothing there either.
Only fog.
Only darkness between the trees.
The cold grows harsher again.
His breath now leaves thicker white clouds before his face while the skin beneath his gloves begins losing warmth little by little. Even the silence feels colder here, pressing against the ears until every small sound becomes unnaturally sharp.
Another distant noise echoes through the forest.
This one deeper.
Almost like a growl.
The fog ahead shifts slightly.
And for the briefest moment, Kael feels as though something far inside Devil's Forest has noticed him.