As the three crouched low behind the crumbling shell of the ruined building, the wind howled around them, carrying the scent of scorched ice and ozone. Rei narrowed his eyes through the flurry of snow and flickering green flames, gaze locked on the wyvern circling high above.
"Something's wrong with it," he muttered, his voice barely louder than the hiss of the blizzard. "It's moving weird."
Zay shifted beside him, crouching beside the shattered wall and peering upward. The wyvern, once a terrifying presence, now seemed... confused. It drifted through the air in uneasy spirals, its wings faltering, flapping less like a predator and more like a creature trying to stay afloat. Its clawed feet kicked awkwardly at the air as if swimming in place, and its head jerked side to side.
"That's not normal wyvern behavior," Zay whispered, his breath steaming through gritted teeth. "What the hell is going on?"
Then came the sound of a roar. It wasn't simply heard, it was felt in their bones. It detonated across the mountains like a seismic wave, splitting the air and blasting through the storm. The falling snow curved away from it, evaporating in its wake. The blizzard itself seemed to shrink from that sound. Trees in the distance bent. The ruined building behind them cracked.
And in the skies above, the wyvern froze mid-flight, its entire body snapping toward the southern horizon.
Its chest swelled. Its throat lit with fire.
Crimson energy gathered in the wyvern's maw, flaring out into a brilliant sphere, quickly joined by tongues of dark green flame. The fusion of colors twisted violently together, forming a massive unstable orb of destruction—flames so hot they melted every snowflake for hundreds of feet in an instant, scorching the earth with raw elemental fury.
Then a voice answered the sudden elemental fury, exploding through the whiteout like a cannon blast.
"THAT'S MORE LIKE IT!"
The second roar followed—this time even louder.
It shattered the silence between heartbeats. The very air screamed as a titanic force moved above them, casting the landscape into complete shadow.
Zay, Rei, Naomi—whirled their heads up, eyes straining through the storm.
"Enormous." Rei muttered to himself as this beast looked straight out of legend that dwarfed anything he'd ever seen. Scales the size of houses rippled across a vast body, each shimmering with abyssal hues of violet and black. Massive wings stretched wider than any airship, their flaps so powerful they warped the blizzard itself, creating gusts that tore entire trees from the ground miles away.
Zay stared in disbelief and turned his gaze back to the wyvern, It wasn't even half the size of one of this creature's wings.
The massive creature roared again, its maw splitting wide as arcs of frozen lightning erupted across its massive frame. Bolts struck the ground with earth-shattering force, flash-freezing the dirt where they landed before shattering it into thousands of razor-sharp ice shards.
From atop the beast's colossal head, the voice returned and it was unmistakably human.
"I'M GOING!" It belonged to a man, no older than his early thirties, youthful but battle-worn.
Zay's eyes snapped forward, locking onto a shape falling from the sky. The clouds above had cleared, revealing a pale moon that cast silver light over a lone figure plummeting with a glaive gripped in one hand. The weapon gleamed, forged from dragon scales, each one shimmering with otherworldly power.
"HAHAHA!" The man's laughter boomed across the battlefield, a brutal, thunderous sound that sent waves through the air, scattering snow like leaves in a storm. Gripping the glaive with both hands, he narrowed his eyes and smiled—a grin carved in defiance—as he plunged straight into the raging sphere of crimson and dark green fire.
The moment he made contact, the fireball detonated in a violent eruption, but the man didn't flinch. He kept falling, his glaive aimed like a blade of vengeance, completely untouched. Not a single burn, not even a scratch.
Below, the wyvern tried to escape, wings snapping open in panic.
The massive creature in the sky let out another roar, unleashing a chain of frozen lightning that cracked through the air and struck the wyvern. Ice surged across its wings, locking them mid-beat.
Then the man struck.
With one simple thrust, the glaive punched through the wyvern's chest, tearing clean through its body. The beast let out a final screech before crashing lifelessly into the ground, dead before it even realized what had happened as its body froze over with another strike of frozen lightning before splitting into pieces of razor sharp ice shards.
As the man descended, he twisted mid-air, glaive now in his left hand, feet aimed toward the earth. The colossal creature dipped its head beneath him and caught him with flawless timing. He landed with ease, one foot planted on the creature's skull, his body steady like he had never fallen at all.
He laughed again, louder than before.
"MAVID STRIKES AGAIN!"
The massive beast beneath him beat its wings once, twice, then surged into the sky, flying with a speed that shattered logic. Within seconds, both man and monster vanished into the heart of the blizzard.
Rei blinked several times before turning his gaze toward Zay and Naomi. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. After a moment, he closed it again and simply blinked once more.
Zay glanced between Naomi and Rei, then looked back up at the sky. He didn't speak at first.
For a long while, he said nothing at all—just stared silently into the clouds where the massive creature had vanished.
Eventually, he broke the silence.
"Rei, do you have any information on creatures like that?"
Rei blinked slowly a few times before shaking his head.
"I do not," he said quietly.
Both of them turned to look at Naomi, who didn't seem nearly as surprised as they were.
She blinked once.
"It's a sort of Komodo Dragon... whatever that is."
Zay narrowed his eyes. "How do you know that?"
"The large shadow told me what it was."
Rei looked over at Zay. "Are you going to explain that now?"
"It's a story for another day," Zay replied with a faint smile before turning away.
'I've seen a Komodo Dragon in a few lives across this world... but never before the Seventh Sequence,' he thought, swallowing hard. He tilted his head back slightly, eyes drifting once more to the sky. Then he gave it a slow shake and turned to face Rei and Naomi again.
'Whatever. I know this life is already... different compared to the others, so I should just start expecting more bullshit to happen.' Zay shook his head once more, a slow, tired motion, then released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.
"Let's just..." he started, but paused, rubbing his forehead as a dull ache bloomed across the front of his skull. He let out a low grunt as the headache pulsed behind his eyes.
Rei noticed the shift in his posture. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah... I'm fine. Just a headache. Let's get this curse nonsense over with and follow that guy with the caravan when he arrives."
Rei gave a slow nod, then looked down at the katana at his waist. With a slow and steady motion, he drew the blade. As soon as the edge cleared the sheath, flames curled around it, soft and controlled. The fire hovered in place, warming the space between them and casting flickering orange light against the snow-covered ruins and ground beneath them.
Naomi extended her hands toward the flame, rubbing them together. The snow around her boots had begun to melt slightly, forming wet impressions in the frost-covered dirt.
Zay mirrored her motion, rubbing his hands together and letting the warmth seep into his gloves. He looked over at Rei.
"More importantly, are you alright? I saw you took a hit on your arm. Let me see."
Rei kept the blade steady, holding it aloft with one hand as he used the other to roll up his sleeve. A long scratch stretched across his bicep. The wound looked painful but not serious; the blood had dried and crusted along the torn flesh. After a moment, he pulled the fabric back down.
"It wasn't deep. Just a scratch, like I said. Other than that, I'm fine."
Zay nodded silently and let the matter rest.
"Let's get this done. Hopefully, we don't die during whatever this is."
Naomi looked up at him with a playful grin. "If you do die, don't worry. I'll make sure to bury your body in some desert and keep all of your blood so you don't have to be near snow or ice, master."
There was a pause. A very, very long one.
Zay turned his gaze toward a nearby tree, where snow had begun to collect again along its twisted limbs. He watched in silence as the branches bowed slightly beneath the weight. He exhaled slowly.
He stepped forward, boots crunching over fresh snow, and muttered, "If I die... just leave me be." He rubbed the bridge of his nose, pressing his fingers there briefly before scratching the side of it, the cold biting against his skin.
"Let's just finish this."