The bodies were still falling when the motion stopped.
Some without heads.
Others twisted the wrong way, as if the body itself had given up on holding what remained.
The dark ground absorbed the blood in silence.
The flames crackled around, high enough to close the space, low enough not to hide what needed to be seen.
The heat came in short waves.
Heavy breathing.
Dense air.
Éreon didn't look away.
She stood still.
The blade low, blood running along the length of the steel in slow threads, dripping onto the already marked ground.
Her hair barely moved in the hot air. No haste. No doubt.
When she turned—
her eyes found his first.
Then Karna.
Unhurried.
She began to walk.
Firm steps. Direct. The sound of her boot against the dirt muffled by the fire around them.
"I'm against killing children."
Her voice came out low. Clear.
Without anger.
"But you've already crossed that line."
One step.
Another.
The blade rose a few centimeters, just enough to align with the body.
"And whoever walks beside monsters… chooses the same fate."
Her gaze didn't leave them.
Not for a second.
Karna tensed, the bow already firm in his hand, but he didn't draw the string.
Jaw locked.
"She's talking to us now."
Low.
Dry.
Without taking his eyes off her.
Her eyes didn't retreat.
Not for a second.
Karna tilted his head slightly, the bow steady in his hand, the tension already visible in his body.
"So that's it? You cut down everyone who shows up in front of you and—"
She moved.
Her foot slid forward scraping the ground, her body already turning with it in the same instant.
The blade rose in a straight line, aiming for the neck.
Karna pulled in a breath, his body reacting too late.
Éreon stepped into the space before the impact.
A short step.
His arm rose at the exact timing, his blade meeting hers with a dry sound that tore through the air.
The clash deflected the cut by centimeters — the steel passing along Karna's neck, taking a thread of blood with it.
The weight of the impact ran through Éreon's arm up to his shoulder.
He didn't step back.
Black eyes fixed on her.
Reading.
Locking.
The ground beneath his feet gave half a step back under the pressure.
Karna was already moving, his body turning out of the line, breath caught for a second longer than it should.
"…you've got to be kidding."
Low.
Without humor.
Éreon's blade still locked against hers.
The heat rising between them.
The blade still pressed against hers when Isabela turned her wrist, shifting the axis of contact.
The steel slipped, changed angle and returned in the same motion — a direct lateral cut to the ribs.
Éreon released the pressure at the exact instant.
His body gave half a step back, his torso turning with it as her blade passed close to the fabric.
His arm was already coming from below — a short, precise cut, seeking the open space under the shoulder.
She intercepted.
Firm wrist. Minimal deflection.
His blade was pushed out of line as her knee drove straight into his abdomen.
Éreon absorbed the impact by turning his hip.
The strike scraped, lost force.
He went in again.
Short.
Direct.
The blade rose diagonally, too fast for ordinary eyes to follow.
She stepped back half a step.
Just enough.
The cut passed in front of her chest, pushing aside a strand of pink hair without touching the skin.
Karna was already in motion behind.
The bow rose.
The string tensed in the same flow.
The arrow released without warning.
Direct.
Fast.
Isabela tilted her body.
The projectile grazed her shoulder, tearing part of the metallic cloak before embedding itself in a tree behind.
"He won't stop." Karna murmured, already drawing another.
The second arrow came lower.
Aiming at the leg.
She spun on her own axis, her foot leaving the ground at the exact moment.
The arrow cut through the space where she had been and disappeared into the fire.
Éreon moved in with the motion.
Giving no space.
The blade came down from above, heavy, direct.
She crossed her sword.
The impact reverberated through the air.
The flames around them wavered.
The ground gave beneath both their feet.
For an instant—
force against force.
Reading against reading.
Then—
the world fractured.
The sound came before understanding.
Deep.
Heavy.
It wasn't impact. It wasn't an explosion. Something fractured.
The air contracted.
The flames around them faltered as if something had pulled the space inward.
Karna's body reacted first — the bow lowering half instinct, half alert.
"What the hell kind of intent… is that?"
Low.
Without humor.
Éreon didn't answer.
His eyes were already turned toward the forest.
Fixed.
Reading something not yet visible.
Isabela didn't attack.
The blade remained raised for one second more.
Then lowered slightly.
Her gaze changed.
The wind ceased.
The heat lost strength.
And, for the first time—
the battlefield stopped being the center.
The trail wasn't hard to follow.
Not because they wanted to hide.
But because there was no need.
Telvaris advanced unhurried, steps controlled, his gaze sweeping the ground, the trunks, the space between the trees.
The marks were there — grooves in the dirt, broken branches, dark splashes that hadn't fully dried yet.
Blood.
Fresh.
He didn't speed up.
Only adjusted his path.
Kept going.
The air changed before the scene.
Denser.
Heavier.
As if something occupied the space between one breath and the next.
Then he saw it.
The circle.
Carved into the ground with deep, irregular cuts, too old to be improvised — but too recent to be forgotten.
Blood filled the lines, still moving slowly, as if it hadn't decided to stop.
The young women were there.
Arranged around it.
Bodies still.
Eyes empty.
Some still trembled.
At the center—
a knight.
On his knees.
The sword embedded in the ground before him, hands resting on the hilt while his lowered head moved in a constant rhythm.
A chant.
Low.
Dragged.
The words didn't need to be understood.
The meaning was already in the air.
Telvaris didn't speak.
His arm moved slightly.
The knight's sword answered.
The metal vibrated — first light, then pulled by an invisible force.
The steel tore from the ground as it was wrenched free and crossed the space in a straight line.
It entered through the chest.
Out through the back.
The chant faltered.
The body locked.
But didn't fall immediately.
The head lifted slowly.
The eyes met Telvaris.
There was no surprise in them.
No pain.
Blood ran from his mouth when he spoke.
"Too late…"
A broken breath.
"Long live the count."
The body gave out.
But the circle didn't.
The sound began low.
An irregular vibration, like something trying to form without yet having enough structure.
The blood in the markings… moved.
As if it were being pulled from inside the earth itself.
Telvaris was already moving.
He knelt beside one of the closest young women. The body still warm. The breath too weak to last much longer.
Her hand trembled at his touch.
He lowered his face.
"On your feet."
Low.
Firm.
"We need to leave."
Her eyes opened with effort.
They didn't focus on him at first.
They focused… beyond.
Behind him.
Her fingers tightened on his clothing with what little strength remained.
Her voice came out broken.
"R-run…"
A greater effort.
The air failed.
"…something… is coming…"
Her body gave out in that same instant.
Her hand lost strength.
Her eyes stopped.
The ground responded.
The trees trembled.
This time it wasn't subtle.
The roots beneath the earth vibrated like strings stretched to the limit.
The air sank.
The bodies began to move, dragged without any resistance toward the center, while the blood left the markings on the ground and rose in a continuous flow, as if being pulled by something that still had no form, but already occupied space.
The mass forming had no defined contour — only presence, dense and pulsing, wrong on a level the body recognized before the mind.
Telvaris stood slowly.
His gaze held for a single instant on what was emerging, calculating enough to understand there was nothing left there that could be saved.
Then he turned and ran, without hesitation or looking back.
The sound grew behind him — not like an impact, but like something finally finding structure, pulling the air, the blood, and the space itself inward.
Telvaris didn't slow — but his body changed before he realized it.
The air grew heavy.
Not like heat.
Like pressure.
Something crossed the space.
Instinct answered first.
His foot locked into the ground, his body's axis breaking to the side in the same instant.
The movement was short, brutal, without elegance — enough.
Something passed.
It didn't touch him.
But it dragged the air with it.
Behind him—
the trees gave way.
Thick trunks split in the middle as if pulled from within, wood tearing in irregular lines, leaves thrown far without any wind to justify it.
The sound came after.
Delayed.
Wrong.
Telvaris fell to the side, his shoulder hitting the ground before the rest of his body followed. His breath failed for a brief instant, but he was already rising when he turned his face.
There was no form.
Not yet.
Only… presence.
Something occupied the space ahead.
Too tall for the forest.
Too dense for the air.
The outline didn't hold.
It wavered.
As if the world itself couldn't decide where it began.
Then… it adjusted.
And he saw.
A humanoid structure rose before him — immense, disproportionate — but something was wrong in every detail.
The muscles were too defined, tense beyond the natural, as if that form were being held by force, compressed into a mold that didn't belong to it.
The dark skin wasn't continuous.
Fissures opened slowly along the body, tearing the surface like living cracks.
From within, a dense glow escaped — not like light, but like something contained under pressure, trying to break through.
And it didn't remain static.
The fissures moved.
Shifted.
Pulsed.
As if the inside pushed against the limits at all times.
The head—
didn't hold as a single thing.
For an instant, it resembled the structure of an ancient deer, elongated bones, ritual presence.
In the next—
something lower.
More predatory.
The form didn't remain long enough to be understood.
The antlers extended wide, irregular, like dead branches that grew without direction. But they didn't seem to be only part of it.
They gave the impression of being attached to something beyond.
Rooted.
Not in the body.
Somewhere else.
The eyes were narrow openings, deep, carrying an internal glow that didn't reflect the world around.
They didn't observe.
They recognized.
From the shoulder, something moved.
Not like a limb.
Like another presence.
Incomplete.
Twisting beneath the skin, pushing against the main form as if trying to emerge — as if that body weren't enough to contain what was inside.
The air around it gave way.
Slightly.
But constant.
As if space were being pulled closer to that thing.
Incandescent particles began to appear — small, unstable — floating without defined direction, like remnants of something being consumed without burning.
Then it looked.
There was no haste in the movement, no need to complete it — the focus simply shifted, and fell upon Telvaris like something that had always been meant to find him.
He didn't advance. Didn't retreat.
But his hand… trembled.
A minimal, involuntary reflex — as if something deeper had understood before the mind.
The creature took a step.
Space responded with it, compressing around it as if there were no real distance between one point and another.
It wasn't a full displacement — it was proximity, too short, too wrong — and the ground beneath Telvaris's feet gave half a centimeter as the air sank with it.
Then a sound cut through the space.
Sharp. Fast.
The arrow crossed his field of vision before any reaction was possible.
At the same instant, something at his shoulder vibrated — the shadows beneath his feet contracted — and the world folded in on itself, without light, without sound, without transition.
He was no longer there.
His body reappeared beside Karna in the same flow the arrow disappeared ahead.
Karna was kneeling, the bow still extended, breath held, fingers locked in the firing position.
"Brahmastra."
The word came out low — but carried a weight that needed no volume.
The arrow didn't impact.
It was there—
And then the world responded.
The light came first, white and dense, expanding without sound for a single instant that stretched beyond the natural.
Then the impact came whole, the air being pushed outward in a brutal wave, the ground cracking under the pressure as trees were torn from the root before the sound even reached them.
The heat came right after.
Violent. Continuous. Consuming everything within reach.
Telvaris turned his face to Karna, still adjusting his breath.
"…how did I get here?"
His voice came out low, more tense than usual.
Karna didn't answer immediately.
His eyes remained fixed ahead — but his hand trembled, slight, controlled, forced not to worsen.
He glanced sideways.
At Éreon.
Éreon didn't move.
Black eyes still fixed in the direction of the explosion, reading, waiting.
Isabela turned her face, her gaze falling on Telvaris in a quick instant — assessing the blood, the posture, what he brought with him.
"What is happening—"
She didn't finish.
The air gave way again.
Heavier.
Closer.
The presence returned — not from afar, but before them, without displacement, without warning.
The creature was there.
The pressure dropped at once, brutal enough to force the body to respond before any decision — knees giving for an instant, breath locking, the space around them sinking as if it could no longer sustain what was within it.
And, even after the explosion—
it had not been erased.
Only… interrupted.