'Who is she?'
Leon collapsed to one knee, gasping heavily for air as his thoughts rolled around, searing for answers. Heat lingered in his eyes and skin, yet no sign of the golden fire was felt.
Then he stared at his trembling arms as though some chained part of him had just broken loose.
His eyes lifted to Zoe. She was leaning against a rock, breathing hard.
She looked back at him, but her expression was difficult to read. "Thank you... But you shouldn't have done that," she said softly.
The words stayed in Leon's ears longer than they should have.
Then the creatures that had fallen lifeless rose, shook out their fur, and ran.
Zoe laughed and pushed herself upright. She brushed the dust from herself, then turned toward the direction they had fled.
"Are you coming?" she asked, glancing back at him with a small smile.
Leon stared at the ground, pulled a rusted rod from a weakened slab of concrete, and then used it to force himself up.
As he straightened, a series of cracks answered the movement as sharp pain ran through his bones.
"The extraction point is that way," Zoe said, pointing ahead. "But there's a canyon in between. The only safe path is through a valley everyone is avoiding."
A faint grin began taking shape on her face. "They say something... powerful... nests there."
'A valley everyone avoids?' Leon followed the line of her hand, then looked back at her, confusion and fear tightening his face.
'Do I need an alliance? Nah... I won't survive alone.' He studied her for another second, then made up his mind.
"We'll have a better chance together," he said. His own voice sounded strange to him.
When it faded, he caught the cautious and watchful look Zoe gave him.
Not the look of someone relaxing into trust, but of someone still weighing what he was.
Their alliance was not built on friendship—only survival.
As they neared the valley, two huge bat-like beasts rushed them. Before Leon could even react, Zoe moved.
With one swing, both creatures got wiped out.
'It's a good thing I chose to move with her. I'd be dead if I were alone.' Leon watched her wipe black ichor from her arm, and his eyes widened.
Before they could take even a step into the valley, thick, poisonous air rolled over them, forcing both of them to cover their mouths and noses.
'So this is why others avoided this place.'
And now he was here, already breathing in tiny amounts of the slow poison.
The deeper they went, the heavier the air became. Humid. Toxic.
Every breath felt borrowed.
The trees around them were draped in thick, sticky webbing that caught the faint purple light and gave it back in sickly glints.
'How is she walking like we're somewhere safe?'
Every turn Zoe took, every step she made, only deepened the feeling that he was the only one moving through a poisonous grave.
Then Leon's eyes widened when he realized she was not even covering her mouth.
Every crunch of bone beneath his feet made him whip around.
He placed each step carefully and finally saw that the ground was carpeted with bones. Not just animal bones. Humanoid ones, too.
A chill ran down his spine as he noticed how twisted some of the remains were.
"What kind of being has gold-colored bone?" he muttered when he spotted a fully intact golden skeleton among the pale remains.
Zoe turned at once and motioned for silence. Then she crouched and crawled beneath a huge tree root.
Leon copied her and followed after she reached the other side. But the moment he straightened, his blood turned to ice.
Far in the distance stood a colossal beast.
"This is a bad idea," Leon muttered, stumbling back until his body pressed hard against the tree.
"It's the only way across before darkness takes over," Zoe replied.
To Leon, her voice sounded far too calm for what was in front of them.
'Is she crazy? That's a death sentence.' He swallowed, looked at the beast, then shifted his gaze back to her.
Before he could say anything else, Zoe was already moving toward the creature.
Leon tried to follow. Then his chest began to hum so violently that he stopped and half-turned toward the shelter of the tree.
Everything inside him begged him to run. To flee. To live. But then Zoe looked back at him.
Something in that look stirred him. And before he fully understood why, he was moving again. Though his body trembled, he kept going.
That look stayed in his head, pressing at him harder than fear.
They moved as quietly as they could, but every crunch of bone underfoot sounded like a thunderclap.
Slowly, they drew near a massive structure of webbing and salvaged metal built into the wall of a cavern.
It wasn't just a normal nest. It looked like a prison built around the thing living at its heart.
Then they saw it clearly. It was larger than any creature they had faced before.
Its chitinous plates were a dark royal purple, and a single jagged horn rose from its head. It was dormant.
Its layered eyes were closed. But its size alone was enough to freeze the blood in Leon's veins.
One of its forelimbs held a prize that made Zoe suck in a quiet breath. A small crystal rested on a nearby rock, pulsing with a soft blue light.
The moment Leon saw it, memory stirred. Recent news. A rare energy source. Pure. Powerful.
With something like that, even a low-level awakened student could rise to the highest ranks in a blink.
"We are going in for that," Zoe said, stopping with her eyes fixed on the crystal.
The look on her face made it clear. She was not leaving without it.
"Without that, we aren't leaving," she added. "The next trial could be worse than this. It's our only advantage."
Leon's mouth dried instantly. He swallowed with care, afraid even that small movement might wake the beast.
For a long moment, he stared at her. Then he leaned closer and hissed, "What's your plan then?"