The savanna, which rarely knew silence, now howled beneath the lament of an icy wind descending from the mountain. It was not a cry of sorrow—but of confusion. The scent of old blood, burned mana, and ash was not the familiar perfume of a hunt; it was the stench of an order turned upside down.
The Carnivores who had fled the shattered camp returned dragging their tails, fur bristling, eyes wide with a nameless terror. They did not fear Lusian.
They feared a reality that had broken before their eyes.
Jakkara, matriarch of the Red Thorn hyenas, bared her teeth—not in a smile, but in a fractured snarl. The night before, her cubs had been crushed beneath crystal-antlered buffalo. Werewolves clad in divine armor had been devoured by stampeding stone rhinoceroses.
"The herbivores hunted us!" hissed a young jackal, on the edge of hysteria. "The mountain drove them mad!"
Kael-Sur, the red-eyed baboon, struck his staff against a rock—but the sound no longer carried the authority it once did.
"The Lithaar… did not respond," he growled, brow deeply furrowed. "The ground they swore to hold firm turned to mud. Their runes went dark. They abandoned us."
Even Yhalir, leader of the Leopards—once a voice from the heights, sharp and untouchable—now lingered close to the ground. His eyes no longer hunted prey; they studied the mountain with a mix of caution and awe. His people, creatures of the night, had seen Douglas's darkness devour the light of the gods. They had seen humans explode—not by a predator's will, but by the "blessing" of their own masters.
"This is no longer the savanna," murmured Old Jakkara, her massive claws slipping from her hands. "The human gods are not strong. They are irresponsible."
The hierarchy of the savanna had shattered.
The Leontaris, decimated, wandered without voice or direction. The Golden-Horn Antelopes—once trembling before fangs—now met the gaze of Carnivores with an uneasy mix of defiance and pity. Wars for territory, for flesh, for caves… all of it seemed insignificant.
The echo of the mountain still resounded.
It was not Lusian's roar—but Zarhama's itself, reminding them they had chosen the wrong ally. The Carnivores had trusted the "logic" of the Lithaar and the "power" of the gods.
Both had left them to die.
Now, every shadow, every whisper of wind, every falling night was no longer merely an opportunity to hunt.
It was a reminder of the darkness that had devoured the light.
And that the mountain had learned to hunt…
not only prey,but truth itself.
Morning sunlight revealed a savanna that no longer recognized its former masters.
The tunnels from which the Lithaar once emerged were now sealed with dense, dark stone—so compact that even the furious charge of stone rhinoceroses could not crack it. The runes that once pulsed beneath the surface had gone cold, reduced to dead lines—fossils of a broken promise.
For the Lithaar, the surface was no longer an equation worth solving.
The mountain had changed the variables.
And the outcome no longer belonged to them.
Amid the ruins of the camp, the few surviving humans—soldiers, acolytes, and lesser heroes who had not detonated—moved cautiously, like wounded animals afraid to draw the world's attention. Again and again, they looked to the horizon—to the sea that separated them from the Empire, to a blue line that now seemed like an impossible wall.
They knew the truth, though none dared to speak it aloud:
No rescue fleet would come.
Not after the silence.Not after the judgment.
They were trapped on a continent of fangs, roots, and long memory.
Some tried to pray. The words came out twisted, hollow—as if the gods no longer knew where to listen. Others clutched their weapons, but even blessed steel felt heavier, less willing to obey.
The ground beneath their boots was not neutral.
The savanna felt them.
From afar, the Carnivores watched without attacking.
It was not mercy.
It was evaluation.
The mountain had proven it could kill gods.
Now the savanna would decide what to do with the remains of their faith.
Far to the north, the surviving captain of Valerius's guard stared at his own hands.
They were still trembling.
He hid within a coastal cave, far from the mountain's direct shadow, where the air smelled of salt and rotting algae. And yet, he still felt it—not as a gaze, but as a certainty embedded at the base of his skull: the sense that in every shadowed corner, something knew his name.
"The gods lied to us," he whispered, weakly, to the three soldiers who remained.
No one answered.
Not because they doubted—but because they no longer had enough faith to argue.
"Valerius was the strongest," he continued, swallowing hard. "The Saint of Iron. The example. And Douglas snuffed him out… like a candle in a storm."
He remembered the exact moment.
Not the strike.
The silence after.
He looked toward the sea. The horizon was still, deceptively calm. He knew what was coming from that line: Amon's fleet, Thalessa, the other Chosen.
For the Empire, reinforcements.
For him—only a delayed sentence.
"If we stay here, we die when the mountain moves," he said, forcing himself to stand. "And if we return to the fleet… Amon will sacrifice us. For cowardice. For failure."
One soldier clenched his fists. Another looked away. The third wept in silence.
The captain drew his dagger.
Without ceremony, without prayer, he scraped at the sacred seal etched into his armor. Metal shrieked—a harsh, tearing sound, like flesh being stripped from bone. The engraved light fractured, dimmed…
—and died.
"We're not going to fight," he said, lifting his gaze.
"We're going to find Douglas."
The three men stared at him in horror.
"If he can devour the gods' light," he went on, "then maybe he can devour our trail. Erase us. Let us disappear into the savanna."
He sheathed the dagger.
"I'd rather live as an animal among Carnivores…than die as a saint for a throne that doesn't know my name."
Outside the cave, the wind shifted.
And far away—
the mountain seemed to listen.