The Beast of Burden rolled forward, its massive form pushing through the dense terrain without stopping for even a moment.
Its speed had increased, though only slightly.
After all, there was a limit to how fast a creature of its sheer magnitude could move.
The fact that it could move this fast at all was a surprise.
Roma sat near the front, perched on one of the crates, her body subtly swaying with the tremors caused by the beast's every step.
Her gaze flickered backward, watching as a massive veil of darkness erupted from the heart of the forest.
She had seen many things before.
This was not natural.
At some point, during one of her stolen glances, a sudden miniature sun ignited within the shadows behind them-
A burst of blazing light, swallowing a portion of the abyss for a fleeting instant.
Roma's breath hitched.
The Beast of Burden had already put considerable distance between them and the chaos behind. In fact-
They were close to reaching the edge of the forest.
Beyond that, they would be forced to traverse the open plains leading toward the ocean, a direct passage to the City of Lithia.
There was a shortcut-
They could attempt to cross the river.
Or they could take the safer route-circling around to Lithia, avoiding the risk of being swept away in the current.
The river itself wasn't too far. It branched into two, splitting like veins through the land. The small hill of Lithia sat between those two branches-perched between where they diverged.
One branch cut across the plains ahead.
The other branch, wider and deeper, flowed beyond Lithia's borders, bleeding into the territory of the reclusive nation of Vorceau.
Her eyes remained locked on the chaos unfolding behind them.
Flames-dozens of them-surged into the darkness, bright enough to illuminate the distant
Roma couldn't make out exactly what was going on, but the sheer magnitude of it-
The earth-shaking tremors, the waves of energy spilling into their side of the forest-
It was enough to terrify her.
It made her feel powerless.
'I can't even understand what he's up against. And that terrifies me more than anything else.'
But no matter how much she hated to admit it-
She had to accept the truth.
He did not need her help.
He did not need anyone's help.
He was a Sage, after all.
Roma gritted her teeth, forcing herself to focus on the task ahead. But just then-
A voice rolled forward, its tone low, grim, almost resigned.
"Your friend will lose..."
Roma's head snapped back, her frown deepening as she turned toward the Shadow Drifter, Tyr.
"What?" Her voice was sharp. "What did you just say?"
Tyr's gaze was dark, somber-something weighted behind his eyes.
He suppressed the flicker of guilt that threatened to surface and spoke evenly.
"I know it best... because I have a relation to the shadows."
He exhaled, the weight of his next words dragging the breath from his chest.
"That thing... that thing is dangerous. It was born from the shadows themselves. It moves, it devours, it consumes... and then it turns everything it swallows into a part of itself."
Then, his voice dropped to something almost haunted.
"You have no idea... We lost our entire town to that thing."
Roma's expression darkened.
Her frown twisted into something angry.
Her words were venom, the malice in her tone rippling through the air with subtle force.
Yet, her gaze never left the Shadow Drifter.
"Someone is out there right now-fighting with his life on the line just to protect yours. The least you could do is have some faith in him and pray to the stars that he'll prevail. And yet, here you are, spewing this garbage?"
Tyr shook his head, his expression cold, his voice sharper than steel as he scoffed.
"Pray to the stars? The same stars that were never once alive?"
His lips curled, a bitter smirk flashing across his face.
"I might as well pray to a damn tree."
Roma's glare hardened.
She studied him-the man who looked no older than his late twenties, whose face carried a
certain softness, a kindness buried beneath rough edges.
His words were ruthless.
Her father's voice echoed in the back of her mind.
'Don't be deceived by faces.'
She knew better than to engage in a senseless argument over the modalities of a Drifter.
They were broken people.
And their brokenness was, in many ways, justifiable.
Most of them had lived their entire lives skirting the edge of death, surviving its crude claws
by nothing more than sheer luck-escaping by the skin of their teeth.
Every single moment was a grueling, agonizing, gruesome experience.
And it had twisted them.
Warped them into what they were today-
Men and women shaped by a perverse collection of beliefs, desensitized to the fragility of human life, rude, reclusive, and far too strange to be understood by the common man. And many other things she couldn't think of right now because she was, on the back of a beast, running from a storm of shadows that could very well consume them all.
A wave of exhaustion settled into her limbs, a draining, consuming weariness.
'I did not envision my journey going this wrong at all...'
She too had a goal for being here.
And that reason was no less important than the crates they carried-crates tied to a secret she
wasn't exactly hiding, but neither was she mentioning.
These crates-and their destination-
They were the very reason she had set foot on this path.
She could have easily opened them, checked their contents, confirmed it all for herself, and
But she hated that idea.
The mercenaries... Gareon... She refused to let their loss be for nothing. So she would not stop
Not until she saw this through.
Having a Sage on her side was a great boon. But even if he hadn't been here, she still would
A small, nearly nonexistent scoff escaped her lips.
'And I would have died a long time ago. This is nothing like anything I've ever gotten myself
The sudden influx of monsters-was it tied to the blockade?
What the hell was happening?
And why was Lithia at the center of it all?
The question gnawed at her. Disturbing. Harrowing. And the fact that she had no answers was
A deep, rumbling tremor rolled through the forest like an oncoming storm.
Their heads turned, snapping back toward the shadows.
Made their blood run cold.
The shadows had disappeared.
The once-consuming darkness had vanished, sucked away as if it had never been there to
The Shadow Drifter's face paled. His entire body froze.
A tremor rippled through his cheeks, his expression stiff with something close to horror.
Then, without hesitation, he whipped forward, his voice cracking into a shout at Roma- "Tell this thing to run faster! Or else we're dead!! The shadow has taken over your friend's