"Now, summon Aquila." Aquila’s essence shimred beside him as he resummoned her, her golden eyes glinting the mont she arrived in front of him.
"Round two, then," Damien said quietly, mounting her back.
Woooooosh~
The flight back began imdiately Aquila was summoned back in front of Damien.
The griffin spread her wings, and with a single mighty beat, they rose into the mist—back toward Delwig, back toward blood, and the truth that refused to stay buried.
Cold wind whistled across the edges of Aquila’s wings as Damien leaned forward slightly, one hand on the griffin’s neck feathers, eyes narrowed at the endless sprawl of the Verdant Verge below.
He didn’t fly high. Not this ti.
He wanted the trees close enough that he could trace his way back through the route he had co from — the broken trails, the scattered blood drops on the leaves, the strange stillness that seed to have spread overnight across the forest’s heart.
Aquila glided quietly, her feathers rustling against the morning air, the faint golden shimr of her essence pulsing once every few seconds.
Damien could feel her tension too; she was uneasy, wings twitching each ti they passed over a darker patch of canopy.
"Easy," Damien murmured, patting her neck. "We’re only looking."
But both of them knew that wasn’t true. He wasn’t just looking.
He was retracing. Hunting. Trying to find what he’d missed before.
The forest looked wrong in daylight.
The Verdant Verge was never gentle, but now it looked... wounded.
Several sections of the upper foliage had withered from the residual mana flux of the night before.
Pockets of silvery mist still hung between trees — not natural fog, but condensed mana residue.
Ssssshh~
It hissed faintly as Aquila’s wind disturbed it.
Damien exhaled through his nose, forcing himself to stay calm as his senses spread outward.
Every living creature within a hundred ters pulsed like a heartbeat in his perception — small beasts, birds, even insects. But beneath it all, there was another rhythm. A faint and repetitive but familiar one.
A pulse. Coming from the direction of the Gate.
He urged Aquila lower.
The griffin descended, branches snapping under her wings as she skimd above the forest floor. Her sharp eyes darted ahead, spotting motion.
Dozens of mana beasts had gathered in one of the low clearings — wolves of stone and root, crystalline serpents, even a few horned boars. They shouldn’t have been this close together; beasts of differing types didn’t coexist like this unless sothing was drawing them.
The mont Aquila’s shadow fell across them, they looked up as one — and the world erupted.
They lunged.
Aquila twisted midair, releasing a gale-force blast that flattened several beasts instantly. Damien didn’t even bother drawing his sword at first; he flicked his wrist, summoning thin arcs of magic essence that cut through the air like razors. Three beasts disintegrated before they even reached him.
But for every one that fell, another erged from the treeline.
"What the hell..." he muttered, eyes narrowing.
It wasn’t an ambush. It was containnt. They weren’t trying to kill him — they were trying to keep him away from sothing.
That thought was enough. He gave Aquila the signal. The griffin shrieked and dived straight through the chaos, scattering beasts in all directions.
Damien’s hand glowed black with coalesced essence. The mont his feet hit the ground, he struck — a single burst of shadow fla rippling outward in a controlled explosion that left a crater of lted stone and ash.
The surviving beasts fled back into the forest. None of them looked back.
They were acting on instinct. Controlled instinct.
Damien waited for the air to settle, his breathing steady.
Then he moved forward on foot, brushing aside a burned branch and letting his essence perception expand again.
There it was — the pulse again, rhythmic, like a slow heartbeat beneath the ground.
He followed it deeper until he reached the clearing where the Gate stood buried under roots and shattered stone.
Even half-buried, the structure’s presence was overwhelming. A circular fra of obsidian-like material etched with faint runes that never stayed still — they shifted subtly each ti he blinked, like the Gate was alive and aware of his gaze.
He landed beside it, Aquila standing guard a few ters away, feathers puffed and eyes darting warily across the trees.
Damien knelt and ran his hand across the barrier.
Still intact. Cold.
No signs of tampering.
No essence flux beyond the steady vibration that had been there before.
So what the hell had drawn those beasts here?
He closed his eyes, extending his awareness deeper into the Gate’s presence. And that was when he felt it — faint, distant, but familiar.
Sothing buried within the Gate’s aura resonated with his own essence signature for just an instant.
It was like brushing fingers against a mory that shouldn’t exist.
Then it was gone.
Damien opened his eyes slowly. "...Familiar," he muttered under his breath. "But from where?"
He stepped back, rubbing his temple. He didn’t like how his instincts were reacting — it wasn’t fear, exactly, but sothing close. Like his body knew sothing his mind couldn’t recall.
He gave Aquila a light nod. "We’re done here. Let’s get back."
The griffin answered with a low rumble and spread her wings.
The return flight was quiet.
Too quiet.
The deeper he went toward Delwig’s periter, the more the forest changed again. The beasts he’d fought earlier had vanished entirely. Not a trace of their presence. Not even corpses.
It was like sothing had swallowed the aftermath whole.
That uneasy silence hung with him all the way until he saw the stone outline of Delwig’s outer wall rise beyond the canopy.
He slowed Aquila, letting her glide lower. A few scattered farrs were already working the early fields outside the barrier — they froze mid-motion when they spotted him.
Their heads snapped upward. One dropped his tools. Another shouted for the guards.
Damien sighed under his breath. "Here we go again."
A few seconds later, the alarm bells began ringing.
The city’s mana barrier shimred to life, forming a translucent do of energy that refracted the morning light.
Aquila let out a sharp screech, but Damien patted her side. "Don’t. They’ll realize it’s soon enough."
He brought her down gently, landing outside the barrier on the barren stretch of flattened grass near the northern gate.
The mont Aquila’s claws hit the earth, guards lined the wall — crossbows raised, mana rifles glowing.
Damien dismounted, expression impassive, coat fluttering slightly in the breeze. "Easy there, boys," he called, voice carrying easily. "If I ant you harm, you wouldn’t have ti to aim."
The head guard hesitated, then blinked in recognition. "It’s him! The rcenary —Damien is back!"
Instantly, the tension dissipated. The rifles lowered. Soone shouted to deactivate the barrier.
The do flickered once and dissolved with a low hum.
The northern gate creaked open, and waiting there — unsurprisingly — were Captain Apnoch and General Ivaan.
Apnoch looked like he hadn’t slept in days. "You’re alive," he said dryly, stepping forward. "For a mont I thought we’d have to add your na to the list of missing idiots who go into that forest."
Damien smirked faintly. "Almost. But the forest seems to like too much to let go just yet."
Ivaan’s expression didn’t change. He studied Damien for a long mont before finally speaking. "You went back," he said. Not a question.
Damien t his gaze evenly. "Had to confirm sothing."
"And?"
"No changes," Damien said. "The forest is intact. But sothing’s stirring around it. The beasts were gathering again. Too many to be coincidence."
Apnoch rubbed his temples. "You sure you’re not just attracting trouble?"
Damien chuckled once, humorless. "If I am, it’s mutual."
He didn’t elaborate, and they didn’t press him.
As he walked past them through the gate, the guards watched him with thinly veiled curiosity. So saluted; others whispered.
They wanted to know where he’d gone, what he’d seen, why his griffin looked half-burned and half-glowing like she’d flown through a battlefield.
But Damien didn’t offer them a word.
He simply raised a hand in silent thanks as he passed and continued down the inner street toward his assigned quarters.
Aquila followed a few steps behind until they reached the inner courtyard. Then, with a nod from him, she dissolved in a soft burst of golden essence, leaving only drifting motes behind.
The silence afterward felt heavier sohow.
By the ti he reached his quarters, the city had fully woken. rchants setting up stalls, apprentices running errands, soldiers changing shifts. To them, it was just another day.
To Damien, the world had tilted.
He unlocked the door quietly, careful not to wake Lyone or Arielle if they were still resting.
But even as he stepped inside, that faint aura from the Gate still echoed faintly in his mind — like a whisper he couldn’t shake.
Familiar. Calling.
He shut the door softly behind him and leaned back against it, eyes closed for a long mont.
"Soone’s playing a dangerous ga," he muttered.
And sowhere, deep beneath the Verdant Verge, the Gate pulsed once — faintly, like a heart beating in the dark.
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