[The Capital City Sarythran—Later]
The city did not breathe.
Shutters were closed, Doors barred, Braziers dimd. Even the canals—normally loud and bright with life—flowed with a muted hush, as if the water itself feared to draw attention.
Only three figures broke the stillness:
The Malik. The Malika. And the Red Serpent Knights.
Levin rode beside Zerat, cloak rippling behind him as he observed the architecture of Sarythran—arched sandstone hos, rooftop gardens, balconies carved with serpent motifs, and sun-catchers that glittered gold.
A soft warmth flickered in his chest, ’It’s very beautiful... even in fear.’
On his shoulder, Lyseraph uncurled slightly, its obsidian scales shimring. The tiny guardian lifted its head and released a soft, crystalline chirr—a warning, a searching note.
Captain Varesh Zirynth rode ahead, armor gleaming crimson beneath the harsh sun. Levin leaned forward slightly.
"Captain Varesh," Levin asked, voice steady beneath his veil, "how many Sirrash beasts do you believe could be roaming the city?"
Varesh lowered his spear respectfully before answering.
"Given the scent trails, Your Radiance... not many. It is their breeding season, yes—but because they appear out of season, the clan must still be small."
Levin nodded lightly. "Then we can hunt them down easily?"
Varesh exhaled. "If their Alpha Sirrash are the ones out hunting—the smaller hunters—then yes, Malika. They are easiest to eliminate."
Levin tilted his head. "Is the Alpha weaker in their clan?"
Zerat glanced at him, the faintest curve touching his mouth.
"Yes, Consort. Not all clans of beasts follow serpentine hierarchy. So clans... reverse the roles."
He rode closer, his voice low, instructional, and old as tradition. "In the Sirrash clans, the Alpha is rely the scout. The fighter. The first line of teeth."
Levin blinked. "Then who is strongest?"
Zerat answered without hesitation, his tone sharpening.
"The Ogas.They are the heart of the clan—the larger, the deadlier, the ones that carry the fla marrow within their bones. If an Oga erges..." His eyes narrowed. "Even a seasoned regint should hesitate."
Levin absorbed that, brows furrowing. "Then what is... their weakness?"
Silence stretched for a heartbeat.
Then Zerat answered, "The Queen."
Zerat continued, voice deep, almost ceremonial:
"The Sirrash Queen is not a beast of flesh alone. She carries the Heart-Stone, a core forged from molten rock and bone. If you destroy it—" his gaze swept across the rooftops "—the clan fractures. The hunters falter. Their heat dies. And every remaining Sirrash retreats into the sands."
Levin nodded slowly. "Then why not simply hunt the queen each ti they appear?"
Captain Varesh inhaled sharply.
Zerat answered instead, turning his horse down a narrow sunlit road: "Because, Consort... the Queen is not easily touched."
His voice lowered to a royal whisper—one woven with reverence and warning.
"She is born from desert rock. Her bones are stone. Her hide is harder than iron. And her heart-stone—" he paused "—can only be shattered by weapons bathed in both serpent venom and fire."
Levin absorbed the weight of that truth, nodding slowly beneath his veil.
"I see..." he murmured.
He barely finished the words when—BOOOOOOM!!!
The ground shuddered, and sand burst upward in a cloud of dust.
Windows rattled. Horses reared. Lyseraph hissed—sharp, crystalline—coiling tight against Levin’s neck.
Every knight on the street jolted, instincts igniting like flint struck against steel. Hands flew to spear shafts and sword hilts as the echo thundered through the empty streets.
Captain Varesh’s voice cracked across the road like a whip, "Eastern Market! That explosion ca from the East Market, Malik!"
Zerat’s head snapped toward the rising plu of dust. In one heartbeat he rode forward—cloak snapping, armor blazing in the sun, voice ringing with command, "Form a spiral around the blast zone! We do not yet know if it is an Oga or an Alpha—stay sharp! No knight engages alone!"
The Red Knights scattered with trained precision, splitting into rings of defense.
"Go!" one shouted."Circle formation!" another echoed."Shields front—eyes on every shadow!"
Zerat did not slow; he kicked his horse forward, fire in his gaze, "Consort—stay close to ."
Levin’s grip tightened on his reins. "I’m right beside you."
Zerat’s eyes flicked to Lyseraph—who hissed again, throat bright with silver warning.
"That blast..." Varesh muttered as he rode alongside, "Malik, it felt too strong for an Alpha."
Zerat’s jaw clenched. "So we prepare for the possibility that an Oga has breached the city walls."
Levin’s heart thudded once—hard. Then Zerat raised his arm, his voice thundering over the rattling city: "To the Eastern Market!"
***
[Sarythran—Eastern Market—Monts Later]
The Eastern Market did not exist anymore.
What had once been stone stalls and woven canopies was now a shattered wound in the city—sand and rubble thrown skyward, walls split open like cracked ribs. Smoke coiled low, choking the air, carrying with it a scorched, mineral stench that scraped the lungs raw.
Then—The ground moved.
Not a tremor.
Not a collapse.
Sothing pulled itself upward.
Stone cracked with a scream like breaking bone as a massive shape erupted from beneath the market square, slabs of rock tearing free and cascading outward. A building façade collapsed entirely, bricks raining down as rchants’ stalls were pulverized into dust.
The Red Knights reined hard, horses screaming in panic.
"What in Urzan’s coils—" soone breathed.
It rose fully into the open.
The Oga Sirrash.
It resembled a colossal gila monster—but forged of living stone.
Its body was low and monstrous, nearly the length of a city street, with limbs thick and powerful, dragging gouges through the stone as it moved. Its hide was layered rock—obsidian, sandstone, and scorched granite fused together—each plate etched with glowing cracks that pulsed like molten veins beneath the surface.
Its head was blunt and brutal, jaws wide and heavy, lined not with teeth but jagged stone spikes, each one dripping glowing venom like liquid fire.
Its eyes ignited.
Twin cores of burning amber flared open, locking onto the city.
The beast roared, not a sound—a quake.
The shockwave slamd into the knights, rattling armor, knocking n from their saddles, and shattering nearby windows in a rain of glass.
Lyseraph scread—a sharp, crystalline cry—and clamped down around Levin’s neck, silver veins blazing bright.
"IT’S AN OGA!" Captain Varesh bellowed. "Shields up—NOW!"
Zerat swung down from his horse in one fluid motion.
Black-lotus aura surged around him, snakes of shadow licking across his arms. His sword humd—tal turning molten-black as his serpent venom fused with the steel. Scales crawled along his spine and ribs, fusing with armor.
His voice struck the battlefield like a thrown hamr.
"THIS IS NO QUEEN—" he roared, his body flowing into his half-serpent form, muscles coiling like forged iron beneath obsidian-scale armor, "—BUT IF AN OGA WALKS THE CITY...THE QUEEN IS NEAR."
The Sirrash lunged.
A thunderous THUMP! shook the earth as its massive tail whipped across the market, smashing stone pillars and sending red knights flying like broken dolls.
Levin steadied his horse, the veil whipping in the wind, eyes scanning the chaos. ’A queen... I have to find the queen first... wherever she is.’
His pulse quickened—not from fear but clarity.
And then the beast attacked again—BOOM!
The Oga Sirrash slamd its body into a row of shops, the earth buckling. Knights scattered, trying to form a line, but the beast’s raw force shattered it instantly.
"Hold the formation!" Varesh barked. "Draw it toward the open square!"
But Zerat moved first, a blur of black-gold lightning. He leapt, serpent muscles coiling, and landed atop the Sirrash’s shoulder. His sword ignited with venomous fire, and he drove the blade into the rock-hard hide—
CRACK!
Stone split. Molten venom hissed.
The Sirrash shrieked, whipping violently. Zerat swung with the motion, ripping his sword free and slamming it down again, cleaving through a ridge of hardened scales.
"FACE , YOU ROCK-SPAWNED FILTH!" Zerat roared.
The Sirrash reared—massive, hulking—trying to dislodge him, tail smashing into walls, claws tearing trenches into the earth.
"Malik, fall back!" a knight cried.
Zerat didn’t hear. Or rather—he didn’t care.
He jumped again, twisting mid-air, and drove the point of his sword down into the creature’s jaw—BOOOOM!!
The Oga crashed onto its side, stone hide splintering, its roar shaking the market square. For a heartbeat—It looked defeated.
Levin exhaled—But then—A rumble.
A tremor.
No.
Several.
Varesh’s voice cracked in horror. "Malik—look!"
The rubble behind them heaved. A second mound of earth split open, dust exploding outward. Another Oga Sirrash dragged itself out of the ground—larger, its eyes burning hotter, its scales glowing like magma.
And then another.
A third.
Stone and sand erupted across the street as three massive shadows rose from beneath the city.
Zerat’s jaw clenched, sword dripping molten stone. "...I knew there were many here."
Before he could turn, Levin rode up beside him, cloak snapping violently in the heat-shocked wind.
"Zerat," Levin said urgently, eyes sweeping the chaos behind them, "we should find the Queen. If we delay—"
A sharp HISS!
Lyseraph reared slightly on Levin’s shoulder, silver veins blazing, its small body rigid as it fixed its gaze toward the eastern expanse of the capital.
Both n turned.
Zerat narrowed his eyes. "...It knows."
Levin stared in surprise. "Lyseraph...?"
The creature hissed again—longer this ti—tail coiling tight around Levin’s collar as it pointed its snout unerringly toward the open grounds beyond the markets.
Zerat exhaled once, slow and asured. "It slls her."
They wheeled their mounts in unison and rode hard—leaving the clash of steel and stone behind them—toward the widest open ground of Sarythran.
And there—The earth shifted.
A massive form lood against the rising dust.
The Sirrash Queen.
She was colossal—larger than any Oga—her body carved from desert rock and molten sand. Jagged stone plates overlapped like armor forged by the earth itself. But at her chest—
A glowing purple heart-stone, embedded deep within her ribbed core, pulsing slowly, ominously, like a living star trapped in stone.
She lowered her head, nostrils flaring.
Sniffing.
Searching.
"...Is that—" Levin whispered, unable to tear his eyes away.
"Yes," Zerat said quietly. "That is her heart. Her weakness."
The Queen lifted her head suddenly, her stone claws digging trenches into the ground as she turned—drawn by sothing unseen.
Zerat reached into his armor and withdrew the familiar vessel—Rakhane had presented earlier.
"The pheromone," Zerat said. "The one that awakened her. She is hunting its source... the traitor who fed her hunger."
He glanced at Levin—golden eyes steady, unwavering.
"Consort," he said, voice lowering into command, "I will draw her attention with this and you strike her heart."
Levin’s eyes widened. "That’s dangerous—"
"I know," Zerat interrupted calmly. Not cold. Not reckless. Absolute.
Then, softer—but no less resolute: "But I trust you."
Levin froze.
Zerat’s gaze never wavered. "I have heard of your battles. I have read the records myself. You were the strongest sword master of your empire."
Levin’s chest tightened—not with fear, but sothing heavier. ’And yet... I couldn’t protect my own empire,How can he place such faith in ?’
His fingers curled around the reins—tightened—then steadied. He lifted his gaze to the Queen, the glowing heart pulsing like a challenge.
’But since he trusts ...I will not fail him.’
Levin drew a slow breath and nodded once, "Alright."
Zerat inclined his head—an emperor’s acknowledgnt. A husband’s faith.
The Sirrash Queen roared, sensing them at last.
The ground trembled.
And with the desert screaming beneath her claws, the hunt reached its most dangerous turning point.
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