The silence was suffocating. Not the kind that brought peace, but the kind that made every heartbeat echo too loudly in the chest. Ilyrana landed at the bottom with a dull thud, her knees bending to absorb the impact as her blade gleamed faintly under the pale shimmer of residual mana. The air was thick — old dust and faint traces of iron — and she could taste the stillness, as if the whole world had been buried beneath this one place.
She rose carefully, her hand tightening on the hilt of her sword. Her elven eyes, blessed with the sight of night and starlight, scanned the darkness. But it was an endless void — rock, ruin, and silence. No sign of Luke. No sign of the Grandmaster. Only the occasional drip of water echoes off stone walls.
Her breath hitched.
"Luke…?" The name escaped her lips like a prayer swallowed by the dark. She turned, pivoted, her every motion coiled and alert, the tension drawing up her back like a bowstring ready to snap.
