The smoke coiled around her like a living thing, reluctant to touch her.
Beatriz stood tall at the heart of the crater—an obsidian-and-gold sentinel born from fire and judgment. She loomed above the ruin, her posture unshaken, her presence a weight that silenced even the wind in the distant trees. The golden veins that had blazed through her black armor and skin now pulsed faintly, their glow dimming but still unmistakable against the scorched metal. Blood—thick, dark, and not all her own—spattered across her pristine white blouse, streaking the gleaming sleeve-crosses and tracing over the gold-veined armor hugging her legs. Each curve, each angle of her form was sharpened by divine purpose, her every step the quiet promise of destruction.
Her gaze swept the shattered battlefield, searching for movement. None stirred—until she saw him.
At the far end of the camp, half-hidden in the settling dust, a hulking goblin emerged. Nearly six feet tall, the chieftain staggered, armor shattered and skin marred with deep, ugly wounds. Trinkets and talismans clung to him in ruin—precious artifacts from decades of conquest.
He muttered to himself, voice hoarse and breaking.
"They… saved me… barely… my treasures… decades of conquest…"
The last artifact on his chest splintered to ash. He froze, staring at the dust on his palm.
"All of it… gone. Just like that."
When his eyes met hers, dread hollowed his face. His voice cracked.
"What… in the hells are you?"
Beatriz's helm turned—first to the empty, twisted remains of the cages where the captives had once been, then back to him.
In the span of a blink, she vanished.
The chieftain didn't even register the movement before his right arm simply ceased to exist—vaporized from the shoulder down. His scream tore through the camp, ragged and panicked.
"Wait—" he managed, but his left arm dissolved in the same instant, his body forced to his knees by pain alone.
Her voice, low and resonant, cut through his howls.
"Where are we?"
Confusion clouded his face. "What…?"
Then realization struck him like a blade. His pupils shrank; his breath quickened.
"You… You're from the unknown continents…" His tone was almost reverent in its fear.
Her hand closed around his throat, lifting him effortlessly from the ground.
"Where are we?"
His voice shook. "If I tell you… will you let me live?"
Her helm tilted slightly, the motion almost curious.
"You think answering where we are will save your life?"
A pause.
"It will not. But it may make your death quick… or I can make it last a day—or more."
She didn't wait for his reply. Golden fire ignited in her palm, too pure to be demonic, too terrible to be holy. It didn't touch his flesh, yet the agony speared deep into his bones, pulling a scream from somewhere primal.
"We… we are in the Forest of the Howling Thicket… on the border of the Kingdom of Elarion," he gasped. "South—twenty-five days, you'll find their capital… Nearest human settlement… three days southeast…" His words tumbled over each other in desperation. "West… is the Kingdom of Virehall—"
He stopped, clinging to the hope that withholding something might save him.
It did not.
Her hand tore through half his throat in a single, brutal motion. The gurgle that followed was brief. She let his body drop, lifeless, into the ash.
Without another word, she vanished again—her golden blur streaking toward Elrick.