The Shroud was coming undone.
The sky — or what passed for one — split open like a ruptured vein, bleeding light instead of darkness. Ether hissed and folded into itself, tearing apart the mists that had haunted their every breath.
Bright stumbled forward through the dissolving fog, armor dented, blade cracked at the edge. Behind him, Besia and Adam limped side by side, Duncan half-conscious between them. Each step felt heavier than the last, as though the Shroud itself was reluctant to let them leave.
But they weren't the only ones walking out of that dying nightmare.
Shapes moved in the distance — faint, flickering shadows that soon resolved into a group. Among them, Silas trudged forward, pale and bloodied, one arm hanging limp at his side. Beside him was Jorik, the scarred fighter from Roegan's command, leaning on a makeshift crutch fashioned from a broken spear. A handful of others followed — seven survivors in total, eyes hollow, uniforms burned beyond recognition.
For a moment, neither group spoke.
The Shroud's walls crumbled around them, the ground beneath their boots humming with strange, rhythmic vibrations — like a heartbeat fading out.
Then Silas gave a weak grin. "Didn't think I'd see your ugly faces again."
Adam exhaled a shaky laugh. "We were starting to think the same."
Bright turned toward the swirling remnants of the battlefield. The fog receded, revealing the corpses of twisted monsters — each half-dissolved, each still whispering faint echoes of the Dungeon's power.
But his eyes weren't on them.
They were on the hollow crater where Roegan had fallen. The captain's sword remained buried in the stone — blackened by ethereal burn, humming softly.
Bright bowed his head. "Rest well, Captain."
No one spoke after that. The silence that followed was thick, sacred.
When they finally stepped through the thinning barrier, the world outside hit them like cold wind. The skies above were gray and heavy, unfiltered by ether. Their vision adjusted slowly, colors returning after so long inside that distorted space.
Command tents sprawled across the perimeter, and the low hum of extraction engines filled the air. Medics ran to meet them, eyes wide with disbelief.
"Survivors from both units!" someone shouted. "Get stretchers!"
Silas fell to his knees, laughing breathlessly as he sucked in clean air. "Didn't think the outside would smell this good."
Besia knelt beside him, shaking her head with a faint smile. "We all look like ghosts."
Bright remained silent. His gaze lingered on the horizon where the last wisp of fog vanished — as though the Shroud itself had finally exhaled.
Later — En Route to Command
The transport craft rumbled quietly, its metallic interior bathed in sterile white light. The surviving members of both squads sat facing each other, strapped into opposite benches.
No one spoke for a long while.
Duncan had drifted into uneasy sleep, his arm wrapped in bandages. Jorik sat across from Bright, his usual stern expression dulled by exhaustion. Silas leaned against the wall, absently rolling a cracked crystal fragment between his fingers — faintly humming with energy.
Adam finally broke the silence. "We were lucky."
Jorik's head lifted. "Luck?" He gave a quiet, humorless snort. "Luck doesn't explain what happened back there."
Silas's eyes flicked open. "You felt it too?"
"The coordination," Jorik muttered. "The timing. None of it was natural."
Bright leaned forward slightly. "It wasn't just us, then."
Adam nodded. "We fought like we'd done it a thousand times before. I remember every strike — but not the decision to make them. Link died and it was just like a random Tuesday. I know I've been hardened by things before but that was not me… shouldn't be me"
A cold shiver ran down the group.
Silas tilted his head, his tone half-curious, half-afraid. "You saying someone else was moving us?"
"Not moving," Bright murmured, staring at his trembling hand. "Guiding. We were not and should not have made it out alive, that was a bloody elite initiate for light's sake. "
The hum of the engines deepened. Outside, storm clouds rolled endlessly, their shadows stretching over the fractured plains below.
Adam leaned back, crossing his arms. "Whatever it was, it wasn't the Dungeon Boss. That thing wanted us dead — but something else wanted us out. "
A quiet silence followed.
Silas flicked the cracked fragment once, then pocketed it. "Whatever it was," he said, "I don't care. We're alive. That's all that matters."
Bright didn't answer. His reflection in the shuttle window flickered — for a heartbeat, it wasn't his face looking back, but someone else's. A faint smile, serene and knowing. Then it was gone.
Central Command — The Observatory Hall
Far from the dust and blood of the battlefield, in a high tower veiled by glass and golden script, the Narrator sat in silence.
Scrolls hung suspended around him — sheets of parchment alive with moving words, rewriting themselves as moments passed. Each shimmered faintly with golden ink, threads of light weaving from one to another like veins of living memory.
He set down his brush.
The old man's eyes — pale, ancient, weary — rested on the latest scroll. It depicted the remnants of two squads leaving the Shroud, their names written in soft luminescence:
Their names pulsed briefly, as if echoing with life.
"They endure," he whispered. "Even against the pull."
He raised a hand, tracing invisible lines across the parchment. Faint ripples followed his movement, bending the threads of fate — but only slightly.
The Narrator's face was serene, though his eyes betrayed the weight of what he'd done. "Another nudge," he murmured, "and the wheel still turns, a rushed arc indeed."
He turned his gaze toward the window, where the clouds outside rolled like tides of ink. His candle burned low, the wax forming rivers down its side.
"Karmic threads," he whispered. "Pull too tightly, and they snap. Leave them slack, and destiny unravels."
He closed his eyes, his voice little more than breath as he coughed out blood from the weight the threads had on him.
"So I will only guide… not command.
Let the survivors find their own truths in the echoes I left behind."
The candle flame steadied — small but unwavering.
Far below, inside the returning transport, Bright shifted in restless sleep. For a moment, he thought he heard something — the faint scratch of a brush, the whisper of paper, a voice impossibly far away.
And just before waking, he thought he saw a single line written across the darkness:
The story continues, though the ink runs thin.