Vael could not rest. Every minute brought another death: a choked gasp cut off too suddenly, a wet gurgle swallowed by the wind. Sword strikes rang sharp and metallic, echoing off stone walls like distant hammers on iron. Marching horses thudded in uneven rhythm, hooves striking rock and dirt in a restless, unending march. From every direction came the menacing clang of pickaxes—dull, repetitive strikes that vibrated through the ground and into his bones. Sleep was impossible. There is a saying that at night even the lightest sound grows deafening, and tonight the valley refused to be silent. Each noise pressed against his skull, refusing to let his mind drift.
Suddenly, high on the forested hill, a massive fire erupted. Flames roared upward, devouring branches and leaves with crackling hunger that drowned out everything else for a moment. Vael felt the faint heat even from where he lay—a warm breath carried on the night air. Thick black smoke coiled into the sky, blotting out the stars.
He opened his eyes the instant it happened. His body tensed instinctively, muscles aching from hours of unacknowledged strain and movement.
For a second, he considered ignoring it. The valley was already full of suffering—thin, broken cries had become background noise since his arrival. He had seen death today, heard more. One more fire, one more scream, would change nothing. He could stay curled in the branches and let the night swallow him again.
Then he heard a child cry.
The sound sliced through the smoke, the flames, and the distant violence like a needle through cloth—high, raw, terrified. It carried no anger or fight, only pure helplessness: the cry of a small body realizing the world was burning and no one was coming.
Vael's breath caught.
His chest tightened until it hurt.
The cry reached somewhere deep inside him, tugging at the frayed edges of memory: a child's voice that once sounded like his own, calling for a father who would never answer.
He sat up slowly. The branches creaked beneath him. Firelight flickered across his face, painting his eyes in distant orange.
He could not ignore it.
He moved. A raw, violent force surged through him, tearing the night air apart with a low, rolling boom. The shockwave flattened tall grass in a wide circle and sent loose stones skittering like frightened insects. His body blurred with impossible speed, boots barely touching the earth, cloak cracking like a whip behind him. The world narrowed to a single point: the firelight ahead, the scream, the glint of metal.
In a frozen instant the scene stretched and held: Gruk's massive arm rising high, axe blade catching the flames in a blood-red arc; beneath him, a little girl frozen in terror—wide luminous eyes, silver hair tangled with dirt and ash, tiny pointed ears twitching, mouth open in a silent scream about to turn deafening. The axe was already descending, inches from her throat, the air around the blade shimmering with the promise of a clean, final cut.
Vael's blade—summoned in an instant from wind and will—flashed once: a thin silver line that parted flesh and bone with surgical precision. Gruk's hand and axe fell away together, severed cleanly at the wrist, blood spraying in a hot arc that hissed against the fire. The elf child stumbled back, gasping, tiny chest heaving, silver hair whipping across her tear-streaked face. Shock and relief filled her luminous eyes.
Vael remembered Gruk from his past life as Raymond—the same arrogant grin frozen mid-laugh, the same reckless swagger. This was no coincidence. The past was bleeding into the present again, and it had just tried to kill a child in front of him.
One of the rogues escaped, slipping through shadowed ravines under cover of night. His breath came ragged and shallow, every step a battle against aching legs and the fear clawing up his throat. He had seen everything: the blur too fast to track, the wind-forged blade that cut the air like tearing silk, the sudden silence where screams should have been. He hadn't stayed to fight. He ran until his lungs burned and his heart slammed like a trapped animal, until the firelight was only a distant flicker and the valley's noises faded to a low, constant hum in his bones.
Darkness pressed thick here, broken only by slivers of moonlight slipping between jagged rocks. His cloak snagged on thorns and stone, tearing small strips he left behind like shed skin. Blood from a shallow cut on his forearm dripped steadily, marking his path in dark drops that soaked into the cracked earth. Each drop felt like a small betrayal—proof he was still alive when so many others were not.
Hours later, in the thin hours before dawn when the sky remained black but the stars had begun to fade, he stumbled into a small clearing. A lone figure waited beside a low campfire: tall, quiet, cloaked in dark leathers—one of the adventurers who had ridden out from the Capital alongside Raymond and the Heroes Guild. A long dagger rested across his knee, blade catching the flames in a dull, patient gleam.
The rogue dropped to one knee, gasping. Words tumbled out in a hoarse whisper that cracked on every third syllable.
"It happened today in Shadowmoon Valley. The one who rode Deathwing… he appeared out of nowhere. Killed hundreds of our top-tier rogues in an instant. They died like they were nothing—sliced apart, gone before they could scream. The ores we robbed and looted from the others… he took every last piece back."
The adventurer did not move. He stared into the small flames, letting the rogue's words settle into the night air like ash. Silence stretched, broken only by the soft crackle of burning wood and a distant, mournful howl far off in the valley. The rogue's breathing slowed as he waited, sweat cooling on his skin until he shivered despite the lingering heat from his run.
When the adventurer finally spoke, his voice was low and steady—almost gentle, the kind of calm that made the listener feel small.
"This is serious. It can affect our business. It can affect our plans for the future."
He paused. The rogue felt the weight of that pause press down on his chest like a stone. He had expected questions, anger, orders. Instead there was only this quiet, measured consideration, as though the adventurer had already decided something long before the message arrived.
"I cannot turn back now," the adventurer continued, voice dropping even lower. "You'll have to report this to our master."
The rogue swallowed hard. His mouth was dry, tongue thick with dust and fear. He nodded once—a single, jerky motion—then pushed himself to his feet. His legs trembled, threatening to give out, but he forced them to hold.
The adventurer rose smoothly, kicked dirt over the fire until only faint embers glowed beneath the ash, then melted back into the darkness without another word. His cloak blended with the shadows so perfectly that within three steps he was gone, as though he had never been there at all.
The rogue remained kneeling a moment longer, alone in the clearing. The weight of what he had witnessed pressed down on him like the valley itself—heavy, unyielding, inescapable. He could still hear the screams in his head, still see the bodies falling in pieces, still feel the moment the dragon's shadow had passed overhead and the world had gone cold.
He rose slowly, joints creaking like old wood. The night air bit colder now, stinging the sweat on his skin. He turned south—back toward the valley, back toward whatever remained of his crew—knowing the message would reach its destination, knowing that somewhere in the dark, plans were shifting, and none of them would ever be the same.