When Damien arrived at the place of ruin, only cold stone and the faint scorch marks where it had rested.

He stood there for a long moment, staring at the empty crater. His breath fogged in the air.

“It’s gone,” he said quietly.

Even though he’d warned that he’d go alone, they refused to allow him go alone.

Apnoch, one of the people who had followed at a cautious distance, frowned. “Gone? What do you mean gone?”

Damien shook his head. “The fragment I felt. It was here. Now it’s not.”

“Could it have disintegrated?” Arielle asked, stepping forward from the shadow of a broken pillar. Her arm was bound, but her voice had strength again.

“No.” Damien’s gaze swept the courtyard. He knelt, running his hand across the blackened ground. “There’s no residue. No decay trace. It didn’t break down—it was moved.”

Lyone’s face paled. “Moved? By who?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” Damien murmured.

He extended his senses, feeling for the faint tremor of corrupted mana that should have lingered. Nothing. Not even a whisper. The energy was clean, unnaturally so, as if something—or someone—had erased every trace of the Gate’s presence.

Arielle noticed Damien’s expression. “What is it?”

“Something’s wrong,” he said slowly. “But I can’t see it.”

“Can’t see it?” Apnoch echoed.

He stood and brushed dust from his gloves. “No fluctuations, no signatures, no scent. Everything looks clean. That’s the problem. Delwig shouldn’t be this clean three days after a ritual like that. There should still be distortion.”

Arielle shivered. “Maybe whatever it was… left?”

“Maybe,” Damien said, though his tone was uncertain.

He turned his gaze once more toward the horizon. The Verdant Verge lay silent beyond the ruins—blackened trees and charred earth stretching for miles. The forest looked like it had been scorched out of existence. Yet, beneath that silence, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was listening.

Apnoch stepped up beside him. “If the Gate or whatever was left is gone, then we’ve done what we could. This city’s finished. We need to move before infection or hunger kills the survivors.”

Damien nodded slowly. “You’re right.”

He looked around once more, taking in the gutted streets, the empty courtyards, the faint trails of smoke still curling into the sky. Every stone of Delwig seemed to mourn, whispering the echo of what once was.

But there was no more to be done here.

“Gather everyone,” he said at last. “We’re leaving.”

By noon, the last of the survivors had assembled at the city’s gate—or what was left of it. A ragged line of men, women, and children, some carrying salvaged weapons, others nothing at all. There were less than fifty of them now.

Aquila circled high above, its shadow sweeping across the cracked ground. Luton moved beside the caravan, its fluid body shifting quietly beneath a thin veil of light to avoid frightening the children.

Apnoch oversaw the soldiers, making sure the weak were placed in the center. Arielle and Lyone walked near Damien at the front. Lin remained unsummoned, her essence resting deep within his core.

As they passed through the ruins one final time, Arielle glanced back. “Hard to believe we came here for a simple commission,” she said softly.

“Simple never lasts long around me,” Damien said.

Lyone gave a faint laugh, though it was hollow. “You think the Gate’s really gone?”

“No.” Damien’s reply was flat, immediate.

Lyone glanced at him in surprise. “Then why are we leaving?”

“Because whatever’s still here doesn’t want to be found right now,” Damien said. “And because these people can’t survive another day here.”

He didn’t add that his system still pulsed a faint, irregular warning in the back of his mind every few minutes. The readings were inconsistent, almost like a heartbeat that skipped at random. He couldn’t pinpoint the source—but it never faded entirely.

By the time they reached the edge of Delwig’s ruins, the sun had begun to set. The horizon glowed blood-red, painting the wreckage in long shadows.

Apnoch paused and turned, taking one last look at the city. “Rest well, you damned fortress,” he muttered. Then he followed the others into the forest.

The Verdant Verge was a graveyard.

Where once there had been towering trees and endless canopy, now there was only blackened bark and ash. The air was still, the soil hard and brittle beneath their boots.

The strange thing was how easy the journey felt.

Days ago, crossing this forest had meant death. Mana beasts prowled every shadow, their cries echoing through the night. Now, there was nothing. No eyes glinting in the dark, no rustle in the brush, no sense of being watched.

It should have been a relief. But it wasn’t.

“Too quiet,” Arielle murmured, scanning the treeline.

Damien nodded slightly. “They’re gone.”

“Gone?” Lyone asked.

“Either dead,” Damien said, “or fled deeper. The beasts are sensitive to mana shifts. My battle here scared them worse.”

He paused, kneeling to touch the ashen soil. It was cold. No residual heat, no life essence. Nothing.

Apnoch crouched beside him. “I thought this would make it easier.”

“It does,” Damien said. “That’s what worries me.”

The captain frowned but said nothing.

They marched for hours, the survivors following in silence. The sky turned from red to violet, then to black. Their torches burned with weak orange light, cutting narrow cones through the dark.

Not once did they encounter resistance.

A few times, they saw shadows flicker between the dead trees—small shapes, cautious, distant. When one came too close, Aquila swooped down and ended it with a single, efficient strike. The carcass of the creature—a half-starved wolfbeast—was dragged into camp and roasted without ceremony.

“Guess dinner found us,” Lyone muttered, his humor fragile but alive.

Even Damien cracked a faint smirk. “Don’t waste the meat.”

That night, they camped near what had once been a riverbank. The water had receded into a sluggish black trickle, but it was clean enough once boiled. The survivors ate quietly, grateful for the warmth.

As the fire crackled, Arielle stared into the embers. “Feels wrong,” she said softly.

Damien looked up. “What does?”

“All of it,” she said. “The silence. The forest. The air. It’s like… the world’s holding its breath.”

Damien didn’t reply. He felt it too.

He clenched his hand and then he murmured. “You keep saying that, but you can’t define it.”

Lyone glanced over. “You talking to yourself again?”

Damien ignored the question, staring into the fire instead. The flames twisted strangely, bending toward him as though drawn by unseen currents. He watched until they steadied again, then looked to the dark horizon.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was following them—not close, not tangible, but distant. Like a memory that refused to fade.

By dawn, he decided not to mention it.

The following day, the forest began to thin. The blackened canopy gave way to pale sky, and the scent of smoke was replaced by damp earth. The survivors’ steps grew lighter as they reached familiar ground—the far edge of the Verdant Verge.

Beyond the last line of dead trees lay open plains, mist rising in the morning air. The path curved gently toward distant hills where another city waited.

Apnoch exhaled slowly. “We made it.”

Arielle gave a weary smile. “It almost feels wrong to see the sky again.”

Lyone stretched his arms, wincing at the pull of half-healed scars. “I’ll take ‘wrong’ over dead.”

Damien said nothing. His gaze lingered on the forest behind them.

The Verdant Verge stood utterly still. No sound. No motion. But for the briefest moment, as the wind shifted, he thought he saw something deep within the haze—an outline, faint and tall, standing among the burnt trees.

When he blinked, it was gone.

Apnoch noticed his stare. “Something wrong?”

“No,” Damien said after a pause. “Nothing amiss.”

“Let’s move,” he said. “The sooner we reach the next city, the better.”

The journey from there was almost too easy.

The roads were clear, the weather mild, the beasts gone. Even the wind seemed gentle. The survivors began to speak again—small words, fragile laughter. Children played by the roadside. Hope, faint and bruised, began to breathe once more.

They hunted when they could, and when a foolish mana beast wandered too close, Aquila made short work of it. Its body was quickly cleaned and roasted, feeding them better than they’d eaten in days.

By evening, the scent of civilization carried faintly on the wind—smoke, metal, and the murmur of distant people.

Arielle looked toward the horizon, where faint lights shimmered beyond the hills. “There it is.”

Lyone’s expression softened. “Never thought I’d be so happy to see a city again.”

Damien’s eyes stayed on the dark forest behind them. He could still feel the faint pulse deep in the earth—a rhythm too distant to name, too quiet to locate.

The Gate’s echo.

He turned back to the road. “Keep moving,” he said. “We’re not safe yet.”

Apnoch glanced at him, uneasy. “You sure you don’t want to rest? We’ve been walking all day.”

“I’ll rest when we’re inside those walls,” Damien replied.

And so they continued—one weary line of survivors moving toward the faint promise of safety, their shadows long against the dying light.

Behind them, the Verdant Verge lay silent and still. But in its depths, something stirred—something that had no shape, no face, and no need for either.

The Gate’s crack remained there.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep