The orc no longer made a sound.

  His massive, defeated body lay on the ground like a collapsed mountain. But what disturbed Hans the most wasn’t the stillness, or even the blood slowly drying on the damp earth.

  It was his final words.

  "Morvath shall reign over the darkness."

  Hans had heard them as a final roar, but now they echoed like a distant warning, something the forest itself seemed to have absorbed. The phrase didn’t fade with the wind. It lingered. It vibrated, as if something was remembering it for him.

  He ran a hand over his neck, still sweating, trying to shake the tension from his body. He had done something he didn’t believe he was capable of. He had acted. He had fought. And he had won.

  But what had he really won?

  The forest, once merely unsettling, now seemed to watch him with silent respect. The leaves didn’t move, the air didn’t sing. Everything had paused.

  And Lysandra... wasn’t coming back.

  Hans looked up through the canopy; the light had shifted. He didn’t know how long had passed since she disappeared down the path, but it had been more than just a few minutes.

  Maybe more than an hour.

  He was starting to wonder if something had gone wrong.

  Or if the task Lysandra was chasing was far more dangerous than he had been willing to imagine.

  Hans stood at the edge of the clearing, staring at the goblin’s corpse and the orc’s motionless body, now just a lifeless mass without purpose. But his mind was elsewhere.

  It wasn’t the first time he’d heard of creatures like these. Orcs, goblins... sure, they existed. Everyone knew that, like storms in the north or that cheap wine caused headaches — a distant, tavern-born truth.

  But seeing them this close to Avalon?

  That was different.

  This area had always been “safe,” at least as much as anything could be near a city like Avalon. Irregular patrols, the odd forest beast, smugglers and bandits... that was normal. But armed orcs, knife-wielding goblins, and more than anything… a stone creature?

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  That wasn’t.

  And what disturbed him wasn’t just their presence. It was the stone being, chained like a wild animal. It hadn’t attacked. It hadn’t run. It had only said one thing:

  “I awoke not long ago. I want to go home.”

  Hans turned the words over in his mind.

  Awoke?

  From where?

  And what kind of home could something like that have?

  The image of the creature’s blank face returned again and again. It hadn’t seemed threatening. Not even entirely… aware. More like it was starting to remember something it didn’t yet understand. Like its body had slept for centuries and was only now realizing the world had changed.

  Hans swallowed hard.

  This forest, the riddles, the murmurs of ancient power — it all fit together in an uncomfortable way. As if something deeper was stirring beneath the surface of the world, and he —by accident, by habit, by sheer bad luck— had wandered into the wrong place at the wrong time.

  "Morvath shall reign over the darkness."

  He looked again at the orc.

  That wasn’t a simple fanatical phrase. It carried weight, like a prophecy crawling through old branches and fallen temples.

  Hans didn’t believe in dark kings or fates carved in stone... but he did know how to recognize a bad feeling.

  And this one was big.

  He stood slowly, gazing once more down the path where Lysandra had vanished. She’d been gone too long. Too much silence. Too much forest.

  He knew she could handle herself —she’d proven that time and again— but something in the air had shifted. Maybe it was the bodies. Maybe it was the orc’s words echoing in his skull. Or maybe he was just done waiting.

  He took a step. Then another.

  —"Just going to take a look,"— he muttered, more to himself than out of need.

  He was about to move when a crunch of dry branches stopped him cold.

  From between the trees, a familiar figure emerged.

  Lysandra.

  She carried two sacks over her shoulder, sweat clinging to her neck, her gaze sharp. Without a word, she tossed one of the sacks at Hans. It landed at his feet with a metallic thud.

  —"Take it,"— she said, not slowing down. —"I don’t want to know what happened here. I’m not interested."—

  Hans blinked in surprise. The blood on the ground was still fresh, the goblin’s throat open, the orc barely breathing… and she passed by as if they were just part of the scenery.

  —"Aren’t you going to ask...?"— he began.

  —"No,"— Lysandra cut him off, already walking again. —"You’ll tell me on the way. We don’t have time to stop."—

  Hans frowned.

  —"It wasn’t a small thing, Lysandra..."—

  She paused for a moment, not fully turning back.

  —"I know. I saw things I didn’t like either. But right now, the priority is getting this task done. Things are getting messier than I expected."—

  Without another word, she picked up her pace, casting a fleeting glance at the woods — as if expecting something else to crawl out of the dark.

  Hans stood there for a moment longer, eyes on the clearing, the goblin’s corpse, the orc’s slumped body. That was part of the road now.

  He sighed and followed her, sack over his shoulder, body worn, and mind full of questions.

  But for now, answers would have to wait.