The smell of ash clung to Leo's clothes long after the fire had died.
He walked in silence, Fang at his side, limping slightly but alert. The fight with the rogue Tamers had changed something in both of them—not just the bond, but how Leo carried himself. He no longer walked like a boy waiting for the world to hit him. He moved like someone who had tasted fire… and survived.
They followed the winding trail eastward, the forest thinning into open plains. Smoke curled on the horizon, thin and grey, carried by the wind.
A village.
Leo's heart lifted—food, shelter, maybe a chance to rest.
He quickened his pace.
By the time they crested the last hill, that hope died a quiet, ugly death.
The village lay in ruins.
Houses had been reduced to blackened skeletons. A well smoldered, its stone rim cracked. A cart sat overturned, wheels spinning lazily in the breeze. Bodies—some burnt beyond recognition, others left to rot—littered the square. Crows feasted without fear.
Leo gagged, turning away.
Fang growled low, fur bristling.
There was no sign of a struggle. No signs of looting.
This wasn't the work of bandits.
This was erasure.
Something—or someone—had come here not to rob, but to cleanse.
Leo forced himself to move forward, each step harder than the last. He passed a child's toy, charred but intact. A doll with missing eyes.
Then he heard it.
A rasping breath.
He ran.
Behind a collapsed barn, half-buried in soot and debris, lay an old man. His chest barely moved. His legs were gone.
Leo dropped beside him. "Hey! Stay with me!"
The man's eyes opened, yellowed with smoke and pain. "Boy... not safe... leave…"
"What happened here? Who did this?"
"Not... men... not beasts…" The man coughed blood. "Shadow... with claws... and eyes like night... It came from the north... It feeds... on magic..."
Leo's blood ran cold.
"Darkspawn?" he whispered.
The man shook his head weakly. "Worse…"
He reached into his coat with a trembling hand and pressed something into Leo's palm.
A stone. Smooth, black, cold to the touch. It pulsed faintly.
"Take it… ruins… east… they'll know…"
And then he was gone.
Leo stared at the body, fists clenched.
This wasn't an accident. This wasn't war.
Something ancient had awakened.
They camped that night in the burned-out shell of a church. The gods that had once watched over the town now stared from broken stained glass, their faces twisted by heat and time.
Leo sat before a small fire. Fang slept nearby, twitching in his dreams. The stone the man had given him sat in Leo's hand, its pulse matching the rhythm of his heartbeat.
He focused on it.
[Object Identified: Obsidian Heart][Unattuned Relic – Function: Unknown][Resonance Detected – Bond Compatible]
Leo frowned. The interface flickered strangely when he held the stone, as if something were interfering.
He held it tighter.
A vision slammed into him.
The world burned.
Cities crumbled into black glass. Towers cracked like eggshells. Skyships fell in flames. Armies of light and steel shattered before a tide of shadow. Monsters—no, gods—walked the earth, and behind them, a throne of fangs and flame.
A crown, dripping blood, floated above a blackened skull.
And eyes—crimson and gold—watched it all.
Leo gasped, jerking awake.
The fire was out. The sky outside was still dark, but tinged with the deep blue of predawn.
Fang stood alert, teeth bared.
Something was outside.
Leo grabbed the Obsidian Heart and stepped quietly to the church's edge.
Figures moved through the ruins. Three of them. Hooded. Gliding, not walking. Shadows clung to them unnaturally, like mist wrapped too tightly.
One turned its head.
Leo's breath caught.
Its face—or what passed for one—was pale, featureless, and leaking darkness from where its eyes should have been.
It didn't blink.
But it knew he was there.
Fang stepped in front of him.
The creature raised one hand, long fingers tipped with talons, and pointed.
"The Heart returns to the fold," it whispered.
Then it vanished, as did the others.
No footsteps. No sound.
Just gone.
Leo collapsed back into the church, sweating.
"What the hell are you?" he asked the stone.
Fang whimpered and pressed against him.
The stone pulsed faster.
[Quest Updated: The Ruins of Evermere][Objective: Seek the Truth – Eastern Deadlands]
Leo looked at the sky.
No one was coming to save him.
But maybe, just maybe, he could save someone else.