The land twisted again, as if the underworld wanted to test how far Rhok’s endurance could stretch before it snapped. His instincts had guided him well enough so far, through the ash valleys, through the cursed wind fields, through the ruins where even shadows bled but what lay before him now was something else entirely.The sound came first. Not a roar like water rushing, not even the hiss of sand, but a grinding, splintering murmur, like glass breaking forever without pause. When he finally reached the ridge and looked down, he saw it: a river. Except it wasn’t water. It was jagged shards of crystal, a torrent of broken edges flowing endlessly from one end of the chasm to the other.Each shard caught the pale underworld light and threw it back in a thousand fractured rays. They weren’t just moving, they were alive, slicing even the air itself as they scraped by. The wind above the current split and bled with hair-thin scars that healed instantly, leaving the air quivering. Anything

The day began as nothing more than a quiet wander.The fields outside the ruins stretched wide, dotted with tall grass swaying in the wind. Veyra walked beside me, carrying a basket she had stolen from a village some miles back. She claimed it was for berries, though most of what she’d picked so far had already ended up in her mouth. She hummed as she walked, and for a moment it almost felt like peace.But peace never lasted long with me.The wind shifted. Clouds, heavy and low, began to roll across the sky. The sun dimmed, and in its place came something wrong, a glow like a furnace door cracked open far above. I stopped moving. The air tasted of smoke, dry and metallic.Then the first flakes began to fall.Ash.At first Veyra thought it was snow, lifting her hand up and laughing. “It’s summer, Rhok. How could it snow...” Her voice broke when the gray smear melted against her palm, leaving streaks like charred dust.She looked at me, fear crawling into her eyes. “This isn’t normal.”

Rhok walked through the jagged cliffs with the wind tearing at his cloak. The world here was always cruel, but this stretch of land felt emptier than usual. No carrion birds, no scuttling vermin, not even the soft hiss of sand moving across stone. It was silence, the kind that presses into your ears until you can hear your own blood.At first, he thought it was simply his imagination filling the void. But then he stopped, tilting his head as the air seemed to vibrate faintly. A sound, fragile as if whispered into the cracks of the world, drifted into him.It wasn’t the voice of the living. It wasn’t the echo of wind. It was something else entirely.Come…He froze. He had learned enough by now not to trust any beckoning in this realm. Still, the pull was undeniable, like threads tugging at the marrow in his bones. Rhok clenched his fists and exhaled.“Fine,” he muttered. “But if this is another trick, I’ll burn the ground behind me so no one else follows.”The whisper grew stronger the

The room was quiet now. No chants. No pleading voices. No rattling chains or clashing seals of light. Only silence, broken by the faint drip of blood sliding from the stone altar onto the cracked floor. The cultists of Dawnlight had been reduced to nothing more than husks, their bodies scattered in the shadows like discarded garments. Some were frozen in mid prayer, faces twisted in devotion that had turned to terror the moment his black frost swept through them. Rhok stood in the center of the carnage. His breath came slow, steady, almost unnervingly calm. His hand was still raised, the frost lingering along his fingers, faint trails of smoke curling upward like ghostly incense. He stared at them, and for the first time in what felt like forever, he hesitated. The corpses looked different to him now, not enemies, not obstacles, not zealots blind in their worship. Just bodies. Human bodies. People wi