The air in the green black mountains felt like a physical weight against my chest, thick with the sharp metallic tang of ozone and the underlying scent of something rotting deep within the earth. Every step upward over the jagged slick stone felt like a battle against the terrain itself, but I didn't let my pace slacken. After a lifetime of being confined to a hospital bed, even the burn in my muscles felt like a gift. It was a stinging reminder that I was finally moving, finally alive, even if the world around me looked like a charcoal drawing of hell.

  As we walked deeper into the range, the path narrowed until we were walking along a precarious ridge. To our left, a sheer drop led into a mist filled gorge that seemed to swallow the light. I tried to do what Valerius had suggested back at the Guild Barracks. He hadn't told me I had to learn it yet, but he mentioned that sensing the mana of others was the natural next step in mastering my magic, a way to truly see the world as it was.

  I closed my eyes for a brief second to focus. I reached out with my senses, trying to feel the spark of the others. Back at the barracks, I had barely managed to sense the hum of my own soul, but now the stakes were higher. I focused my mind on the massive windowless tower that loomed far ahead on the highest peak. It stood there like a rotted tooth against the bruised sky. I strained, pushing my senses toward it, searching for an immense crushing presence that would signal the Rider. But every time I thought I felt a flicker of something, it slipped through my fingers like smoke. My own mana felt like a tiny flickering candle in a hurricane, barely detectable even to myself.

  "Focusing too hard will only cloud your vision, Miss Vespera," Valerius said, his voice as calm and steady as if we were walking through a garden. "Mana is not a thing you hunt, it is a thing you acknowledge. It is the breath of the world. If you chase the wind, you will only find yourself breathless."

  "I'm trying," I whispered, my brow furrowed in concentration. "But it's like trying to hear a single voice in a crowded room. Everything out here feels so cold and empty, yet there is this buzzing in the back of my skull that won't stop."

  "You will get there," he encouraged, though his eyes remained sharp, scanning our surroundings. "The silence of this place is loud, but your soul must learn to be louder."

  ─── ??☆?? ───

  As we rounded a sharp tooth like crag, I froze. In the shadows of the rocks above us, dozens of glowing eyes flickered to life. They weren't animals, or at least nothing natural. They were monsters and chimeras, monstrous hybrids with distorted limbs and uneven breathing. They kept their distance, watching us with a hungry silent intensity that made the hair on my neck stand up. One creature looked like a hawk stitched to a mountain lion, its beak dripping with a black viscous fluid.

  My hand instinctively went to the hem of my travel cloak, my heart hammering. "Malphas, they're surrounding us. I can hear them breathing. It sounds like wet leather tearing."

  Malphas didn't even turn his head. He continued walking with a bored regal grace, his merchant disguise looking increasingly absurd against the backdrop of this nightmare landscape. "Don't worry, Vespera. They are merely familiars. Sentinels placed here to watch the borders of this wasteland. They are the eyes of a coward who hides behind stone walls."

  He glanced toward a particularly large chimera perched on a ledge above us, his crimson eyes flashing with a momentary terrifying spark of his true power. The creature whimpered, a sound that was far too human for its twisted shape, and backed into the shadows.

  "I doubt the master of these familiars is foolish enough to attack a Demon Lord," Malphas continued, his voice dripping with cold disdain. "To wipe out his pets for nothing in return would be a poor investment, and I suspect the Rider values his assets. We are being escorted, not hunted. For now."

  ─── ??☆?? ───

  We continued for another hour until the heavy silence of the mountains was shattered by a sound so primal it made my teeth ache. It was a roar, but it sounded layered, as if multiple throats were screaming in a dissonant terrifying harmony. It echoed off the cliffs, vibrating through the soles of my boots.

  Valerius stopped abruptly near a small stagnant pool of rainwater that had collected in a hollow of the green black rock. "It seems we have found a distraction," he murmured.

  He knelt by the pool and traced a quick elegant circle over the water's surface with his finger. The murky water suddenly cleared, becoming as vivid as a mirror. In the reflection, we could see a clearing not far from our current position.

  Four hunters, clad in heavy enchanted silver armor, were locked in a desperate losing battle. Their opponent was no dragon, or at least not a normal one. It was a massive beast with four long snake heads sprouting around its central draconic head. Each snake head snapped at the hunters with blinding speed, while the main head exhaled a gout of dark corrosive vapor.

  The hunters were desperate. Their magic seemed completely ineffective against the beast, their spells shattering against its scales without leaving a mark. One man was thrown against a rock, his silver breastplate crumpling like paper. They were being utterly overpowered.

  Valerius leaned closer to the pool, his eyes narrowing as he focused on the equipment of the fallen men. "Look at the shoulder pads those hunters are wearing, My Lord. That is a guild logo from Demon Lord Balam’s domain. It seems we are not the only foreigners in these mountains."

  Malphas peered at the water, a small dangerous smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Indeed. Balam always did have a habit of letting his little heroes wander where they don't belong. He treats his subjects like disposable pawns on a board he doesn't even know how to play."

  "They're going to die if we don't do something," I said, looking at Malphas with wide eyes. "We can't just watch them get eaten!"

  "Indeed," Malphas replied, his tone shifting from bored to commanding. "And dead men are useless for information. They provide no answers when they are rotting in a dragon's belly."

  He stepped back from the pool and snapped his fingers.

  The air around us didn't just ripple, it tore. In a flash of dark light, the plain travel worn clothes we had been wearing vanished. I felt the familiar snug fit of my maid uniform. The fabric felt impossibly soft and durable, still unnormally comfortable even here in the biting mountain chill. Valerius stood tall in his impeccable butler’s suit, looking as if he had just stepped out of a royal ballroom.

  But it was Malphas who transformed the most. He was no longer a simple merchant. He stood draped in a new magnificent Demon Lord fit. He wore a long high collared coat that functioned like a cape. The exterior was a light eating midnight black, but as the wind caught it, the interior flashed a brilliant blood red silk. Silver chains draped across his chest, and the sheer pressure of his presence seemed to make the very rocks beneath his boots groan in submission.

  "Hold on, Vespera," Malphas commanded.

  Before I could ask how, he reached out and grabbed my waist. The world dissolved into a blur of shadows and a sudden sickening jolt of speed. It felt like being pulled through a needle's eye.

  When my vision cleared, the smell of sulfur and charred earth was overwhelming. We were no longer on the ridge. We were standing in the center of the clearing, positioned directly between the cowering hunters and the towering five headed dragon. The beast hissed, all five heads recoiling in confusion as the sudden arrival of a Demon Lord sent a shockwave of pure unadulterated power through the air.

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  The five heads of the chimeric dragon swiveled in unison, five pairs of slitted yellow eyes locking onto us with primal fury. The hunters scrambled backward, their silver armor clattering against the green black stone, but the beast ignored them. It recognized the greater threat.

  The central draconic head unhinged its massive jaw, and for a split second, the world went white. A gout of flame erupted, not orange or red but a blinding magnesium white fire that seared the very air. It was so fast and so bright that dodging was a physical impossibility. The clearing was instantly turned into a furnace.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing for the agony of being turned to ash, but the heat never came.

  I heard a soft rhythmic clicking, the sound of the patterns in Malphas’s Mystic Eyes shifting. "A noisy candle," he murmured, his voice vibrating with amusement.

  When I dared to squint through my lashes, the fire was simply gone. It hadn't been extinguished or blocked, it had been erased from existence, swallowed by the void of his gaze. But the damage to my vision was done. Even with the fire gone, dark spots danced across my retinas, leaving me half blind and staggering as if I’d been staring directly into the sun for hours.

  Malphas stepped away from me, his movements fluid and terrifyingly calm. "Valerius. Tend to the strays," he commanded, gesturing toward the wounded hunters.

  "By your command, My Lord," Valerius replied. With a flick of his wrist, the butler produced a set of shimmering silver vials, moving toward the armored men with the grace of a shadow.

  I stood frozen in the center of the clearing, my hands trembling as I clutched my apron. The roar of the mountain wind felt deafening. I felt that familiar bitter weight in my stomach, the feeling of being useless. Here I was, a girl who could barely sense her own mana, standing in the presence of gods and monsters. I was impressed, no, I was awestruck by Malphas’s power, but it only highlighted how small I really was. I felt like a porcelain doll in a storm of iron.

  Malphas walked toward the beast, which was now hissing in a confused guttural panic. As he got closer, he stopped, his head tilting slightly to the side.

  On the dragon’s main neck, partially hidden by thick charcoal scales, was a heavy iron collar. Dangling from it was a single gold coin embossed with a logo I couldn't quite make out through my blurred vision.

  Malphas stared at the coin, his expression unreadable for a heartbeat. His Mystic Eyes began to rotate in a complex clockwise pattern, dissecting the very atoms of the creature before him.

  "So," Malphas said, his voice carrying clearly over the dragon's snarls. "Magic does not work on you. You were bred to consume the spells of lesser beings, weren't you? A sponge for the weak."

  The dragon lunged, its four snake heads snapping like whips, but Malphas didn't flinch. He didn't even raise a hand to defend himself.

  "A clever trick," he continued, his tone chillingly detached. "Good thing I am not bound to fate, nor the laws of reality. Your hunger for mana is a petty appetite compared to what I hold."

  He lifted his right hand. Slowly, deliberately, he extended his index finger toward the sky. The air around the finger began to warp, the light bending and breaking as if the universe itself were recoiling from his touch.

  "You should better respect a Demon Lord," he whispered.

  The beast roared, a deafening sound of defiance, and charged. It moved like a mountain falling, its claws tearing up the jagged stone, its five mouths open to tear him apart.

  Malphas didn't move until the beast was inches away. Then, he simply closed his finger, pulling it back into a tight firm fist.

  "Burn."

  There was no explosion. No flash.

  Instantly, every inch of the dragon’s body erupted into a silent violet flame. It was a terrifying display of precision. The fire clung only to the beast, leaving the grass and the stones beneath it untouched by the heat. The dragon didn't even have time to scream. The violet fire consumed scales, bone, and soul in a single heartbeat. It was an execution, not a fight.

  A second later, Malphas opened his fist.

  The clearing was silent. There was no dragon. There wasn't even ash left behind to show it had ever existed. It had been completely wiped from the map of existence, deleted by a thought.

  Malphas turned away from the void where the dragon had once stood, his blood red cape snapping in the mountain wind like a rhythmic heartbeat. He walked back toward me, his boots clicking heavily against the green black stone. I tried to look at him, but my vision was a mess of swirling purple blobs and jagged white lines. I felt like I had been staring into the heart of a supernova for hours.

  "Vespera," he said, his voice losing its edge of cold steel as he stopped in front of me.

  "I’m fine," I lied, squinting and accidentally looking at his shoulder instead of his face. "I just... I think the dragon was a bit too bright. My eyes are just being stubborn."

  He didn't say anything for a moment. I felt the heat of his presence, that overwhelming aura that usually made my heart race. Then, I felt his fingers brush against my chin, gently tilting my head up. His touch was surprisingly warm against my cold skin.

  "You are looking at my collar, not my eyes," he noted. There was a faint almost imperceptible trace of amusement in his tone.

  "I know that!" I snapped, my face heating up with a blush that had nothing to do with the dragon's fire. "Everything is just... sparkly right now. It's hard to tell where you end and the air begins."

  I tried to take a step back, but my depth perception was completely shot. I tripped over a small ridge of stone and began to tumble backward. Before I could hit the ground, Malphas’s arm caught me around the waist, pulling me firmly against his chest. For a second, the world was just the scent of ozone and the soft expensive silk of his new outfit. I could hear his heartbeat, slow and steady, unbothered by the massacre he had just committed.

  "I told you once before, did I not? I will protect you," he said, his voice vibrating through my own chest. He looked down at me, his crimson eyes softening just a fraction. "Do not stand there feeling like a discarded tool. You are still new to this, and newer still to this world. To expect you to face a chimeric dragon is as foolish as asking a hatchling to fly before it has wings. Do not underestimate yourself just because you are human. Even stars have to start as dust."

  "But I didn't do anything," I whispered into his coat. "I just stood there while you did... whatever that was. I felt so small, Malphas."

  "You survived," he countered, his grip tightening slightly before he let go. "In a world of monsters, survival is the first victory. Now, stay still."

  He placed his cool leather gloved hand over my eyes. A soothing wave of dark energy washed over my retinas, drawing out the stinging heat and the white spots. It felt like cool water on a burn. When he pulled his hand away and backed toward Valerius, my vision snapped back into focus, as clear as a mountain spring.

  ─── ??☆?? ───

  Valerius was already finishing his work. Two of the hunters were sitting up, gasping for air as their wounds closed under his specialized healing magic. However, two other armored forms lay perfectly still nearby. Their silver plates were crushed and blackened, eyes staring blankly at the dark clouds.

  Malphas stood over the bodies, his gaze landing on the golden coin collar he had ripped from the dragon before incinerating it. He tossed the coin into the dirt with a sneer, looking at the corpses. "That bastard," he muttered, his voice dripping with venom. "He always sends others to do his job. He treats the lives of his subjects like pocket change. How typical of him."

  The surviving hunters finally blinked their eyes clear as Valerius restored their vision with a practiced wave of his hand. As they looked up and saw Malphas in his full terrifying glory, the midnight coat, the red silk, the rotating Mystic Eyes, they scrambled backward in sheer terror. They recognized the aura of a ruler.

  "A-A Demon Lord!" one of them shrieked, fumbling for a broken sword. "Get back! Defensive formation! We're surrounded by shadows!"

  "Calm yourselves," Valerius interrupted, his voice like velvet over gravel. He stood with his hands tucked neatly behind his back. "If my Lord wished for your deaths, you would have vanished along with that dragon. It was His Grace, Lord Malphas of the Black Obsidian Throne, who saved your lives. You would do well to show the appropriate gratitude before your tongues fail you."

  The hunters froze, looking from the empty space where the dragon had been to the towering figure of Malphas. Slowly, they lowered their broken weapons, trembling like leaves in a gale.

  Malphas didn't wait for their thanks. He stepped forward, the air growing heavy again. "Why are you here? Balam’s domain is far from these peaks. Why has he sent his playthings to die in the dirt of the Rider? What did he promise you for your lives?"

  The lead hunter, a man with a scarred face and shaking hands, swallowed hard. "Our Lord’s castle... Balam’s fortress was attacked a few days ago. It wasn't a siege. It was an army of monsters and... and undead hunters. They tore through the outer wards like they weren't even there. They didn't want gold. They wanted blood."

  I felt a chill run down my spine. That sounded exactly like what had happened back at the Black Obsidian Throne. The same cold efficient slaughter.

  "We traced the source," the hunter continued, his voice cracking. "But we found nothing but a single dead man at the edge of the woods. He had no name, no soul. Our Lord... he didn't want to leave his chambers, he was too afraid. So he commanded us to use forbidden mind reading magic on the corpse. The memories we pulled from the dead man's brain led us here, to these mountains. Lord Balam sent us to investigate because..." He trailed off, looking embarrassed. "Because he’s too lazy to risk his own skin."

  Valerius looked over at Malphas, a grim expression crossing his face. It was basically the same story as theirs, a mirror of the chaos that had struck home.

  "It seems the Black Rider is casting a wide net," Valerius murmured. "And Balam is all too happy to let his men be the bait. We are all being pulled toward the same dark center."