Nero had spent two full days ghosting through the ruins, his shikigami and sharp eyes mapping the flows of life and death in this part of the Shatterveil.
Each hour was spent studying the scavenger camp's routines. Who stood watch, when they slept, where their hidden food was stashed, how their fear drove every movement.
They were survivors, not a community.
The city's terror had made them too cautious, too fractured for real trust.
Nero remained crouched behind a broken wall.
He had decided to leave in a few hours, heading deeper into the Shatterveil.
The scavengers barely moved, their bodies huddled together like dying embers clinging to warmth.
They didn't sit, they crouched, backs to each other, weapons trembling in their hands.
Every few minutes, one of them would jerk their head around, scanning the ruins with wild, unfocused eyes.
Nero noticed the ever-present tension in their limbs, the way they flinched at shadows.
They didn't look like people living. They'd been waiting to die.
Through his Shikigami, he caught a subtle shift in the ruins before he heard it.
A figure lingered at the edge of the camp, half-hidden behind a crumbling pillar.
The man wore scavenged armor, dented and smeared with dried blood.
He twirled a dagger between his fingers, the blade pulsing faintly with unstable magic.
A Reaver.
Nero's jaw tightened, but he didn't move.
He focused on his eagles, sending two higher into the air to expand his field of view.
Another figure crouched on a rooftop, wand drawn, fingers twitching.
Then another. And another.
Five of them.
Predators.
The Reavers didn't attack right away.
They watched, like cats playing with trapped mice, relishing the inevitable kill.
One of the Reavers dragged his dagger along a rusted pipe, the screech echoing through the open ruins like a banshee's wail.
The scavengers jolted awake, scrambling to their feet, weapons shaking in desperate hands.
They clung together by the narrow alley, the gaunt woman with the split lip thrusting herself to the front, her battered wand raised in trembling hands.
The teenage boy, the same one Nero had seen whispering to the others the night before, tried to steady his own cracked wand, his shoulders hunched with fear and responsibility.
A mother pulled her child behind her, using her own ragged body as a shield.
An older man with a limp, who'd been one of the night's watch, hobbled forward, trying to place himself between the Reavers and the rest.
One of the Reavers started laughing, a low, guttural chuckle that cut through the ruins like a blade.
For a second, all was still.
Then, panic shattered them.
The Reavers struck.
They moved like wraiths, slipping through the rubble with practiced ease.
The first to fall was the old man, before he could even lift his makeshift blade, a Reaver's knife slashed his throat.
Blood spilled hot and bright onto the ancient stones, and he collapsed without a sound.
The teenage boy managed to fling a weak Stunning Spell, but the Reaver deflected it, almost bored.
The boy tried to run, another Reaver caught him by the collar, drove a dagger into his back, and let him drop beside the old man.
The mother fired off a desperate spell that fizzled in the air.
Her child screamed, drawing another Reaver's gaze.
The killer advanced, grinning, and the woman threw herself at his legs, biting, scratching, doing anything she could to buy a second more.
The Reaver cursed her, shattering her legs, and let her crawl in agony for a moment before driving his blade lazily into her heart.
The woman with the split lip, the leader, stood her ground, teeth bared.
She managed to block the first curse, but a second Reaver came from behind and clubbed her across the skull.
She fell to her knees, and they finished her with a precise, almost ritual stab.
Nero didn't intervene.
He watched.
He counted their movements, memorized the way they shifted between attacks, and how they covered each other's blind spots.
It wasn't cruelty that stayed his hand, it was calculation.
He needed to understand how they fought.
One of the scavengers bolted.
He sprinted through the ruins, breath ragged, legs pumping.
Nero followed him through his eagle's vision, watching as the man weaved through the rubble.
He didn't make it far.
The ground beneath the scavenger cracked.
The air thickened.
A low hum reverberated through the ruins, and the sky darkened as unstable magic coalesced in the clouds above.
A mana storm.
The scavenger barely had time to scream before a jagged bolt of magic-laced lightning obliterated him.
The Reavers froze.
One of them looked up, eyes wide.
He grabbed the nearest Reaver and shouted something, but Nero couldn't hear the words.
The storm hit.
A low hum rose through the bones of the city, and the sky flickered dark.
Lightning crawled across the clouds, the air charged with the scent of ozone and burnt magic.
It descended like a living thing, tendrils of raw magic lashing out, devouring everything in its path.
The Reavers scattered, but the storm chased them, bolts of wild magic ripping through stone and flesh alike.
One Reaver panicked. He twisted on the spot, trying to Apparate.
A desperate, instinctive act of self-preservation.
But the magic snapped back like a coiled wire.
The chaotic atmosphere distorted his spell, dragging him a few meters before the storm latched onto the surge of magic.
Lightning followed the spark like a predator, reducing him to cinders in midair.
Nero narrowed his eyes.
Mu and Zen had told him the Shatterveil crushed spatial magic, the chaotic residue of ancient, broken spells tangled in the atmosphere like a snare.
Apparition was deemed nearly impossible here, a death sentence for anyone foolish enough to try.
But nearly wasn't the same as impossible.
Nero pressed his fingers against the ground, closing his eyes.
He reached out with his senses, feeling the twisted weave of magic that stretched across the land.
It was like trying to thread a needle with trembling hands, but he could feel the tiniest gaps, microscopic tears in the fabric of space.
This place didn't completely deny apparition magic. It simply punished inefficiency.
The storm raged for several more minutes before it finally dissipated, leaving a charred wasteland behind.
The camp was gone, burned to nothing. The scavengers were ash.
The Reavers, nothing but broken remnants.
Only two had escaped, their figures shrinking into the distance.
Nero watched them go.
He rose to his feet, brushing dust from his robes.
The storm had destroyed everything.
Weapons, supplies, even the blood that had stained the ground.
The Shatterveil didn't just kill.
It erased.
He stepped carefully through the wreckage, boots crunching over blackened bones.
Kneeling, he brushed his fingers across the scorched ground, feeling the faint pulse of magic still lingering.
It reminded him of Void.
Empty. Cold. Absolute.
His Raven Eyes flickered as he scanned the horizon, committing the ruins to memory. The Shikigami circled above, the eagles gliding silently through the warped sky.
He wasn't shaken. If anything, he felt sharper.
This place was unforgiving.
Perfect.
There would be no true alliances here.
No truces.
Only survival.
And Nero didn't intend to die.
He turned and melted into the ruins, the glow of his Raven Eyes fading into the darkness.
The Shatterveil didn't care who you were.
It only cared that you died.
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