The hill was quiet now, save for the wind stirring the ruined timbers. Whatever this place had once been—a witch's home, a hideout, a battlefield—it was hard to say. But one thing was clear: the aftermath wasn't easy to look at.
The chief's son turned pale, then stumbled into the nearby trees and vomited loudly. The woman beside him wrinkled her nose in disgust but said nothing.
Harold steadied his breath. He'd seen blood before. He'd smelled burning flesh. But something about this place—it stuck under your skin. Still, what unsettled him more was how calm Sty's group seemed. They scanned the destruction like it was just another job.
That makes them all the more suspicious, Harold thought, tightening his grip on his cloak.
A few steps ahead, Jin—the younger man Harold had been introduced to during the climb—stood frozen in place, eyes fixed on the body.
"It's really her," he muttered, his voice somewhere between awe and disappointment.
"No shit," Sty said flatly.
He crouched beside the corpse, brushing aside ash and broken twigs.
He sighed. "The elders wanted her alive… but with this much damage—" He glanced at the charred ruins behind her. "I doubt the Codex survived."
Then Jin let out a short, surprised laugh. "Holy shit—is that Varin?"
Sty looked up sharply. "Varin of the Oathfang?"
Jin nodded, stepping toward a blood-slicked mass. "The one and only." He nudged something with his boot, then bent down and lifted a severed head by the hair. "And it looks like the whole crew's here. Though…" He grinned. "Hard to tell who's who now."
Harold frowned. "Oathfang? Who are they?"
"Bounty hunters," Sty said, standing and moving among the mangled bodies. "Or they were."
Harold's brow furrowed. "What were they doing here?"
"They were on the run," Sty said absently, poking through a half-burnt satchel. "And the witch had—had—a pretty big price on her head."
Jin squinted at the corpse. "She couldn't have been that legendary if this crew managed to take her down. And I don't see Lester, or that brute of his."
A new voice spoke up—deep, steady, older. One of the veterans in the group.
"Lester killed her. Used a Codex to do it."
Jin blinked. "Damn. I take that back. But then… where's his body?"
He strolled toward what looked like the remains of a shattered doorway.
"If our guesses are right—and the boy really was possessed by Griefshard—then Lester wouldn't have made it out alive."
He folded his hands behind his back, scholarly now.
"And if I've heard right, that brute doesn't run. He'd have stayed to fight. So where is he?"
Jin looked back at them, a sharp glint in his eyes. "Something doesn't add up."
"No kidding," Sty said, rolling his eyes.
Harold watched Sty kneel beside a jagged patch of rubble. The ground there looked wrong, like something had blasted up from below.
He walked over slowly, noticing the scorched stone and twisted metal.
"Looks like an underground chamber," Harold muttered. "Maybe a vault. It's mostly destroyed now."
"Jin, come check this out," Sty called over his shoulder.
Jin groaned. "That's just rubble."
"I've got a feeling. Look properly," Sty said, stepping aside.
As Jin trudged over, Harold kept his eyes on the broken floor. Whatever had been hidden down there—it had been important. And someone had tried very hard to erase it.
Then the woman in the group spoke, her voice calm but pointed.
"Scarborn's in the courtyard."
Sty turned. "What?"
She pointed through the trees to a clearing not far from the ruined house.
"He's barely alive," she added.
"You couldn't have mentioned that earlier?" Sty snapped.
She shrugged. "You didn't ask."
Sty swore under his breath and waved for the others to follow. "Jin—be done by the time we're back."
---
The courtyard stank of scorched flesh and smoke.
At its center lay a hulking figure—unconscious, crumpled on the cracked stone. The man's skin was nearly gone. In places, bone gleamed. His chest had been torn so deep that the faint thud of his heart was visible beneath raw muscle.
It was Scarborn. Or what was left of him.
The destruction around him was staggering. Claw marks raked the walls. Pillars were shattered. The ground looked like it had been struck by falling stars—all of it focused around the wounded man, who lay frozen mid-crawl, arm outstretched like he'd tried to escape.
"Gods…" Sty whispered. "Who could've done this to Scarborn?"
He turned to Harold, who was staring at the wreckage with wide eyes.
So he wasn't expecting this either, Sty thought.
"You recognize this work?" he asked.
Harold didn't look away. "Only one person comes to mind. The chief never trusted him. Maybe the old man was wrong."
"Who?"
"Nyric," Harold said. His voice was flat, but something like disbelief clung to the edge. "I thought he ran when things got messy. Guess not."
Sty narrowed his eyes. "Nyric? Never heard of him. Where is he now?"
"No clue. Just showed up one day. Talked his way into the village, somehow got the chief on his side." Harold finally looked at Sty. "No one's seen him since yesterday."
"Could he be dead?" Sty muttered.
"Didn't see a body nearby," Rin said from behind them. Her tone was cold, clinical.
Sty stroked his chin. "Nyric, huh. You ever heard that name before? Someone strong enough to do this?"
The old man crouched beside Scarborn's body. "Unlikely," he murmured. "Whoever did this… used a Red Sutra."
"That's rare," a new voice said from the edge of the courtyard.
Jin stepped into view, brushing soot from his cloak.
"Red Sutras aren't much different from Black Meridian—rare, dangerous but weird." He glanced at Sty. "There's nothing out there, by the way. I looked."
"Rin?" Sty asked.
She shook her head. "Same."
"Well then." Sty sighed and turned back to Harold. "Appreciate the help, sir. We're done here."
Harold gave a simple nod.
"We'll let the capital know," Sty said, extending a hand—then stopping halfway. Memories of earlier hit him.
"Sure." Harold turned to leave, spear in hand.
But Sty wasn't done. "Wait—what do you know about that god's palm?" He pointed toward the mountain in the distance, where the stone hand jutted from the cliffs.
Harold paused. His grip tightened around the spear. He looked over his shoulder.
"I'd suggest staying away from that place," he said quietly. "If you want to live."
Then he walked on.
Jin snorted. "Who does he think we are?"
"He's not wrong," Mauley said softly. "You feel it, don't you?" He turned to Sty.
Sty didn't answer at first. He just stared at the distant shape of the god's hand.
"That's not why we're here," he said finally.
He turned back to the others. "We've got the witch. And most of Oathfang, too."
"Didn't recover the Codex," Jin muttered. "The kid and Lester are probably long gone."
"Nyric too," Sty said, rubbing his shoulder as he began tying Scarborn's limbs.
"So we just leave?" Jin asked, clearly dissatisfied.
"For now," Sty said. "The elders will be content with the witch—at least for a while. Something tells me this isn't over."
He stood, stretched his arms, and nodded to Jin. "Go fetch the cranes. We're heading back."
Jin grumbled but moved off.
Sty hauled Scarborn's heavy form toward the ruined house, the scorched courtyard fading behind him.