Vescrutia: Legacy

Fenri stared out over the Tarkan Plains toward the Hyperion Mountains, uneasy with the foul smell sweeping in from the Strait of Aeon. The sun had long since set, leaving a star speckled tapestry behind a thick blanket of dark clouds. Something changed in the air, its frosty scent filled with a pungent odor of death, a portent of ill fate.

"What has he done this time...?"

Fenri asked to the winds, hoping they would bring him an answer with Zero's scent on the. He was informed of a Mantagolem reaching breakneck speeds earlier in the evening by his working team that evening, so he watched its trail from a window in his office. When the winds carried the scent of the operators to Cold Frontier, Fenri stepped outside to get a more precise look. The mantagolem carried two acquaintances of his, or at least one acquaintance and a troublemaker he couldn't seem to rid himself of. Zero Venkage often found himself in far reaching places all over the world and the last time they met, Fenri was left with a nasty scar and afflicted with Unseen venom he still hadn't completely recovered from. Zeik Hellgate, on the other hand, was a pragmatic individual wit whom Fenri shared some congruent ideals and held no ill will toward.

The pair of them together worried Fenri to no end, especially if they found themselves this far out of the way of Arcturus or their homelands together. The last time the two were together that Fenri knew of led to The Fall of Arcturus, so whatever brought them together at the bottom of the world might have unforeseen global implications and Cold Frontier would be ground zero for a new paradigm shift. Fenri tracked the mantagolem across the Desert of Aeon, but lost their scents to a scorched smell that immediately followed them.

Now, with night approaching and a wave of unease following, Fenri stared on, waiting for something to make sense of this creeping darkness.

"Zero... What have you done?"

The hair on Fenri’s chest and back stood on end as he watched the sky over the Strait of Aeon. explode in activity. Waves crashed upward and evaporated, a giant glowing humanoid figure appeared with flaming sword in hand and swung wildly while another smaller light dashed around the island, sending sharp flashes skyward as well. Fenri recognized the flaming figure’s style and the flashes of light, they were Zeik and Zero locked in battle, yet seemingly not with one another. A separate, smoky entity looked to be their target and th Elmore he looked, the deeper the chill ran through his frame.

“Oh no…”

The words hadn’t even slipped from Fenri’s mouth before the whole island exploded into a pillar of swirling crimson-grey energy shooting into the stratosphere . A second later, a wave of foul energy cascaded over him and all of the Tarkan Plains, leaving an ominous aura and strange odor in its wake. His skin felt drier, his eyes strained for a moment, it all left him feeling… Odd. But he stayed focused on the pillar of energy, hoping to discern something from it. He couldn’t see the dashing lights he thought was Zero, no sign of the flaming scion that was Zeik, they both seemed to disappear into the foul force ignited.

“Something wicked this way comes…”

The skies above Aeon were steel-gray, the wind howling like the cry of ancient titans across the barren Tarkan Plains. Snow lashed sideways in a blinding gale, sharp as glass, flaying the highlands north of the Hyperion Mountains with a cold so deep it hollowed out the breath. Below, the land lay cracked and frostbitten, vast stretches of lifeless tundra veined with skeletal grass and pale stone. Few dared call this place home. Fewer still wandered it freely.

And then—
The sky ruptured.

A thunderous shock split the clouds as something tore through the atmosphere like a blazing comet. A streak of fire, black and red, descended upon the continent from the stratosphere. Birds fled. Creatures howled. The wind itself seemed to recoil as the object struck the tundra with the fury of heavens might.

The impact split the ice and rolled in great quaking waves. A pillar of snow and rock erupted skyward, cascading miles into the air. The force flattened everything —scrubs, boulders, frozen trees—and shook the sacred spines of the Hyperion Mountains to their roots.

When the blizzard dust settled, what remained was a yawning crater filled with gravel and snow. At its center stood a figure.

Akundae.

His fur was still alight with veins of searing crimson, like lava coursing just beneath his midnight hide. Steam rose from his broad shoulders, hissing against the cold. He stood bare-chested and colossal, arms slack at his sides, chest rising and falling with the rhythm of deep, primal breath.

Around him, the snow refused to fall..

The land knew something unspeakable had arrived.

His eyes were molten, burning with cosmic power.

He tilted his head, slowly, nostrils flaring. The wind shifted. There—subtle. A scent, floral but feral. Soft, but persistent. Fae blood. And something human clinging to it.

A glimmer of recognition lit behind those burning eyes. Not joy. Not malice.

Purpose.

Akundae’s lips curled slightly, not into a smile, but into something ancient—an expression seen only in predators who’ve caught the scent of their quarry.

The Harbinger of War had brought him through whispers. Akundae knew not why, but said nothing. He only moved—ripping through land and sea spurred by a silent, mysterious promise. But now, he knew why he was here. The scent was unmistakable.

“The Thunderer..”

Akundae's step were slow at first, a stride that cracked the ice beneath his heel. Then a second step, faster, heavier.

Then he was gone.

A black flash against white snow, leaping from the crater like a cannon blast. Each bound carried him over cliffs, across rivers frozen in time, higher and farther. He followed the scent like a bloodhound starved, drawn not by hunger—but by the promise of battle.

THOOOOOoooooOOM

He landed upon a bed of golden grass that stretched sparsely from the foot of the Hyperion Mountains. The land cracked at his feet. But his nose was drawn toward a tiny settlement just outside the Tarkain Plains. He could smell the stink of human flesh—a realm untouched by his still growing Empire.

No longer.

Zeik arrived beside Fenri as if conjured by omen alone. His presence was quiet—unnaturally so. No crack of light, no warp of sound announced him. He simply stepped forth from a crease in space itself, like a thought slipping from dream into waking. Over his shoulder hung the limp form of his partner, and in one hand he held his Animus, still pulsing a low azure hue.

A faint chuckle escaped him as the slit closed behind him. There was irony here—he could feel it, taste it even. This, the end of their road, with Zero in ruins and Zeik untouched. A mirror of how it all began, now inverted.

Kurai could’ve ended them both, he mused, stepping forward. She must’ve let it sting instead, her silent rebuke for leading her husband into peril... bandaged and proud.

“If I still had the bandages…” he muttered, but the words fell away.

Something had changed.

Zeik’s gaze shifted. Fenri stood just ahead—a familiar, calming silhouette. But that calm came with something else. A shadow. Heavy. Furious. Wrath made flesh, drawing near.

He adjusted the weight of his companion on his back, eyes flitting between Fenri and the creeping malevolence.

“...Fenri,” he began, casually. “You expecting company? Friends, perhaps?”

His voice was relaxed, even serene—like a breeze in spring. It was the way legends spoke to legends: softly. But behind the words, his senses danced. He weaved his Ava of Origin Vision and gazed through the veil of the world, unraveling motion and pressure, distance and speed. What he felt left no room for wonder. It was certainty

“It’s... jumping?”

The thunder cracked just behind each impact. The earth groaned under the force. He could feel the rhythm of it—discern the weight, the velocity. Massive. Calculated. Unrelenting.

“Elv? ?” he wondered aloud. “Mazu”

A rarity. A paradox. The Elv-Mazuku were nearly myths now, their sightings reduced to fables outside lf their homeland atleast.

Then, in its silhouette, Zeik saw more.

Not just power. Not just bloodlust.

But something that reeked of old truths.

“Dominion,” he said, the word slow, reverent. “Hatred.”

His tone shifted. The aloof veil tore, replaced by sharp severity. His irises blazed—origin’s light whirling like galaxies caught in storm.

“War.”

He knew this presence.

He had danced with it once, wrapped in polished armor and drenched in legacy. It was no mere beast that approaches. It was purpose. It was the blade unsheathed at the end of peace.

He exhaled, slow and silent.

“Fleeing death,” he murmured, as the distant sky cracked with the echo of impact, “I rush straight into war.”

A glance over his shoulder to Zero—broken, unconscious.

“Zero… you’re bad fucking luck.”

Peering into the abyss, the coming force of destruction weighed on Fenri. All in the same breath, a rebirth of ill portent made a menacing way towards the steps of Cold Frontier. The compounding sense of dread and intimidation filling the air turned it a touch sour, wrinkling his nose up it picked up the twisted scent. His hair stood on end and his muscles tightened as the air grew thick with malice. Then Zeik appeared out of nowhere with something of a corpse hanging over his shoulder. The calming presence of the stoicism of the Hellgate let Fenri share the weight of these imposing forces bearing down on them, the explosion’s shockwave and the aftershock of the meteor impact.

“The only friends I have are right behind me,” Fenri said, motioning with his hand for Frankie staring from inside Cold Frontier to lock the door and shut the shades. She whipped one shut and the rest closed behind her, the deadbolts on the door rattled, falling into place and a flash of white light ignited around the base of the facility. “I can’t imagine what you just helped this miscreant unleash on the world.”

Fenri’s voice carried a low timber, almost a growl as they stood witness to a new power bearing down on them. Zeik seemed ready to face this threat, calm and collected phasing in out of nowhere. Whatever transpired at the site of that explosion left him completely unscathed, but Zero on the other hand looked like he’d been put through a magic coffee grinder. Slung over Zeik’s shoulder like a trash bag, it seemed that they bit off more than they could chew on one of Zero’s ill advised escapades. Fenri reminisced on the time he followed him into the Viper’s Maw, a chamber hidden deep under the Azure Alps, and had to chase Zero out of the shrine before he unleashed a deadly Miasma on the face of Vescrutia. It became a common thread in dealing with Zero, objects of his desire often catalyzed a series of events that held greater consequences for the people affected by his ambition.

Seeing the man mangled, draped over his friend’s shoulder would have given Fenri a cruel sense of satisfaction, a satiating gulp of comeuppance a long time coming, but on the heels of this transcendent dread pervading the land, Fenri felt it only fitting a new threat fell on the shores of Aeon and Zero’s current state really highlighted the dire nature of the situation.

Zeik’s mention of Mazu likely referred to the Tribe form B’halia, the Mazoku, who famously consolidated control of their entire continent and pushed out or eliminated any tribe or organization whose ideals conflicted with B’halian reign. The encroaching intensity matched Diamond Dust sources, but historical data failed to truly capture the ominous nature of the force heading toward them.

“All the sight in the world and you couldn’t have just stayed at home today? Do better, Zeik.”

Fenri judged people by the company they keep and having two parts of the Trinity on his front lawn facing a formerly far-flung threat registered as a low point in his career. Zeik was a pragmatic and honest man who strove to protect those he held dear to him, had insight and wisdom that would have made him a prophet to some, a god to others, and he stands with the broken body of his troublemaking friend whose greed often leaves chaos and carnage in its wake. The pair appeared so different in character, Fenri always wondered why Zeik bothered maintaining ties with Zero, but had to leave his personal misgivings for another time. He stood steeled alongside Zeik against his own better judgment to meet the thundering dominion that hung before them.

Dragged from the face of destruction and jaws of defeat, Zero's thoughts were a blank canvas. He didn't know exactly what happened in that last moment, remembering a flash and the wave of crimson-grey energy engulfing them, but then darkness. For a second, he thought he had died. The normal way his body feels in high pressure combat situations, electric, dynamic, ready to enter the flow state and let the current of battle take him, got swallowed by the turn of tide in that battle.

It was a sure fire thing, a double slice from the two of them should have snapped their opponent in half, but something changed in that last moment...

It kept replaying in Zero's mind, the shift from an assassin to something... more.

Zero Venkage wrote: Sun Apr 20, 2025 2:22 am

"I guess I won't be sleeping tonight!"

...

They survived The Fall of Arcturus, they could survive this.

The Horsemen!

They had returned in the body of this assassin from the Areneaux Corporation, another Herald to the impending doom from a realm unknown. Zero groaned in pain as his body quickly regained consciousness and drew him from the murky darkness in his mind's eye. He felt Zeik's shoulder in his abdomen, arm around his waist, and started trying to writhe his way out of his savior's clutches.

"Gah, Zeik. We have to go! Put me down!"

Zero's blurry vision kept him from immediately recognizing where they landed, but their surroundings were warmer with calmer winds and a hint of grass on the nose. The Strait of Aeon and the island of Iden at the End of the World were far away from them now. Zero wanted to get up, but it seemed to him that his body wasn't responding like it should, like he was sending signals to his limbs and they weren't being received. Hw shifted slightly, but without enough energy to break free of Zeik's careful embrace. Beneath his strained movements, his hands seared with a painful buzzing sensation that pulsed up his arms and toward his torso. Zero held them close to his face to make sense of the feeling, but only saw the blurred crimson grey pigment airbrushed in to the fibers of his body.

Then he heard Fenri's voice and knew where the grassy scent came from, Zeik took them to the nearest safe haven he knew of: Cold Frontier. His heart dropped.

"Not Fenri too. I don't have time to argue with him, Zeik what happened on the island? Zeik?"

Zero kept thriving and trying to break free, but he never generated enough energy to break free of his friend's grip. He was left to stare at the barely discernible door to Cold Frontier and wait to either be let go or captured by Fenri. He didn't think Zeik would sell him out, but with how thing turned out in the Strait of Aeon and considering how often Fenri told Zero to keep his hands off of mystic relics without understanding the repercussions, the two pragmatists might have agreed on a suitable punishment for his reckless ambitions.

The stillness cracked.

Snow exploded skyward, powdered trees bent backward in the windblast, and the crust of frostbitten soil fractured outward in a vast radial tremor.

He had arrived.

The crater hissed with steam as the black monolith rose from its center, frost and steam curling off his midnight fur.

Three figures stood in the frost before him—their posture defiant and resolute, as if to challenge his arrival..

The tallest of them carried elven blood—his lean frame was cut from steel, and cloaked in furs laced with chains and silvers that hummed in the winds. He held quiet eyes, weathered by years of wisdom and sacrifice. The Cristapline were a foreign race to B'halian records, but Fenri's gaze was one of legend. It was colder than cold—eyes replaced by hollow crystals, with nothing behind them but fury and conviction. A fury wasted on behalf of the weak.

Interloper. Hellbringers. Bhalian Propaganda had illustrated Diamond Dust in a particular light—one that vilified those who aided and abetted the human plague. Aeon was known to house one so-called titan of lore, but the weight of his presence alone left no mistake in his identity. Akundae had never seen his face or met his acquistance, despite his intention to do so.

Standing next to him was a human who smelled of old blood.. centuries old. Older still than the snow peaked alps towering behind him.. and perhaps even beyond that, which shouldn't have even been possible. Akunade watched as the snow curved around him and his azure saber, as if fearful of his presence.. or reverent of it. It was impossible to distinguish. But the sight of his species turnt the Emperor's nose to the clouds, nostrils flared in disgust.

He did not know his name, but he held no reverence for human scum..

It was the third figure, draped across the human's back like a slain beast that made Akundae's heart seize with excitement.

The Venkage.

Faeborne, wild and pure. Even unconscious, he reeked of power and otherworldly potential. Though, human softness clung to him like perfume. No different than the Cristapline; it was foul and undeniable. It coiled into Akundae’s brain like incense, and boiled his blood with punitive fury.

His lips parted. Not to speak—but to breathe it in. Slow and deferential.

At last..

He who defied him, and dared sully his mercy.

The Thunderer.

A worthy foe.

Akundae's fingers twitched at his sides, subtle but seismic. Something in him stirred—a hunger. A desire born of nothing more than carnal bloodthirst and pride.

He took a step forward.

The snow crunched beneath his heel, snapping frozen turf with each movement.

His eyes—twin furnaces of molten red—focused on the unconscious warrior. Analyzing every detail. Musculature. Energy signature. Breathing pattern. He would forgo nothing in his conquest. No effort. No expense.

“Faeborne..”

He called, his voice low like muffled thunder—restrained and massive all at once.

Zeik felt it before he saw it.

The weight in the air. Not pressure—but presence. Thick. Ancient. The kind of presence that precedes battle cries and survives long after the carrion crows have taken their fill. It wasn’t just the ape-Elv, massive and smoldering in his silence like an unspoken atrocity.

No.
There was something in his shadow.

Something older.
Something permanent.

The snow hissed quietly around them, disturbed more by breath than motion. Steam rolled from the crater’s rim like a curtain drawn back for war. Zeik's gaze remained half-lidded, watching not with sight—but with sense.

And then it stepped forward: Akundae.
Zeik didn’t recognize the man. He hadn’t seen a Mazoku in eons, and this beast’s presence felt… familiar.

The earth flinched as the creature leapt from the crater.

Zeik exhaled. A breath colder than the mountain wind, yet steadier than the world beneath it.

“Careful,” he murmured—though to whom, even he wasn’t sure. The words hung there, misted in the frostbitten air.

There was no fear in him. No awe. Just the stillness that comes before the pull of a blade from its sheath. A silence sewn into his very blood.

He shifted his weight slightly, careful not to jostle the body draped across his back. Even now—unconscious, wounded—he could feel the electricity humming beneath the boy’s skin. The Thunderer. That title rang hollow to Zeik.

He looked up—slowly.

Akundae’s gaze met his, a beast peering through a blaze of molten red.
Zeik blinked once.
Then again.
Then finally spoke—his voice a breathless whisper, aged with wars long since buried.

“Thunderer…?”

Zeik stood unmoved, eyes shifting from Akundae, to Fenri, and lastly toward the silhouette cloaked in the ape’s shadow. His thoughts raced, and the inward calculus began. His hand drifted slightly—almost imperceptibly—back toward Zero, fingers grazing the collar at the boy’s neck. Not in protection.
Not yet.
In possession.

War’s armor showed the boy dead at Akundae’s feet.
In another vision, it showed Fenri as an ally—the two taking Zero from him.

Zeik chuckled quietly to himself.
He would not give him up.
And nothing—not even Judgment—was enough to change his mind.

The great ape-giant’s presence roared without sound—an avalanche before the first crack of ice. Akundae’s aura was suffocating not just in size, but in implication. His shadow carried War, and War’s armor showed no mercy. Only inevitability.

But Zeik had learned long ago: fate was as fleeting and fickle as desire. Easily changed by a single, imperceptible act.

And it wasn’t just the Herald he was watching.

Fenri.

The Cristapline stood tall beside him. Chains and silver danced at his coat’s hem, carried by the same wind that dared not touch Akundae. His gaze was quieter, but no less sharp—those crystalized eyes shimmered with unseen intention.

Zeik had known many who wore that kind of silence.

It was not humility.
It was calculation.

Two predators stood before him. Different fangs. Same hunger.

And Zero—the boy, the wild thing, the bolt of lightning barely contained in flesh—was no longer just the wounded. He was the storm they were all measuring. The question each sought to answer.

Zeik’s fingers now rested openly on Zero’s shoulder, anchoring him—not just for support, but for ownership. If they wanted him, they’d have to pass through him.

Fenri hadn’t moved. Hadn’t spoken—save for his ham-fisted dig at Zeik’s vision. A feat the old wizard had long since lost his humor for.

But Zeik knew his type.
Cold fury wrapped in lore and legacy.
A man who’d sacrificed more than blood—he had sacrificed comfort and perhaps even soul.

It made him dangerous.

And men like that often made war look like mercy.

Zeik’s eyes returned briefly to the war spirit—the slender phantom in reflective armor. In its sheen, he saw future fields bathed in blood—and at their center, Zero’s silhouette, alone.

He sighed.
Deep and low, as if trying to exhale the sorrow before it could root in him.

Without a word, Zeik adjusted his footing and shifted Zero’s weight closer to his own center of gravity—closer to his heart.

Let the Herald watch. Let Fenri guess. Let the war spirit reflect futures they thought were certain.

It didn’t matter to Zeik.
Nothing was certain. Not even destiny.

He stepped forward, eyes empty of rage—yet sharp enough to cut fate itself.

“Faeborne...” Zeik’s nose turned up at the use of such informal rhetoric. “He has a name. He’s not just a weapon for your cause.”

He paused.

The ground beneath him responded—not with trembling, but with silence. As if the mountain itself was listening.
Waiting for his next line.

He knelt toward the ground, carefully lowering Zero into the snow—not out of weakness, but respect—and left a single drop of his blood on the boy’s neck, and another on the ground beside him.

The droplet quickly sprinted across the snow, forming the linework of his fabled glyphs—the pentagram.

Zeik’s eyes drifted—not up, but through. Beyond the great ape’s burning gaze, into the cast silhouette at his flank. His armor shimmered like mirrored ether, and in each shifting panel Zeik saw visions—not imagined, but destined:

A sea of flames rolling over the Forest of Resonance.
The bones of familiar trees, charred to cinder.
The land of Muu—his home—splintered and burning under strange banners.
A battle—recent, he realized with quiet horror—on the fringe of his lands.

Bodies of kin and beast alike, still fresh in their defeat. Their faces were not lost to time.
Not yet.

He blinked once.
Just once.

And the reflection changed.

He saw himself—aged, bloodied, yet standing.
Always standing—lecturing the wind as if it were still listening.

“…So,” Zeik said at last. His voice was smooth, bone-deep, with a trace of something ancient in its rhythm. “First death. Now… war, I presume?”

He took a step forward. Not in challenge. In inquiry.

“I spent years preparing for this... madness. This judgment. Choosing to sharpen the minds of youth instead of the blades of our warriors. I thought it was Death who’d come for us.”

His eyes flicked down to Zero, then back to the Herald.

“But Death is quiet. Precise. Surgical.
Yet... this feels more like a game. A test... than judgement.”

His gaze sharpened. It was not cruel. Just… measured.

“You, on the other hand,” Zeik said to Akundae’s looming silence, “are thunder without lightning.”

He smiled, still tenderly watching over Zero.

“A cannon fired into a choir.
You bring war not with reason, but with ritual.
As if bloodshed were owed?? Why?”

Zeik didn’t know Akundae. Hell, he didn’t even know the beast’s name.
But between War’s armor, the flared nostrils, and the scent of hatred washing over the frigid air, Zeik was putting the pieces together.

Such was his gift.

Knowing, purely from sensation.
A feeling left in the wind could tell the wizard the entirety of one’s life.

“There was a battle near the forest,” he murmured, mostly to himself now. “Yours. I wasn’t there.”

His jaw tensed.
Eyes narrowing—not with rage, but with shame.

“I missed it.”

He took a final step, stopping just short of Akundae’s furnace-like breath.

Zeik's tone grew colder.
Quieter.
More final.

“That won’t happen again.”

He stood unmoving.
Defiant.
Fearless.

Then, after a moment:

“You’ve brought War to my doorstep,” Zeik said, eyes still locked on the reflection in the armor beyond.
“But you’ve also brought you and your master’s shadow into my light.”

Fenri’s nostrils filled with a pungent smell, one that drowned the Tarkan Plains in an air of malice. The foul aroma of war filled his nostrils and the esters turned his nose up in disgust. What fell in front of them was another beastly threat clawing for Zero’s throat. Since the events in Uran that turned the whole city against him, Fenri had no idea what to expect to come of his accurate, yet incomplete body of intel on Zero since the Fall of Arcturus. David and Lana gave him a full report of their journey through Uran, and the simulated massacre that occured there after the Waves of Horus were returned to those people. The Arceneaux Corporation sent a number of mercenaries so after Zero and presumably after the Waves of Horus themselves after they were repaired, but the opponent before them stood a far deeper threat, one that shook Vescrutia to its core.

Thunderer?

Zeik wrote: Thu Jun 05, 2025 6:30 am “You’ve brought War to my doorstep,” Zeik said, eyes still locked on the reflection in the armor beyond.
“But you’ve also brought you and your master’s shadow into my light.”

“Your doorstep?” Fenri asked to Zeik without moving his eyes from Akundae’s sweltering frame. “I don’t see either of you for a decade and you bring not one, but two impossible powers to my doorstep, where my people sleep. You’re all foreigners here and I’d appreciate it if you took your battle somewhere else.”

By the look in the Mazoku’s eye, Fenri knew they were beyon reasoning, they addressed Zero not even by name, but by order and designation Fenri dealt with people like him before, designating people by their capabilities rather than their character. The wild eyes of a beast marking their prey, the waves of war brushing against the on end hairs lining his crossed forearms, that unbreakable gaze, all of it turned Fenri’s stomach.

He felt Zeik sequester the wild child with the Pentagram, corralled and gated to protect him from the predator staring them down. Even with the questionable company he kept, Zeik was an honorable man, one of the people and for his people, and Fenri appreciated that about his character. Unfortunately he and his troublesome friend unleashed unimaginable threats on the planet and made Aeon ground zero.

“If you ever cared about innocent lives, you’d disappear with your friend right now, Zeik.”

Murder stained the air. Fenri felt the thirst for war in his bones and would only fight if provoked. He couldn’t bring himself to forget their speckled history and fight alongside Zeik to protect Zero, but the coming scuffle could have lasting impacts on Diamond Dust Ops if they got out of hand.

Things often got out of hand when Zero was involved.

He exhaled through his nose as he advanced, each step cracking the permafrost beneath his heel. The distance between him and the three insects dwindled, until his shadow swallowed them whole. Only then—when the 10-foot behemoth was close enough for them to smell the rot of death woven into his midnight fur—did he speak again.

His jaw clenched. Muscles in his neck corded as he tilted his head downward, not in curiosity, but in disgust..

His eyes fell on the huamn, spitting and spouting sounds that fell deaf on Akundae ears. His conviction, no matter how sharpened, was for nought.
Akundae's gaze reserved nothing for him.
No respect
No interest.
Only contempt.

“Sorcerer.”
The word was spoken like a slur. A dismissal—like waste or spit hitting the ground.

Mazoku held no reverence for human trickery. Weaklings who drank from foreign wells to fill the void left by absent strength. But this one in particular was far more steeped in the occult than others. He stunk of it, as if ancient rites rotted what was left of his soul, flesh, and blood into a smoldering carcass. Like a walking blight, or a curse with a face.
Akundae did not fear humans. But this one, this... thing, stirred his ire.

Then—to Fenri.
His gaze lingered longer. Sharper
There was recognition there, buried under Akundae's rage. Fenri held his fury in reserve, like a weapon he could wield with far more precision than the human sorcerer at his side. But as calm as he was, Akundae could hear the elves blood riptide with adrenaline. The drum of his heartbeat tripled, but it wasn't fueled by fear as it rightly should have been. Within the Cristapline he saw a solemn beast guarding his cave—a dog protecting his cattle. A righteous fury..

But Akundae was not here for wolves.
Or cattle.
Or cursed men.

His eyes fell to the boy, Slung across Zeik’s back like dead weight. Breathing shallow. Weak.. And still, he radiated power. The way a dormant volcano still fuumed. He smelled of death, in the same way that Akundae stunk of blood and war..

His teeth ground together.

The ground beneath him shattered in a sudden ringed fracture—no movement. Just the force from his nostrils. His wrath made manifest.

"You would hide.. behind the breast of your mate?” His voice was gravely, scratchy.. as if it hadn't been used in centuries for anything other than wrath and fury. “You will rise Thunderer.. Or I will kill them all.”

His words hung like a noose in the air, thick with loathing. The snarl that followedn, a ghastly, bone-deep rattle—would be the last sound they'd hear from him.

He had offered mercy once. Sent Envoys to the Venkage's land with olive branches soaked in gold and patience. But then Zero spat on it. Spat on him. Mocked the Empire before his cheering kennel of humans, and poisoned Madeira with hope. With rebellion.

Now, he came not with terms.
But with judgment.
With fire.
With war.

He knew not who he owed his new found power too—the cosmic entity that blessed his ruined form with a might he'd lost eons ago. But he did not care. Whatever the price, he was willing to pay it.