[Realm: Álfheimr]

[Location: The Deathless Fortress]

"She really was cute, huh?"

Alexander said it with the same dreamy half-smile he'd been wearing for the last several minutes, as though replaying Ella's startled shriek on an endless loop inside his head.

Ivan didn't even bother looking up from the talisman. "Alexander, this is the sixth time you've said that."

"Six?" Alexander blinked, counting on his fingers as if confirming the number mattered. "You can't blame me. You saw her. The same girl who looks like she'd stab a man for breathing too loud jumping at a rat? That's gold."

Ivan exhaled through his nose, long and resigned. They were perched in what remained of a hallway—if it could still be called that—one wall blown out entirely, the other leaning like it was reconsidering its existence. Robert had left to take another route, so for now it was only him and Alexander, waiting for Ella's signal.

Whatever that was supposed to look like.

"Seriously, though," Alexander continued, leaning back against a half-shattered pillar, "I wasn't expecting that kind of reaction from her. I thought she'd vaporize the rat, or kick it into orbit, or—I don't know—not act like she just saw a ghost or something."

Ivan hummed quietly, fingers brushing the talisman's surface. He surmised Alexander was talking because he was nervous—not because he suddenly turned into Ella's number-one fanboy. And honestly? Ivan couldn't blame him. The tension was thick enough to choke on. The Deseruit Beasts still prowled below, numerous shadows shifting in the gaps of the ruined fortress.

Thinking about anything else was a relief.

Still… Ella's reaction lingered in Ivan's mind too, but for different reasons.

They barely knew her. She had given them almost nothing about herself besides sharp words and sharper threats. Everything about her screamed antagonistic, above it all. A girl like that wasn't supposed to flinch at anything less than a monster.

Yet the moment she saw a rat—just a rat—her whole façade cracked open.

And for that heartbeat, she wasn't the cold, intimidating and morally-questionable Ella.

She was just… a girl. A human being. Someone who could be startled, embarrassed, and flustered.

Someone reachable.

Ivan felt the corner of his mouth tug upward before he realized he was smiling.

"What are you smiling about?" Alexander asked, squinting at him. "Awfully calm for a guy about to run headfirst into a suicide mission."

Ivan snorted at the irony. "You're one to talk. You've been blissfully rambling about Ella for the last… what? Ten minutes?"

"Look, man." Alexander held up a hand. "You're not seriously gonna tell me that reaction wasn't cute. I mean—she looked like a scared kid. A terrifying, possibly-murderous kid, but still."

"Guess she's human," Ivan murmured. "She gets scared of something so mundane… and gets embarrassed too." His voice softened without his permission. "It makes her feel real."

Alexander tilted his head, studying him, sensing Ivan's thoughts were spinning deeper than he let on. He opened his mouth, hesitated, then spoke more gently:

"We'll live, you know."

Ivan blinked, thrown off by the sudden shift. "What?"

"We'll live," Alexander repeated, firmer this time. "I mean—yeah, what we're about to do is stupid. Really stupid. But like hell I'm gonna die here."

The straightforward conviction in his voice almost startled Ivan more than Ella's scream had.

"You sound unusually confident," Ivan said, trying to keep the mood light, though his voice wavered. "Did Ella suddenly motivate you or something?"

"What? No!" Alexander waved both hands. "It ain't anything like that. It's just, I don't have some big dream or heroic goal. I just… don't wanna die. And if I'm this motivated over something that simple, then you—" he pointed at Ivan's chest— "Mr. 'I Actually Have a Goal in Life'— should be even more fired up."

Ivan stared at him a moment, then looked down. His fingers tightened around the talisman.

A small tremor of clarity rippled through him—a reminder of what he wanted, something distant but so very real. Something he had barely defined, something still in the fog, but something he needed to reach.

He couldn't die. Not here. Not before he even took a step toward it.

"I guess so…" Ivan whispered. He inhaled, forcing the breath deep, steadying himself. Then, with a small nod—one meant for himself more than Alexander—he said: "Right, we won't die no matter what."

His words rang out as sudden a pop echoed in the distance—soft at first, almost mistaken for crumbling debris. But then another followed, its reverberation rolling through the corridors. Both stiffened instinctively, their attention snapping to the gaping opening where the wall had once stood.

Three streaks of red arced upward far beyond the broken structures.

Then bloomed.

Not bright and celebratory like festival fireworks—no. These bursts were uneven, flaring almost sinisterly.

Alexander's brows knitted as he stared. "Those… are fireworks, right? Am I going crazy or—"

"That's her," Ivan murmured, his voice going tight, almost flat with realization. "Ella's signal."

Alexander sighed—loudly. He wiped his palms against his trousers, breath shaky, eyes flicking down the hallway as though expecting the Deseruit Beasts to burst through right then.

Ivan wasn't any calmer—his heartbeat pressed thickly at the back of his throat. He looked down at the talisman again, feeling its weight despite it being mere paper. The carved lines in the charm seemed more prominent, as though expecting to be used.

"Alexander," he said quietly. "You ready?"

Alexander drew in a breath—slow and unsteady. His jaw clenched, but he nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm with you. Let's get this over with before I change my mind."

Ivan almost wanted to laugh, but he couldn't. Not with everything tightening around them like a vice.

So he curled his fingers around the talisman and focused.

One thought rang out, just one.

And it was activated.

The response was instantaneous.

A detonation of golden light erupted outward—no gentle glow, no subtle one either, but a full-force, blinding, and heatless explosion that consumed the entire hallway. Ivan flinched hard, instinctively turning his head as the air rippled violently.

Alexander shouted something—Ivan couldn't hear it over the ringing in his ears. The brightness pierced everything, flooding the surroundings with searing light, almost engulfing the skies.

For a heartbeat it was as though the world was engulfed in it.

Then the light collapsed inward—curling into a radiant sphere around the talisman, condensing with a shuddering pull.

Ivan stared.

Alexander stared.

The talisman glowed—slow bursts of gold.

"What the hell—!?" Alexander sputtered, half-shielding his eyes. "Tamamo said she only put a bit of power in that thing! Since when does 'a bit' look like—like this!?"

"I don't know," Ivan muttered, forcing down the rising panic. "And we don't have time to figure it out."

The golden light pulsed—once, then twice.

That was their cue.

They exchanged a tense glance, then they ran.

Both lunged forward, boots crashing against littered stone as they leapt from the exposed hallway. Their feet hit the courtyard hard, knees bending to absorb the impact. Dust kicked up beneath them as they steadied themselves.

The world did not give them even a second.

A roar tore through the air—a monstrous, gut-rattling bellow that shook dust from the remaining pillars.

Then another.

And another.

Dozens.

Ivan sucked in a breath as the ground trembled beneath an oncoming swarm. Shadows shifted—massive shapes moving with terrifying speed. The Deseruit Beasts were already converging, drawn by the talisman.

"Go!" Ivan barked.

They sprinted westward—feet pounding in frantic leaps.

Behind them, it was chaos.

The Deseruit Beasts tore through the ruined fortress, ripping down chunks of stone, shattering supports, crashing through walls as if the structures were made of paper. Their forms varied wildly—some with elongated limbs and jutting bone ridges, others hulking masses of muscle with animalistic faces twisted just wrong. Foxlike shapes with doubled jaws, boarlike beasts with too many eyes, a towering elk-shaped creature with steel-like skin.

They were lunging at them in a stampede.

Hundreds if not more.

Alexander risked a glance back—and nearly stumbled.

"H–holy— Ivan, that's— I mean—I knew it'd attract a lot but—THAT MANY!?"

"I see them!" Ivan yelled, though the words were half-lost to the noise of pursuing monsters. "Just keep running!"

Another roar—closer—shook the ground so violently that Alexander almost veered off balance. A massive shadow barreled through the remnants of an archway and sent debris exploding outward.

A huge beast—something vaguely resembling a lion, if lions were twenty feet tall and had six legs—lunged after them.

Alexander's breath hitched. "Nope! Nope! Nope! Ivan I swear to—! Just run faster!"

"I'm trying!"

They wove around shattered columns and crumbling stone, pieces of fortress architecture collapsing behind them as the swarm tore through everything in their path. Ivan felt the vibrations in his bones, the seismic patterns of pounding limbs chasing them down like prey.

The talisman's glow only intensified.

Every flash drew more beasts.

And neither Ivan nor Alexander dared slow for even a second.

The ruined courtyard blurred around them as a result. Ahead, through the dust and thick smoke, the outer fortress wall came into view—its once-impenetrable structure now riddled with gaping holes from earlier attacks. Ivan spotted one: a wide breach where an explosion or massive claw swipe had torn straight through the masonry.

"There!" he managed between deep breaths, pointing with a sharp jerk of his chin. "Aim for that gap!"

Alexander didn't waste time arguing, just veered in the direction Ivan indicated. The pounding behind them grew louder still.

They sprinted harder.

Their boots thudded against the ground loudly as they closed in on the opening. Ivan had no idea how wide the swarm behind them stretched—he didn't dare look yet—but he could hear the sound of claws shredding ground and the snarling snap of jaws that sounded far too close.

They burst through the gap in the wall.

The fortress fell away behind them, and suddenly the world opened into the dead plains—an expanse of pale terrain stretching endlessly westward. No vegetation or cover. Nothing but the horizon and them.

And the Deseruit Beasts.

A thunderous crash erupted behind them as multiple Deseruit Beasts slammed through the breach, pulverizing the remaining stone arch. Shards of masonry skittered across the ground.

Ivan risked a glance back—just a half-second look.

He wished he hadn't.

Shapes poured through the shattered wall like a flood. Beasts with large legs and elongated spines. Some slithered through while others galloped. Wingless raptorlike forms scrambled across the rubble, snarling. A colossal canine-beast, its maw lined with double rows of sharp teeth, squeezed its bulky mass through the opening with a guttural roar that shook Ivan's ribs.

Alexander let out a strangled sound. "They're not stopping! Why are they this fast!? I mean—what are they made of!?"

"I don't know!" Ivan gasped. "Just keep running!"

They merely kept sprinting across the plains.

Minutes—maybe seconds; time warped under adrenaline—passed with nothing but running, gasping, stumbling, and forcing themselves onward.

Alexander finally shouted, voice cracking from desperation and exertion, "She better be coming—I swear, if Ella ditched us, I'm haunting her!"

"If she ditched us," Ivan said breathlessly, "we won't be around to haunt anything."

He forced himself not to look back again.

But the fear, the instinctive dread crawling up his spine, made him do it anyway.

Except instead of claws, fangs, and monsters catching up—

He saw something else.

His steps faltered for a moment. "Alexander—wait—look!"

Alexander slowed only because Ivan's sudden shift startled him, and turned around while still jogging backward—

—and nearly tripped over his own feet.

"Wha—what is that?"

A massive dome of red light—translucent, but dense enough to distort the silhouettes behind it—had materialized without a sound. One moment the monsters were chasing them in a large stampede; the next, the entire swarm was swallowed by an enormous barrier extending high into the sky.

Perfectly spherical and perfectly sealed.

Hundreds upon hundreds of Deseruit Beasts crashed into the barrier's interior with snarls and deafening roars. Some clawed at it, some hurled their bodies against it, while others stabbed elongated limbs into the red surface.

Nothing broke through.

The sphere merely rippled slightly with each impact.

Ivan froze.

Alexander stood beside him, heaving slightly, staring dumbly. "Did… did we do that?" he asked, his voice thin with exhaustion and disbelief.

"I can barely run straight," Ivan muttered, "much less make that."

The roars inside the barrier intensified. The Deseruit Beasts slammed, bit, clawed, rammed, yet none of it mattered.

A voice drifted down from above, clear as day despite the vastness around them.

"Well. Color me… minutely impressed."

Ivan and Alexander whipped their heads upward.

Ella floated lazily above the barrier—arms crossed loosely, one leg slightly bent as if she were simply posing in midair. Her hair drifted weightlessly, her expression was neutral yet beautiful all the same.

Then she smirked.

"You two actually survived long enough to get here," she called, tilting her head in amusement. "Huh. I genuinely expected one of you to trip and die."

Alexander huffed, bending over with his hands on his knees. "Oh good," he said, "she's in a good mood again."

Ivan wiped sweat from his brow, steadying his breathing. "Ella," he called out, "just—please tell me you have a plan here."

She shrugged midair. "Of course. Did you think I'd leave you two to be mulch? I mean, sure, I considered it. But I figured, fine, might as well clean things up properly."

Alexander looked personally offended. "The fact you say this stuff out loud—"

Ella raised a finger.

"Anyway. Let's wrap this up."

She snapped.

The sound was small but the aftermath was not.

Inside the massive red barrier—a second light burst to life, this one white-hot and violent, spiraling into existence. It expanded faster than thought, consuming the entire swarm in less than a heartbeat.

The explosion was silent for one terrifying second.

Then the sphere detonated from within.

Heat surged upward in a pillar of red-white flame, curling the air and carving a massive crater deep into the ground. Earth split outward in deep lines, and dust and char ripped skyward in a roaring plume.

When the light subsided—only a vast, smoldering hole remained.

Not a single Deseruit Beast, not even ash.

Just obliteration.

Ivan's jaw hung slightly open. "She… she wiped them all out in one go…"

Alexander let out a weak, shaking laugh. "Holy shit."

Ella drifted downward slightly, brushing imaginary dust from her sleeve. "Well, that was about as annoying as I expected. But at least you two weren't completely useless." She scanned them once more—eyes narrowing slightly. "Mhm. Yeah. You were… mildly helpful."

Alexander looked at Ivan, as if asking silently whether he heard that right.

Ivan mouthed: Mildly.

Ella continued, already sounding bored. "Anyway, the fun part's over, so I'm leaving. You two? Probably won't ever see me again. Try not to die at some point."

"Wait—" Ivan began, instinctively raising a hand.

She snapped her fingers.

Her form blurred, twisting into red motes of light—then vanished completely. The plains fell silent except for the wind brushing over the ground.

Ivan and Alexander stood alone, surrounded by the aftermath of a battle they never even fought.

Alexander slowly exhaled, rubbing his forehead. "…Ivan?"

"Yeah?"

"…What just happened?"

Ivan stared blankly at the empty crater. "…I have absolutely no idea." He let out a tired, breathy sigh—the kind that finally escapes when a person's entire body believes the chaos of the day has ended. "At least… Gods, at least it's all over," Ivan muttered, rubbing a hand down his face as if wiping away the last remnants of trouble. "Just… for once, let it stay normal. Please."

He genuinely believed it.

For a whole three seconds.

Then Alexander made a strange noise—somewhere between a gasp and the sound of a man swallowing his soul. Ivan blinked at him.

"Why is your mouth open like that? Did a bug fly in?" Ivan asked, only half joking.

Alexander didn't answer. He didn't look at him, or even blink.

He only stared past Ivan, expression frozen in disbelief, as if reality had personally offended him.

Ivan frowned. "What? What are you—I swear, Alex, if—"

He turned.

His jaw dropped so hard it almost popped out of place.

"…Ah."

What they saw should not have been visible from such a distance. It should not have been anything a human eye could interpret from afar.

But it was.

Clear as if hovering only ten meters away.

A silhouette—massive and very, very wrong—moved across the horizon.

Its size dwarfed mountains.

Its shape coiled and twisted, a scaled leviathan whose serpentine length devoured the skyline. Nine enormous heads, each distinct yet equally monstrous, swayed and writhed, their overlapping hisses carried on the wind.

And it wasn't slithering on the ground.

It was sailing through the air.

Casually.

Clouds split apart as its colossal body cut through them, leaving long, torn seams of sky in its wake.

Ivan's brain stalled.

Alexander's soul visibly left his body.

Its form continued traveling, almost as though it were tossed through the air.

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