It didn't st long. Suddenly Ruki and Dali pulled out their weapons and jumped behind them.

  "Zeni is sitting RIGHT THERE,” Ruki shouted. “And you still tried to kill Ashiya?! We don't even know if that method works! What's wrong with your head?"

  Mia, realizing that her ambush attack didn't help, approached at a fast pace, perhaps to finish the job, while Dali and Ruki blocked her way.

  "Give me the medallion,” Dali said in a cold voice. “You're acting stupid, not everything has been tried yet."

  "Trash should not talk.” Mia said arrogantly. “Get out of the way or you’ll be next."

  Kiyeri didn't like these words very much, he was about to stand up and get involved in the conflict, but suddenly the weight in his hands disappeared, Ashiya got involved first. He stood in the middle, behind Dali and Ruki, looking pissed, but his voice was carefree. "The attack was shameless. I understand you're in a hurry to go home, but why me? A rat sneaked into your house and is sitting there. You'd like to expin?"

  Mia looked as if she wanted to spit under her feet, or maybe even in Ashiya's face, " You're all the same to me! I can't kill Seyre on my own — I admit that. So I need him to come with me. And as long as you're here, he’s useless — all hesitation and no resolve!"

  She gred to the side, "Kiyeri! You know you have to go with me, you know what needs to be done. My people are your people too. While you're drooling here, the masses are dying on the other side! Has your head melted?! Can't you comprehend what's more important? These three or all the others?!!” She raised her sword against Ashiya, "I'll help you decide, starting with this one."

  Dali and Ruki bend their knees slightly, fully prepared to defend themselves and the ones behind them. Perhaps they thought that Kiyeri had used up too much mana, and Ashiya felt weak after such a knockout. Although they knew that they were no match for Mia, those four eyes burned with determination, not showing any fear or hesitation. Kiyeri's heart was warmed by this and it seemed that not his alone.

  Ashiya separated them by gently pushing to the sides, a small smile on his face, "Thank you for your efforts, but this will not be necessary. I did not expect to wake up and be rewarded like that from all sides” he stepped forward, drawing his sword, “But I’m in a good mood. I am perfectly prepared. If you think that the two of you will be enough to take down Seyre, then your brain has melted. Come, I will show you your pce."

  Kiyeri wanted to rush forward himself and throw a few punches somewhere, but he couldn’t. He was seeing more important things for some time now.

  "Great,” Kiyeri said dryly. “Now we all look like idiots.

  He stood up and slowly walked towards the group, stopping halfway between Mia and Ashiya, then pointed a finger down, "If everyone would cool down their heads, and open their eyes…"

  At this moment, no one wanted to be ambushed, after what had happened earlier, everyone gathered was hesitant to take their eyes off their opponents and didn’t dare look down. Kiyeri felt the same way but was much calmer than the others. He sighed, "I'm pointing to the exit with my finger, and you still can't just lower your faces? Do you all not trust me that much?"

  After the word "exit", everyone looked to the ground. But only with their eyes, not their faces. There was a rge crack under Kiyeri’s feet, about the length of an arm, from shoulder to wrist. This picture made everyone lower their shoulders and weapons. Kiyeri crouched down, touched the crack, and expined, "That white Voidborne was standing here. My guess is - the three of them are like some kind of anchor, holding this pce together. When they're gone, the gates will open and everyone can get out."

  After thinking for a second, he added, "It's good that we decided to remove the bck ones, they'd probably be released into the wild too, imagine the chaos..."

  "How do you know this is a gate? Maybe it's just a crack," Mia snorted.

  Dali gaped, “WHAT?!” then threw his arms out. “How do you know this is a gate? Maybe it’s just a crack,” he mimicked with exaggerated snark. “Are you seriously that dense?!"

  Kiyeri thought that he must have felt offended by that comment about trash. He examined the floor more closely, "Because after what just happened I can feel the flow of mana and now I feel it being sucked out and poured away through the crack." He stood up and gave Mia a cold look, "That medallion was never connected, it's just a mana stone, like any other, converting one energy into another. Only this dagger has always been able to accept sacrifices, because of the way it was forged."

  He approached Mia slowly and whispered in her ear, "We're leaving soon. Prepare for the worst."

  The way she flinched, swallowing his words — it did something to him. He couldn’t name the feeling, but it felt like he was a wolf, mere inches away from its prey. It felt good.

  Making two more quick steps, Kiyeri was already standing at another statue, putting his palm on it, he turned to the asking, "Everyone ready?" Without waiting for an answer, he sent several gusts of mana and the statue broke free at once, "Give me some teamwork."

  The team was certainly not friendly, but almost all of them were experienced warriors, so they quickly moved. Knowing each other's weaknesses, strengths, and weapons, they moved without hesitation. Ashiya chopped off the legs of the Voidborne at high speed, Ruki and Dali gouged out the eyes, and Mia with Sonanta finished it off with heavy swords. Before the group could recover, Kiyeri had already sent them another, "No rest. Let's go.", without any desire to help at all, but keeping a close eye on Ashiya.

  Kiyeri was in a great mood, according to him - for no reason, and just enjoyed seeing them all panicking a little, although they were doing well. Part of this was his desire to change everyone's attitudes from angry and suspicious to more easygoing and workable, he needed to unite everyone's thoughts in a common goal, considering what awaited on the other side. To win there, everyone must be passionate and focused, and stick together, otherwise there will be no chance.

  After taking down the third Voidborne even faster, the whole group rushed to Kiyeri, who was already exploring the cracks. He ran his palms over one crack, then another, "The energy extraction is much stronger than before, it just needs a final push, for everything to fall apart."

  Everyone became restless and kept asking, "Did you succeed?", "Do you need something?", "Did you fail?". Kiyeri silenced everyone, "Shhhhhh" he extended his hand to Mia without taking his eyes off the ground, "Give me the medallion."

  A medallion was pced in his hand. Kiyeri closed his eyes, took a few slow breaths – and when he opened them, the colors were there again. After staring for a while, he began to smash those cracks with medallion.

  One after another, jagged cracks split across the stone. The ground below looked almost hollow, like it might colpse into an endless abyss. Everyone but Kiyeri stepped back - not running, but shaken. Kiyeri moved slowly while smashing and gradually connecting three separate cracks into a single rge one. With each lightning-shaped sign appearing under his feet, he felt the energy pulling more strongly.

  Soon the cracks began to form on their own without help, so Kiyeri retreated with others. From somewhere behind them, the frail voice of the old man reached out, “Wait – don’t leave me.” No one turned back. The process accelerated, spreading further and further. The ground trembled, cracks lengthened, until they covered the entire area.

  And then - the floor disappeared from under their feet.

  Kiyeri hit the ground ft on his back — hard enough to knock the air out of his lungs. He immediately realized he was outside. The air was cool and fresh, it was dark, felt like te evening, maybe night. Without taking his thoughts away from the main goal, Kiyeri quickly stood up, but slipped on something and sat down again with a bang on his tailbone. Looking closer, he saw the uneven ground as if covered by rumble, and at the same time, a hand was pced in front of his nose.

  “Kiye,” Ashiya grinned, “graceful as always.”

  “Thank you,” Kiyeri muttered, “I tried.”

  Grabbing a helping hand, he stood up and quickly gnced around. Everyone else was also nearby, huddled together in a heap. A little further away, a shadow was writhing like a worm on the ground, groaning, trying to get up, Kiyeri concluded that it was Zeni and hoped that he had nded on his face.

  The sky was choked with clouds - if the moon was up, it gave no light. They stood in an empty space, but the ground underfoot was littered with bricks and shattered stone. Not a meadow. Not a field. This had been a city.

  They huddled together, protecting each other's backs and exchanging information in a whisper until a moan was heard from where Kiyeri had just sat. The group suddenly jumped as one and turned in that direction, asking each other who had moaned and if it was a human voice after all.

  The moan was heard again. Kiyeri jumped to the pce and began to feel with his hands, from his legs, then moving further away. Soon he felt touching some kind of puddle.

  Plunging his hands into an unknown puddle in the dark was the worst kind of wrong. He recoiled instinctively, wiping his palms on his pants, “The hell??”

  His hands were sticky; fingers gluing to each other. Kiyeri’s hair stood on end. Only a moment ago, in a completely different space, he repeatedly experienced the same feeling in his palms, it clearly was blood.

  "Don't move," Kiyeri warned others, "You might accidentally step on them, there's a person injured here, he's bleeding badly.”

  He tried to reach out his hands again in the direction that person was lying. Upon touching, he felt a rough material, like linen. It was also wet and sticky.

  After some pats, convinced he was touching a torso, he raised his hands and found a chest. Then shoulders. Neck. And finally face. The face was cold, this person had a beard. Having stroked the entire head, and decided that it was not bleeding, he lowered his hands again, looking for the source of blood, during this time that man groaned painfully even more. Kiyeri carefully slid hands by the neck, shoulders, and down that person’s arms. And then - his fingers sank into torn flesh. Both palms. He jerked back like he'd been burned. This man had no arms, they had been torn off. Kiyeri’s heart was beating wildly, and the ringing in his ears was getting louder.

  And then it hit him. If a man lying here, having suffered such injuries, was still alive, what did that mean? His heart jumped into his throat.

  “He’s here!” Kiyeri stood up and drew his daggers, “Form a circle!”

  The group obeyed immediately.

  Mia asked quietly, “Did you see him?”

  Kiyeri didn’t answer, he was afraid to speak, lest he miss some important sound and be distracted. Wherever they were now, it was simply too quiet, such a ck of sounds was unnatural. Crickets, horses, dogs, cats, birds, people, it all depends on the region, but there must be some kind of sound everywhere, some are heard during the day, others at night, but someone must always be making noise. Now they could practically hear each other’s heartbeats.

  At that moment, the complete darkness began to give way to twilight. At first, Kiyeri thought his eyes were just getting used to the darkness, but he soon realized it was dawn. As the view around him gradually became clearer, he could hear his comrades' hands falling to their sides, metal cnking. Kiyeri’s eyes widened. "The capital...?"

  The buildings around them took on silhouettes, but they were severely deformed. The huge bell tower in the center of the main square, built high as a mountain, was now split in half, one part standing, the other broken, pieces lying to the side. The paces of officials with pointed roofs that had stood around for centuries, now leveled to one floor. Of all the trees that had grown here surrounding the square, not a single one was standing, everything that could have been lying was now lying on the ground.

  Kiyeri lowered his gaze and shuddered. The square was paved with bodies – stacked, crumpled, broken. A brick poked through here and there, but mostly, it was flesh. Some stacked in piles, others strewn like garbage The majority were soldiers or guards. Kiyeri turned towards the man who had been moaning a while ago - he certainly had no arms, but he also had no legs. The man was probably holding on to his st breath only with mana.

  "He reached your capital...” Sonanta's voice trembled, “Does that mean... that everything is over in the Sun nd...?"

  "Not necessarily,” Ashiya answered, “He could have just returned straight home"

  Ruki spoke, "The pace. I think he's in the pace"

  Very close to the square were the outer gates of the pace, behind them a rge garden, after that, the generals' towers, and finally the inner gates and the pace itself. Kiyeri wondered if everyone was really up to such a task. Seyre was nowhere to be seen, if they had to run, it must be done now.

  "Is everyone sure they want to proceed?" he asked loudly. Entrusting your life to those undecided is extremely dangerous.

  "There's nowhere for Ruki and I to retreat." Dali was the first to answer, immediately after those words his sister held out her clenched fist for him, to which he responded by smashing it with his. They shared arrows he made earlier, during that corruption fight against Kiyeri.

  "If he hasn't destroyed our home yet, he will do it eventually.” Mia said while preparing her weapons, “Besides, it's better to get loose in a foreign nd - at least there's no need to protect the environment"

  "And your personality is getting worse by the minute," Kiyeri thought to himself. Noticing that Ashiya wasn't saying anything, he decided to check on him, "What about you?"

  Ashiya smiled and shot the question back, "Why would you want to participate?"

  "Well, first of all, without me, you’d all perish,” Kiyeri replied dryly. “And secondly, I already have another mission. But Seyre will get in the way, so I have to.”

  “Oooooh. And what mission is that?” Ashiya asked with interest.

  “Maybe we should focus on the current mission,” Dali muttered, turning around as the others moved on.

  Kiyeri nudged Ashiya with his elbow. “Well? If you’re in, move your ass.”

  Ashiya finally stepped forward, still grinning for some reason, “That’s twice you saved me. I owe you.”

  “Start paying your debt by surviving,” Kiyeri replied dryly.

  He stood at the edge of the ruins, weapon in hand, and thought: I got them out. But getting out… was the easy part.