The door swung open.
Anna had barely blinked, her fingers still braced against the wood, when the air outside hit her like a punch. Not cold. Not smoke. Something deeper. A wind that had weight. That bent around things it had no right to.
And just beyond it, towering through the rip in the skyline.
A shape.
Too wide for the street. Too tall for the rooftops. Wings not feathered, not batlike, but somewhere between ruin and armor, spread like knives cast from a god's furnace. And a body that didn't shimmer like a beast's hide should, it glowed, faint and wrong, as if the heat of it had long since sunk into the marrow of the world and stayed.
She couldn't scream.
She couldn't even breathe.
The creature's head shifted. And for a moment, just one, its eyes, pale molten orbs cut in stone, locked on hers.
She froze.
And then—
CRACK.
The shot rang out so sharply it cracked the frost on the windows.
The beast flinched. Just slightly. Like a muscle twitching in annoyance.
Then turned.
Anna didn't see what happened next. The wind slammed her backward down the stairs. The trapdoor buckled again, swung halfway shut, and darkness reclaimed her.
Above her, the tavern shook like it was trying to crawl off its foundation.
***
Ilya stirred.
Not all at once.
His fingers twitched first, coated in soot and something thicker. His shoulder shifted, not of his own will, but because the floor beneath him had begun to settle into ash and broken brick. A breath rasped out of him.
It didn't feel like breath.
He couldn't feel much of anything. Not pain. Not cold. Not even his own weight. Only heat, deep under his ribs, like something sleeping too close to his lungs.
His eyes opened. Blurred.
The ceiling above him was cracked, broken through by the talon of a god. Light poured in, but it wasn't real light. It was red. Too red.
He remembered something about it.
No, not remembered. He knew.
Something had followed it. Something wrong.
His fingers found wood.
Not a floorboard. Not rubble.
A Rifle.
He didn't remember reaching for it.
Didn't remember raising it.
But he did.
Somewhere beyond the fractured wall, something moved. A shadow bigger than the building. A wing the size of a field scraped the air. The ground trembled, and all the fire that had once lived in Crystalis seemed to bow down in silence.
He didn't think.
His finger twitched.
CRACK.
The recoil jolted through his elbow. Not painful. Familiar.
He hadn't aimed. Not really. The rifle had chosen when to fire.
It moved again.
The shadow outside the wall twisted, and the light with it. The Red Dragon, though the name meant nothing in his half-splintered mind, turned away from whatever it had seen below.
And looked at him.
It didn't roar.
Didn't flare its wings.
It just watched.
Ilya rose, slowly. His coat clung to him, stiff with frost and blood. His boots crushed broken glass and spent shell casings. The black liquid that trailed from his arm to the rifle pulsed once, subtle, like it was breathing with him.
The air bent between them.
No words.
No sound but wind.
And for a moment, in the heart of a dying city, neither moved.
The rifle tilted again.
The hunter didn't know his own name.
But the dragon remembered the shape of fear.
Ilya stepped over the city ruins like it was nothing. Not with purpose, just because he had to. The rifle hung at his side, the barrel dark, the stock glistening faintly where the blood had soaked through.
The tavern near him creaked, already losing its shape. Smoke curled from the rafters like breath too tired to leave. Somewhere below, behind the shattered floorboards, the trapdoor stood half ajar.
But his eyes never left the street.
The dragon still stood there.
Not perched. Not crouched. Stood. Its forelimbs dug into the stone, claws like pillars. The wings, impossibly wide, rustled once, just enough to send a shockwave through the smoke. And its tail, long enough to wrap a building, curved slowly like it was drawing a line.
It hadn't moved since the shot.
But it hadn't left either.
It watched him.
Ilya stepped again. Not fast. Not slow. Like he didn't know how to walk anymore, only continue. The rifle dragged slightly as if the weight had changed.
His boots crunched over a crushed tea plate.
The dragon's eyes followed. Not glowing now. Not hot. But steady.
And it tilted its head.
Ilya didn't flinch.
Something about his body was off. His shoulders didn't rise properly. His breath caught sometimes, but he didn't notice. The black ink-blood down his arm had stopped dripping. It had sunk in. Fed the rifle. Or maybe the rifle had fed it.
He raised it again.
No thought. No calculation.
Just instinct carved into something deeper.
He fired.
The bullet struck the dragon's snout.
It didn't bleed.
It blinked.
Once.
Then everything changed.
The street buckled beneath its claws. Its wings snapped once, not to fly, but to release pressure. Air exploded outward. A building to the left lost its wall. Roof tiles skittered down in waves. Fire burst from somewhere unseen.
It finally moved.
Not a lunge.
Not a charge.
A step.
Deliberate.
Its head lowered just enough that its eye came level with the tavern's ruin. It looked at Ilya again, but this time not like a hunter watching prey. More like a question remembering its answer.
Its mouth opened.
Then it roared.
The sound broke the sky.
The windows around them burst inward. The snow on the roofs lifted, then fell like shrapnel. The very air turned red, not lit, not burned, it changed.
Ilya flew backward.
He didn't scream. Didn't brace. Just hit the ground, rolled once, and slid to a stop against the shattered fountain.
The rifle fell beside him. Still warm.
The dragon stepped forward.
This time, it would not stop.
Ilya stood again.
He didn't know how. Something beneath his skin forced him to move. A rhythm not his.
His legs weren't steady. The snow under him had melted from the heat. His coat hung torn around him, half-burned, the right sleeve blackened to the seam. His ribs creaked every time he moved.
But the rifle was still there.
And his fingers still knew what to do.
The dragon was near now. Close enough to blot the street in shadow. Its steps pressed deep craters into the stone. Fire coiled in its mouth again, not ready to strike, but waiting, like it had decided this boy wasn't even worth ending properly.
Ilya raised the rifle.
His breath shook. His hands didn't.
He aimed for the eye.
CRACK.
The bullet vanished into scale.
It didn't blink.
The dragon moved.
Its forelimb slammed down where Ilya stood before he even realized it.
A sound like collapsing mountains filled the air. The stone cracked. The center of the street caved inward with a crunch that scattered dust into the rooftops. A geyser of snow and ash lifted, then dropped in silence.
When the light cleared, he was still there.
Still standing upright.
The limb had missed his core. Only caught him as he dodged, but that was enough. His shoulder was dislocated. His arm hung dead. The goo matted his hair and slid down his cheek.
Ilya dropped to one knee, trying to find his rifle.
There it was, beneath the rubble, crushed into three jagged pieces. One of them still steamed.
The dragon raised its head again.
It had seen enough.
Its tail began to move again.
But Ilya didn't.
He simply knelt there, the black veins on his hand now dim, his eyes dull, his breath shallow.
He didn't feel his legs anymore.
Only the pull, downward, inward, like gravity remembered what he was.
Ilya stumbled forward, blood-stiff coat brushing against the broken tavern wall. His fingers dragged behind him like useless rope. His breath rasped, but his eyes remained open, vacant and wide. Somewhere behind them, the rest of him still howled.
A child's cry echoed faintly, but it no longer registered.
He could barely stand.
And still he did.
He pressed one boot forward, slipped, caught himself, staggered again. The rifle on his back clung like it had melted into bone. The snow underfoot was ash-drenched now, crusted with smoke. Each breath cracked in his throat.
Still, he tried.
Even now, even hollowed, some part of him still reached forward.
From the far end of the broken street, a sound broke through.
Low, clean, and cruelly calm. The sound of metal whispering through winter air. A rifle, older than most wars, speaking with the voice of precision.
The bullet struck the dragon clean across the jaw. Not enough to wound it, but enough to turn its head. Enough to remind it, however faintly, that it could bleed.
The beast twisted.
Its massive body realigned with the far road, shoulders shifting like mountains waking. Its wings curled in, folding tight against its ribs.
Down the street where the ash hadn't reached, where the snow still remembered silence, stood a figure.
He didn't say anything.
He simply stood, rifle balanced against one gloved hand, cloak still as carved pine, eyes fixed like he'd measured this shot before the dragon ever fell from the sky.
He wasn't fast.
Wasn't loud.
But the wind seemed to hush around him.
The kind of hush reserved for hunters.
Not those who chase.
But those who wait.
Peoples called him by many names.
The Hunter from Northern Land. The Forest Wind. The White Ghost. Yet no one truly know his name.
The man stepped forward.
And suddenly disappeared. Only leaving the silence that followed.
A pressure touched the edges of the air, subtle, like a heartbeat pressing through frost.
A shape moved beside Ilya.
No bootsteps. No warning.
One arm caught him under the ribs with sudden gentleness. The other struck.
Ilya's knees folded.
He collapsed into the snow.
And the world exhaled.
The man who caught him lowered him slowly, one gloved hand still braced behind Ilya's neck. His touch was careful. Not hesitant. Just aware.
Arvid looked down at the boy he had once taught to shoot.
His rifle remained slung. His coat unburned. His breath steady, though the corner of his mouth twitched, barely.
He knew this would happen. Had seen the signs like frost rings before a storm.
But expectation never softened impact.
He laid Ilya's body gently against the tavern steps. Watched the boy's fingers twitch once, reaching for nothing.
"…You held on longer than I thought," Arvid said, voice low.
The dragon was waiting.
It hadn't moved. Not fully. But its neck had lowered, just slightly. Its eyes still burned, a furnace behind glass, but now they focused.
Arvid stepped out from the ruined tavern's shadow and into the open square.
His presence didn't ring.
It whispered.
The wind shifted as he moved, like it knew him. Snow lifted around his boots before he touched it. The ice beneath his steps didn't crack, it parted, gently, without sound. A hush spread outward from where he stood, and in that hush, the world paused.
The dragon blinked once.
A low growl echoed from somewhere deep in its ribs.
The fabric of Arvid's cloak peeled back. Not flapping, dissolving, almost, as if the wind had claimed it for itself. Beneath, the silver trim of his old gear shimmered faintly. A pattern etched by memory. Frost stitched into myth.
He lifted his head slightly.
The snow answered his call.
It rose in thin spirals, carried by something older than breath. Wind curled around his arms, brushing his sleeves upward. It didn't reoar. It flowed.
His form blurred, not vanished, not gone, but less fixed.
His shoulders dissolved into outline, his legs into rhythm. His hair swept up into the current like smoke rising toward stars.
He did not become wind.
He reminded the wind of what it once was.
The dragon shifted, massive head lifting a fraction higher. For the first time, its breath caught. The furnace in its chest pulsed, but slower now.
Its wings tightened.
Not with readiness.
With caution.
Arvid stepped forward again. Snow curled under his heel, not from weigh, but obedience.
No speech. No war cry. No flair.
He simply locked his gaze toward the beast.
And the wind followed.