The wind screamed across the Wasted Reach, dragging veils of dust across cracked earth.
For a long, brutal moment, the five Church infiltrators stood frozen in place, their grins wilted into grim lines, their hands drifting too close to hidden blades.
Ian watched them without blinking.
He did not posture or threaten.
He did not need to.
He was a statue carved from blood and silence, his hands loose at his sides, his twin bone daggers humming faintly at his back— a sound no living ear could hear, but one the soul instinctively feared.
The daggers had tasted too much blood in too little time.
And yet, they were never satisfied.
Not anymore.
Tension lit the air, brittle and dry like leaves in a flame.
Every breath was a dare.
Every twitch, like a spark.
A single wrong move, and violence would erupt like thunder from the skin of the world.
Then—
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, everyone relax!" a new voice called out, bright and almost musical, as if mocking the moment.
