The obsidian slate slipped from Juno's trembling fingers, clattering onto the rough-hewn table beside the pulsating emerald orbs. A sudden, jagged spike of pain – not the Brand's icy gnaw, but the raw, physical echo of her healing wound – lanced through her back. It wasn't the data. It was a warning.
Golden Smog, hovering near the window slit, condensed instantly, its golden haze darkening to the colour of tarnished brass. A low, resonant hum, like a plucked bass string, vibrated through the stone walls of the small house. Nirvana, who had been examining a decay sigil on the opposite wall, froze. Her nebula eyes snapped from the slate to the window, galaxies swirling into violent vortices.
"Down!" Nirvana's command was a whip-crack, devoid of all seduction or scholarly interest.
Juno reacted on instinct honed by years of rebellion, throwing herself sideways behind the heavy quartzite table just as the world exploded.
The sturdy wooden door didn't splinter; it vaporized in a blast of concussive force and searing heat. Shards of stone and superheated wood shrapnel ricocheted through the room, pinging off the table, embedding in the walls. The shockwave slammed into Juno, knocking the breath from her lungs, the taste of dust and ozone thick in her mouth. Through the smoke and debris, figures clad in mismatched, scavenged leathers and fur surged into the breach, eyes wide with avarice and the feral gleam of the hunt. Bounty hunters. Five of them. Their weapons were crude but lethal: serrated axes, heavy cudgels, and one held a crackling, jury-rigged mana-lash that spat blue sparks.
"THERE! The Branded bitch!" one roared, a grizzled man with a scar bisecting his lip, pointing a thick finger directly at Juno's hiding spot. "Ten thousand gold sovereigns, lads! Take her!"
They charged, a wave of brute force and desperate greed.
Nirvana didn't charge. She unfolded.
One moment she stood, a tall, purple-skinned figure in simple linen. The next, the air around her ripped. Shadows bled from the corners of the room, coalescing into whipping tendrils of pure void that lashed out faster than sight. They didn't cut; they unmade. The lead hunter, axe raised high, simply… ceased to exist from the waist up. His legs took two stumbling steps forward before collapsing, gushing steaming viscera onto the scorched floor. The smell of burnt meat and void filled the air.
The bounty hunter with the mana-lash screamed, unleashing a wild arc of blue energy. It sizzled towards Nirvana. She didn't flinch. A flick of her wrist, and the lash's energy curved, wrapping around its wielder like a constricting serpent. His scream cut off with a wet gurgle as his own weapon cooked him inside his leathers, the smell of charred flesh joining the horrific bouquet.
The remaining three faltered, their bloodlust replaced by primal terror. One, younger, eyes wide with horror, turned to flee back through the shattered doorway. A shadow tendril snaked out, wrapping around his ankle. There was a sickening crunch, like a walnut squeezed in a giant's fist. His leg pulped instantly, bone shards protruding through leather and flesh. He collapsed, shrieking in agony, scrabbling uselessly at the floor.
The last two, driven by panic, lunged not at Nirvana, but towards Juno behind the table. One swung a heavy cudgel. Golden Smog surged forward, a shimmering wall of dense vapor. The cudgel passed through it harmlessly, but the Smog condensed around the man's head. He dropped his weapon, clawing frantically at his face as the sentient poison mist forced itself down his throat. His screams became choked, wet gurgles, then silence as he collapsed, face purpling.
The final hunter, seeing his companions reduced to screaming meat and cooling corpses in seconds, dropped his axe. "Mercy!" he babbled, falling to his knees, retching at the carnage. "We were just scouts! Just the first wave! Please!"
Nirvana stood amidst the ruin, untouched by blood or debris. Her nebula eyes were cold, distant stars. The shadows writhed around her like living serpents. "Scouts," she echoed, her voice devoid of inflection, resonating with a power that vibrated in Juno's teeth.
Kaela appeared in the ruined doorway, her lynx ears flat against her skull, fur bristling, a bone knife in her hand. She took in the slaughterhouse scene, her amber eyes wide with shock and fury. "Elite trackers," she spat, her gaze fixed on the groveling scout. "Imperial seals on their gear pouches. Hedge's hounds. They're probing. Finding your nest." Her eyes darted to Nirvana, then Juno, filled with urgency. "The main force won't be far behind. Gilded Knights. Adventurers with real power. They'll raze this valley to ash to get to you."
The groveling scout whimpered, confirming Kaela's words with frantic nods. "The Gilded Fist himself leads them! Days away, maybe less! They have… devices. Sniffers tuned to the Brand!"
The fragile sanctuary, the research, the bought time – it was all crumbling faster than the decay in the emerald orbs. Nirvana's head snapped towards the north-facing window. Her expression, for the first time Juno had ever seen, held a flicker of… calculation bordering on concern. "Hedge," she murmured, the name a curse. "He wouldn't send elites unless he was sure. And close." Her nebula eyes locked onto Juno. "We cannot fight a Harland County purge force here. Not without exposing the valley, destroying everything." She gestured sharply at the pulsating orbs. "Gather them. Now."
Juno moved, her body screaming from the blast impact and the resurgence of the Brand's ache, suppressed but now flaring with alarm. She shoved the three heavy, pulsing orbs into her spatial pouch, the corrupted life-force thrumming against her hip. The Golden Smog flowed back to her, wrapping around her shoulders like a protective shroud, its hum anxious.
Nirvana strode to the cowering scout. He whimpered, pressing his forehead to the gore-slicked stone. "Message for the Gilded Fist," Nirvana said, her voice chillingly soft. She didn't touch him. The shadows around her thickened, forming a single, needle-sharp point of absolute darkness that hovered inches from his eye. "Tell him Juno Bittersweet sends her regards… from the grave he thought he left her in." The shadow needle pulsed once, blindingly dark. The scout screamed, clutching his suddenly bleeding, ruined eye socket. "Now run," Nirvana commanded, the shadows withdrawing. "Before I reconsider mercy."
The scout scrambled backwards, howling, stumbling over the pulped remains of his comrade, and fled blindly into the gathering twilight.
Nirvana turned, ignoring the carnage. Her gaze swept the small stone house, the scattered research slates, then settled on Kaela. "Tell the others. Scatter. Hide deep. This place is forfeit."
Kaela nodded grimly, her gaze lingering on Juno with a mixture of pity and fear. "Where will you go?"
"North," Nirvana stated, grabbing Juno's arm. Her touch was firm, urgent, not seductive. "Into the teeth of it. Where even Hedge's dogs fear to tread. The Lands of Everwinter."
Before Juno could protest, question, or even breathe, the world dissolved. Nirvana's power wasn't the Smog's swift displacement. It was a rending. Stone, smoke, blood, the screams of the dying scout – all tore apart into swirling streaks of impossible colour and crushing pressure. Juno felt her bones groan, her vision tunnel, the icy fire of the Brand flaring in protest against the violent translocation.
The transition was brutal. One moment, the acrid stench of blood and void, the warmth of the valley. The next, an impact that drove the air from Juno's lungs, and a cold so profound it felt like a physical blow. She collapsed onto hard, frozen ground, gasping, her vision swimming.
Silence. Absolute, crushing silence, broken only by the howl of a wind that scoured flesh like sandpaper. She pushed herself up, blinking ice crystals from her lashes.
Endless white. A frozen wasteland stretched beneath a bruised, twilight sky. Jagged peaks of ice clawed at the heavens, dwarfing the distant Serrated Peaks into mere foothills. The air burned with cold, each breath a knife in her throat. Snow, fine and hard as diamond dust, stung her exposed skin. Golden Smog huddled close, its golden light dimmed, pulsing sluggishly against the oppressive cold.
Nirvana stood beside her, silhouetted against the desolation. Her simple clothes were gone, replaced by a gown of shifting, frozen shadows and glittering ice crystals that seemed woven from the landscape itself. Her nebula eyes reflected the desolate sky, galaxies dimmed by the pervasive cold. No trace of the succubus remained; here, she was something primal, ancient, and utterly terrifying.
"The Everwinter," Nirvana said, her voice echoing strangely in the vast silence, carrying the weight of glaciers. "Where the world forgets, and the cold remembers everything." She looked down at Juno, shivering violently in her travel-stained tunic and light armor. "Sanctuary is gone, Scholar. Survival here… is measured in breaths. And Hedge's hunters will follow. Even here. Especially here, now that they know the direction." She offered no comfort, only the grim, frozen truth. "The game has entered its final, most lethal phase. Welcome to the edge of the map, Juno Bittersweet. Pray your bought time doesn't freeze solid before we find a way to use it."
The wind screamed its agreement, carrying the scent of snow, oblivion, and the faint, metallic tang of blood still clinging to Nirvana's shadow-gown. The emerald orbs pulsed weakly against Juno's hip, their warmth a mocking echo in the face of the endless, hungry cold. The hunt was on, and the battleground was a frozen hell.