I crawled through frozen night to the Devil's workshop.
Moonlight carved the gears, turning without hands.
They whispered my name, eyes I could not meet.
Frost and shadow prayed; I only confirmed.
– A dead man's tale
(Interlude — The Four Cars)
The serpent didn't crawl. It rose.
From the shattered plain below, the thing looked less like an animal and more like a continent convulsing. Its coils heaved mountains into waves, its hide a continent of molten scale that bled light from every seam. Around its neck, four cars hung like ornaments — a necklace of steel and flame, each one bound by red-hot grappling cables that groaned and smoked under the strain.
The cars weren't built for air, but the serpent didn't care. It lifted them anyway — dragging its hunters with it into the storm.
---
Holland's Car — The Detonation
Holland's engine screamed until the pressure cracked the dials. Inside, his runner clung to the frame, trying to stabilize the rune gauges as the car skidded against the serpent's scales. Fire bled through the vents.
"Holland—! The boiler's red!" the runner shouted.
Holland didn't answer. The gas mask hid his face, his hands calm as he reached for the ignition lever — the one painted black, never meant to be touched.
The runner realized too late.
"Holland, no—"
The car detonated.
The shockwave punched through the serpent's flesh. The grappling cable — forged in iron-rune alloy — didn't snap. It glowed. Molten red. Fused into the serpent's scales. The explosion turned it into a branding iron biting deep into living skin. The serpent screamed, body lurching, sky splitting open with the sound.
The runner flew. Fell. Didn't even get to scream.
Holland climbed out of the wreckage, gas mask cracked, flames rolling off his coat. He gripped the glowing rope with both hands. The metal hissed, searing through his gloves. But he held.
Below, his burning car dangled like an anchor, the fire reflected in the serpent's eyes. Each flicker made the beast shudder. The rope was his leash now — one man holding down a god by the throat.
---
The serpent tore through the sky like a god that wanted to die. Its scales cracked open in molten seams, trailing light across the heavens. Cars, men, and shrapnel spun around it like burning satellites. And somewhere amid that falling constellation — the four who refused to let go.
Below him, the car he'd detonated still burned — a molten tear dangling from the serpent's flesh. The runner's body had already disappeared into the storm below, but Holland didn't blink. He just spat, a thin trail of blood sliding down his chin inside the mask.
"Fuck you," he said to the serpent. "You're not done with me yet."
The serpent's body heaved. The world snapped sideways. Holland was flung into open air, his feet scraping sparks against the glowing chain, but he hauled himself back in with a snarl, planting the knife deeper. The sound it made was obscene — like stabbing into a furnace.
Every inch of him burned, but he grinned. "Come on then, bastard. Let's dance."
---
PATRICK — THE SNIPER'S CURSE
Patrick's car was no longer driving. It was being dragged.
The glyphs around it sputtered, flaring and dying in uneven bursts, turning the cabin into a strobe-lit coffin. Every second, the floor tilted a different direction.
"Hold, you beautiful pile of junk," he muttered, cranking the stabilizer lever with one hand and loading a rune shell with the other.
Outside, the serpent's muscles rippled — mountains flexing. He caught a glimpse of the damage his shot had done earlier: a patch of flesh turned necrotic grey, pulsing weakly. A wound. A beginning.
He smirked, wiping blood from his cheek. "There you are."
He set the rifle's butt against his shoulder, the barrel shaking in the gale. His eyes watered from smoke and heat. He lined up the next shot on instinct — that small, trembling memory of where the wound had been.
"You think you're immortal?" he growled. "Try this."
The rune shell flashed white, then blue.
The bullet left a line of daylight in its wake.
It hit the same spot.
The flesh didn't burst — it collapsed.
The serpent screamed, its whole body buckling mid-dive. The sound wasn't a roar; it was the death rattle of a continent.
Patrick laughed, wild and coughing. "Got you, you ugly son of a—"
The car lurched violently, cutting him off. He slammed into the console, blood painting the dashboard. The glyph under his feet fizzled out.
He looked up just in time to see the ground coming.
"...Shit."
---
CHARMEVOLÉ — THE ASCENT
Fire climbed; so did he.
Charmevolé's chain cut through the smoke like a streak of black lightning. Every link glowed red, every breath was molten. He climbed through it anyway — hand over hand, boots finding balance on the shaking, burning metal.
The wind tore at his coat. The skin on his forearms blistered. His brass knuckles, carved with old runes and dried blood, shimmered with heat, leaving faint streaks of light with every movement.
He didn't care. His eyes were locked on the throne above — the crown of the serpent, the seated figure haloed in crimson.
"Keep your throne warm," he muttered, teeth clenched. "I'm coming to collect."
Below him, Holland screamed something — maybe a warning, maybe a curse — as the serpent dove. The sudden drop nearly tore Charmevolé free, but he didn't break rhythm. He slammed his fist around the rope again, swung once, and let go.
He went flying upward — weightless for a heartbeat — before slamming onto the serpent's head with a bone-shaking thud. His hand immediately found purchase on the living scales, burning hot enough to sear skin.
Smoke cleared.
The King looked down at him.
---
THE KING — THE FIRST COMMAND
He rose from the serpent's crown like a ghost waking inside a corpse.
Red light pulsed beneath his skin — veins of fire crawling from his heart to his throat. His eyes glimmered with that same unholy hue, twin suns burning in stormlight.
He regarded Charmevolé without hurry, as if this was inevitable — like watching gravity work.
"You climb well, thief," he said, voice like gravel sliding down glass.
His head tilted slightly, eyes narrowing. "Let's see if you fall better."
Then the serpent dived.
---
The air vanished.
The horizon flipped.
Every car, every chain, every scrap of debris screamed downward.
Holland was flung sideways, clinging to the knife. Patrick's car spun out of control, tearing its last glyph apart in a burst of light.
And Charmevolé — already on the crown — had nowhere left to go but through.
He swung once, drove his glowing knuckle-duster straight into the King's jaw. The sound was like thunder in bone. Molten blood sprayed across both of them, glowing in the stormlight.
The King's head snapped back — and then he smiled.
Teeth like broken obsidian.
He caught Charmevolé's wrist mid-swing, his hand searing hot.
"Good," the King whispered.
"Now make it hurt."
Then they collided again, two sparks punching each other on the back of a dying god as it fell screaming through a burning sky.
The world blurred.
Charmevolé's boots hit the serpent's back. Sparks erupted where iron scraped molten scales. The friction screamed louder than the wind. For a split second, it felt as though the ground itself had vaporized — only the snake's body remained, a living, writhing treadmill moving faster than perception.
He swung his brass-knuckled fists against the scales. Each punch bit into the heat-softened flesh, anchoring him. Every impact was a small explosion of light and smoke, clawing time itself to a crawl. He pulled, hard, dragging himself toward the King, whose form fell like a shadow through the same torrent of fire and air.
The King jerked violently — an impossible movement, like a continent twisting mid-fall — and Charmevolé staggered, nearly flung into the void. But he shot a smaller rope forward, a grappling line of dark alloy, and anchored it to a ridge along the serpent's crown. The rope vibrated, glowing red from the friction, singing as it strained under impossible weight.
The serpent's body suddenly surged, lunging forward in impossible acceleration, scales rippling like molten rivers. It was trying to catch its master — to reclaim him from the sky. Charmevolé's heart hammered. Every second was a knife-edge. Every motion risked death.
He slammed his fists against the serpent again, each punch a spark-bright anchor. His bracelets — etched with runes unlike his knuckle brass — sparked blue-white fire against the red-hot scales. Charmevolé ran, lunging forward, using the friction to fling himself higher, closer to the falling King.
From some angles, it looked like he was sprinting atop a train. From others, like a demon balanced on the back of a coiled god. Air and scale, fire and shadow, merged. Every step left a trail of sparks; every punch cracked the surface of the serpent's skin.
The Unnamed Man — The Glyph
He crouched on the serpent's crown, coat whipping in the storm. His lantern — an old brass relic filled with phosphorescent bugs — flickered beside him, casting light on a scrap of paper pressed flat to the serpent's scale. The pen he used wasn't metal. It was bone.
He wasn't drawing a circle. He was writing a link.
Lines curled into each other, blooming into glyphs that hissed and sparked — a language older than ink, older than blood. He didn't know it by name. His hands moved like someone else guided them.
– – –
Then — the King's hand shot out. Fingers curled around Charmevolé's arm. The two collided mid-fall, bodies swinging violently, caught only by friction, knuckle, and rope. The serpent's scales rushed beneath them, molten and unyielding, carrying them across a sky that might as well have been a turning treadmill.
Charmevolé planted a boot. Sparks exploded. The friction held. He braced, pulled the King toward him. Both bodies twisted in mid-air, momentum folding them into one violent rhythm. One step, one anchor, one punch at a time — they weren't falling anymore. They were fighting gravity itself, using the serpent's impossible speed to advance.
And above it all, the snake's roar split the sky. It lunged, faster than thought, trying to reclaim its king. But Charmevolé had the fire of ten lifetimes in his fists. He was ready to meet the King in mid-air, and if the serpent thought it could interfere, it would find its own scales erupting into sparks and molten scars.