The night stretched long over their campfire. For the first time since stepping back into the world, there was no immediate chaos pressing in—only the warmth of flames and the quiet scratch of wind against stone.
Kairo lay back, staring at the stars that refused to hold still. "Guess we should finally get names straight," he muttered.
Lucien glanced at him, faintly amused. "Lucien Dreamveil."
Ashveil smirked, tilting his head with theatrical grace. "Ashveil. That's all you get. No past, no titles. The present is more than enough."
"Of course it is," Kairo groaned. "Everything with you is a performance."
"Would you prefer silence?" Ashveil retorted, leaning lazily against a rock, his cloak draped around him like a throne.
Lucien's gaze dropped into the firelight, shadows dancing across his pale features. "Dreamveil isn't just a name. My family… there are pieces of it still hidden. I'll find them. That's my path."
For once, Ashveil said nothing—his eyes flickered with something unreadable, before settling back into smug indifference.
Their quiet moment didn't last. The land around them began to stir, a barren expanse unraveling with malignant energy. Bones clattered beneath the sand, armor rusted and reforged itself in spectral fire. A figure emerged from the gloom—a summoner draped in torn violet robes, staff in hand, his voice heavy with glee.
"You trespass on the gravefield. Every soul here bends to me."
He slammed his staff into the ground, and a hundred warriors rose—skeletal champions, broken giants, revenants of their own kind long dead.
Kairo cracked his neck. "Finally. A warm-up."
Lucien stood slowly, cloak trailing like a shadow that wasn't bound by gravity. Ashveil brushed invisible dust from his shoulders, lips curling into that ever-arrogant smile.
The three walked forward, not rushing, not acknowledging the tide of enemies at all. Their movements radiated disdain—the kind of calm only beings untouchable could wield.
The first wave crashed against them.
Lucien's blade traced a single line. An armored knight crumbled before him, yet Lucien didn't even break stride. Another foe roared and charged from behind, sword raised high—Lucien didn't turn. He simply continued forward, back to the enemy.
The soldier froze mid-step as Kairo appeared beside it, his bloodsteel ripping upward in a crimson arc. The creature's head rolled into the sand, Kairo not even sparing it a glance.
Ashveil spun through the chaos like a dancer, his strikes laced with a void's cruel elegance. He tripped one foe with the flick of a boot, then extended his hand to the horizon, as though presenting the battlefield itself to an audience. His cloak, once again, billowed despite the stillness of the air.
The summoner howled. "Crush them!"
More rose, more screamed, but the trio moved like inevitability itself. Lucien carved pathways without urgency, his strikes surgical, each one leaving the battlefield cleaner than before. Kairo wove through gaps, catching enemies Lucien ignored, dispatching them with the ease of a man swatting flies. Ashveil, ever mocking, sometimes killed with unnecessary flourish—catching a blade mid-swing, holding it long enough to glance at the summoner, then casually snapping it before driving the shattered weapon into its wielder.
The undead roared. The Revenants walked.
By the time they reached the summoner at the center of his army, the ground was littered with broken corpses.
Lucien raised his blade to the man's throat, but didn't strike. Instead, Ashveil stepped forward, seizing the summoner's staff with deliberate slowness. He cracked it in half with one hand, letting the shards fall like dead leaves.
The summoner's army collapsed into dust. He dropped to his knees, trembling, unable to comprehend how his hundred warriors had been brushed aside as though they'd never existed.
Kairo leaned close, his tone sharp. "You thought numbers meant anything."
Lucien turned away, not granting the summoner another glance.
And then, in the silence, the three of them struck poses as though sculpted by an unseen hand. Lucien stood tall over the battlefield, cloak streaming unnaturally behind him. Kairo rested his bloodsteel casually across his shoulder, chin tilted like a predator waiting for the next hunt. Ashveil placed one boot upon the skull of a fallen giant, arms spread as if he had orchestrated the entire slaughter for an invisible crowd.
The battlefield reeked of death, but in that moment, they didn't look like survivors—they looked like inevitabilities, Revenants standing atop the ruins of defiance.