Lucy looked all around her.
She was surrounded.
The Stone Fields stretched endlessly in every direction—cold, moss-slicked grey structures rising like broken ribs from the earth. Ruins without architects. Altars without gods. The ground breathed frost, and the wind carried the iron-thick stench of blood.
And blood there was.
All across the stone labyrinth, the blood of other players boiled with rage. It steamed where it touched the ground, sizzling against the ancient rock as if the land itself rejected the violence yet fed on it all the same. Thousands of figures stood atop pillars, crawled through narrow corridors, poured from broken arches—men and women warped by madness, eyes hollowed by the hunger that the Wister War carved into every soul.
They were staring at her.
No—they were staring through her.
Lucy felt it then. That invisible mark. That weight. The unspoken decree etched into the air itself.
Kill the monster.
A roar rose from the horde, raw and animal. Not words—never words. Words were for the sane. This was instinct stripped bare, hatred sharpened into purpose.
They rushed her.
Lucy did not move at first.
She stood atop a fractured slab of stone, boots slick with blood not her own, her pale frame unnaturally still amidst the storm of charging bodies. Her icy blue eyes fluctuated with ether—flickering, warping, fracturing into impossible shades that bent the air around her gaze.
She raised her hands.
Two fingers extended.
The world screamed.
Beams of destructive ether tore from her fingertips like divine punishment made manifest. White-blue lances split the air, ripping through bodies, vaporizing flesh, carving smoking trenches through the Stone Fields. Men and women were erased mid-stride, reduced to ash and scattered bone before their screams could fully form.
The Wister winds carried those screams anyway.
They echoed. They layered. They stacked atop one another until the battlefield sang with agony.
Lucy moved.
She ran.
Ether flooded her limbs as she enhanced her body beyond mortal thresholds. Stone shattered beneath her feet. Her speed became something obscene—too fast for the eye, too violent for the mind to follow. She tore through the mob like a living calamity, fists caving in skulls, kicks snapping spines, ether-coated strikes detonating bodies into red mist.
Guts streaked across the battlefield in long, wet arcs of crimson. Blood painted the moss black. Limbs flew. Heads rolled. The Stone Fields drank deeply.
Lucy did not stop.
She could not.
Her breath came heavy, lungs burning, heart hammering like it sought escape from her ribcage. She fired beams while moving, weaving through attacks with razor-thin precision, her body a blur of motion and slaughter.
Above her, a familiar flicker appeared.
The duck hologram.
It hovered lazily in the air, absurd and glowing, its expression permanently cheerful as numbers scrolled beside it—Lucy's ever-growing kill count ticking upward at a terrifying pace.
32,204.
33,219.
34,247.
The number climbed so fast it became difficult to read.
There were so many.
Too many.
Lucy realized it then, mid-slaughter, as she crushed a man's chest inward with a single ether-charged strike—this area had an unnatural surplus of mages. Normally, this kind of sickening, feral massacre happened much later in the war, once alliances shattered and hope rotted away.
But here?
This was day one insanity.
The Stone Fields were wrong.
Wister itself was wrong.
Lucy did not have time to question it.
She fought.
And fought.
And fought.
With every kill, her ether reserves bled away. She could feel it—like heat draining from her veins, like a fire slowly starving for oxygen. Her reserves were not full. They never were. She had fought too early, too recklessly, too close to hell.
Her movements grew choppy.
A blade grazed her side.
A spell burned across her shoulder.
She stumbled once—just once—and that was enough.
The players noticed.
They swarmed her like carrion beasts sensing weakness. Ether blades struck her ribs. A hammer crushed into her back, sending her skidding across the stone. Hands clawed at her hair, her arms, her throat.
They beat her down.
Lucy screamed—not in fear, but in rage.
Her voice alone detonated outward, a shockwave of raw ether that hurled bodies away from her in every direction. Stone cracked. Blood sprayed. Silence rang for half a heartbeat.
Lucy knelt there, trembling.
Battered.
Bruised.
Blood streaked down her face, warm against her cold skin. One eye was swelling shut. Her breath came in ragged gasps as she stared at the encircling players—horror and fury warring in her chest.
They looked at her like wolves.
A sick thought slithered into her mind.
She could end this.
She could take what little ether remained, compress it, invert it, ignite it—
And eradicate everyone on the island.
A continent-level release.
Nothing would survive.
Not them.
Not the Stone Fields.
Not Lucy.
Her fingers twitched.
A female mage lunged forward, madness frothing in her eyes, blade aimed straight for Lucy's face.
The impact never came.
The mage was kicked away mid-air, her body folding around the blow as she crashed through a stone pillar and vanished in a spray of blood and rubble.
A shadow fell over Lucy.
He stood tall—inhumanly so. Broad shoulders, corded muscle, a presence that bent attention toward him whether one wished it or not. Cyan blue eyes burned beneath a mane of red hair that flowed wildly in the wind. Two thick, bony horns curved from his forehead, unmistakable, ancient.
A Hornblest.
Golden jewelry adorned his body, clinking softly despite the chaos. Ardani-styled clothing clung to him, shredded and bloodied from battle, yet he wore it like a king wears ruin.
He met Lucy's gaze.
His eyes said everything.
Trust me.
Lucy looked up at him, dazed, confused, her vision swimming.
He turned.
Faced the horde.
The Hornblest drew ether into his hands—dense, violent, roaring. The air screamed as power condensed between his palms. Veins bulged. The ground beneath him fractured outward.
He clapped.
The explosion was biblical.
A sphere of annihilation detonated outward, swallowing the battlefield in blinding light and deafening thunder. Stone vaporized. Bodies were hurled like ragdolls. A massive smoke cloud billowed upward, blotting out the crimson sky entirely.
Before the echo faded, he was already moving.
He grabbed Lucy.
And the world folded.
Flash-step.
Space twisted, compressed, and released. When reality stabilized, they were elsewhere—deep within the island, where the Stone Fields thinned and the concentration of players dropped to near silence.
He laid Lucy gently on the ground.
She winced, pain screaming through every nerve.
The Hornblest knelt and lowered a hand toward her. A green flame erupted from his palm—not burning, but soothing, alive with restoration. It washed over her wounds, knitting flesh, dulling pain, chasing agony from her body like shadows fleeing dawn.
Lucy gasped.
Relief flooded her.
Confusion followed close behind.
She looked up at him, still breathing hard. "Who… who are you?"
He smiled, sharp and calm despite the carnage still echoing across the island.
"The name's Bale Ardani," he said. "And you're welcome."