CHAPTER 150

  THE WAR DRUMS BEGAN

  “This ain’t far,” Hans said, gazing at the horizon, the simmering hemisphere, his destination.

  But something was between them.

  The ruins.

  They rose and fell in broken layers, stone pressed into earth at the wrong angles, as if the ground itself had tried to remember a city and failed.

  This had been Utar’s capital.

  Not in history.

  In residue.

  Collapsed bridges still reached for each other across empty spans. Towers leaned inward, not toppled by time but cut short, their upper halves missing as if removed with purpose. Streets curved where people had once fled, not where architects had planned.

  Hans slowed without being told.

  Civilisation didn’t vanish here.

  It was stopped.

  They moved in silence for a time, the ruins thinning behind them, the jungle pressing close again.

  Hans broke it first.

  “I’m losing patience—Just how far is it?”

  Zilong didn’t slow. “We don’t rush here. They use artefacts—anything that bends space or speed trips alarms.”

  Hans nodded once. “Feels like someone inside knows what they’re doing.”

  Zilong’s voice slid into his mind alone.

  That warlock. Xandor. Last you told me, he defected from Parv. Why is he walking with us?

  Hired muscle, Hans replied. Nothing more.

  A pause. Then zilong whispered.

  Are you certain you’re not growing a new monster while killing the old one?

  Hans exhaled through his nose. One enemy at a time, Mr. Zilong.

  They reached the edge of the ruins. Green swallowed stone.

  Zilong lifted a hand.

  “Scouting territory from here,” he said aloud. “If you see anyone—do not kill them. And don’t let them kill themselves. They will be detected. So their locations.”

  “Crafty bastards.” Hans frowned. “Even Concordia doesn’t babysit this hard.”

  “Those with much to hide,” Zilong replied, “tend to be careful.”

  There conversation caught someone. Glancing sideways, Delimira inserted herself. “You’ve been to Concordia?”

  Hans realised his mistake.

  “Grimgar. Sunfall too,” he added.

  She watched him a second longer. “You just lied.”

  He didn’t respond only sighed.

  I’m surrounded by people who talk in their heads and read me like a book. It’s exhausting.

  She’s sharp, Zilong noted mentally.

  You look proud. How much farther?

  “Stop.”

  Zilong suddenly pointed.

  “Three scouts.”

  Adrian squinted into the empty green. “I don’t see—”

  “The eyes,” Zilong said flatly. “They see intent. Thought. Fear.”

  Adrian blinked. “That’s cheating.”

  Xandor interrupted. “He comes from a ruined world,” he said calmly. “Followed the Red demons. Now he has become one.”

  Zilong inclined his head. “Sadly. True. You Parvians are a scary bunch. Be careful, the knowledge you possess will eventually be your downfall.”

  Adrian didn’t mind the warning.

  “So what ended his world, these red demons?” He asked, even more curious.

  Xandor’s undecipherable face contoured a smile. A sharp one on that. “No.” He denied, “Not Red demons—”

  “That’s enough,” Zilong said, his gaze darkened.

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  “Xandor,” Hans added quietly.

  The warlock raised both hands. “Later, then. Atelier.”

  Hans moved and light folded inward—no flare, no sound.

  When he returned, three bodies sagged into the undergrowth, breathing, alive, unaware.

  “Let’s keep moving,” He said. “Before curiosity gets too loud.”

  Zilong huffed. “Impatient child.”

  “You promised me a monster,” Hans replied. “I’m still waiting.”

  “Then wait a bit more.”

  The jungle narrowed. Smoke drifted low.

  More scouts fell. Quietly. Efficiently.

  The ground began to rise long before the Council Node came into view.

  Not sharply.

  Just enough that every step forced the eye upward.

  Hans signalled a halt with two fingers.

  They crouched among dead reeds and blackened stone, the earth here brittle like old bone. From this distance, the land ahead looked almost peaceful—until the shape revealed itself.

  A ring of hills.

  Jagged. Uneven.

  Like the broken teeth of some colossal beast biting inward.

  “These aren’t mountains,” one of them muttered.

  “No,” Hans said quietly. “They’re walls—it was not like from a far.”

  “Yes,” Zilong nodded, “The sharp hills form a circle, several metres tall at their highest points.”

  Hans followed. Their surfaces split and clawed as if something had tried to crawl out and failed.

  Time and corrosion had rounded nothing here. Every ridge looked intentional, violent.

  And from within that ring—

  The shield rose.

  It did not glow.

  A translucent film. Like a soap bubble that didn’t shine.

  It was there only because the air bent. Light curved faintly, like heat above a forge, forming a vast hemispherical dome that swallowed the fortress beneath it.

  “By the Yudwin…” an infected whispered.

  No one answered. All were eager to forget this place.

  Hans had just lowered himself behind the broken ridge when the light appeared.

  It slid across the ground like a living thing.

  “Down,” he breathed.

  Too late.

  The beam crept over dead grass and stone, pale and steady, not a torch but a controlled sweep — disciplined. Elven-grade.

  A patrol.

  Metal boots scraped against rock below the hills. Not hurried. Not careless. These were men who believed the shield would forgive nothing that slipped through.

  Hans pressed his shoulder into the dirt, every muscle locked. The land here offered no mercy — sparse cover, brittle shadows. One wrong breath would carry exposure and return a Plan failed.

  The light halted.

  For a heartbeat too long.

  Someone below had stopped.

  Hans felt it then — a faint tightening in the air, as if the shield itself had leaned forward, curious.

  “Did you feel that?” a voice echoed faintly upward.

  “Probably another pressure echo,” the other one replied. “The shield’s been restless since dusk.”

  Restless.

  Hans swallowed. He hadn’t moved. None of them had. And yet something had answered their presence.

  The beam shifted, climbing the slope toward them.

  Closer.

  Hans’ fingers slid toward the hilt at his side, slow enough not to scrape stone. He counted breaths — not his own, but the patrol’s. Two men. Maybe three. One light. No haste.

  The lead guard stepped forward.

  The light washed over the rock just below Hans’ boots.

  A hand rose in the patrol, palm out.

  “Hold.”

  The world narrowed to that single word.

  Wind dragged across the hills, carrying with it the stale scent of iron from behind them — a reminder of where Hans and the others had come from.

  One of the guards cursed softly.

  “Deadlands stink,” he said. “Carries farther than it should.”

  “Tracks?”

  “Nothing solid. Old ground.”

  The light wavered.

  For one terrifying moment, it climbed higher — grazing the edge of Hans’ shadow.

  Then the shield pulsed.

  Not visibly.

  But felt.

  A low pressure rolled outward from the dome, subtle and absolute, like a giant exhaling.

  “Alright,” the lead voice said. “That’s close enough. We don’t cross the hills without sanction.”

  The light dipped.

  Turned away.

  Boots scraped back down the slope, measured and unhurried once more.

  Silence returned — heavy, anxious.

  Only when the patrol lights vanished entirely did Hans allow himself to breathe.

  No one spoke.

  Finally, one of the allies whispered, “Did… did the shield just—”

  “Yes,” Hans said quietly.

  He stared at the invisible curve of the dome in the distance.

  “It felt us.”

  A long pause followed.

  “That means?” someone asked.

  Hans lowered his hand from his weapon.

  “It means,” he said, voice hard, “we’re already on their edge.”

  He glanced once more toward the Council Node, its false serenity unbroken.

  “And next time,” he added, “it won’t hesitate next.”

  They stayed low, pressed against the slope of a dead hill, far enough that no sentry light swept their position, far enough that even if the shield could sense it, it would not yet care.

  Below the dome, shapes moved.

  Watchtowers. Ramparts. Internal lights like distant stars pinned to stone. Order. Civilization. Everything the centre had not been.

  Hans clenched his jaw.

  “So that’s how they live,” one of the allies said. “Wrapped in safety.”

  Hans didn’t respond immediately.

  His eyes traced the base of the hills, the narrow gaps between the jagged rises — choke points. Kill zones. Entry paths designed not for welcome, but for judgement.

  “Safety,” he said at last, voice flat, “that only works because others stand outside it.”

  He shifted back into the shadow of the rocks, motioning the others down.

  “We don’t go closer,” he said. “Not yet.”

  They obeyed without question.

  Behind them lay the sick lands, the long road, the dead who hadn’t made it this far.

  Ahead lay order, law, and people who would look at them like free lab rats.

  He stared once more at the dome swallowing the Council Node whole.

  Then he turned away.

  “Rest,” he said. “Tomorrow, we knock on the fort that pretends it isn’t part of hell.”