Ellure of unknown

Orion turned his gaze to the hidden onlookers, quickly realizing they were nothing more than city guards—mere bystanders in a battle they were ill-equipped to fight. With a slow exhale, he shifted his focus back to the wyvern's lifeless body, its massive frame sprawled across the ruined street. The eerie silence that followed was almost unsettling.

With a swift motion, he yanked his sword free from the creature's skull, the slick resistance of bone and flesh sending a tremor up his arm. He coughed a few times, the sharp taste of iron filling his mouth. Lifting his sleeve, he wiped away the blood that had trickled down from beneath his mask, erasing the only traces of his own injury. The rest—the crimson pool beneath him—was proof of his enemy's demise.

He sheathed his sword into his dimensional ring and prepared to leave, his instincts urging him to vanish before the royal squad arrived. The last thing he needed was to get entangled in unnecessary bureaucracy. Yet, just as he turned, a chilling sensation prickled at the nape of his neck.

A heartbeat later, his pupils dilated in alarm. An unseen force, an instinct woven deep into his very being, screamed at him to move.

Without thinking, he threw himself backward just as a razor-sharp claw slashed through the air where his head had been mere moments before. The wind pressure alone sliced through his clothes, a testament to the sheer lethality of the strike.

His feet barely touched the ground before he propelled himself away, widening the distance between him and this unseen foe. Heart hammering, his mind raced. How had something bypassed his mana senses?

Then, out of the shadows, something massive stirred. The very air trembled.

And then he saw it.

"Impossible..."

The words barely left his lips before a colossal tail, gleaming with jagged scales, swung toward him like the hammer of an angry god. It crashed into his chest with monstrous force, sending him hurtling into the sky like a broken doll. The world spun violently as he tumbled through the air, the wind ripping past his ears. His body screamed in protest, his ribs threatening to give under the sheer impact.

Before his vision blurred, he caught a glimpse of his assailant—and his mind reeled in disbelief.

The wyvern... wasn't dead.

His breath hitched as realization struck him like a second blow. How had it survived? He had driven his blade straight through its skull. He had felt the life leave its body.

Yet here it was, standing, moving… attacking.

The moment was fleeting. Gravity reclaimed him, pulling him downwards at a terrifying speed. Instinctively, he summoned wind magic to slow his descent, but even then, the impact against the ground was punishing. A crater formed beneath him, dust and debris rising like a shroud. Pain lanced through his limbs, his body battered and bloodied.

He gritted his teeth, pushing past the agony. The wyvern… something about it defied all logic, all reason. He had seen its lifeless corpse. He had slain it. But this—this was beyond the natural order.

Then, a memory surfaced.

The whispers in the tavern. The bearded man's words, half-spoken before his companion had silenced him.

"He was talking about the undead," Orion murmured to himself, his voice hoarse. "That explains why it wasn't exhausted after using so much magic."

The realization hit him like a cold wave. This was no ordinary mana beast. It was something far worse.

Undead.

A creature that had cast aside the chains of mortality, animated by dark magic, sustained by forces beyond the realm of life. And if that were true, then this battle was far from over.

He exhaled sharply. A part of him urged retreat. He had no obligation to face this abomination again. The royal squad would be here soon; he could slip away, leave them to deal with this monstrosity.

And yet—

His fingers curled into fists. The curisity he had felt, when he had seen the dimensional gates, the advent place for the fisrt time, paled in comparison to the mystery before him. This thing—this unnatural entity—was a phenomenon that should not exist. It was beyond comprehension, and that made it irresistible.

His lips curled into a faint smirk. "The undead, huh?"

Above, a shadow fell upon the land.

The wyvern, now fully resurrected, soared into the sky, its colossal wings casting an ominous gloom over the remains of the battlefield. But it did not turn to Orion.

No, its gaze was fixed elsewhere.

With the force of a falling comet, it descended upon the lakeside rescue camp.

The guards stationed there barely had time to react before the beast's fiery breath rained down upon them. In an instant, screams of terror filled the air as flames devoured tents, supplies, and bodies alike. The acrid stench of burning flesh rose in thick plumes, the once-orderly camp reduced to a hellish inferno. The earth trembled beneath the wyvern's claws, each step carving deep scars into the land.

The guards, frozen in fear, could only watch as their comrades were incinerated before their eyes. Some tried to run. Others tried to fight. It didn't matter.

The beast was a force of nature, an unstoppable harbinger of destruction.

"No… no, no, no!" A young soldier staggered backward, gripping his sword with trembling hands. "We—we can't fight that!"

A captain—older, battle-worn—grabbed him by the shoulder. "Get a hold of yourself! We have to—"

A massive claw cleaved through the air, silencing them both in a single, merciless swipe. Blood sprayed across the scorched ground.

From his vantage point, Orion watched in grim silence.

He clenched his jaw, his mind racing. This wasn't an enemy he could rush into battle against. His previous assault had already proven useless. If he was going to face this thing again, he needed a strategy.

Steadying his breath, he lowered himself into a lotus position, his battered body screaming in protest. Time was against him, but he needed to recover at least a fraction of his strength. Closing his eyes, he reached out to the surrounding mana, drawing it into himself. The air hummed with energy as the wounded city trembled beneath the wyvern's wrath.

One minute.

That was all he needed to regain enough mana for his next and last move.

As he sat in meditation, his resolve hardened.

This time, he would not merely cut the wyvern down.

This time, he would make sure it stayed dead.