The night had grown colder since Kaito left the Kingdom of Radiance.
Moonlight stretched across the road in pale silver ribbons while the rhythmic sound of hoofbeats echoed through the darkness. For most travelers, the journey would have been impossible to maintain at this pace. They would have stopped hours ago. Set up camp. Waited for sunrise.
Kaito couldn’t afford that luxury.
Every hour mattered.
Perhaps every minute.
The reports he had received before leaving Radiance replayed endlessly in his mind. An entire city destroyed. Thousands missing. Witnesses claiming the Blood Witch had been responsible.
Days had already passed since the city fell.
That fact weighed on him more heavily than anything else.
If the reports were fresh, there would still be time. There would still be a chance to intercept her before she moved again.
But two days?
Two days was an eternity.
The Blood Witch could be anywhere.
Or worse she could already be in the Coastal Kingdom.
Kaito tightened his grip on the reins.
The horse beneath him huffed quietly. Exhaustion had begun creeping into its movements hours ago, though the animal continued pressing forward without complaint. Kaito knew he was asking a great deal from it.
Not much longer.
The thought was as much for himself as it was for the horse.
Ahead, a massive silhouette gradually emerged from the darkness.
The Aureline Divide.
Even after seeing it countless times throughout his life, the bridge remained impressive.
The structure stretched across an enormous chasm that divided the continent, connecting east and west through a single route. Massive stone supports disappeared into darkness below while moonlight glinted against ancient white stone. During the day, merchants, travelers, adventurers, and caravans packed the bridge from end to end.
At night it was quieter.
But not this quiet.
Kaito’s eyes narrowed.
As his horse stepped onto the bridge, the only sound that greeted him was the wind.
No wagons rolled across the stone. No travelers made their way between kingdoms. Not even the guards who normally watched over the crossing were anywhere to be seen. The bridge was completely empty.
The emptiness immediately felt wrong.
His horse’s hooves echoed loudly against the stone.
One after another.
The sound traveled much farther than it should have.
Kaito scanned the length of the bridge.
Still nothing.
A chill settled into his stomach.
He didn’t like it.
The western half of the continent relied heavily on trade routes crossing the Divide. Even at this hour, someone should have been traveling.
Instead the bridge felt abandoned.
Almost forgotten.
The further he traveled, the stronger the feeling became.
Moonlight stretched across endless stone while darkness filled the chasm below. The wind whistled softly between ancient supports, carrying an eerie loneliness that seemed to seep into the very air.
Kaito found himself unconsciously reaching toward the sword resting at his side.
Not because he sensed danger.
Because the silence itself felt threatening.
Eventually the western end of the bridge came into view.
The moment his horse stepped onto solid ground again, Kaito released a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.
The feeling didn’t leave. If anything, it grew stronger as he crossed onto the western side of the continent. Beyond the Divide, the road should have led directly toward signs of life. Even at this hour, one of the busiest trade cities in the region should have been visible in the distance, its lanterns glowing against the darkness and its streets carrying at least some trace of activity.
Instead darkness greeted him.
Complete darkness.
Kaito’s expression hardened.
The city should have been visible from here.
Even at three in the morning.
There should have been lanterns glowing in distant windows, workers finishing late shifts along the docks, or travelers arriving after dark. Even at this hour, a city of that size never truly slept. Yet as Kaito continued down the road, he saw nothing but darkness. No lights flickered in the distance. No voices carried on the wind. No signs of life greeted him from beyond the Divide.
The absence weighed on him more heavily with every passing minute. What had begun as unease slowly hardened into dread as he rode toward the silent city.
Then the smell reached him at last.
Smoke lingered in the air, faint but impossible to mistake. It wasn’t the sharp scent of an active fire or even something that had burned recently. Whatever had happened here was already days old, yet traces of it still drifted across the road on the night wind.
His horse noticed it as well. The animal slowed beneath him, ears twitching uneasily.
Kaito gently urged it onward.
The city finally emerged from the darkness, and the sight that greeted him made his stomach sink. Burned buildings stretched across the horizon, their blackened remains silhouetted against the night sky. Entire blocks had been reduced to skeletal frames of charred timber and cracked stone, while others had collapsed inward completely, leaving only heaps of rubble where homes and businesses had once stood. Even the structures that remained standing looked hollow and lifeless, their scorched walls catching the pale moonlight like the bones of some enormous corpse.
Kaito brought the horse to a stop and stared at the city in silence. The reports hadn’t exaggerated the destruction. If anything, they had failed to capture its true scale. Entire districts had been reduced to blackened ruins, and even the buildings still standing looked as though they might collapse at any moment. Streets that should have been crowded with merchants and travelers lay deserted beneath the moonlight. This wasn’t the aftermath of a raid or even a battle. It looked as though something had swept through the city and erased it, leaving behind only ruins and silence.
The deeper he traveled, the worse it became.
A bakery stood with its front wall torn away, its ovens exposed to the night air as though the building had been cut open. Across the street, an inn had partially collapsed into itself, the upper floors caved in and scattered across the road in a heap of charred timber and broken stone. Nearby, an overturned merchant cart lay where it had fallen, hundreds of shells and preserved fish still spilled across the street and left to rot beneath the open sky.
What unsettled Kaito most was that everything remained exactly where it had been abandoned. No one had cleared the debris. No one had salvaged the goods. No one had even attempted to return. The city looked less like a place that had survived a disaster and more like a place that had simply been emptied of people altogether.
Kaito eventually dismounted near the center of the city.
The horse immediately lowered its head, sides rising and falling with heavy breaths after hours of relentless travel. Foam clung to its neck and shoulders, and its legs trembled slightly from fatigue. The animal had carried him across half the continent without complaint, but even its endurance had limits. It deserved rest.
Before doing anything else, Kaito led it toward a surviving stone structure that provided some shelter from the wind. He removed the saddle, checked its legs for injuries, and gave it water from his supplies.
The horse drank eagerly.
“Rest.”
His voice sounded unusually loud in the silence.
The animal huffed softly.
Kaito rested a hand against its neck for a moment before turning back toward the ruined city.
The unease that had been building since he crossed the Aureline Divide settled more heavily in his chest as he looked over the destruction. It wasn’t the burned buildings or the collapsed streets that bothered him most. Cities could recover from fire. They could rebuild after raids, disasters, even wars.
What troubled him was something harder to define.
The city should have felt like a graveyard. There should have been signs that people had lived and died here. Evidence of panic, resistance, or desperate attempts to survive.
Instead it felt hollow.
As though something had swept through and taken everything with it, leaving only the empty shell behind.
Kaito moved deeper into the city.
His boots echoed softly against cracked stone while moonlight spilled through the gaps where entire buildings had once stood. The destruction seemed endless. Every street revealed more ruins. More collapsed structures. More evidence that thousands of people had once lived here.
Yet despite the scale of the devastation, something continued bothering him. As he stopped beside what had once been a marketplace, the source of his unease finally became clear.
There were no bodies.
A city this large should have contained thousands of people. Many would have died in the initial attack, while others would have been trapped inside collapsing buildings. Some should have burned. Others should have been crushed beneath the ruins.
Yet throughout his entire search, Kaito hadn’t seen a single corpse.
Not one.
The realization settled uneasily in his stomach.
“He continued searching, moving through street after street and building after building, expecting to find anything that might explain what had happened here.” Yet every new corner revealed the same unsettling absence. There were no bodies, no survivors, and no signs that anyone had ever returned after the destruction. The city felt abandoned in a way that almost seemed unnatural.
Eventually Kaito found himself standing near the docks. Or what remained of them.
The smell of salt mixed with old smoke as Kaito stood at the edge of the ruined harbor, staring out across the dark water. Burned ships drifted silently in the distance, and shattered sections of dock bobbed gently with the tide. His gaze slowly swept back across the harbor, taking in the wreckage one more time before settling on the stone beneath his feet.
There was still no blood.
That was when the final piece clicked into place.
His expression hardened as he looked around the ruined harbor once more. A massacre on this scale should have left blood behind. Even if the bodies had been removed and even if some survivors had escaped, there should have been traces somewhere-on the streets, inside buildings, splattered across walls. Yet there was nothing. Not a single stain. Not a single trace.
A cold feeling settled into his chest as the final certainty clicked into place.
Kaito slowly closed his eyes.
The Blood Witch had been here. There was no longer any doubt.
When he opened them again, his gaze drifted across the ruined harbor one final time. Thousands of people were simply gone. The sheer scale of it made his stomach twist. This was a major trade city with an entire population erased without a trace.
And if she had already done this two days ago…
Kaito looked east toward the Coastal Kingdom, toward the place she had reportedly been heading. His jaw tightened.
There wasn’t time.
Whatever answers remained here could wait. The living mattered more than the dead.
He turned immediately and headed back through the city.
The journey felt shorter this time, though only because his mind was consumed by calculations. He mentally traced distances, estimated travel times, and considered every possibility he could think of. If she had moved immediately after the attack, if she hadn’t stopped anywhere along the way, and if the reports were accurate, then every scenario led him to the same conclusion.
He was late.
The thought followed him all the way back to the horse.
The animal lifted its head when he approached.
Kaito checked its condition one final time before carefully securing the saddle once more. The horse was exhausted. Any experienced rider would have stopped until morning.
Kaito couldn’t.
He climbed back into the saddle, and after a brief shift beneath him, the horse turned back toward the road. Together they left the ruined city behind, its blackened remains gradually fading into the darkness as the endless road stretched out before them.
Hours passed.
The moon continued its slow journey across the sky while the cold night air cut against Kaito’s face. Fatigue had begun settling into his muscles, but he ignored it.
The horse kept moving.
So did he.
The Coastal Kingdom grew closer with every passing mile.
At first, the horizon remained completely dark, offering nothing but the endless stretch of night ahead. Then Kaito noticed a faint red glow in the distance. It was barely visible at first, little more than a subtle stain against the darkness, and for several moments he assumed it was the first hint of dawn.
The explanation made sense until he realized where the light was coming from.
The glow wasn’t rising in the east.
It was coming from directly ahead.
Kaito slowed the horse as the red light continued growing brighter ahead. With every mile they traveled, the glow spread further across the horizon, painting the distant sky in an ominous crimson hue. His stomach tightened as realization settled over him. He knew exactly what he was looking at, even before he could fully make it out. The road eventually climbed a gentle rise.
Kaito reached the top of the rise and froze.
Far in the distance, beyond the darkness of the sleeping kingdom, a massive crimson barrier stretched into the sky. Even from miles away it dominated the horizon, an enormous dome of blood covering part of the Coastal Kingdom.
The horse slowed to a stop beneath him as Kaito stared at the sight. For several long seconds he remained motionless, unable to look away.
The reports. The destroyed city. The missing blood. The urgency that had driven him across the continent.
Everything suddenly became reality.
The Blood Witch had already arrived, and whatever was happening inside that barrier, he was already too late to prevent it.
Kaito’s grip tightened around the reins before he urged the exhausted horse forward once more, riding toward the crimson horizon.