Chapter 925: Second Anchor: Activated (1)

By the time Liam, Asher, and Celia pushed toward the northern collapsed road, the task countdown had fallen to roughly four hours and thirty minutes.

They were moving fast enough that the forest did not have time to become familiar. Liam and Asher cut through the terrain below, crossing uneven ground, low ridges, root-thick slopes, and narrow animal paths without letting the route pull them too far off line. Above them, Raven carried Celia just over the treetops or through the wider breaks in the canopy, keeping pace from the air without driving so hard that Celia lost her balance or became useless before they reached the next anchor.

The route had not been empty.

A few Realm-Touched threats tested the space between the western forest line and the northern road, but none were allowed to become a true delay. Liam ignored the ones that kept distance and were not worth the time. Asher looked personally offended by that restraint, but even he understood the countdown well enough not to turn every moving shadow into an event. When something blocked the route, they removed it quickly.

A root-skinned crawler that lunged from a hollow trunk lost its head before Asher’s foot fully touched the ground. A pack of smaller, long-limbed scavengers tried to flank them near a dry streambed and scattered when Liam cut down the first and Asher burned a line across their path. One heavier shape followed for nearly half a minute through the trees before Raven dipped low enough for Celia to warn them, and Liam shifted their route without bothering to see whether it lost interest or simply chose not to continue.

Celia’s instruction remained simple: keep moving forward unless the route ahead became unsafe.

She followed it.

If Liam and Asher slowed for a breath to cut through something below, Raven continued ahead at a controlled angle, not abandoning them, not hovering uselessly over the fight. It was not trust. Not yet. It was function, and function was enough.

A little over a mile from the northern collapsed road, Liam slowed.

Asher noticed immediately and landed beside him after clearing a fallen log. "Why are we slowing now?"

"We are close."

"That sounds like a reason to move faster."

"It sounds like a reason to stop treating the ground like it is honest."

Asher clicked his tongue, but he adjusted his pace. "Collapsed road?"

"Yes."

"So unstable ground, hidden things, and academy nonsense."

"Likely."

"Wonderful."

Raven descended lower above them, her wings folding and spreading in shorter beats as the forest began to change. The trees thinned unevenly. Roots still spread across the ground, but they twisted through harder soil now, gripping patches of old stone that emerged beneath moss and dirt. Broken paving slabs appeared between clusters of weeds, some tilted upward like exposed bone, others half-buried under years of leaf rot. Old road markers leaned at strange angles along the approach, their carved faces worn nearly smooth. The air grew drier and dustier, carrying less of the wet forest scent and more of old stone, sunken earth, and long-settled ruin.

The place did not feel decayed in the ordinary way.

It felt like something beneath it had given way.

Celia’s voice came from above, steady but more cautious than before. "The collapsed sections do not spread naturally."

Liam looked up.

Raven flew just above the thinning canopy, low enough for Celia to study the land ahead. Celia leaned slightly to one side, eyes following the broken road through the trees. "Some of the damage looks pulled downward. Not weathered. Hollowed, maybe. Several sections dip as if the support beneath them vanished first."

Liam accepted the observation immediately. "Something may be nesting under the road."

Asher’s expression sharpened. "Finally, the road has teeth."

"Do not sound pleased."

"I am pleased carefully."

"That is not reassuring."

They advanced more slowly after that.

The northern collapsed road revealed itself in pieces. First came the outer stones, scattered under moss like failed steps. Then the broken retaining walls, one side leaning into a ditch clogged with rubble and pale roots. Farther ahead, the old road stretched through the ruined terrain in cracked slabs and sunken patches, its original path still visible but interrupted by collapsed pits and uneven mounds. Half-buried remains of an old carriage lay tilted near one side, its stone-reinforced wheels broken and swallowed by dirt. Several markers stood along the route, one upright, two leaning, another snapped in half and buried beneath a fall of cracked paving.

The anchor was visible.

That was almost worse.

It sat across one of the collapsed sections near a leaning road marker, lodged into a broken stone post with its academy-made surface catching a faint, unnatural glimmer. From a distance, it looked reachable. A person could see a path from the forest edge to the marker if they wanted badly enough to believe the road would hold.

Liam did not believe it.

Asher shifted forward, weight settling into his front foot.

"Stop," Liam said.

Asher froze, irritated but obedient enough not to step fully onto the road. "What?"

Liam crouched, eyes fixed on a crack running through a slab several paces ahead. It had moved. Not much. Just enough to disturb dust along one edge. No wind had touched it. No animal had crossed. A small mound of rubble near the center of the road settled too smoothly, sinking and rising by the width of a breath as if something beneath it had shifted its weight.

"The rubble is breathing," Liam said.

Asher’s mouth curved. "Now that is more interesting."

"Hollowbacks."

Celia and Raven lowered to the branch of a dead tree near the edge of the road, avoiding the ground. "From the guide?"

"Yes." Liam kept his attention on the road. "They camouflage as collapsed stone, slabs, rubble. Bodies beneath the surface. They wait for prey to step close, then lunge or drop the ground under them."

Celia closed her eyes briefly, then opened them with a faint frown. "I can feel dull signatures beneath parts of the road, but they blend with the stone residue. It is not clean. Their cores are muted, almost... spread through the shell."

"Different from Glassmaws," Asher said.

"Glassmaws hid in light," Liam said. "These hide by becoming the ruin."

Asher looked at the visible anchor, then the sunken road between them and it. "So we cannot just blast everything."

"No."

"I hate this place."

"We are not clearing the road. We are reaching the anchor."

Celia studied the terrain from above. "If the anchor is damaged or buried further, activation may become harder."

"Then we avoid collapsing it," Liam said. He picked up a loose stone from the forest edge and weighed it once in his hand. "I test the road and mark a path. Asher, controlled heat and pressure only. Make them shift. Do not break the whole area."

Asher looked offended. "I know how to control my flame."

"Yes. Use that rare skill."

"I am going to burn your coat one day."

"Try after the task."

Celia ignored them. "I will stay off the road. Raven can keep me above or on raised points. I can watch for signatures shifting beneath the slabs."

"If anything moves toward you, say it before it arrives," Liam said.

Raven gave a low, displeased sound, as if the idea of not noticing danger near her rider was insulting.

Liam threw the stone.

It struck a cracked slab near the first open stretch.

Nothing happened for half a breath.

Then the slab opened.

Not fully. It split upward like a lid, a broad armored back unfolding from what had looked like broken paving. A Hollowback rose beneath it, its shell made of layered stone-like plates arranged like collapsed masonry. Dirt slid from its back as the creature lifted itself on pale, sinewy limbs hidden beneath the rubble. Its claws gripped stone with hooked precision, built as much for digging through ruin as for tearing flesh. The head emerged last, half-covered by the road-shell above it, the front shaped like a rough stone skull. Beneath that shell, its jaw opened too wide, revealing a wet, pale mouth that did not belong with the masonry horror of its back.

The road had learned how to hunt.

Asher’s blue flame snapped awake along his hand. "Ugly thing."