Chapter 32: Homecoming in the Ashes

The ground gave way with a deafening crack.

Marble steps shattered into dust as a geyser of black, corrupted energy erupted from the fissure, launching chunks of masonry high into the air. The estate's guards were thrown off their feet, their heavy military rifles clattering uselessly against the flagstones.

"Fallback!" Gary’s voice boomed over the chaos, drawing a sidearm with practiced ease. "Establish a perimeter! Move!"

Ramona didn't retreat. She lunged forward.

The crimson glow on Fang flared into a blinding beam of light, vibrating so violently her arm went numb. Below the torn earth, the air grew frigid, freezing the morning dew into jagged frost on the rose petals.

Ramona...

The voice rattled her teeth, echoing not in the air, but directly against her ribs.

A massive, clawed extremity—sheathed in obsidian scales and dripping with viscous, glowing bile—slammed onto the lip of the crater. The ground groaned under its weight.

A Gate Beast.

Not a lesser scout, either. A Class-4 Abyssal Stalker. The kind that had leveled whole cities during the third year of the Collapse.

It shouldn't be here, her mind screamed. Not four months early!

"Target locked!" a guard screamed, raising a heavy-caliber rifle.

"Don't shoot!" Ramona yelled, but it was too late.

A volley of gunfire echoed across the courtyard. High-velocity rounds slammed into the creature’s hide—and bounced off like pebbles against steel. The monster roared, a sound that shattered every remaining pane of glass in the manor.

"Idiots," Ramona spat.

She primed her legs and sprang.

She cleared fifteen feet in a single heartbeat, landing squarely on the beast's crawling forearm. The scales were slickened with acid, burning straight through her combat boots, but she didn't flinch. Pain was just data.

Sight. Target. Sever.

She reversed her grip on Fang and drove the blade downward, aiming directly for the gap between its shoulder plates. The sword sank three inches before hitting bone.

The creature thrashed wildly, hurling Ramona into the air. She flipped mid-fall, caught a stone balcony rail with one hand, and swung herself onto the upper roof, her ash-stained coat snapping in the wind.

Below, Gary fired three precise shots into the monster's eye sockets. Green blood sprayed, but the beast barely registered the hits. It lunged toward the General, its jaw unhinging to reveal rows of needle-thin teeth.

"Gary, jump left!" Ramona barked.

She dropped from the roof like a falling star.

Gravity accelerated her descent. She channeled every drop of mana left in her fractured core into Fang. The blade ignited in a torrent of white-hot fire.

She hit the monster's neck at terminal velocity.

Clang!

The blade sliced through scale, muscle, and spine in a single, brutal arc.

The Abyssal Stalker stiffened, its massive jaw snapping shut inches from Gary's face. For a second, everything went completely still.

Then the beast’s head slid from its shoulders, hitting the courtyard with a heavy thud. The rest of its massive body collapsed into a pile of black dust, dissolving into the wind before it could even bleed out.

Ramona landed lightly on her feet, skidding to a halt in the center of the ash cloud. She was panting, her chest heaving, her knuckles white around her sword.

Silence descended on the ruined garden.

Elena peered out from behind a shattered column, weeping softly. The remaining guards stood frozen, their weapons pointed helplessly at the pile of dust.

Gary slowly lowered his gun. He looked at the smoking crater, then at the severed head, and finally at Ramona.

"What..." Gary's voice lacked its military edge for the first time. "What was that thing?"

Ramona wiped a smear of black blood from her cheek and flicked Fang clean before slamming it back into its sheath.

"That was a warning," she said, her eyes burning cold. "The Gate beneath your house didn't open by accident. Someone summoned it."

She stepped over the crater and stopped right in front of Gary, looking up into the face of the man she had watched die in another timeline.

"And if they know I'm back," she added, "then the apocalypse isn't waiting four months. It's starting today."