The streets of Valthorn City lay cloaked in an unnatural silence.
Shuttered storefronts lined the stone-paved roads like sealed tombs, their wooden doors bolted tight against an invisible threat. Dust drifted lazily in the dry evening air, disturbed only by the rhythmic thud of heavy boots—marching soldiers, patrolling with tense alertness. Other than the sparse guards, not a single soul wandered the city.
Damien walked swiftly through the hollow city, each footfall echoing against the cold stone. Though Valthorn was neither vast nor cramped, its layout twisted in a web of narrow lanes and straight thoroughfares that spanned nearly five kilometers from end to end. The city's location within a mountain pass—an artery connecting the Thousand Beasts continent to the rest of the world—made it a place of immense strategic value.
But tonight, that importance felt like an illusion. An illusion teetering on the verge of collapse.
