"As you've probably noticed," Proxy said, "the creatures of the night roam freely—but they vanish with the morning. The longer you stay in Velura, the more you'll realise: the daylight hides worse things. Traveling under moonlight and sheltering during the day might be your best chance at surviving. Trust me—you don't want to meet what lurks beneath the sun."
Sound advice, and far too reasonable to ignore.
"So the Oculus we saw earlier—it's gone for now?" Riley asked, hopeful. He no longer had a knife to defend himself.
A hiss of static preceded Proxy's reply. "Yes. It's likely returned to it's den. For now, you're safe."
With that small reassurance, Riley pushed forward. "Good. Let's get off this mountain."
He followed the same path that led him to the clearing where he'd once fought the Oculus. Rocky outcroppings framed the wide space—thirty meters across at its narrowest. A trail waited at the far end, snaking deeper into the Pendulum Ranges.
A quick scan of the area told him what he needed to know: the Oculus was gone.
Sticking close to the left-hand rocks, Riley moved with care. Near the center, he spotted the pit he'd fallen into. It was massive, at least five meters wide. How had he missed it before? Bad luck, he thought. Hopefully not a habit.
Once across, he began hiking the narrow trail winding along the far ridges. His mind wandered.
The past day had been chaos. Monsters. Mountains. Disembodied voices. And then… his eyes. He could see things others couldn't—fractures, cracks in the world itself. Like shattered glass in the air. He'd tried touching them, but his fingers passed right through. For now, they were a mystery shelved for later.
His other ability—the [Eyes of Focus]—remained equally puzzling. It was listed as a [Natural Talent] on that glowing blue panel. But how was it meant to activate? He decided to give it a try.
To anyone watching, it would've looked like he was trying to squeeze out a stubborn bowel movement while hiking. Thankfully, no one was watching. Not even Proxy could see his face—just his surroundings.
And for all his efforts there was still no luck with his talent.
The climb grew steeper. Snow and loose rocks made the trail difficult. Riley removed his damp jacket and stuffed it in his pack. His shirt had mostly dried, warmed by the heat of exertion.
It wasn't long before the narrow mountain trail opened up—and not in any way that comforted Riley.
The path spilled out onto a jagged ridgeline, a cruel stretch of stone that tilted sharply like a broken blade angled against the sky. One side dropped into clouds so dense they looked solid, while the other fell away into swirling mist pierced by the faint shimmer of ice-coated stone far below. Each side promised death, swift and certain.
A few loose rocks tumbled from the edge as Riley stepped forward, and he watched them vanish into the pale abyss. They didn't make a sound. Just disappeared. It was easy—too easy—to imagine razor-sharp spires waiting far below, eager to skewer him if he made one wrong step.
The ridge stretched ahead for thirty metres, no wider than a balance beam in some places. At its far end, the terrain changed again—flattening into what appeared to be an impossibly vast plateau stretching out for kilometres, littered with towering stone formations.
Riley's mouth was dry. He dropped low, pressing his body to the cold, slanted stone. The upper edge of the ridge jutted above him like a jagged fin, the surface beneath him slick with frost and fragmented shale. Every movement had to be measured. Every breath slow.
He shuffled forward, hugging the incline, ignoring the trembling in his legs. The wind bit at him, sharp and merciless. A wrong move here wouldn't be dramatic—it would be final.
"Don't think about falling," he whispered to himself.
He didn't look down.
It felt like hours, though it was maybe only twenty minutes. Finally, the ridge began to level out. Riley crawled over the lip of the final edge and collapsed on solid ground, panting. His hands throbbed. His arms felt like jelly. But he'd made it.
When he stood again and looked up, he was met with a sight that stole his breath for a different reason.
An enormous plateau stretched out before him, flat and endless, like the top of some ancient, forgotten mesa. Scattered across its surface were hundreds of massive stone mounds—some stacked, others slouched like sleeping beasts. They cast long shadows in the pale light, motionless, ominous.
Riley took a tentative steps forward and his stroke to the opposite end of the plateau had been walking across the flat expanse for barely ten minutes, and so far—nothing. Nothing chased him, nothing screeched at him, nothing blinked at him from the shadows. It was... peaceful. And strangely unnerving.
Just as he let his guard begin to lower, a small rock rolled across the ground in front of his foot.
He went to kick it—but it dodged.
His brow furrowed.
Another rock followed, sliding into his path. He stopped. Where were these coming from?
He glanced up and his blood ran cold.
One of the nearby boulders shifted.
Cracks split through its surface as limbs began to separate from the bulk. Massive stone arms and legs unfolded, joints grinding like slabs of granite tearing free from centuries of stillness. In moments, the thing towered before him—just five metres away. Its rigid, boulder-like body pulsed with an unnatural stillness, and its hollow stone eyes glowed faintly as it locked its gaze on Riley.
"Ah," Proxy said in his ear, tone flat. "This is really not good."
Riley didn't think—he bolted. Panic gripped his throat like a vice, squeezing every ounce of air from his lungs. His boots pounded against the rock as the ground quaked behind him.
A roar thundered from the stone giant.
Then another.
More boulders stirred—no, unfolded—shaking free of the earth to join the chase. Giants. Dozens of them. They stumbled and collided with each other, some crashing down in heaps, but it didn't slow the swarm. Each of their steps covered ten of Riley's. The sound was deafening, a rolling landslide of doom.
He ran harder. His body still ached, but adrenaline turned pain into background noise. Up ahead, the ridge. The same narrow crossing he'd used earlier. He pumped his arms, forced his legs to move faster.
Behind him, massive rocks whistled past his head. One exploded on impact with a nearby boulder, spraying him with stone shrapnel. His arms burned where the fragments tore his skin.
Proxy's voice buzzed again. "Yeah, Golems? Definitely not a fair fight. Their bodies are forged from stone and whatever ore they consume. You're not cutting through that with a kitchen knife, even if you had it. Just get to the ridge. And whatever you do, don't stop. They'll rip up the ground and throw it at you."
No pressure.
Riley reached the base of the ridge and leapt onto it. He didn't dare look back—until he had to. A few golems skidded off the side, unable to follow. Relief surged, but he didn't stop. He scrambled along the ridge's edge, every step one more away from death.
More boulders flew past, thudding into the cliffs. Luckily, the golems had terrible aim.
A sound unlike anything Riley had ever heard split the sky—a roar so massive it vibrated through the stone beneath him and rattled the air in his lungs. The golems froze. Every single one. Mid-stride, mid-throw—statues once again, but now out of reverence… or terror.
A breeze brushed Riley's cheek.
It grew stronger.
Then stronger still.
He dropped flat against the ridge, clinging to its jagged spine with raw fingertips as the wind became a gale, dragging his clothes and rattling the loose stones around him.
"Don't move," Proxy whispered in his ear, low and tight. "Try to make yourself small and Insignificant. Let's hope they ignore us."
"What are they?" Riley whispered. "Why have the golems stopped?"
"They're not your problem anymore," Proxy said. "That sound—that's the juggernaut of the mountains. A skyborn predator. They ride the wind like waves and burn the air when they descend. And those golems? They're prey."
A shadow swallowed the moonlight.
Riley looked up—and his heart nearly stopped.
A serpentine shape rolled overhead, vast beyond comprehension. Wings stretched out like curtains of iron, blocking the sky entirely. Its body coiled in lazy power, plated in layered scales the colour of weathered stone. It moved with impossible grace for something so large—like a glacier flowing through the air.
Riley's eyes widened. His fear was primal, animal. But beneath the terror… there was awe.
It was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.
"Oh my gosh," he whispered.
The dragon plunged.
It hit the plateau like divine judgement—stone cracked and exploded under its weight as it slammed into the middle of the golem horde. The sound was deafening. A storm of debris blasted outward, flinging giants like toys. The dragon's maw opened, jaws big enough to bite through towers. Its teeth sank into a golem mid-roar and tore it in half.
Some of the golems fought back, launching stones the size of cars at the dragon's plated hide. Others fled. But none stood a chance.
Riley was frozen, watching from the edge of the ridge as chaos unfolded. Dust clouded the air. Roars echoed in all directions. And then—suddenly—the dragon's massive tail swept sideways like a wrecking ball.
It collided with the left side of the ridge, which happened to be Riley's side of the ridge.
The stone shuddered violently beneath him. The section he clung to groaned—and cracked.
"No, no—no!" he gasped, clutching tight.
But it was no use.
The ledge broke loose with a violent lurch, and Riley's world tilted.
The last thing he saw as he began sliding down the jagged slope was the dragon, rising from the carnage like a god of storms, wings spread wide, the light of the shattered moon gleaming off its silver-grey scales.
"Figures," he muttered as the slab beneath him gave way.
Then he was falling—skidding down the slanted ridge, stone screaming beneath him, clouds rushing up to meet him like a crashing wave.