The scent of charred metal and wilted leaves lingered as Nyxaria stepped past the crumbling gate of the west side. Her boots crunched softly on brittle stone, worn smooth by time.
A wind swept through, lifting the hem of her black robe as if urging her forward.
Beside her, the tiny system spirit floated still by her shoulder, the usual snark still on her face.
Nyxaria said nothing as she passed the lone gatekeeper—a one-armed lion beastman whose dull eyes tracked her every step. He neither nodded nor spoke, but the weight of his stare followed her like a knife pressed to the back of her neck.
Once beyond the city's edge, the world shifted.
The land outside Nightmare City wasn't dead—it was watching.
Trees hunched over the narrow trail, their bark dark and pitted like burned flesh. Twisting vines, some with tiny, twitching thorns, snaked across the ground. Pale fungi pulsed faintly at the bases of trunks, giving off a bioluminescent shimmer that flickered with every step.
She moved with precision, her senses stretched thin across every sound and shift in the wind. Her fingers remained loose by her side, one hand hovering near the concealed blade hidden around her waist.
Minutes passed. Maybe hours. Night fell across the sky, swallowing the last traces of light. The deeper she walked, the more warped the landscape became. Moss-covered carcasses of animals lay rotting between roots, while strange insect hives throbbed high in the trees, pulsing faintly like alien tumors.
The forest was different at night.
Shadows thickened like ink, seeping between the twisted trees, cloaking the narrow animal paths in a veil of uncertainty. The moon hung high, pale and cold, filtered through the canopy in shards of silver. Nyxaria moved in silence, each step light and deliberate. Her instincts screamed that danger lurked nearby, but her expression remained stoic.
She had walked through darker nights than this.
Still, the forest breathed differently now.
A sudden rustle ahead made her pause. Her deep starlit violet eyes narrowed.
Again a rustle behind her.
Without hesitation, she ducked low and spun around, her blade slicing through the air in a gleaming arc. A beast—furred, wild-eyed, and snarling—lunged from the shadows. It had the body of a bear but the limbs of a lynx, all taut muscle and razor claws. Nyxaria side-stepped its charge with the grace of a phantom, leaving it to crash into the base of a tree.
She struck swiftly.
One cut across the throat. Another at its side. The beast gurgled, staggered, then fell with a dull thud.
Nyxaria exhaled, blood trailing down her arm from a graze across her bicep. She wiped it against the bark of a tree, already moving on.
It wasn't until she reached the edge of a jagged cliff that she halted. A peculiar glow pulsed beneath a stone outcrop, nestled between sharp rocks and tufts of bluegrass. The herb Ari had mentioned.
She recalled Ari's instructions—the herb grew on cliff edges, where moonlight barely kissed the ground. Moonshadow Leaf thrived near damp stone outcroppings, revealing its glow only beneath the light of the moon.
There it was, delicate yet stubborn, its faint luminescence shimmering like frost. Nyxaria narrowed her eyes, crouching low to get a better look. The cliffside wind tugged at her clothe, but she moved carefully, inching closer to the precious plant that pulsed gently with silvery light, like a heartbeat hidden in stone.
"Found you," she murmured.
She slowly knelt down and reached for the medicinal herb, her fingers brushed against the glowing leaves. One by one, she plucked them with cautiousness. Yet the moment she picked up the third leaf, the ground beneath her boots gave a sudden, ominous crack.
The cliff's edge was dry, brittle—worn down by time and wind—and it crumbled instantly under the slightest pressure. In a split second, her balance shifted.
The world tilted.
Air screamed past her ears as her body plunged downward, the ground vanishing beneath her feet like a trapdoor dropped by fate.
Panic surged in her chest as the void swallowed her whole.
Twisting wind howled around her. Branches lashed at her limbs as she plummeted, and sharp rocks tore through her clothes.
But years of honed reflexes kicked in—she twisted mid-air, kicked off a thick trunk, bent her body just before impact, and rolled.
The ground slammed into her with brutal force, knocking the breath from her lungs.
Pain erupted through her side. Something was bruised—maybe cracked—but nothing broken.
She lay there for a breath. Two. Then sat up, breathless but alive.
The herbs still clenched in her fist.
With a grimace, she opened her system inventory and tossed those three in. A gentle chime rang in her ears as the panel appeared.
> [Item acquired: 3 Moonshadow leaf – Mission Progress: 50%]
"Well... that could have been worse," she muttered, voice dry.
"You're lucky you're not dead," Ari's voice chimed in, cool and matter-of-fact.
"Tch." She staggered upright, brushing off dirt. Her clothes was torn, her wounds stinging, but her eyes were steady. "Let's get out of here."
She looked around. The trees here were older, gnarled and twisted, their roots arching like claws. The air was thicker, almost suffocating. Moss clung to everything. An deeper part of the forest that the moonlight barely reached.
This deepest part of the forest was oppressive. Twisted roots and thick vines choked the narrow paths, and an eerie hum filled the air.
She walked slowly, trying to find her way back to the city.
Nyxaria limped forward, following the map Ari had provided. But then a tremor rippled through the air—subtle, as if the forest itself had just inhaled. She froze.
A guttural hiss—then the unmistakable sound of something enormous crashing through the undergrowth.
She crouched low behind a gnarled tree, peering out. Her sharp eyes widened slightly.
Something massive was moving through the trees, breaking them apart with every thrash. Branches cracked. A boulder split in two. And in the midst of it all—a Snake.
Its scales were a deep obsidian blue, shimmering with an unnatural sheen, easily five meters long, thrashed in madness.
It coiled around trees only to slam its body against them. Its scales, once surely smooth and majestic, were torn and bleeding. Its head slammed into the ground again and again, as if trying to crush something within itself.
Nyxaria's breath caught.
Even from a distance, she could see its eyes—murky, glowing with a sickly red sheen.
But the snake didn't even seem aware of her.
It was lashing out at itself.
Its body bore deep self-inflicted wounds.
Nyxaria was aware of her own limits. Even though she could probably defeat the snake since it was not in its right mind, she wasn't sure she would come out of it unscathed. On top of that, her fall had left her injured, and her body was still sore from the impact.
She knew better than to engage in a battle recklessly, especially in her current condition. The risk of further harm was too great to ignore.
Ari floated silently beside her, eyes dim and lips pressed in a line.
"What the hell's wrong with it?" she whispered, not taking her eyes off the creature.
Ari's voice was soft but clear. "It's mad."
"I can see that," Nyxaria hissed back, frowning. "But why?"
The system turned her glowing eyes toward a twisted plant curling at the edge of the clearing. Its leaves were a dull purple, veined with crimson, and it pulsed faintly, as if alive.
"That's Craze Weed," Ari explained. "For most, it's harmless. But to beastmen... it's like poison for the mind. It confuses their senses. They lose control. Sometimes permanently."
Nyxaria's gaze returned to the snake. Blood streaked its beautiful scales. It crashed its head against a rock again with a desperate screech.
"It's hurting itself," she murmured.
Ari nodded. "It still has some awareness. If it didn't, it would've rampaged through the whole forest by now. But it's close—if it doesn't come back to itself soon, it'll either tear its mind apart or die from its own strength."
Nyxaria's lips tightened.
It stood between her and the city, the path winding just beyond the clearing.
Nyxaria clicked her tongue. "So it's blocking my path, going insane, and making noise that'll attract more wild beasts. Wonderful."
She leaned back against the tree, breathing slowly. Her muscles ached, her wounds throbbed, but she wasn't foolish enough to fight recklessly. The snake could crush a horse. Even at her peak, it would be a gamble.
She watched as it thrashed in agony, its massive body coiling and slamming against the earth—yet those eyes, bloodshot and wild, still fought against the haze clouding their clarity.
Those stubborn, bloodied eyes clung to something—refusing to let go, refusing to yield, unwilling to lose to madness, even as the insanity tore at its mind.
For a moment, it reminded her of her younger self.
from long ago.
Something about that stubborn defiance… stirred a memory.
A flicker of another time, another place—where she too had clawed against the darkness, refusing to lose herself.
And just like that, the memory crept in—uninvited, unwanted—pulling her back to a time she'd buried with a blade.