The silence still reigned in the Realm of the Dead when the ground began to tremble.
Ainz was the first to sense it — not through physical senses, as he had neither flesh nor nerves, but through a more subtle perception, as if the earth groaned low and long, vibrating in the invisible foundations of his existence. Beside him, Eskandor raised an eyebrow, maintaining his balance with ease. They exchanged a silent glance, understanding at once that this was not natural.
"The ground... is moving?" Eskandor murmured, his voice low, almost muffled by the sound of ice beginning to crack.
"This shouldn't happen here. The Realm of the Dead is immobile... eternal. An earthquake is... unheard of." Ainz replied, his deep voice carrying an uncomfortable weight of uncertainty.
Uriel remained lying down, immersed in his deep slumber. The colossal dragon showed no reaction — not even a flicker of an eyelid. His breathing continued with the same calm, steady rhythm, releasing the comforting cold that blanketed the valley.
Then the frozen ground split with a dry, sinister sound, like bones breaking under an invisible force.
With a crack, narrow fissures opened in the ice, and from them emerged long, skeletal figures — snakes made entirely of bones, their vertebrae fitted together like a macabre symphony. They slithered with disturbing fluidity, their skulls open in serrated jaws that clashed with a sound like steel against stone. Their empty eyes glowed with a sickly amber light.
"Bone snakes...?" Eskandor stepped forward, frowning. "This isn't natural either."
"No..." Ainz answered, drawing his longsword — a black blade adorned with extinct runes, which seemed to absorb the light around it. "This is a summoning. But who...?"
He didn't finish the sentence. One of the snakes lunged at him with absurd speed, its teeth ready to shred anything in its path. Ainz spun with almost mechanical precision, his sword cutting through the air and colliding with the creature with a sharp clang. The snake exploded into fragments of bone that scattered like frozen dust.
On the other side, Eskandor did not reach for any weapon.
His fist rose like a sentence and came down with brutal force, smashing one of the serpents into the ground. The bones shattered with a crash, and the half-dragon didn't even pause to breathe — his feet slid with supernatural agility, dodging a second snake attacking from behind, only to grab it with his bare hands and tear it in half with a guttural roar.
The ground trembled harder, and dozens of those serpents began to emerge, spreading across the snowy field like living cracks.
"Protect the giants!" Ainz bellowed, moving with unnatural speed. With each strike, his blade dissolved a snake into spectral shards. The black runes glowed brightly, absorbing the funereal energy of the defeated creatures. The lich acted with cold logic, his mind processing the battle like a game of chess in real time.
Eskandor, on the other hand, was pure instinct. He leapt, crushed, struck with elbows and knees, his body a storm of controlled destruction. A snake advanced toward his flank, but he grabbed it by the teeth and hurled it at another, creating a heap of broken bones.
The ice giants, realizing the attack, rose with their immense, heavy bodies. They weren't fast, but they were strong — strong enough to smash the snakes with their fists and feet. One of them roared, and the sound's vibration echoed through the hills, making a serpent hesitate for a brief instant before being crushed by a hurled stone.
Even in their slowness, the giants fought with an ancestral determination. Fear had vanished, replaced by a strange serenity brought by Uriel's cold. They protected each other, their bodies frozen but their souls alight with the fleeting hope of that icy warmth.
The battle lasted only a few minutes, but every second felt like an eternity.
The sky above remained gray and opaque, no sun, no stars, only the shroud of death hanging over all. And then, as suddenly as it began, the tremor ceased.
The last snake tried to escape, slipping through a crack in the ice. But Eskandor was faster. He hurled a stone with such strength and precision that it struck the creature's skull dead-on, destroying it completely.
Silence returned. A heavy silence, dense, like the choked whisper of the world itself.
Ainz cleaned his sword with a ritualistic gesture and looked around, analyzing the remnants of the serpents. The bones didn't seem to belong to any known creature, nor did they carry signs of conventional necromancy. They were... ancient. Primordial. They emanated a different energy — wild and impure.
"What was that?" Eskandor approached, his face sweaty, fists still clenched. "Do you think someone is watching us?"
Ainz looked at Uriel, still sleeping peacefully, surrounded by the cold mist emanating from his body. "Whoever... or *whatever* it is, seems unwilling to wake our master. Perhaps it was only testing the limits."
Eskandor ran a hand through his hair, brushing the snow from his shoulders. "This place is getting weirder by the minute."
The lich knelt beside a pile of broken bones. His long, skeletal fingers touched the fragments with delicacy. He whispered a few arcane words, trying to trace the origin of the summoning, but all he found was an empty echo.
"No origin. No traces of conventional magic. As if they rose from the ground itself... like parasites awakened after centuries."
Eskandor frowned. "You think they were... asleep? This world feels asleep too."
"Or perhaps Uriel's slumber is awakening things that even time dared not disturb," Ainz murmured, rising to his feet.
They looked around. The giants were gathered again, collecting the snakes' bones and throwing them into a symbolic bonfire — a blue flame, more spiritual than physical. An ancestral purification ritual that none of them seemed to have learned, but which their bodies instinctively remembered.
Ainz stared at the flame, and for a moment, thought he saw faces in it — fleshless faces with hungry eyes.
"We should prepare for more," he said grimly.
Eskandor nodded. "You think this was just the beginning?"
"Yes. The Realm of the Dead does not change of its own will. Something is moving its pieces... and it's not us."
In the background, Uriel sighed in his deep sleep. The mist around him thickened, covering the battlefield in a light bluish haze. The snow stopped falling. A new silence settled — not of peace, but of anticipation.
As if the world waited for the next move.