With the pain stripped from his body, Damien sprinted through the shattered streets of the ruined city, the air screaming past his ears. His heartbeat pounded like a war drum against his ribs, but for once, it wasn't exhaustion that gnawed at him — it was fear.
He had to reach the lake. He had to.
'C'mon, Bonehowler. Just a little longer. Hold that bastard off a little longer.'
The ruins blurred into ghostly smears around him — crumbled houses with their walls half-collapsed, skeletal frames of old towers looming like silent witnesses to his desperation. Shattered glass crunched beneath his boots, but he barely registered it. His focus tunneled into a razor's edge.
In his arms, Summer sat silently, with her arms tight around Luka's limp body, who was now the only one encased in a golden bubble. She hadn't spoken a word, hadn't whimpered or cried — she was laser-focused on keeping Luka alive. Her face, when Damien dared to glance down, was pale and set, her jaw locked in grim determination.
The sight of Luka made Damien's stomach twist into a knot. The goblin's attack had left a brutal, gaping hole in Luka's stomach, and although Summer's magic had sealed the worst of the bleeding, the damage inside… Damien knew it was bad. Worse than bad.
'If we don't get Luka off this island and to Mrs. Abby... he's going to die.'
The thought slammed into him harder than any monster's strike ever could. For a moment, his legs almost faltered. But he forced the weakness down and gritted his teeth, his eyes scanning the crumbling alleys ahead for the fastest route.
He couldn't afford to fail.
Not now. Not with Luka's life hanging by a thread.
The city fell away behind him, and after what felt like an eternity spent outrunning death itself, Damien finally saw it — a gleaming expanse of water in the distance, shimmering under the dying light of the fractured sky.
The lake.
Spanning its surface were dozens of old rope bridges, sagging slightly under their weight. They crisscrossed between worn wooden platforms that floated like lonely islands, each one linking to another and another, stretching out toward safety.
Damien's heart soared at the sight, raw hope flooding his veins.
'We just need to make it to one of those platforms. If we can hold out there, the evacuation team will find us.'
For the first time since Luka fell, Damien dared to believe they might make it.
But hope was a cruel thing.
A thunderous boom shattered the fragile moment, echoing off the ruined buildings around them. Damien's blood ran cold.
Loud, heavy footsteps — rhythmic, relentless — pounded into the earth behind them.
The goblin had broken free.
And it was coming for them.
Damien pushed his body harder than he ever had before. He was a streak of light across the broken world, the lightning raging through him without restraint, no pain left to anchor him to his limits.
But no matter how fast he moved — no matter how much he burned himself alive from the inside out — it still wasn't enough.
The goblin was gaining.
He risked a glance back and felt a surge of terror lance through his chest. The monster was closing in fast, bounding across the ruins with horrifying speed, its claws tearing through the crumbling earth as if it were paper.
The bridge was ahead, just twenty meters, but the goblin was only ten behind them now.
Damien's heart thundered in his ears. Every step felt like sprinting through water, like the world itself was trying to drag him down. He gritted his teeth and forced his legs to move faster, faster—
And then he was there, skidding onto the swaying, groaning rope bridge.
The whole structure creaked and swayed violently under their weight. Wooden planks groaned in protest, ropes strained and snapped in places, but Damien didn't slow. He sprinted toward the platform ahead, Luka cradled in Summer's protective bubble behind him, the goblin howling as it crashed onto the bridge in pursuit.
Ten meters.
Five meters.
Damien dove.
He hit the wooden platform hard, sending Summer and him rolling onto their sides just in time to turn and see the goblin launch itself at him, mouth wide open, claws stretched out, hatred carved into every twisted feature.
For a heartbeat, Damien froze.
Then, like a divine shield, a golden bubble flared into existence between them.
The goblin smashed into it with brutal force, its momentum shuddering to a crawl.
Damien's instincts roared to life.
The lightning inside him screamed for release, and he answered without hesitation. He lunged forward, his whole body alight with blinding power, his sword gripped tight — but he didn't strike with the blade.
He punched.
Fist crackling with raw electricity, Damien drove it straight into the goblin's chest.
The beast shot backward as if struck by a divine hammer, crashing onto the swaying bridge with a guttural snarl.
Damien didn't stop to think.
With shaking hands, he hacked at the thick ropes anchoring the bridge to the platform. His sword tore through the fibers, and with a deafening snap, the bridge gave way.
The goblin's yellow eyes locked onto his as it fell, and for a single, gut-wrenching moment, they shared a look of pure, undiluted hatred.
And then — Splash!
The monster plunged into the churning black waters ten meters below.
Damien staggered to the edge, chest heaving, watching as the goblin thrashed against the water. But it was already too late.
The lake erupted into a frenzy.
Dozens of dark shapes swarmed from the depths, razor-toothed monsters shredding the goblin apart before it could even scream.
Damien stared, electricity still dancing over his skin, his hands trembling — not from fear now, but from the overwhelming flood of adrenaline and grief and rage crashing through him.
He watched until there was nothing left.
Only then did he whisper under his breath, voice rough with emotion:
"I wish I could've killed you myself, bastard."
However, Damien didn't let himself linger on that thought.
On the platform, Luka lay crumpled inside the golden bubble, barely breathing, his chest rising in shallow, uneven jerks. His blue eyes, once so vibrant and stubbornly alive, were reduced to a dull, glassy pale.
Damien dropped to his knees beside him, hands pressed against the warm, shimmering surface of the bubble as if he could reach through it and pull Luka back by sheer force of will. His heart pounded in his ears, drowning out everything else.
'I can't lose him. I can't!'
The thought hammered against Damien's skull like a war drum, frantic and unrelenting. Luka — the boy who never backed down from anything, the one who faced monsters and death with a grin — wasn't supposed to die. Couldn't die.
Damien's throat tightened painfully. The very idea felt wrong, like a tear in the fabric of the world itself.
And yet Luka lay there, so still, so broken, his breaths growing fainter with every passing second.
"No, no, no—" Damien's voice cracked into a hoarse whisper.
Something inside him shattered.
A gut-wrenching cry tore from his lungs, raw and brutal. He slammed his fists against the platform with everything he had, again and again, until blood smeared across the cracked wood, his knuckles torn open and dripping.
Still, he hit it.
Still, he raged.
As if he could somehow break reality apart and rebuild it differently — a world where Luka wasn't dying right in front of him.
Damien threw his head back and screamed into the heavens, voice full of agony and helplessness.
"Evacuation team, where are you?! We need you! We need you!"
His words echoed across the empty lake, swallowed by the vastness of the ruins around them. No answer came. No help. No salvation.
Only silence.
Damien pressed his forehead against the golden bubble, trembling, the taste of salt and iron thick in his mouth.
Luka was slipping away.
And there was nothing Damien could do to stop it.
Until—
Through the wails of his screams and the crushing weight of despair—
A voice cut through. Loud. Cocky. Unbothered.
"I think I could help with that."
Damien's head snapped up, disoriented, heart thundering in his ears. His bloodied fists tightened against the ground as he whipped around toward the sound.
A man lounged casually against the far side of the platform's central pillar, legs stretched out lazily, one boot tapping idly against the wood as if he hadn't a care in the world.
He sat there like he'd been watching the whole time, like Luka dying, Damien breaking — meant anything at all.
But Damien didn't need to see his face. He didn't even need the voice.
He knew.
His heart stuttered in his chest, caught somewhere between hope and rage.
'Julius?'
The name surfaced in his mind like a breath he hadn't realized he was holding — sharp, desperate, and burning with a thousand unanswered questions.