Enemies Of The World

The valley was quickly becoming a death trap.

The lava crept forward, swallowing the path they had just crossed like a rising tide of molten doom. The ground hissed and cracked, the once-solid earth now brittle under the intense heat. The walls of the valley, jagged and uneven, funneled the fiery flood toward them, almost as if guiding their destruction.

Random patches of lava materialized from thin air, some appearing as mere bubbling pools before erupting into geysers of flame, their impact sending waves of liquid fire sloshing forward at unpredictable speeds. The air was thick with the acrid stench of burning rock and sulfur, choking the lungs and stinging the eyes.

The prisoners still conscious enough to comprehend their situation were breaking down. Some fell to their knees, whispering prayers to whatever higher powers they believed in, while others clawed at the rock walls as if trying to dig their way out with their bare hands. Their voices ranged from silent, whimpering pleas to outright screams of terror.

Among them, the once-haughty noble curled into a ball, rocking back and forth as he pressed himself against the wall, his voice hoarse from crying out. "Mother... please, I don't want to die... Mother!"

Tamir stood in front of him, legs trembling like they could collapse at any moment, but still, he stood. He had no weapon, no strength to fight against what was coming, but something in him refused to turn away, refused to give in to the terror that had reduced his master to a weeping mess.

The guards, trained and disciplined, held their formation, but fear cracked through their composed exteriors. Their voices were hushed but urgent as they whispered among themselves.

"This is insane... It's filling up too fast!"

"I've never heard of an Unraveling take form like this."

"Are we really going to die like this?"

One of the bolder guards turned to their leader, voice tight with tension. "Captain, you're Loreforged. If anyone knows how to handle an Unraveling, it should be you. What do we do?"

At those words, all eyes turned to the lead female guard. Even Zayne, who had been keeping his distance, turned his attention to her, curious about her response.

Her expression hardened, and for a moment, she seemed to be weighing her words. Then, Zayne caught the slight movement—her lip pressing tightly before she bit down on it. His brow arched at the display. A moment later, she exhaled and admitted, "I've never encountered an Unraveling of this scale."

A ripple of shock passed through the guards.

"The ones I've dealt with in the past were smaller, shorter. When I saw the strange occurrences, I dismissed them, believing it was nothing of consequence. That was my mistake." She took a breath, straightening herself, her gaze firm despite the admission. "I failed to recognize the danger in time. I was careless, and now we're all trapped here because of it. I apologize."

Zayne blinked at that. The sudden admittance of failure caught him off guard. He had expected some form of bravado or an order barked out in defiance.

But an apology? That was almost... respectable.

Almost.

He noted, however, that her apology was directed only at the guards. The prisoners, whom she had dragged like baggage and left to fend for themselves, were given no such acknowledgment. That at least reminded him and possibly the other prisoners that they were not their friends.

He had to admit, though—if she hadn't made that choice, he would have been boiled alive in lava by now. And that wouldn't have been a fun experience.

The guards stood in momentary silence before one of them stepped forward, the guard who had pierced the haughty noble with a spear. "Apologies won't save us, Captain. We need a plan. You're our leader for a reason. Remember why you're here. You survived a Story. You bear the Emperor's blessing. If anyone can get us out of this, it's you."

For a brief moment, a flicker of gratitude passed through her eyes before her stance straightened with renewed determination. She turned back toward the scene before them, her sharp eyes scanning every inch of the hellscape before them, searching for something—anything—that could be their way out.

Zayne, watching this unfold, felt an undeniable cringe crawl up his spine. What the hell was this sudden shift in mood?

They were acting like some band of heroic warriors making a last stand in some grand saga. In reality, they were just prison guards and their unlucky cargo, caught in a disaster they had no real control over.

The whole thing was so absurd that he physically had to look away before his brain decided to explode from the sheer theatricality of it all.

Instead, he turned toward the more grounded part of the group ironically—the quivering Tamir and his pitiful young master.

Tamir's head snapped up as Zayne approached, and for the first time, there was no immediate fear of the terrifying teen in his eyes. The weight of their situation overpowered whatever apprehensions he had. "You seem... way too calm about all of this," Tamir said, his voice barely above a whisper. "Do you know something? Do you have any idea how we can get out of this?"

Zayne exhaled through his nose, gaze flicking back to the rainbow letters still increasing in number, their presence looming over everything. He had a gut feeling that whatever was coming next would be even worse than what they were already facing.

Zayne raised an eyebrow at Tamir's question and looked at the approaching lava with an unreadable expression. The molten rock crept ever closer from forward and above, its slow but inevitable advance sending waves of heat that distorted the air and stung at their skin. The walls of the valley, once imposing and solid, were now their tomb, sealing them in with an ever-growing lake of fire.

Tamir wondered if he had made a mistake in asking, that maybe Zayne truly had no idea and was simply unfazed by nature. But just as he was about to turn away in frustration, Zayne spoke.

"First off," he began, stretching his neck slightly as if loosening up for a casual conversation, "most of what I know about Unravelings is vague, so don't ask too many damn questions. I'm not here to teach a history lesson."

Tamir's lips pressed together, but he said nothing as Zayne continued.

"What Unravelings are exactly? That's tricky. But what they do? That's easy. They force a Story into reality, and not just like reading a bedtime tale, but merging and replacing parts of the world. Think of it as something...forcing itself into your house and shoving everything else aside to do it. And it doesn't care about what was there before. It's chaos—pure, unstoppable chaos."

The words settled in Tamir's mind with a sickening weight, and the glow of the lava only seemed to reinforce their horror. Zayne gestured lazily towards their surroundings.

"They come in different forms. Natural disasters are common. Earthquakes, hurricanes, floods. You could wake up one day and suddenly be standing in the middle of a desert that wasn't there yesterday or find a river running over your head when it was on solid ground before. Sometimes, entire cities just… stop being there, replaced by something completely different."

Tamir swallowed hard, the implications hitting him like a hammer.

"And in our case," Zayne continued, "we've got what looks like a volcano-based Story forcing its way into the world. Lucky us." His tone was dripping with sarcasm, but the words carried a very real sense of doom.

"But," he added with a slight smirk, "at least we haven't run into any Conflicts yet."

Tamir's head snapped toward him at the mention of the word. "Conflicts?" he repeated, his voice barely above a whisper.

Zayne gave him a side glance and scoffed. "How the hell can you be an Avarian and not know what a Conflict is?"

Tamir opened his mouth to respond but was immediately cut off.

"Doesn't matter," Zayne muttered, eyes still locked on the growing disaster. "Conflicts are what really make a Story dangerous. The Unraveling itself is bad enough, but it's just the setup. Remember the name: Unraveling. That means something's being opened—but more importantly, something is being released."

Tamir's stomach twisted into knots. The lava was bad enough. The idea that something worse could be inside it made his blood run cold.

Zayne continued, almost amused by the realization dawning on the boy's face. "That's probably why our dear 'protector' over there didn't think much of the signs at first. She was expecting Conflicts to show up before she took things seriously. Dumbass move in my opinion."

Tamir hesitantly looked towards the lead guard, who was still surveying their surroundings, deep in thought. He was beginning to feel that maybe Zayne wasn't just some oddball prisoner. "You… really seem to know a lot about this," he muttered.

Zayne merely chuckled to himself and said nothing, instead turning his gaze towards the slow but inevitable creep of the lava.

This shit is absolutely fucking slow, when is this thing going to get to us. I'm getting bored...

If anyone around him could hear his thoughts, they'd probably beat him half to death for even thinking about it.

Tamir, gathering what little composure he had left, asked the question burning at the edge of his mind. "So… what do these Conflicts look like?"

Before Zayne could respond, his eyes caught movement in the lava. Something was stirring beneath the molten surface, shifting and twisting unnaturally. A slow grin stretched across his face.

He lifted a hand and casually pointed. "Why not look over there and see for yourself?"

Upon hearing Zayne's words, Tamir turned his head towards the lava, and what he saw was beyond terrifying. The surface of the molten rock began to ripple and bulge, as if something was clawing its way out from beneath.

Large clumps of lava detached themselves from the encroaching tide, rising into the air in grotesque, ever-shifting forms. Some took the shape of constructs—twisted effigies of armor and machinery sculpted from fire and brimstone.

Others emerged as quadrupedal abominations, their backs studded with jagged spines of obsidian, their molten maws dripping with scalding heat. A select few towered on two legs, their bodies distorting between humanoid and demonic, their half-formed limbs stretching into claws that burned the very air around them.

And then, there were faces.

Wailing visages appeared across their molten bodies—some human, some inhuman. Their features twisted in agony, their mouths open in silent screams as they melted and reformed over and over again. Some had multiple faces merging into one another, contorting grotesquely before breaking apart into separate expressions of suffering.

Eyes, hollow and pit-like, blinked open and shut at random, filled with an abyssal hunger. The forms of these Conflicts were not uniform—some were crude and unfinished, as if reality itself was hesitating to decide what they should be, while others were horrifyingly complete, their presence alone exuding an unnatural authority over the burning landscape.

The environment around them reacted violently to their presence. The already blistering heat surged as the chains binding the prisoners glowed brighter, their metal screeching as they softened and warped under the increasing temperature.

The smell of burning flesh filled the air as prisoners shrieked in agony, their restraints searing into their skin. The heatwave distorted the air, turning everything into a fever dream of wavering mirages. The prisoners closest to the heat fell to their knees, coughing and retching as their bodies struggled to withstand the suffocating inferno.

"Cut them loose!" the lead female guard barked, urgency laced in her voice. "Get the chains off!"

Blades flashed as the guards immediately obeyed, severing the glowing chains one after another. The prisoners, though weakened, scrambled back from the superheated remains of their restraints. But not all were freed.

Zayne felt the chains around his wrists remain intact, the metal glowing dangerously close to white-hot. He wasn't surprised. In fact, he found it mildly amusing.

They wouldn't risk losing all their prisoners, but him? No one would bat an eye if he was lost to the flames before he ever reached the execution block.

Bureaucracy had its way of deciding whose death mattered and whose didn't.

Still, he had better things to be concerned with.

The Conflicts were no longer just forming—they were moving.

What had once been only a handful had grown into an advancing horde. Hundreds of grotesque figures, their pit-like eyes locked onto the convoy. The air trembled with an unnatural pressure, as if reality itself was holding its breath. The very ground beneath them pulsed with unnatural heat as the creatures took slow, deliberate steps forward, tightening the noose around the stranded group.

Tamir stood frozen, his breathing ragged. Zayne turned his gaze toward the young man, whose face was caught between horror and disbelief. It was the look of someone who had just glimpsed the abyss for the first time and realized it was looking back.

His so-called young master, the haughty noble, was curled up against the rock wall, whimpering and whispering pleas to his mother as if she would suddenly appear and save him. But Tamir? Despite his fear, he still stood in front of the noble, his body tense as if he could shield him from the inevitable.

Zayne couldn't help but let a smirk tug at his lips.

"Well," he said, watching the Conflicts inch ever closer. "What do you think of your first look at the enemies of the world?"