72.- The Silence of The Crater

The wind howled through the peaks of the Frosted Mountain, a mournful wail that seemed to rise from the rock itself, as if the mountain's core wept for a wound it could not heal. Rha'kash, a Glacial Scales warrior with white scales like untouched snow and yellow eyes burning like embers in the gloom, halted at the edge of what had been the passage to the Crypt of the Frozen Claw. His breath formed clouds that crystallized instantly, falling to the ground as icy dust, but it wasn't the wind's chill that made his hands tremble on the haft of his dragon-bone spear. It was a deeper, darker cold, one that didn't touch the skin but pierced the soul, a cold that whispered of emptiness and ruin.

Where once stood a towering entrance, carved from eternal ice and volcanic rock with the precision of generations of Glacial Scales artisans, now there was only a void. An immense crater, its edges jagged and steaming, as if a colossal claw had torn a chunk of the mountain away and devoured it without a trace. The air was thick with an unnatural silence, heavier than the roar of the storms that lashed these heights, a silence that spoke of something broken, something lost forever. Rha'kash felt the blood freeze in his veins, not from the harsh climate of his homeland, but from the absence of what should have been there: the crypt, the sacred heart of his people, the bastion that legends swore was impregnable.

"No… it's not possible," he murmured, his voice barely a whisper that the wind snatched from his lips and scattered as if it had never been. He turned his head toward the two young warriors at his back, Glar and Thark, their figures silhouetted against the gray sky that seemed to sag over them. Glar, with bluish scales and trembling hands clutching his spear like an anchor, kept his eyes fixed on the crater, his quick breaths forming clouds that dissolved in the frigid air. Thark, sturdier, with grayish scales and a stance that defied the terror he clearly felt, struck the ground with the haft of his spear, as if the gesture could summon an explanation.

They had been hunting yetis on the western slopes, tracking a pack that had strayed too close to the villages, when the tremor hit. It wasn't an ordinary quake, one that shook snow from the peaks and sent pebbles rolling down the inclines. It was a shudder that resonated in their chests, that vibrated through their scales as if the mountain itself screamed in agony. Then, silence. A silence that cut sharper than the edge of their spears, a silence that froze the breath in their throats and filled them with a dread Rha'kash couldn't ignore. Driven by a gut-twisting premonition, he had ordered his companions to abandon the hunt and race to the crypt, the place where the strength of the Glacial Scales had withstood centuries of invasions, storms, and legends. But now, this.

"Kraal…" Rha'kash whispered, the name of the Crypt's Guardian escaping his lips like a broken prayer. Kraal, the colossus of bluish-white scales, the warrior whose might had been a beacon for their people, the mentor who had taught him to wield a spear before his scales had hardened. "What happened here?" His voice quavered, not from the cold, but from a disbelief that gripped his chest like an unseen claw.

Glar took a step back, his spear scraping the ice with a screech that pierced the silence for a fleeting moment. "I don't know, Rha'kash," he said, his voice a thread breaking with every word. "But this… this isn't the work of anything we've faced."

"Nor any magic we know," Thark growled, his tail lashing the ground in a gesture of contained fury. He pointed to the remnants of runes etched along the crater's edges. Once glowing with a vivid blue, charged with the ancestral power of the ice dragon that guarded their people, they were now dark, broken, as if something had erased them from existence with a breath of contempt. The fragments of stone and ice still holding them were scorched, as if fire had touched the untouchable, and a sharp stench hung in the air—not of ash or blood, but of something empty.

Rha'kash edged closer to the rim, his boots crunching against the fractured ice, each step echoing in the silence like a defiance against the nothingness staring back from below. The crater was so deep that the sun's weak, grayish light couldn't reach the bottom. Only darkness, a darkness that seemed to shift, to throb like a dead heart, radiating a sense of nothingness that churned his stomach and made him grit his teeth to keep from retreating. What creature, what force could do this? The crypt wasn't just a temple; it was a symbol, a stronghold forged by the first Glacial Scales, shielded by runes no enemy had ever breached, by the mountain's own fury. And now, nothing. No rubble, no remnants of the icy towers, no echo of the bells that rang during ceremonies. Just a hole, a void that mocked everything they'd believed eternal.

"We have to go down," he said, his voice slicing through the air like the edge of his spear, steady though his heart pounded with a mix of fear and rage he could barely contain. "We have to know what happened."

Glar stared at him, eyes wide, his spear shaking so hard the bone clattered against his scales. "Go down?" he asked, his voice rising as if the word itself terrified him. "What if whatever did this is still down there? What if it's waiting?"

Thark snorted, but his eyes betrayed the same fear Glar couldn't hide. "If it's there, we'll pierce it," he growled, striking the ground with his spear again, though the gesture lacked the confidence he tried to project. "We can't just stand here gawking like scared pups."

Rha'kash turned to them, his gaze hardening like the eternal ice they'd sworn to protect. "We're Glacial Scales," he said, each word a hammer striking the fear trying to take root in their hearts. "We don't run from danger. We don't abandon what's ours." But inside, the fear was an echo he couldn't silence, a whisper urging him to flee, to forget this place. He couldn't, though. Not in front of his companions. Not in the face of their home's vanishing. With a sharp gesture of his hand, he ordered Glar and Thark to follow, and the three began their descent into the crater, their boots seeking purchase on the jagged edges, their spears scraping the ice with screeches that reverberated in the vast emptiness.

The cold deepened with every step, a cold not born of wind or snow, but one that burned their skin, that ached in their lungs, that sapped the strength from their bodies as if something below sought to devour their very life. The crater's walls were a chaos of textures: smooth in patches, as if a force had polished them to erase all traces; rough in others, scarred with claw marks too vast to belong to any known beast. Rha'kash raised a hand, brushing a crevice where liquid shadows writhed like black veins, and a shiver raced down his spine, bristling the scales on his tail.

"This isn't right," Glar murmured, his voice quaking as he stumbled, his spear scraping the rock with a sound that cut through the silence like a stifled scream. Thark grabbed his arm, muttering a curse, but his eyes were locked on the depths, where the darkness seemed to swirl, as if something alive lurked beneath.

"Quiet," Rha'kash ordered, his voice low but sharp as he narrowed his eyes, peering into the gloom enveloping them. The low hum he'd felt from the edge grew stronger, a pulse that vibrated through his scales and squeezed his skull like an unseen claw. And then, they saw it.

Rising from the crater's center, a monument to defeat and despair, stood a figure. A statue of dark tendrils, its sharp thorns dripping a sticky black sap, and black roses blooming across its surface like open wounds, their petals pulsing with a green glow that seemed alive, ravenous. Rha'kash took a step forward, his spear dipping slightly as recognition struck him like a hammer to the chest.

"Kraal…" he whispered, horror clutching his throat until he could barely breathe.

It was Kraal, the Guardian of the Crypt, frozen in a silent scream that chilled the soul. His head was tilted skyward, his yellow eyes dulled in an expression of eternal fury and terror, his arms outstretched as if he'd tried to halt the inevitable. The tendrils encased him like a living prison, their thorns embedded in his bluish-white scales, and the black roses sprouted from his chest, his arms, his face, as if they'd grown from within, consuming him until he became this abomination. Rha'kash felt his legs tremble, but he couldn't look away. This wasn't the Kraal he'd known, the colossus who could split a yeti in two with a single blow, the warrior whose laughter echoed through the caverns like thunder. This was an echo, a remnant, a warning.

"What kind of monster could do this?" he asked, his voice hoarse, cracked by a mix of rage and despair that burned in his chest. He stepped closer, his spear scraping the ground with a screech that echoed in the crater's oppressive silence. The air around the statue crackled with a dark energy, a stench not of death but of nothingness, an absence that churned his stomach and made him want to claw off his scales to escape the feeling. He reached out a trembling hand and brushed a tendril. It was cold, colder than eternal ice, and pulsed beneath his fingers like a living heart, a heart that shouldn't exist.

Glar staggered back, his spear clattering to the ground with a dull thud. "I don't know, Rha'kash," he said, his voice shaking as he clutched his head, as if he could block out the sight. "But… whatever it was… it's something that doesn't belong to this world."

Thark stepped forward, his spear raised as if to strike the statue, but he froze, his heavy breath forming clouds that dissipated in the icy air. "This isn't natural," he growled, his voice thick with a fury that barely masked his fear. "Not yetis, not wyverns, not even the ice spirits could do this. What creature… what thing has this much power?"

Rha'kash didn't answer right away. His mind raced, searching for answers in the legends he'd learned as a child, in the tales Kraal had told him by the cavern fires. The ice dragon, the ancestral spirits, the enemies who'd tried to defile the crypt in ages past—none fit. None could explain this void, this grotesque statue, this destruction that left no rubble or blood, only a hole in the world and an echo of nothing. "I don't know," he admitted at last, his voice low, nearly lost in the hum still pulsing from the crater's depths. "But whatever it was… it didn't just destroy the crypt. It tore something else from us."

Glar trembled, his bluish scales paling to a sickly gray. "Then… what do we do? How do we fight something that can do this?"

"I don't know if we can," Thark said, his spear lowering slowly as he stared at Kraal's statue, his dark eyes reflecting the green glow of the black roses. "But if we don't try, what's left of us?"

Rha'kash clenched his fists, his claws digging into his palms until the pain anchored him to reality. "We have to tell King Thrassk," he said, his voice hardening like the ice he'd sworn to protect. "We have to gather the clans, find answers… and prepare." But as he spoke, his gaze remained fixed on Kraal's statue, on those lifeless eyes that seemed to stare back, pleading something he couldn't grasp. He knew his duty was to warn his people, forge a plan, seek vengeance against whatever had done this. Yet deep within, he knew nothing would ever be the same. The crypt wasn't just a place lost—it was a sign, a harbinger of something dark and powerful stirring in the world's shadows.

And as the wind howled around them, carrying his words into the void, Rha'kash felt the unnatural cold coil around his heart, whispering a truth he didn't want to face: that whatever had destroyed the crypt, whatever had reduced Kraal to this abomination, was beyond anything the Glacial Scales had ever confronted. Something they couldn't name, couldn't understand, perhaps couldn't stop. But even in his fear, in his disbelief, a spark of fury burned within him, a silent vow that he wouldn't surrender, that he'd find that creature, that force, and face it, even if it was the last thing he did.