THE BURIAL

After the explosion, Varik was about to find his shield, but it was completely destroyed.

Even the shield couldn't survive overloading a core.

He let out a heavy sigh.

"I'm gonna miss that shield."

Eros briefly gripped his shoulder, then said,

"Hey, let's go. This place stinks."

Varik looked at him and laughed. Eros was confused.

"Did I say anything funny?"

"So do we," Varik replied, still chuckling.

"But we can't leave yet. We need to get the bodies of our fallen comrades."

Nira was already picking up what remained of the Firstborn. The Firstborns who had gone with Riven had already taken one body as they left.

Eros took a few steps toward her.

"So... what are we gonna do with the bodies?"

Nira didn't look at him. Her eyes were locked on the corpse of the fallen Firstborn, her hand resting gently on the chest. Her voice carried a hint of sadness.

"We bury them."

Eros let out a long sigh.

"Okay... but we have to get out of the city first. I guess you already know that."

She hesitated, then said in a subdued tone,

"You take one half. I'll take the other."

Eros didn't like the fact that he had to carry the people who were placed under his command.

Varik slung his greatsword over his shoulder.

"I'm ready."

Eros looked at him and gave a cocky smile.

"You done saying goodbye to your shield?"

Nira didn't find that funny. Varik's shield wasn't just a tool — it was a weapon, an extension of himself. Its destruction felt like a piece of him had died.

"Don't say that," Nira said in a cold, calm voice.

Eros glanced at her, unamused, then looked away. He picked up one half of the fallen Firstborn, and Nira took the other. Varik followed behind.

Not long after, they met the Firstborns at the end of the tunnel. Riven was sitting on the floor, resting his back against the green-stained walls, his hand pressed to his stomach. He was breathing heavily.

Jae ran toward Nira.

"Miss Nira, did you kill that bastard—"

He stopped mid-sentence when he saw the other half of what had once been his comrade.

Nira wasn't much older than Jae, but due to the rank difference, he still addressed her with respect. She glanced at him and gave a dark smile.

"Yes, we did. We made that bastard blow itself up."

Eros noticed Riven slouched against the wall.

"The hell happened to you?"

Riven looked up, his eyes pale from blood loss.

"Oh me? I just wasn't fast enough."

Eros blinked.

"Huh? Well, whatever. Can you walk?"

"Hmm, that's a tough one. With the massive hole in my stomach? Yeah, sounds easy," Riven replied with dry sarcasm.

Eros smiled.

"Ahhh, I see what you did there. Well, doesn't matter if you can walk or not — I'll drag you if I have to."

Riven forced a weak smile, then forced himself to stand.

"Let's go. I'm sick of this place," Eros said.

"Same," Jae replied.

They came out through what looked like an outflow drain by a riverbank. But the river was no more. It had long dried up.

Riven looked back at the ruined city behind them — massive walls once encircled it, but now they were cracked and broken. A huge gap had been torn through the barrier. The wall had stood more than 90 meters tall, so whatever shattered it must have been just as massive.

"I don't ever want to meet whatever made that."

Eros leaned toward Varik.

"So where to next? We can't go back the way we came… for obvious reasons."

"We'll head to the nearest Order base," Varik said.

"But first, we need to give a proper burial to those we lost."

Eros scratched the back of his head.

"Okay… by the way, what's the closest stronghold of the Order?"

Varik hesitated, then answered in a quiet voice,

"Namarra. The City of Silence."

They dug the graves just beyond the dry riverbed, where the dead earth met cracked stone.

No grass grew there, no breeze passed. Only silence.

There were five of them. The two who had stood beside Varik — the wise ones who had died to the rotten abmination— and the three when riven used the massive bell.

Nira knelt by one grave, pressing a small shard of the fallen Firstborn's broken mask into the dirt before covering the body. They couldn't retrieve the body of the other three but they were able to get their marks

"We don't leave them behind," she said quietly.

Eros stood silent for once. He had no jokes left. He looked at the body he laid down — someone who had once trained under him. The Firstborn's hand was still clenched, fingers curled around nothing sliced in half.

Riven, still wounded, limped over.

He looked down at the graves, he didn't have anything to say he killed three of them after all .

Varik stepped forward.

"They died fighting. That's what matters. And we remember."

He planted his sword in the ground and stood stil.

The others followed, Placing the mask of the deceased on the ground.

And then they stepped back.

For a while, no one spoke.

Then, softly, Nira whispered,

"They are free now. The world holds them no longer. May their souls return brighter."

They turned away. The road ahead waited.