horizon in the west

Chapter Eleven: The Thing That Crawled Through Silence

It arrived during the rain.

Zyphir Academy rarely experienced storms—the weather was artificially stabilized by skybound runes tied to celestial tides.

But tonight, the rain came hard, not from nature… but from pressure.

The clouds were the first to rot. Black. Oozing. Hollow in shape. Thunder echoed not as sound, but as screams, stretched and slowed like bones cracking in reverse.

Something pushed through.

Kyoko woke before it arrived.

Not from sleep—he had stopped dreaming since the Vault Trial.

He simply stood at his window, and felt the space between moments rip.

Across the sky, one star flickered once… and vanished.

Apya stumbled into his room seconds later, ears twitching violently.

"Something's coming."

Kyoko nodded.

They didn't speak.

Because it was already inside.

Screams echoed from the West Wing.

Students ran. Teachers locked wards. A containment field snapped into place, slicing the hallway in half with a burning glyph wall.

But nothing came through the front door.

It came through the walls.

A shape.

Wrong in design. A creature made of folded mouths, slithering backward as if the world had forgotten how to watch it.

Its body pulsed in and out of reality. Bone that wasn't bone. Flesh that remembered dying too many times. It left ink in its wake—dripping from the ceiling, sizzling on the floor.

It had no face.

But it turned toward the students… and smiled.

Vaern Kael stepped in first.

The Black Mage didn't blink.

He drew his sword, a massive greatblade etched with the death-tongue of dragons, and muttered, "Ah. Just a little one."

The creature lunged.

He moved like a man who had already killed it once.

Steel met sinew. Sparks flew. Reality shuddered.

But the blade didn't cut the beast.

Because the creature wasn't bound by form.

It split itself, folding sideways in time, and reappeared behind him—striking with a limb that wasn't there a moment ago.

Vaern took the hit. Blood dripped down his side. He grinned.

"Okay, maybe not so little."

Kyoko stepped forward next.

No chant.

No weapon.

He raised his hand—and the air froze.

The creature stopped moving, locked in a field of absolute balance. Gravity held its breath.

Then Kyoko whispered:

"You're not supposed to exist."

The beast twisted. It didn't roar. It wept.

Its mouths sobbed in reverse, tearing open as it fought the pressure.

Kyoko's silver eyes glowed.

He pushed harder.

And then he felt something push back.

A whisper inside his skull:

"You failed us once.She will fail you again."

Kyoko stumbled.

The spell faltered.

The creature surged forward, broken-jointed and gnashing, leaping at him with claws made of screaming faces—

—only to be smashed aside by a golden shockwave.

Apya.

She didn't cast a spell.

She reversed gravity in a six-meter sphere around herself—an instinctive, unconscious act.

The ground cracked. The walls bent.

The creature hit the floor so hard it split.

Then its pieces crawled toward each other.

Vaern spat blood and stood between them.

"Keep it distracted."

Kyoko nodded, stepping forward again.

Apya reached for his hand.

They touched.

Their auras merged—silver and gold twisting together, forming white fire that stilled the air.

They walked forward.

As one.

The creature saw them. And for the first time… it screamed.

Not in rage.

In fear.

Because in their presence, it began to unmake itself.

Its body curled inward, devouring itself, bleeding memory into the floor.

And then—

With one final shriek—

It vanished.

Not banished.

Erased.

Silence fell.

Rain tapped against the cracked glass above them.

Vaern leaned against the wall, breathing hard, his coat soaked in blood and ichor.

"Cute," he muttered. "They're sending scouts now."

Apya crouched beside the melted stain on the floor.

"What was that?" she whispered.

Kyoko's voice was distant.

"It was a memory. A fragment. From the first war."

"Why now?" she asked.

"Because it knows we're together again," he replied. "And it's afraid."

Vaern chuckled darkly.

"Well, that makes two of us."

Far beyond the broken clouds, past the flickering stars, something smiled.

It had felt the connection.

The resonance.

The reunion.

And it began to split itself into smaller pieces.

To send more.

Because the only way to unmake Balance…

…was to break the bond at its core.