Darius sighed as he half rose and scanned the wide expanse. Nothing was left standing after the blazing fire had swept down onto the Vomek swarm below.
"I can't believe we've killed all of them," he said, excitement breaking through his voice. "Not a single one is left standing," he added, straightening up.
Henry gave a low chuckle, still lying flat on the bones, his eyes fixed on the swirling cloud vortex above them.
"We really need to get out of here," he said hoarsely. "But I still can't figure out how."
"Flying," Darius reminded him.
He straightened fully now, rolling his shoulders as if trying to shake off the weight of the battle. "I mean, there's no ladder. If we want out, we fly."
Henry exhaled, the sound almost turning into a laugh.
"There's only one spell I ever read about that could make a man soar through the sky," he said slowly, "and I never learned it."
Darius frowned. "You're not being serious, now?"
Henry shrugged and pushed himself up from the bones.
"So—you're telling me we killed all those things that wanted to eat us alive," Darius burst out, his voice rising, "and yet we're still trapped down here, waiting for our inevitable deaths?"
"I told you, I don't know much about the—" Henry cut himself off, suddenly going still as he rose to his feet. "…the Circle Master," he finished in a low, ominous whisper.
"What is it?" Darius blurted the moment he saw the change in his face.
Henry didn't answer immediately. Something had surfaced in his mind—something he should have remembered sooner.
"…Don't tell me there are more of them," Darius said uneasily.
Henry shook his head, but the motion brought no comfort. If anything, the fear creeping into his expression only deepened.
He remembered what the old texts had said about the different kinds of Circles. There were many—countless, even—but the Vomeks had never inhabited the great Circles.
They belonged only to the lesser ones.
"We've only destroyed an army of gatekeepers," Henry said slowly, his gaze fixed on the scorched remains scattered across the slope. "Whatever created the Circle is still here. If it weren't, the Circle would've already collapsed."
Darius stared at him. "Another one of those white creatures?"
"Not exactly," Henry replied, his voice dropping. "Something worse."
Darius let out a rough breath, his eyes drifting over the charred bodies they had just burned through. If something else was still down here with them, then this wasn't over.
And that wasn't even the real problem.
He flexed his fingers, willing the familiar heat to return—but nothing came. The fire that had answered him so fiercely before was gone, drained to the last spark. At this point, he doubted he could even light dry twigs.
Silence settled between them, broken only by the faint crackle of dying flames.
Then the ground beneath them trembled.
Not a violent shaking, but a deep, slow pulse, as though something enormous had shifted far below the bones beneath their feet.
The blackened remains of the Vomeks began to break down completely.
Darius took a step back. "Tell me, that's not it..."
The clouds above shifted for the first time—the great whirlpool tightening as it turned.
Far below them, the ground split.
A long crack tore through the boneyard, jagged and sudden, as though something beneath had forced it open. From the fissure, a dull crimson glow bled upward, staining the bones and ash in a hellish hue.
The entire field seemed to groan around them.
Then, a hand emerged.
It was not white like the Vomeks. But enormous, black as burned stone, man like, and wrapped in strips of ancient rusted chains that looeked like a product of the oryx metal; they snapped one by one as the thing beneath dragged itself upward.
At last, the final piece of the puzzle fell into place in Henry's mind. The old texts, the Lesser Circles, the magic-immune monsters—he had misunderstood all of it. Not every Circle was the domain of some higher being or anything alike.
Some existed for a far darker purpose.
The Vomeks had never been there to keep intruders out, nor to guard what lay beyond.
They had been prison guards.
And by killing them all, Henry and Darius had just released what was inside.
"Warlock—!" Darius shouted, his voice shaking.
Henry didn't answer. He only stared back, his eyes mirroring the same rising horror.
"What do we do now?" Darius demanded, panic creeping into his voice. "I'm drained—and that thing feels worse than those white monsters. Stronger… more dangerous."
The hand tightened around the edge of the cracked bone mound. Another arm emerged, then a massive shoulder. Chains rattled and broke apart as the creature hauled itself free, each movement accompanied by a deep groan from the ground beneath them.
Henry could finally see it now.
The thing was enormous, easily three times the height of a man. Its body looked almost human, yet horribly wrong, as though it had once been a man long ago and had since been twisted into something else. Its skin was black and cracked like cooled lava, and beneath the cracks, a pale red glow burned from within.
Where its face should have been, there was only a smooth bone skull, its hollow eye sockets burning with the same ominous red glow.
"No…" Henry whispered, taking a step back. "Not a warlock… it can't be."
The abomination slowly raised its head toward them.