As the sunset’s blush sank away, the Soul Devourer Sormaidon’s shadow tightened its grip.

With no sunlight to pin it down, chaos-heavy mist bled up from the mire under their boots.

Torches flared and swayed, yet couldn’t sketch the dead trees ten meters out.

“Uh… Beanpole bro, is it just me… or is something moving in that shadow?”

Kabos shivered as he asked, and he wasn’t alone; the unease fluttered like bats under ribs.

At every step, Mira swept the dark with her gaze, a lantern beam circling tight.

The Nacha Tribe teammates’ ear fur bristled straight, quills before rain, saying this road should stop here.

Feet tripped feet, blades nudged packs, nerves frayed like wet rope; Varie dropped anchor on the day’s march.

Everyone finally exhaled, ready to pick a campsite nearby, when a scream yanked hearts back to throats.

“Inventor…! What happened?!” Varie knew the voice at once; it was her childhood playmate.

In the silent, dead woods, the source sat clear, a bell’s ring on still water.

Varie slipped past a boulder shaggy with dry moss and vanished like a quick swallow.

Adelaide and the others circled around, boots whispering over grit like dry leaves.

They faced a building with half its body collapsed, a carcass gnawed by time.

Vines draped its time-worn face, mottled like bark after drought and sun-scorch.

You could barely guess its use; the oval half read foreign, unlike humans or Elves.

Adelaide narrowed her eyes; two voices drifted out, not screams, danger less like a blade.

She met Mira’s gaze—her sword already bare—and together they stepped inside, breath held.

First sight: Varie, palm pressed to her brow like a wilted leaf.

Second: the Inventor, Tela—cheeks flushed scarlet, dawn spilling on snow.

“Tela… I know you’re excited, but we need to keep a lid on it—”

“—Ha?? How am I supposed to hold back? This is the Model 2-4 Harpoon Assault Cannon! The real thing! The real thing!!!”

Tela lifted the near two-meter beast, raising it like a storm-lit banner.

Her motion shook off its dust; the steel beneath shone clean, fresh from the forge.

Adelaide and Mira traded a surprised look, while Tela hugged it like a newborn, wiping reverently.

“I only saw its traced diagram once, in the library before the migration.”

“Our ancestors hunted Mart Mammoths with this; back then they called it cannon-for-a-mosquito.”

“They resisted mass production, but when the Chaos Uprising hit, chaos beasts fell one shot.”

“So it became the era’s most-produced standard kit, a war-season staple, iron blooming like wheat.”

Uninvited, Tela’s words poured like a river, naming its inventor and every battle-born variant.

By the end, everyone wore the look of caged birds eyeing an open window.

“So yes, this Model 2-4 Harpoon Assault Cannon is one of the Nacha Tribe’s legendary weapons.”

“Matching it: the Model 3-8 Multi-Tube Bomb, the Model 1-2 Personal Crossbow Cannon—oh, I forgot something crucial!”

“I haven’t explained our naming format.” Her finger traced numbers like constellations in dust.

“Front number means operators; back number is power tier. Like a five-operator, tier-nine—Model 5-9—”

“Hold up, five what?” Adelaide blurted, curiosity tugging like a fishline.

“What? Interested in the miracle war chariot that flipped countless battles?” Tela’s grin blazed.

“Ha! You asked the right person! I’ll tell you—” Words loaded like bolts in a magazine.

Varie flashed Adelaide a grimace, then sighed, mouthing: brace for an hour of armaments history.

Luckily, the other teammates trickled in, footsteps pattering like light rain on stone.

First through the door was the “Jinx,” Hos, head ducked, waist bent like a reed.

He still scraped ceiling dust onto his hair; gray snow peppered his ears.

“Ugh, bad luck.” He slapped his head. “Got my ears dirty. I’ve got a bad pre—whoaaa!!!”

His scream overlapped a firing thump; then came a near-explosion, thunder boxed in stone.

Fragments and dust spattered like hail; the storm of grit took long breaths to settle.

“What’s your #%@ problem! How many times—don’t point the muzzle at your own people!”

A harpoon nearly a meter long had buried itself less than half a centimeter from his waist.

Its blade punched clean through thick concrete, a needle through silk, brutal and cold.

If not for Hos snapping into a mantis-boxing dodge, he’d be a shish kebab.

“Uh-uh… s-sorry. I didn’t think it would fire already…” Tela’s apology fluttered, then vanished.

Her brows knit; she studied the gun like a physician reading pulse.

“This is a heavy weapon for two operators.”

“In theory, one aims and steadies; another yanks the trigger with full force.”

“But I just brushed it, and the trigger went down, like a leaf underfoot.”

Hos’s temper flared hotter, a forge bellows pumping.

“No kidding. Ten of our ancestors didn’t match one of you, strength-wise!”

“Look at the doorframe—today’s ten-year-old would call it short.” He jabbed like a spear.

“And you thought you were exactly like our ancestors?”

Tela’s eyes lit, sparks in dry straw. “Right, then I can dual-wield Model 2-4s.”

“And pierce two teammates at once?” Hos’s words snapped like a twig.

“Idiot. Then even alone I wouldn’t fear a Spearhead Spider.”

Adelaide had heard Nacha Tribe folks whisper of Spearhead Spiders by desert campfires.

In ancient lands, they were top predators—major killers before iron and smoke.

After exile, no one saw them; stories thinned like smoke in rain.

But Nacha parents still warned: misbehave, and the spider will drag you off and eat you.

“Keep dreaming, child,” Hos scoffed, eyes rolling like marbles.

“Maybe those spiders grew big like us; they’d gulp you in one bite.”

The two kept squabbling, sparks hopping uselessly on wet wood.

Adelaide, Mira, and Varie slipped back outside, leaving voices buzzing like trapped flies.

They breathed air not fresh, but at least not all dust, a weary relief.

Together, they decided to ignore those two clowns for now, like closing a tent flap on noise.