That victory feast felt like the first breeze of luck; the cork Adelaide feared popping too soon never flew. Instead, the silent specter trailing them blessed their pace. No misstep, no snag, no delay.

The road ran smooth as a river in spring. The remnant kept pointing out jagged ground to dodge. Their speed swelled like a tailwind. They even clawed back the time lost to the outpost detour and arrived early.

“So… this is the Magma Forge?”

Shock hit first, words lagged behind. Adelaide’s eyes widened like lanterns in fog; her face, usually disciplined, stalled into a dazed mask.

Kabos went bigger—jaw on the floor, silence heavy as stone.

Not just her, not just Kabos, not just humans. Even the Nacha Tribe—Varie included—froze at the sight of their ancestors’ marvel.

Tela had warned them, painting the scale with broad strokes. Doubts lingered like mist, though. The mountains looked plain, no smoking crown, no volcanic plume. The legend felt out of reach.

A gouged mountain face. A sky curtained by ash-clouds. A bronze behemoth of a gate, visible from miles away, opening slow and solemn while lava breathed and rocks flew. Adelaide had read verses about this place on old scrolls and dreamt that exact picture.

When Hos’s crow-mouth proved true and the volcano above Lama City fell silent, disappointment nipped her like cold rain—tourist-trap anger, family-trip embarrassment.

She needn’t have worried. The truth outstripped fantasy by leagues.

She’d imagined a door tall as a dozen men. The entry reared nearly a hundred meters, a sun of metal.

She’d imagined weathered bronze, freckled with rust. The skin gleamed gold, veined with ruby fire, ageless, un-dulled by centuries.

She’d imagined half a mountain carved out. Instead, stairways plunged downward—thousands of steps, length and depth like an inverted pyramid. They led to that auric gate that spoke past glory. It waited, like a throne, for its master’s return.

No wonder nothing showed from afar. This grand throat wasn’t built on the surface at all. It hid within the mountain’s width, a titan door sleeping underground.

And this was only the entry.

Her earlier fear was a paper tiger. A place that could house a dragon—and let it wrestle the Lionheart Hero inside—would never be small.

Just as the tale said: half of Lama City lived above ground. The rest—every shred of Nacha wealth and honor—lay buried below, inside the Magma Forge.

What made Adelaide finally speak wasn’t the splendor. That earned awe, not questions. Her doubt budded from the chains.

Pure steel, rings wide as several shoulders side by side. Not one chain. Not two. Hundreds, a forest of iron vines cinched across the gate, rooted left and right into cast beds harder than bedrock.

By sheer number, the chains were a mirage of might. Yet unlike the gold that still blazed, they wore rust like lichen. Weather chewed them. Vines scribbled scars. Time and craft stood out of step with what they bound.

That mismatch whispered emergency—patchwork after some upheaval.

Like forging shackles to keep something inside.

Adelaide glanced at Varie. Varie stared at the chains, eyes holding mixed tides.

After a long breath, she let out a sigh like relief cracked with worry. “Looks like that dead lizard’s still asleep.”

Adelaide blinked, the meaning clicking like flint.

The chains were unbroken. Their target hadn’t breached them. Good and bad twined together. Bad: they’d have to brush the beast to get in. Good: if it hadn’t stirred in ages, sleep was likely deep.

For a burglar, a snoring owner is safer than a door that could burst open with a gun any second. Adelaide didn’t say it. The true thief was Soul Devourer Sormaidon, squatting in another’s nest.

Spoken or not, they were intruders, and that truth didn’t budge.

Varie drew a deep breath and put her boot on the first step down, like entering a throat of night.

“Light feet. No talking unless you must. If you hear anything, kill the torches at once.”

She led, then checked each waist rope, magnetic links found back at the fortress—like climbers roped on a cliff.

“If darkness blinds you, feel the pull to keep bearing. Remember—absolutely, absolutely don’t…”

Don’t get separated. The last words scraped out. Her step halted. Her gaze fixed on the rear.

Everyone stood on the stair. No one should’ve been behind.

The one left wasn’t alive.

“You…”

She looked at the half-transparent figure resting on the steps. Her voice wouldn’t carry to him, and still it slipped free.

“He can’t come, Varie,” Menglan said softly, sigh like dusk. Her eyes held a thin ache.

“This is the core of the Remnant Echo. Guiding us to Sormaidon’s sleep already pushed him past the edge.” She shook her head, slow as mourning. “Even so, he barely has power left to stay himself.”

Varie’s eyes widened. Her bow hand eased open like a slack string.

All this way, she’d called him a victim in her heart. She’d thought she was enduring him, letting him walk alongside out of pity for his wounds.

Yet when parting truly arrived, relief didn’t come. The moment felt hollow as a shell.

Silence held for ten beats. Then she grit her teeth, pulled a silver badge from her pocket—Isylia’s face stamped on it—and raised it high. She pressed it to her chest, a farewell like moonlight on steel.

Barni answered with a low growl, a drum in his throat. The other Nacha followed, palms to breast. Queen Dreamlan bowed her head and joined them. Kabos stumbled in, late but earnest.

Even Adelaide and Mira traded a look and mirrored the salute.

They hadn’t rehearsed. Movements clashed, rhythm uneven. Palms knocked breastplates out of sync. The scattered thuds ran along the mountain like faint thunder.

And in that moment—neither formal nor ritual—the remnant who should’ve slipped loose from the world seemed to hear.

He lowered his head, eyes on the stair-bound crowd. Arms melted by dragonfire, flesh ruined like burnt bark, he lifted a hand. Not their farewell. A fist to his chest, then extending outward.

It meant: may the Moon Goddess’s luck watch over you.

Varie and the others went still, breath caught. The remnant’s mouth tipped up a last fraction, a dawn of a smile.

A wind swept through like a cloak. When they pushed their hair back, the pale blue shadow at their rear was gone.

With his passing, the Remnant Echo he’d held at bay fell back like a boulder, pressing each chest, heavy and cold.

For an instant, each heart felt a missing shard, a small hollow. Yet this time, the hollow didn’t hold only pain and regret.

Something else stirred in the unseen soil. A seed cracked and began to sprout.

Varie turned first and moved, steps steady as drumbeats.

“Nothing you want to say for the record, leader?” Adelaide asked from behind, voice low as ember.

“We of the Nacha Tribe have none, and need none.”

Varie didn’t look back. She didn’t slow. Her words came like breath pushed through clenched teeth.

“All units, move!”