Chapter 945: Fascinating.

Dawn arrived without looking like dawn.

Asgard remained covered by heavy clouds, and snow fell in irregular intervals over rooftops, walls, streets, and rails. The factories were already beginning to spit steam, the first trains were warming their engines at the central station, and the outer patrols changed shifts with faces far too serious for that hour. Monica’s order had spread during the night: no caravan would travel southeast without authorization, the watchtowers were to observe any unusual beast movement, and the guild had received maximum priority for tracks coming from the desert.

At the mansion, the assembled team was in the training courtyard before the sun even appeared behind the clouds.

Strax stood in the center of the heated area, wearing simple but reinforced combat clothing. Nothing ceremonial. No ruler’s cloak, no shining armor to impress subordinates. Only dark fabric, light plates, gloves, and the expression of someone who had already given up pretending this would be a peaceful outing.

Frieren was kneeling before a series of open boxes, organizing instruments with almost loving care. Isolating vials, fine blades, runic plates, collection needles, small chains, measuring crystals, shadow talismans, and at least five objects Daniela could not identify and preferred to continue not knowing. The mage looked more excited than worried, which by itself was already worrying.

Monica stood beside two assistants, issuing orders in sequence while checking a list.

"Secondary containment team ready?"

"Yes, Lady Monica."

"Messengers positioned at the towers?"

"Yes."

"Guild informed?"

"Rogue received the order twenty minutes ago."

"Did she complain?"

"Yes."

"Then she received it correctly."

The assistant nodded as if that made perfect sense.

Samira stood a few steps away, her greatsword strapped to her back and her arms crossed, watching all the preparations with a mixture of impatience and amusement. Cassandra, in contrast, remained near the map open on a portable table, reviewing once more the route they had taken the previous day. Daniela paced back and forth, uncomfortable, occasionally looking at the sky.

"I do not like this," Daniela said.

Samira looked at her.

"You have not liked it from the start."

"And I am still right."

Cassandra did not lift her eyes from the map.

"Rational fear is useful."

"Thank you."

"As long as it does not get in the way."

Daniela looked at her.

"You always manage to turn validation into criticism."

"It is a talent."

Strax approached the table and observed the marked route.

"How long until the edge of the desert?"

"In draconic form, not long," Cassandra answered. "But if we take Monica and Frieren in direct flight, we need to stabilize barriers against wind, temperature, and possible mental influence before entering the region."

Frieren raised a finger without looking back.

"I can protect myself."

Monica answered immediately:

"You can protect yourself and forget to protect the instruments."

Frieren was silent.

Then placed two more vials into a padded box.

"Fair."

Strax looked at Monica.

"You can still stay."

"No."

"I had to try."

"And failed."

Samira let out a low laugh.

Monica closed the folder of documents and finally turned fully toward him.

"I will not approach the crater without necessity. I will observe the region, confirm territorial impact, verify possible containment measures, and evaluate evacuation routes in case the beasts continue being pushed toward Asgard."

"You speak as if we are going to inspect a bridge."

"If I speak as if we are going to see an ancient seal cracking in the middle of a living desert, half the assistants will panic."

One of the assistants, carrying a supply box, went pale.

Monica looked at him.

"Keep walking."

"Yes, Lady Monica."

Strax ran a hand over his face.

"You are terrifying."

"Thank you."

Ouroboros appeared without warning beside the table, silent as an ancient shadow. She wore simple dark clothes, and her eyes had a strange depth that morning. She did not look tired, but she also did not look completely present. As if part of her was already following threads toward the desert before her body even left Asgard.

Strax noticed.

"Are you well?"

"I am."

"That did not answer."

"It is the answer I have."

He held her gaze for a few seconds, but did not insist.

Ouroboros lightly touched the map with two fingers, exactly over the point Cassandra had marked.

"The threads there are more tense than yesterday."

Cassandra frowned.

"More cracks?"

"Perhaps. Or more attention."

Daniela stopped pacing.

"Attention from whom?"

Ouroboros raised her eyes.

"I do not know."

"I hate those answers."

"So do I."

Her simple honesty left Daniela without a reaction for a second.

Strax took a deep breath and looked at everyone.

"We are doing this properly. We arrive, observe, Frieren collects what she can, Monica evaluates the risk, Cassandra maps the seal, Ouroboros reads the threads. Samira and Daniela stay on cover. No one touches strange shadows, no one lands inside a beast circle, and no one approaches the crater without my order."

Samira raised an eyebrow.

"You are giving very specific orders."

"Because yesterday you looked at a breathing desert and decided to get closer."

Daniela pointed at Samira.

"I told you."

Samira turned to her.

"One more time and I throw you into the first dune."

"See? This is exactly why we need specific orders."

Strax ignored them both.

"If the voice appears again, no one answers."

Frieren raised her hand.

"And if the voice asks a scientifically relevant question?"

"Frieren."

"Understood. Do not answer the unknown entity in the desert."

Monica wrote something down.

"I added that to the protocol."

Strax looked at her.

"You made a protocol for not talking to voices?"

"I just did."

"Of course."

Soon after, the transformations began.

Samira was the first to assume her draconic form, filling the courtyard with a heavy and burning presence. Her scales reflected the gray morning light as her wings opened wide enough to cast a shadow over part of the mansion. Daniela came next, smaller and more agile, with a restless energy that perfectly matched her human expression. Cassandra transformed with controlled elegance, her long wings and draconic body assuming an almost noble posture.

Strax remained human for a few more seconds.

Monica looked at him.

"Are you going to fly in human form?"

"No."

"Then?"

"I am thinking whether it is worth destroying the courtyard."

Monica stared at him.

"It is not."

"That is why I thought before doing it."

He walked to the reinforced open area, and then his mana expanded. The air trembled. The snow falling over the courtyard evaporated before touching the ground, and the surrounding runes lit up in automatic response. In a few seconds, the human form disappeared, replaced by a massive dark-and-white dragon with a presence so overwhelming that even the other draconic forms seemed smaller by comparison.

Frieren looked at him with interest.

"I still want to study that transition more calmly one day."

Monica, already mounted on a runic saddle carefully fastened to Samira’s back, replied:

"Not today."

"I said one day."

"I also dislike that hypothetical day."

Ouroboros climbed onto Cassandra’s back without difficulty, sitting with perfect balance. Frieren settled onto Daniela after securing three boxes of instruments in reinforced compartments. Daniela turned her draconic head back.

"If anything explodes on my back, I am going to be irritated."

Frieren adjusted a strap.

"If it explodes, your irritation will be the least of my concerns."

"That does not calm me."

"I know."

Strax opened his wings.

The entire courtyard seemed to shrink beneath his shadow.

"Let us go."

The group took flight.

Asgard was below them within moments, with its walls, factories, and rails covered by a mixture of snow and steam. Monica looked at the city from above, not with admiration, but with calculation. If beasts continued coming from the southeast, they would need to reinforce the outer routes. If the desert expanded, perhaps they would have to build advance posts. If the crater was an active threat, it might be necessary to evacuate villages before the population even understood the reason.

She was already doing the math.

Samira noticed her silence.

"Are you calculating disaster costs?"

"I am."

"High?"

"I do not know yet. That irritates me."

"Of course it does."

The flight continued quickly.

Winter was left behind once again. The snow lessened, the earth appeared, the trees grew sparse, and dry air began rising against the group’s wings. This time, however, everyone was attentive to the smallest sign. Strax flew at the front, not too far away, but clearly in the position of first response. His presence cut through the air like a walking threat to the horizon itself.

When the abrupt line of the desert appeared, no one spoke.

The sand began exactly where Cassandra had said. Wrongly. Like a border drawn by someone who did not care about natural transition. Monica saw it, and her expression closed.

"This is not normal geography."

"No," Cassandra said.

Frieren already had an instrument in hand, measuring the density of mana in the air.

"The concentration has increased."

Daniela turned her head slightly.

"How much?"

"More than it should."

"Frieren."

"Much more than it should."

"Thank you for the clearly terrible news."

Strax slowed before crossing the edge.

"Barriers."

Frieren activated the talismans. Monica touched her own runic bracelet. Ouroboros closed her eyes. Cassandra, Daniela, and Samira adjusted their flight, keeping enough distance between one another so a single anomaly would not catch all of them at once.

Then they entered the desert.

The heat came like a wall.

It was not only temperature. There was something heavy in the air, a dryness that seemed to try to strip moisture from the throat, the skin, and the mana. The sand below moved in slow waves. From above, the impression was even worse than it had been the day before, because now they were all too attentive to convince themselves it might be an illusion.

The desert breathed.

Inhaled.

Exhaled.

The dunes rose and fell in long intervals, and the dark lines between them pulsed like deep veins.

Monica went still atop Samira.

"This is horrible."

Samira made a sound that could have been a laugh.

"Welcome."

Frieren looked fascinated.

"It is not breathing. It is rhythmic mass displacement linked to subterranean mana pulses. Perhaps the seal is contracting and expanding entire layers of sand."

Daniela looked down.

"Did you just say the desert has seal heartbeats?"

"In simplified terms, yes."

"I did not want to understand."

Strax continued forward, but higher than the three had flown the day before. He did not want shadows touching the sand. Not yet. In draconic form, his shadow was immense, but he kept it away from the dark lines as much as possible, using the sun’s position and altitude to control the angle.

Ouroboros opened her eyes.

"He noticed."

Strax turned his head slightly.

"Who?"

"I do not know. But he noticed."

The crater appeared on the horizon.

Even prepared, the sight was still absurd.

Sand rose from the bottom in silent columns, disappearing into the black sphere suspended in the sky. The ruins around it were more exposed than before. Towers that had seemed broken now revealed enormous bases buried beneath the dunes. Ancient arches glowed with faint symbols. The beasts continued marching in circles, but now there were more of them. Many more.

Monica held her breath.

"How many?"

Cassandra answered:

"Hundreds."

Frieren corrected:

"More than a thousand."

Daniela growled.

"This is increasing too fast."

Strax stopped in the air at a safe distance.

The mental voice did not come immediately.

The silence was worse.

Frieren raised a measuring plate, but before she could activate it, the shadow of the plate itself detached over Daniela’s back, spilling like ink toward the sand below.

Strax reacted first.

A thread of White Fire cut the air, not striking the plate, but burning the connection between the shadow and the desert. The shadow snapped back into place as if pulled by an invisible elastic band.

Daniela shuddered.

"I felt that."

Frieren looked at the plate with shining eyes.

"Fascinating."

"Do not say fascinating when something tries to pull me."

"But it was fascinating."

Monica spoke firmly:

"Frieren, focus."

"I am focused."

"On surviving."

"Ah. That too."

Strax descended a little, but not too much. His eyes were fixed on the black sphere.

"That is not an ordinary portal."

Frieren measured again, more carefully.

"No. It is also not a natural gravitational hole. The sand is not simply being pulled. It is being... offered."

Monica grew serious.

"Offered by whom?"

Ouroboros looked at the crater.

"By the seal."

Samira beat her wings slowly.

"The seal is feeding the sphere?"

"Perhaps the sphere is the lock," Cassandra said.

Strax did not take his eyes off the center.

"And the sand is the key being ground down."

Daniela let out a dry laugh.

"Great. So the entire desert is trying to open something."

At that moment, the beasts stopped.

All of them.

Thousands of bodies ceased moving at the same time, creating a silence so abrupt that the beating of the dragons’ wings sounded too loud. Heads turned toward the sky. Yellow, black, red, and empty eyes stared at the group.

Monica felt her entire body go cold.

Not from ordinary fear.

From scale.

That number of beasts was not an organized army, but it could destroy any smaller city simply by walking in the wrong direction.

The black sphere pulsed.

And the voice returned.

"Go back."

This time, everyone heard it.

Not only Samira, Cassandra, and Daniela.

The word passed through air and mind, entering without permission, low, ancient, and carrying an exhaustion so deep that for an instant it did not even seem threatening. It seemed tired. As if repeating that was the only thing it could still do.

Strax opened his draconic mouth.

But he did not answer.

He only stared at the crater.

The voice came again.

"Go back... before he sees."

The silence that came after was worse than the word.

Daniela spoke first, very quietly:

"He who?"

The sand below exploded into movement.

Not like an attack.

Like fear.

The beasts resumed marching, but now faster. The dunes trembled. The dark lines pulsed violently, and a luminous crack opened in one of the ruins, revealing for an instant something on the other side of the seal.

Not an entire creature.

Only an eye.

Immense.

Golden.

Vertical.

Open in the darkness.

The gaze crossed the fissure for less than a second.

Even so, everyone felt it.

A presence so vast that the mana around them seemed to kneel.

Strax advanced half his body through the air on instinct, White Fire and Black Ice appearing in his jaws and claws at the same time.

The fissure closed.

The black sphere went dark for an instant.

Then began pulsing again.

The voice, now weaker, whispered:

"Now... he knows."

Frieren went completely still.

Monica lost all color in her face.

Samira growled low.

Cassandra tightened her claws.

Daniela said only one word:

"Shit."

Strax remained staring at the crater, his entire body tense, his aura growing around him like a storm about to be born.

Then he said, with cold calm:

"We return to Asgard."

Samira turned her head toward him.

"Now?"

"Now."

Frieren opened her mouth.

"But the samples..."

"Now, Frieren."

She closed her mouth.

No one argued.

The group turned in the air and began to return, but this time there was not only urgency.

There was certainty.

The desert was not the problem.

The desert was the door.

And something on the other side had just looked back.

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