The corpse of the animal drifting behind in memory as the group continued walking.
The sky changed first.
Not dramatically, or in any way that announced itself. The gray above them simply deepened by a shade, like something had moved between the clouds and the world beneath them without permission.
Vira noticed it but said nothing.
The group had been walking for another hour since Finn's last words, and their encounter with the Corrupted animal.
Bram still led from the front, but his spear had migrated from his shoulder to his hand at some point.
Vira hadn't seen him make the choice to move it.
The ruins around them had changed too.
The glowing vines that crawled beautifully over everything hours ago were absent here.
The buildings that remained were stripped bare, surfaces dark and slick like something had been weeping them down for centuries.
Windows that should've been empty sat filled with a darkness too thick to see through, like the structures had swallowed their own interiors whole and refused to go back to normal.
The road under them cracked differently than Vira was already used to.
It was like something under the roads was pushing outward without stopping.
Ash drifted upward near a collapsed doorframe to Vira's left.
He stared at it, and watched as it corrected itself a moment later.
It drifted back down like gravity had briefly forgotten and then remembered how it was supposed to function.
No one mentioned it, Vira was sure no one even looked.
Yet to him that was worse than if they had.
Lyra drifted closer to the center of the road without a word. Darius rolled his neck… slowly the joints there popped in quiet succession. Finn's hands came out of his pockets and his eyes settled differently, no longer focused on the ruins but the way the air shifted between things.
Vira watched it all happen but understood none of it, he felt the weight of every small adjustment settle in his chest.
'Why is everyone… so tense?'
The silence that followed wasn't peaceful.
It was the silence of held breath, the kind that meant something nearby was aware of their presence.
Then the smell arrived.
It was faint at first… something rotten and metallic carried through the air that had no business moving at all. It reminded Vira of the corrupted animal from earlier but deeper, and more concentrated.
Bram stopped walking, and everyone stopped with him.
He didn't turn around, his spear lowered until the tip hovered just above the cracked road…
"Behind the structure on the right."
Bram's voice barely came out a whisper as he continued:
"Don't look at it."
Then he whispered quieter… almost to himself.
"Finn…?"
Finn's eyes closed briefly… something shifting in his expression, concentration settling on his face like a mask being lowered.
When his eyes opened again they were cold and distant, focused on something Vira couldn't see.
Finn nodded his head slowly.
"It isn't Commander…"
Vira's eyes desperately wanted to look right, but he forced them forward. His abdomen tightening.
The vibration started low, almost a hum beneath his skin.
He pressed his arm hard against his stomach beneath the cloak and begged for it to go away.
'Not now… please not now.'
A dragging weight pulled across the rubble to the right of the group.
It moved in a rhythm that almost resembled footsteps but the spacing was wrong… like there was too much distance between each impact.
Then it came around the corner.
Vira had faced this abomination before, he knew what they were, knew the wrongness they carried with them like a second skin.
But knowing and seeing were entirely different things.
This one was enormous.
A slight gulp could be heard from Finn, as he whispered:
"It's a Nullborn…"
It stood at a height that had no business existing on something that moved like that.
Its torso a collapsed and elongated mass of black pulsing flesh that expanded and contracted with each step.
Like it was breathing through its whole body.
Four arms hung from its upper frame, each one ending not in hands but something bladed and jagged. Like bone having forced itself through the skin and kept growing long past any reason.
Its lower half dragged partially, two functioning legs and a third that had been crushed at some point and healed completely wrong.
The Nullborn dragged that leg like an unwanted child and it left behind similar black liquid to what Vira threw up.
Its face was absent.
Where features should've been sat only a deep hollow with silver streaks looking like a spiral going through it.
From inside that hollow came a sound… the same wet bleeding screech Vira knew from all those months traversing The Remnants alone.
The ground around it cracked with every step. Not from weight… but from purely its presence.
Reality itself flinching away from something it was never meant to contain.
Bram turned around… his grin was back but it was different now, more sharper and sinister.
Like the version of him that told embarrassing stories was simply a mask hanging loosely over something considerably more dangerous underneath.
He looked like the Arcane Vira killed before.
"Darius, left flank. "
Bram's eyes moved fast around his surroundings.
"Lyra, stay close to me… Finn-"
He glanced toward Vira that lasted less than a second.
"Stay with Vira."
Then he finally turned toward Vira.
"Stay back, it's not up for discussion."
Vira opened his mouth, ready to fight back at the statement.
"I-I can help-"
Bram raised his palm, signaling for him to be quiet.
"I know you want to… stay back."
His voice wasn't cruel, or of ill intent in any way… it was final.