Anthesis of Sadness
Chapter 84: A Desert for Two

Chapter 84: A Desert for Two

Walking with an almost dancing step through the volcanic desert, Lysara was whistling. A soft, almost irreverent whistle, slicing through the burning silence like an insolent note hurled at the face of the world. The wind, heavy with ash and distant echoes, didn’t dare contradict her. It merely brushed past, grazing her face with a resigned warmth, as if even it had learned not to try silencing her anymore.

Surprising, isn’t it? Especially when you know what had happened just a few hours earlier.

After her latest defeat — and not a small one — logic would have dictated that she sulk, brood, grit her teeth and clench her fists in that stormy silence she mastered so well. But no. She was whistling. Cheerfully. Almost proudly.

Why? you may ask.

Well... for several reasons.

But first — primo, as an overly talkative old professor might say — she had managed to hit me. And not just once. Several times. Enough to leave marks. Light ones, yes, but real. And coming from her, that was anything but trivial. Not because I’m unbeatable — far from it — but because helping her progress had so far been a kind of patient alchemy, an underground effort, as if every improvement had to be wrested from arid soil with brute force and gentleness intertwined.

So yes, she had struck me. And had I let her? No. Not this time. She had found the opening. She had earned it. And her gaze, after the final blow, held no arrogance. It gleamed with a naked pride, a rare, almost childlike satisfaction — the kind of glow only conquerors discover within themselves in the moment of their first triumph.

That’s why she was whistling. Not to mock. Not to boast.

She whistled because, finally, for once, she felt up to the promise she had made to herself.

Secondly, I had literally shattered her old hammer. Broken clean, exploded under the furious impact of a too-unbalanced clash. That weapon, though sturdy, forged from hardened cendrite and braided shadowsteel, simply hadn’t held. Not against me. Not against the burning power of my animated blood, not against my twin swords, living, legendary, honed to the edge of reality.

Under the violence of the battle, the weapon shattered like an empty shell, its fragments flung into the black sand like shards of a bygone past. A moment of silence followed, almost solemn. She watched it collapse, her fingers still stretched toward a handle that no longer existed. A trace of surprise, briefly betrayed by a twitch of her lips. Then nothing. She swallowed the emotion. As always.

It was bad news. For her. A disaster. But not the end.

And she didn’t know that yet.

After the battle, as the calm slowly settled over our ash-covered shoulders, I plunged my hand into my magic bag — that bottomless well tied to my soul, my silent arsenal — and drew out a carefully hidden object. Wrapped in woven shadowcloth, it vibrated softly, as if it already recognized the presence it had been made for.

I handed it to her without a word.

She took it, with unprecedented slowness. A rare delicacy for her. And when she pulled the cloth away... I saw her fingers tighten.

Lysara’s Legendary Hammer was no tool. It was a weapon. A statement. A monster of metal and power, born in the same forges as my blades — forged by the hands of the Master, whose hammer blows rang like prayers in the burning stone of Forge-Heart.

The head, abyss-black, looked carved from night itself. Pure Abyssium, heavy and hungry, laced with glowing veins of Brascroc. These luminous threads pulsed slowly, like living magma trapped in stone, ready to burst forth at the slightest movement.

From each side of that dense mass protruded three sharp spikes, forged in Sanguine, sharp as war cries. They weren’t for show. They were for killing. For piercing flesh, bone, will.

Along the flanks, runes lay engraved in raw Malacite, a deep violet, almost liquid. They glowed faintly, like closed eyes dreaming of carnage, like omens of dormant power.

And the handle...

The handle was a masterpiece in itself. Forged from Shadowsteel, rigid yet supple to grip, it had the perfect length to offer maximum leverage without sacrificing speed. At the joints, rings of Noctifer shimmered softly, glowing under the desert twilight as if awaiting first blood to fully awaken. The whole thing vibrated, almost imperceptibly, like a creature holding its breath.

Now she held it close, her gaze lost in the wisps of energy the weapon barely exhaled. Her arms, still dusty, wrapped around that mass of steel like an inestimable treasure.

And she smiled. One of those discreet, thin smiles, but fiercely intense. The kind she reserved for those rare moments when something truly entered her. Not her mind. Her flesh.

She was almost... cute, yes. With that mix of mute pride and unspoken gratitude in her eyes. A child who had received a fallen star. A warrior finally given a weapon worthy of her.

And I, silently, watched this new flame light up in her eyes.

In that strangely cheerful — almost unreal, I should say — mood, we moved forward. Slowly. But without fear. The air between us vibrated with a rare warmth, fragile, yet precious. It was as if Lysara’s partial victory, her brand-new hammer in hand, and our recent laughter had opened a crack in our austere routine. A crack through which something unexpected was finally seeping in: lightness.

We crossed this volcanic desert, this world of black stone, crackling ash, cliffs blown by winds too ancient to bear a name. And yet... we talked.

Our exchanges had become oddly lively. Animated. Almost joyful.

Lysara had taken to commenting on every landscape element with an unexpected blend of sarcasm, sincere curiosity, and a biting tenderness she usually reserved for her cooking. Because yes, now, she cooked. Truly. Seriously. And that changed everything.

Instead of long silent walks punctuated by the sound of blood on rock or the crunch of a bone too slow to heal, we took breaks. Real ones. And she’d bring out her utensils, her spices, her ingredients carefully protected in enchanted compartments. She prepared. She simmered. She tasted. She’d shoot me a dark look if I got too close too soon.

Then she’d serve. Without a word. With almost ceremonial dignity.

And I... I ate.

And I smiled.

It was a luxury. A dangerous luxury, perhaps. But a luxury we had allowed ourselves. Together.

The desert, too, seemed willing to accompany us in this change.

Over the weeks, the landscape had slowly, almost imperceptibly, transformed. The frozen lava flows — black, sharp, scarred by time — had become more sparse. The crimson fissures had closed, covered by layers of dust and ash. Then, without warning, the ground changed texture under our feet.

The fine ashes gave way to ochre dust. Then that dust to pale sand, almost golden, crunching under our boots. The ashen desert had become a desert of light. And the air, still burning, had lost some of its bite. It now caressed more than it scorched. As if it acknowledged our endurance. Or maybe... our right to exist here.

The black mountains were far behind us now. And ahead stretched an undulating ocean of silent dunes, lulled by the wind.

We had left the furnace. And somehow, without really saying it... we had entered a new era.

It was there, somewhere between two wind-beaten sand hills, that we encountered them.

A herd of Braquorns.

They rose from the horizon like a slow, heavy tide, almost unreal. Their massive silhouettes cut through the golden dunes with silent majesty, imbued with contained power. Forty individuals, perhaps more, marching in ancestral synchrony, as if each step responded to a memory buried in the rock itself.

The Braquorns.

Creatures of Rare rank, sure, but not a real threat in our eyes. Their levels ranged from 45 to 65 — dangerous for an ordinary group. But for us... No. It wasn’t their threat that held our attention.

It was their presence.

Huge, these ruminants easily reached two and a half meters at the withers. Their muscles rolled beneath thick, cracked skin like scorched earth, laced with dark fissures from which a slow, steady vapor escaped. A warm, almost soothing underground breath — as if they carried within their bellies the still-warm memory of an extinct volcano.

Their eyes, bottomless black, were calm. Deep. But not stupid.

Most impressive, though, were their horns.

Two twisted masses, enormous, shaped by time and heat — formed from ancient veins of solidified magma. Striated lines of glowing red wove through them like still-living veins, pulsing with lazy, threatening light.

At times, flashes shimmered across their surface. Pulses. Warnings.

They simmered. Literally.

They were, in a way, the brutal evolution of the Gorvaks — their more primitive cousins we had already faced in the Zagnaroth foothills. But where the Gorvaks merely charged mindlessly, the Braquorns observed. Calculated their path. Dictated their rhythm.

A single hoof strike could make the ground vibrate like a war drum. And their horns, if provoked, flared in an explosion of dry heat, more violent than those of their ancestors.

They were majestic.

And for a brief moment, we stood there, frozen, silent, watching the crossing. No hostile gesture. No sign of fear. Just mutual respect. Wary. Animal.

But they didn’t move on.

Their slow, majestic pace halted about thirty meters away. One of them — a massive male, broader than the others, whose horns glowed a deeper red, almost cardinal — turned his head slightly toward us. A breath of steam escaped his nostrils, slow, dense, filled with a deep rumble.

A signal.

An ancient murmur between beasts. A warning, maybe. Or a provocation.

Then a second Braquorn turned. Then a third. And slowly, like a wave shifting course, the entire herd oriented toward us. The sand crunched. The wind fell silent. And what looked like coincidence became a slow charge. Silent. Inevitable.

They had decided. We were an anomaly in their territory. A threat. A curiosity to be crushed.

But even in a pack, they didn’t matter much. Not against her.

Lysara had already stepped forward, placing a hand on her hammer’s handle with that poised nonchalance that was hers. She didn’t seem tense. Didn’t even seem concerned. She had that calm, almost distant look seen in predators who know exactly when to strike.

She wore her mythical armor that day.

A unique piece, born in the forbidden forges of the Hanging Fortress, designed to face not armies... but kingdoms. Plates of living obsidian, inlaid with veins of Sanguine and Malacite, pulsed gently with each of her movements, as if the armor itself breathed with her.

She was splendid. And terrifying.

I said nothing. I didn’t move. This wasn’t my fight. I let her go.

She loved that.

She leapt without a word, her hammer igniting at her touch. A black flash. A metallic roar. And the dance began.

She moved like a wave. A supple, fast, sharp force. Her first strike crushed a Braquorn to the ground in a geyser of sand and steam, smashing its skull with a clean, resounding, final impact. The shock made the others step back, but she didn’t wait.

She was already on the second.

She wasn’t fighting.

She was punishing.

With elegance. And brutality.

Each move was precise, deliberate, refined. The hammer carved bloody arcs in the air, ricocheted off flaming horns, shattered legs, pulverized flanks. And yet, in that storm of violence, there was a form of grace. A cruel aesthetic. A beauty in destruction.

And I, silent witness, watched.

Proud.

And a little worried for those who might one day underestimate her.

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