Leon walked back toward the others, his boots crunching softly against the cracked earth. Behind him, the battlefield was quiet again, only drifting motes of violet ash left to tell the story of the massacre.
Racheal and Adrian were already up on their feet, their breathing steady again after their earlier fight. The faint traces of exhaustion had left their faces, replaced with that sharp glint of readiness Leon always expected from them.
"Time to head to the tether," Leon said, his voice calm but carrying that quiet edge of command.
Neither of them wasted a second. They fell in step behind him as Lancelot joined their side, the older man watching Leon with a look that was somewhere between awe and disbelief.
Finding the tether didn't take long. Leon could sense corruption now the way a wolf sensed blood, instinctively. The moment they reached the pulsating black crystal, Leon stepped forward and laid his hand against it.
