The wind did not howl.
It sang.
A low, endless song — ancient, hollow, born of rage and solitude.
Orien opened his eyes,
and the whole world seemed suspended inside that sound.
He stood upon a plain of shattered ice.
Mountains loomed in the distance, half-swallowed by a raging storm.
Lightning flickered in the clouds — green veins tearing the sky apart.
Before him moved an ocean of monsters.
An army of shapes — twisted, crawling, endless.
Their screams shook the ground.
And facing them,
stood a single man.
---
He was… breathtaking.
Two vast wings unfurled behind his back — not white, but silver-gray, streaked with faint veins of light.
Each movement sent whirlwinds through the snow.
His hair, long and silver, whipped in the storm.
His eyes were sharp, piercing green — eyes that once belonged to someone who had forgotten what peace looked like.
His armor gleamed beneath the lightning, polished steel etched with fading sigils.
In his hand, he held a jade lance.
Its surface shimmered like living ice, the tip humming softly with power.
The air itself bent around it.
Orien could feel the man's strength through every heartbeat.
It wasn't something he controlled.
It was something that existed through him.
The wind obeyed him as if it were his shadow.
---
Far ahead, the tide of abominations surged.
A wall of teeth and claws and nightmares.
The cold had no meaning here.
Nor did fear.
He lowered his head,
the jade lance glinting in the stormlight.
And with a calm voice that cut through the roar, he spoke — not to the enemy,
but to the wind itself.
> "Let them come. The storm carries me... one last time."
Then he moved.
---
The blizzard exploded.
The sky screamed.
In a single step, he vanished — only the snow remained, split open by a shockwave.
He rose through the storm, wings beating once.
The air shattered like glass.
Lightning followed him like loyal beasts.
Winds turned to blades.
Every heartbeat carved the world apart.
Thousands of monsters were torn from the ground, ripped to pieces by invisible force.
The storm obeyed his will, folding and twisting like silk in his grasp.
The jade lance moved with impossible grace,
each swing birthing a new hurricane.
Every impact painted the world in white and red.
He was not fighting.
He was becoming.
---
Days blurred into one another.
The sky never cleared.
The snow never stopped.
He fought, and fought, and fought.
Long after the screams faded, long after the light died, he remained.
The wind was his only companion.
The storm, his only witness.
Sometimes, when the air grew still,
he thought he could hear them —
the voices of his people, hidden behind the mountains.
A mother's laugh.
A sister's song.
A woman's whisper.
Then the wind would rise again,
and carry them away.
> "As long as they breathe… I will not fall."
His voice was low.
The storm answered.
---
The final battle came beneath a sky without color.
An endless wave of horrors descended upon the frozen plain.
The man stood waiting.
He spread his wings.
Snow spun in spirals around him.
The air grew dense — alive.
When he moved, the world broke.
Winds howled across the mountains.
The ice cracked for miles.
Creatures vanished into nothing.
It was not a battle.
It was an extinction.
---
And when silence fell,
he stood alone.
The ice was crimson.
The storm was dying.
He looked toward the distant ridges —
toward the home he had protected but could never return to.
> "They're safe," he murmured.
"That's enough."
He fell to his knees.
The lance trembled in his hand.
His wings folded, heavy as stone.
---
A shadow moved across the clouds.
Vast.
Golden.
The dragon.
It descended slowly, its wings darkening the sky,
its eyes — molten amber — fixed upon the lone warrior below.
The man lifted his head,
and met its gaze without fear.
> "I've done my duty," he said quietly.
"Even if no one remembers."
The dragon's breath filled the air with light.
Not heat —
but peace.
The fire fell.
The wind rose.
And for a single heartbeat, the two forces intertwined —
the flame and the storm merging in perfect silence.
When the light faded,
the man was gone.
Only the wind remained,
carrying his memory into the sky.
---
When Orien opened his eyes, the Umbra was weeping.
Raindrops of light fell from the void above.
They melted against his skin, leaving behind warmth and sorrow.
He knelt in silence.
Every breath felt like a whisper from that world of snow.
> "He never lived," he said softly.
"He only learned how to die for others."
The dragon's voice echoed, quiet and resonant, through the air.
Some men are born not to be loved… but to keep the fire burning while others sleep.
The wind in the Umbra stilled.
And for the first time, Orien felt it —
the faint pulse of air in his chest,
the heartbeat of the storm that would never die.
***
The first thing he smelled was smoke.
Not the dry scent of battlefields,
nor the bitter sting of burnt leather.
No — this was different.
This was the smoke of home.
The kind that clings to wood, cloth, flesh.
The kind that means the end of everything familiar.
Orien opened his eyes.
He was inside a narrow room.
Walls made of bone.
Tools hanging from hooks.
A single oil lamp burning weakly, its flame quivering against the shadows.
The tannery.
The old man's workshop.
His hands were not his own.
They were rough, cracked, veined with years of labor.
Fingers calloused, knuckles swollen, stained by a lifetime of work.
They moved on their own — scraping, pulling, shaping a half-finished hide.
A hoarse voice muttered — low, tired, yet familiar enough to twist Orien's gut.
> "Same work… every day.
Even the gods forgot this place."
The old tanner.
His master.
Orien's chest tightened.
He knew every inch of this room — the smell, the dust, the faint hum of the drying racks.
But this time, everything felt fragile.
As if the world itself were holding its breath.
Then came the sound.
A deep rumble.
Far away, but rising.
The lamp flickered.
The walls groaned.
The old man froze.
The knife slipped from his hand.
Outside — the world began to burn.
---
At first, it was just light.
A sudden flash that turned the shadows red.
Then came the heat.
A breath of fire that roared through the cracks, snuffing out the lamp.
The air thickened, heavy with ash.
The old man stumbled outside —
and Orien saw it.
The Bone Bastion was dying.
The city, carved within the colossal ribcage of the Leviathan,
was engulfed in flame.
The ribs — those towering arches of white — glowed like molten iron.
They wept streams of fire.
The sky itself was tearing apart.
A golden fissure splitting the heavens.
And above it —
The Dragon.
---
Its wings blotted out the sun.
Its roar silenced the world.
People ran through the streets — faces melting in the heat,
voices breaking against the roar.
Mothers clutched children.
Merchants threw their goods aside.
Guards screamed orders no one could hear.
The old tanner fell to his knees.
The air burned his lungs.
His skin blistered in seconds.
And yet, he did not run.
> "Not like this," he whispered.
"Please… not like this."
But the Umbra would not let Orien close his eyes.
It forced him to see.
To live.
---
His mind splintered.
One thought — one soul — became many.
He was the woman clutching her child beneath a collapsing rib.
He was the guard screaming for reinforcements.
He was the beggar crushed by falling debris.
He was the child crying for his mother, lost in smoke.
He was the priest on the tower, praying to gods that had long stopped listening.
And every one of them burned.
Orien felt their lungs fill with fire.
Their skin crack, their bones shatter, their thoughts fade into screams.
He lived through each of them —
dying again, and again, and again.
Until his mind began to tear.
---
The city was gone.
The Leviathan's ribs collapsed inward,
molten bone flowing like wax.
All that remained was the roar —
and the silence that followed.
Faces lingered in the smoke.
Hundreds, thousands.
Men. Women. Children.
All staring at him.
Not accusing.
Just… asking why.
Through the haze, he saw the tanner again —
his face burned, half gone,
but his eyes still clear.
He reached a trembling hand toward Orien.
> "Tell them, boy…
Tell them I'm sorry."
Then the last wave of flame swept through.
And the Bone Bastion ceased to exist.
---
Silence.
No fire.
No sky.
No world.
Only Orien.
Kneeling in the golden mist of the Umbra,
shaking, weeping, breathless.
His hands trembled.
Tears fell freely, lost in the light.
> "They're all gone," he whispered.
"Everyone. And I couldn't save a single one."
A shadow loomed through the mist.
The Dragon.
Its golden eyes glowed softly — not in fury,
but in mourning.
> Now you understand.
The weight of a world lies not in its glory… but in its loss.
Orien raised his head, voice breaking.
> "So this is wisdom…?"
> Yes, the Dragon said, its voice echoing like thunder swallowed by grief.
And wisdom, child, is never without pain.
---
For a long moment, there was nothing —
only the faint echo of burning ribs collapsing into dust.
Then the mist stirred.
A light began to pulse behind it.
And as the Umbra dissolved,
Orien felt the last breath of the Bone Bastion pass through him —
a whisper of ash and sorrow.
He closed his eyes.
And woke up.