Chapter 55: The Silent Stalker - Elyra The Second Child

Arthur stood motionless at the base of the basalt cliff, a dark sentinel surrounded by a sea of bone and ash. The ground was a graveyard of colossal creatures, their skeletal remains twisted into unnatural shapes, picked clean and bleached by years of harsh sun and scalding wind. Silence engulfed the Badlands, an oppressive quiet that seemed to press down from the jagged peaks above. Even the air felt thick with anticipation, as if the land itself were holding its breath, awaiting the outcome of this moment.