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Not because of a premonition of calamity, nor out of fear of the unknown. The hunter astutely grasps her concrete apprehension.

Arges! Don't go!

The Cyclops hears the call and turns around.

The great ring begins to spin, reflecting darkness bright as the starry sky, brilliant colors meandering.

A collapse is occurring, one that far exceeds all recorded instances.

She has seen it all in her foresight.

One glance into the abyss will bring unprecedented disasters to Sami, and indeed to all of Terra.

The prophesized moment did not tell her how long she can hold it off, nor how much anger and hatred would be directed at her in the days to come.

She knows only one thing about her destiny.

In the great shadow of the demon, the Cyclops raises a black veil of Arts, separating the disaster she caused from the others.

Go.

Typhon knew what she was going to say. The Cyclops, who had always carried sorrow on her face, is smiling.

'This is my fate.'

My daughter, whose fate I do not know...

May you live in freedom.

...No.

No!

It can't be!

It can't be today!

A single figure dashes forward in the endless darkness.

Breaking free of the quagmire of fear, casting away her heavy bow and arrows.

Typhon tries to grab the figure walking forward alone.

She stretches her hand out in desperation.

A hornbeast of pristine silvery white leaps past her lithely.

It is light as snow, too light to touch, even by a dreamcatcher made of spider silk.

It is the alabaster mercy of the Sami, that all Sami have seen in dream.

Like the aurora, its brilliance tears the darkness apart and soars into the sky.

Sami's Sovereign of Beasts charges into the demon before It.

A great flash explodes towards the warped visible space, its rays scattering in silence and disappearing into the unfathomable void.

The silver frost from the hornbeast fades away with the terrifying stars in the shockwave.

The energy annihilation causes the ice crystals to sublime.

Droplets of hot water fall on the end of the icefield.

Amma's affection gently melts on the hand of Its daughter, still stretched out towards the abyss of fate.

The demonic shadow fades away, and the silvery white hornbeast is gone.

The eldritch colors from the ring are gone, leaving only ancient silver-white on the ice.

All present look up at all this in a daze. Finally, a researcher breaks the silence with their footsteps.

The researchers begin to survey the great ring, but never find a way to activate it, nor any gaps that they could traverse.

Typhon searches the ground nearby.

She is looking for a solid snowball with the mark of a beast's horn.

...I can't find it.

Strange. The Mother should have left a blessing behind.

What do you think, Arges?

She could not accept that the great hornbeast has departed, its return uncertain, but Arges shakes her head.

Its footprints disappear in the never-ending snowfall.

The two Sarkaz who do not belong to the Sami Elafia whisper their gratitude to the love of Sami.

The storm seems to have passed.

But the prophesized fate has yet to come to pass.

Much like her destined death—

The door will be truly opened, one day.

This is a land of yellow sand never mapped out by scholars before the King of Kings.

A land where creatures are blown aside, gold and iron alike melt, and even gravel is ground to nothingness.

Time returns to chaos, time shall no longer be measured through life and death, time is boundless.

There exists only the sound of horns and the roar of wild beasts. Two gargantuan armies that never stop charging towards one another, spanning as far as the blurry horizon and as near as beneath one's very nose.

This is a war that may have been started by the observation and thoughts of the expeditioners. A war that may have no end because it also has no beginning.

The expeditioners recognize this place.

Kharanduu Khagan tramples the land, denying that his Khaganquest would meet any obstacles or come to any end.

Lugalszargus decrees life and death as if there is neither dawn nor dusk in the dust of the battlefield, because he still holds time itself in the palm of his hand.

The dominion of these ancient heroes extends over all.

Those who enter by mistake forever become the vassals of their conquest, never to return.

––The foehn hotlands.

The war between the King of Kings and the Nightzmora Khagan left this land of death in the southernmost part of Terra.

The footsteps of the expeditioners are no different from the intruders who have been incinerated by the scorching winds for millennia – nothing more than puffs of smoke in this lifeless domain.

The expeditioners do everything they can to avoid being blown away.

Their temporary defensive basecamp is crumbling, the team members resorting to a variety of palliative measures to adjust their bodily functions, barely clinging on to life in the overwhelming heat.

In their fear, the people look up to the heroes who seek an endpoint for their great works.

Freed from the restraints of constancy, time itself dilates and stretches. Finally, the megastructure reactivates, stars emerge from the yellow sand, and the expeditioners dash towards the gate in a mad panic.

'The megastructure's running really unstably.'

'The spatial stabilization device is damaged... it won't stay open for long... If you can hear me, get out of there.'

The moment she steps back through the fractured gate, Magallan, the member at the tail end of the team, turns back to look at the battlefield one last time.

Her lungs breathe in the fear, her skin still senses the heat.

Then, she recalls the annihilation that they faced when they first arrived at the terminus of the endless icefields all those years ago, as well as the melting snow that fell on her.

She understands what the last great deed of these two great rulers was.

The terrible energy that had turned rainforest into desert did not result from a clash between them. Rather, they had driven enemies similar to Crazelyseon back through the ring.

The results from the initial activation of the megastructure were incredibly gratifying. For the first time, humanity gained information on the foehn hotlands, and were able to clearly glimpse into a period of history from thousands of years ago–

The heroes who waged war against eternity were also the same humans who set out into the barrenlands in pursuit of the unknown.

Now, the gate is wide open.

There are no longer limits to where people may reach.

The expeditioners' horizons have expanded into distant pasts once unimaginable.

And now, they will move towards a distant future with an equally unpredictable fate.

*ahem* Um. Scientific explorer Magallan, starting audio log.

It has been twelve days since the joint expedition team entered Sami.

The tundra, the Myrkwood, the smell of wood and moss, the weight of fresh snow, the temperature of the wind, the cries of the hornbeasts.

The buzz of data recording, the heat emanating from the survival equipment, the marks left by trekking poles, the hum of drones taking flight.

The expedition team explores the strange land.

Our journey so far has been pretty smooth sailing, thanks to our two wonderful friends from Sami!

Typhon, would you like to say a word or two?

Huh? No, I'm busy. I have to look after these... 'colleagues' of yours.

Then—

Simone's also busy setting up some exorcising stuff. And she's tracking down some Ursus thing anyway.

Ehehe. Okay.

Anyway, we would be lost in the forest right now if not for their assistance!

Also... We're about to meet someone who's said to be a pretty reliable prophet.

Magallan raises her head as she holds up the audio recorder.

A tall figure is barely visible in the fog in front of them.

The doom-seeing Sarkaz Cyclops is waiting to show them the way.

Careful consideration and calculation no longer hold meaning. The explorers step onto solid earth, casting their gazes towards the vast unknown.

They fumble around for the fate awaiting them right in front of their noses.