Damon frowned and took a second look over the page.
The lines looked jagged, with smudges that looked like spilt ink rather than something intentional. And yet, the more he looked at it, the more he felt as though there was something behind those lines, something that far transcended a simple drawing.
"What is it?" Nyla asked, quickly moving beside him.
She took one quick glance at a paper before sighing in disappointment.
"Ahh, it’s just those scribbles again," she said after a soft sigh.
Damon raised a brow. "You mean you saw these before?"
"Yeah? Ever since she returned, Ivy had been scribbling at almost all times..." As she was speaking, Nyla began to frown slightly as a slow realisation began to dawn on her. "Wait... You don’t think these things—"
"They aren’t random scribbles," Damon confirmed her realisation. "It’s a ritual... of some sort."
A moment of thoughtful silence passed between them before Nyla spoke. "But why would Ivy want to do some ritual?"
"I don’t know," Damon stood up. "But we can ask her after we find her."
Nyla raised a brow. "Did you find any clues where she might be?"
"No," Damon replied, his eyes still locked onto the unusual drawing Ivy left behind.
Despite not finding any clues as to where Ivy might be, and despite not yet leaving the territory of their citadel to try to find her, Damon began to feel a strong premonition about one particular place.
It was a place he had long forgotten about, but now, with no better guesses as to where she might be, it was as good a place to start as any.
"...We won’t be going South," Damon added after a moment of pause. "I have a place elsewhere I want to check first."
Nyla looked at him in surprise but chose not to question it. Time was of the essence, and with everyone else already searching, it was time for them to get started too.
***
Soon enough, the broken peaks of half-destroyed skyscrapers gave way to single-family houses, and not long after that, those gave way to empty fields through which only a single landmark became apparent.
A single railway track rose a couple of feet above the ground, elevated on blocks that were older than any building behind them.
On the far end of it, a train stood still, partially consumed by vegetation and partially taken over by the rust.
The air carried the smell of the scene before him, rot mixed with the smell of rusting metal.
Damon came to a halt a few meters away from it, as memories of the time which seemed like a different life began to rush through his mind.
The first day of the apocalypse replayed perfectly in his head, as though he was back there, back in the cart with undead humans rising right in front of him.
But this place wasn’t just where his journey had begun, it was also Ivy’s.
This is where he had first met her, and he had a feeling that, despite not knowing what kind of ritual she was going to perform, she was going to do so where it all began.
The field around them was unnervingly silent. There were no sounds of crickets or chirping of birds as one would expect. There was only silence, as though death had walked through these fields and left nothing in its wake.
"Is this the place?" Nyla asked, looking around as though she wasn’t seeing anything particularly interesting.
And her expression was correct.
Damon frowned as he looked around.
The half-collapsed train still hanging down from the partially broken railway track was still there, and so were the remains of the massive creature, the one that had swallowed him whole, its bones were still scattered around the field.
But no signs of Ivy in sight.
’I guess I was wrong—’ he thought, but the second the words materialised in his head, he felt a sudden strong burst of energy erupt from beneath him.
He stepped between the shadows at the last moment as a dozen fiery chains surged from a mana circle underneath him.
Damon reappeared beside Nyla, grabbing her at the last moment and disappearing again as another mana trap surged from below.
Throughout the field around them, a couple of dozen more traps activated, surging in the air in hopes of finding a target, which they failed to do.
Through a half dozen activations of Shadow Step, Damon avoiding the trap with fair ease, what did surprise him, however, was the way the traps were completely invisible to him before activation.
He stopped only as the last of the traps died off, standing in the middle of an empty field with a small frown on his face.
"What the hell was that?!" Nyla yelled, her arms wrapped tightly around Damon’s neck as if she was hanging for dear life.
Damon didn’t reply.
Instead he looked around, embers left behind by the fiery chains still lingered in the air, and so did the heat that emanated from them.
There was something faintly familiar about that heat, as though he had felt it somewhere before.
Fortunately, Damon wouldn’t have to dwell long on the familiarity of that heat as an answer suddenly appeared behind him.
His head whipped around, his eyes locking onto a figure standing behind him with a presence he only partially recognised.
Her crimson hair looked a bit more orangey now, and her eyes carried a fire he had seen in the eyes of the Phoenix Clan Leader.
"Ivy?" He asked.
She didn’t reply, not immediately. She stared at him for a couple of moments, filing some sets of new information in her head before speaking.
"How unfortunate," her gaze trailed to the scorched marks left behind by the traps. "I was hoping to avoid direct confrontation."
Damon frowned. "What the hell are you talking about, Ivy?"
She tilted her head slightly. "Isn’t it obvious? I’m going to capture you."