Fabrício Scadia — Nightmare Number 1 — swayed between kneeling and standing.

  The crimson “1” burned weakly inside his black pupils, a dying ember refusing to fade.

  Sarya’s spear dripped black blood, each drop sizzling where it hit the stone.

  Every echo of that distant heartbeat made the metal vibrate —

  the sound of a dying monster clinging to existence.

  The Autumn wind swept through the streets of Sorriso.

  Dry leaves spiraled around them, as if witnessing the end of another hunt.

  Sarya took two steps forward.

  Her boots touched the ground with that precise, cold rhythm —

  the rhythm of inevitability.

  Fabrício’s chest rose and fell in broken intervals.

  Mana tried to stitch flesh, force blood to move, pretend life still lingered.

  But the body didn’t understand it was already dead.

  Sarya watched in silence.

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  Her amber gaze traced the irregular pulse beneath his skin,

  each twitch revealing exactly where the false heart —

  the profane engine created by a Disaster’s mana —

  was struggling to keep beating.

  “Still there,” she murmured.

  “Still burning what’s left of you.”

  Fabrício lifted his head.

  His voice was cracked, vibrating with leaking mana.

  “Elf… you… don’t understand…”

  Sarya stepped close enough to feel the heat of corrupted mana burning between them.

  “I do,” she said quietly.

  “You’re just too stubborn to fall.”

  She spun the spear and sheathed it across her back.

  Her daggers slid free with the soft, clean sound of steel acknowledging purpose.

  Fabrício tried to move — half a step.

  No more.

  Sarya slipped into his guard instantly.

  Fast.

  Precise.

  Final.

  One cut.

  Two.

  Three.

  Clean lines crossed his chest, opening muscle and exposing the trembling rhythm beneath —

  the flawed tempo of a heart powered by a Nightmare’s curse.

  She shoved him against the cracked wall.

  There was no hatred in her eyes —

  only a hunter’s focus.

  With a movement both surgical and ritual, she slid her hand through muscle and ribs, guided not by force, but by timing,

  until she felt the heartbeat stumble beneath her fingers.

  Fabrício’s entire body shook.

  The “1” in his eyes flared one last time —

  blood-red, like a dying moon.

  Sarya closed her hand.

  “Hunt’s over,” she whispered.

  The sound came muffled —

  a dry snap, followed by a hot breath of bursting mana.

  She tore the heart free.

  It throbbed in her palm:

  black, unstable, leaking red smoke.

  Mana from a Disaster struggling to beat even after death.

  For a moment, the air vibrated —

  as if Nightmare Number 1 protested its end.

  Sarya watched the light fade.

  “Even Autumn must burn away what refuses to die,”

  she said, and tightened her grip.

  The heart turned to ash.

  Fabrício’s body remained standing for one impossible second —

  as if sheer will denied the fall.

  Then it collapsed into dust.

  A Nightmare dying on its feet.

  The wind rose.

  Leaves danced.

  Sarya wiped her daggers, sheathed them against her thighs,

  and lifted her gaze toward the orange Autumn sky.

  “The sound is gone,” she murmured.

  “Autumn has harvested… a black heart today.”

  End of Chapter 48