Page 134 of The Hyena’s Guardian

Theron looked toward the collapsing mountain behind them before answering. “Barely.”

The ground trembled one final time, and the mountain folded fully into itself. Stone, black dust, and shattered ruins disappeared in a violent chain reaction as the remaining peaks folded into the devastation below.

The roar echoed across the valley for several long seconds before silence finally settled over the ruins.

No red light remained afterward. No whispers. No breathing beneath the stone. Only wind moving through broken rock beneath the night sky.

Matt felt the bond settle between himself and Theron, steady and unmistakably real now in a way it had never been before.

Theron looked toward him, and for the first time since Matt had met him, there was no shadow of the mountain left behind his eyes.

Chapter 18 - Theron

Theron did not trust the vehicle.

That became obvious less than three minutes after they left the mountain.

“It moves too quickly,” he said flatly from the passenger seat while staring rigidly through the windshield at the dark highway rushing beneath them.

Matt glanced sideways from behind the wheel. “It’s a truck.”

“It should not move this fast.”

“We’re doing fifty.”

Theron’s expression tightened further. “That does not improve my confidence.”

From the back seat, Vale made a strangled sound that might have been a laugh. “You fought an ancient nightmare king inside a collapsing mountain.”

Theron never looked away from the road ahead. “Correct.”

“And this is what concerns you?”

“The mountain was at least attached to the ground.”

Matt laughed hard enough that the truck drifted briefly toward the shoulder before he corrected it again.

Theron grabbed the dashboard with enough force to crack part of the plastic beneath his fingers.

Matt noticed. “Oh my God.”

“This machine feels unstable.”

“It’s a Ford.”

“That explanation means nothing to me.”

Vale finally gave up and laughed openly behind them.

The sound startled Theron almost as much as the passing headlights outside.

He had spent so long inside the mountain that even simple things seemed wrong now. The steady stream of lights moving across the distant highway. The hum of electrical lines stretching beside the road. The glow of entire towns scattered across the valley below them.

Nothing stayed dark anymore.

The realization unsettled him more than he expected.

For centuries, night inside the mountain had meant silence, stone, and isolation broken only by whispers moving through the walls. Now the world outside felt endlessly alive. Bright. Loud. Moving too fast in every direction at once.