"Every flame casts light enough to reveal its witness. That is the first danger of fire: not what it burns, but what it uncovers."
Nameless let the thought coil tight within him as he crouched behind the stone. The ridge trembled faint under his boots, the earth still hot from the fire he had fed into the throat. The smoke crawled upward in ribbons, veiling the trees in grey. Yet through that smoke, through the dim that should have hidden all, a glint flared back at him.
Eyes.
Not the scattered panic of novices, not the dull gaze of acolytes. These eyes burned steady, patient, rimmed with light that was not fire. He knew the gleam—had seen it in his own screen. Perfect Sight.
"So. Mathis did not lie. Manis has the Pefect Sight."
From below, Manis stood among the charred remains. Cloak black at the hem, mask half-pale, half-dark. The corpses still steamed at his feet, skulls burst open, blood stiffening in streaks. Yet he did not look at them. His gaze cut upward, slow, deliberate, as though tracing smoke to its source.
Nameless stilled himself. He pressed into the cavity of stone, cloak wrapped, every breath shallow. "I am not here. I am not seen. I am ledger, not shadow."
The forest thickened with silence. No bird moved. No insect droned. Only the hiss of cooling timber and the cough of stone split by heat. The dusk bent heavier, sky bleeding orange into ash.
Then came the voice. Not loud, not shouted, but carried, doubled by the hollow:
"Someone fed the throat too well. Someone waits above."
Nameless felt the words graze him like a blade pressed close, though no hand touched him.
He did not flinch. He did not rise. He let the thought burn cold instead: "Let the smoke cover me. Let night descend faster than his sight. I will wait. I will not move until the ridge itself forgets I am here."
The eyes still searched, gleaming through haze, cutting the ridge into halves: one seen, one hidden. For a breath, Nameless thought the mask would tilt further, that the Listener's sight would fix him like prey. But the moment broke. Manis turned, his gaze dropping to the acolytes who waited stiff near the bowls.
Nameless allowed one breath. No more. He would not leave the stone. He would spend the night here if he must, inside the silence, until hunger drove the hollow's servants out to forage, to recruit, to bleed into his hands one by one.
The ridge pressed down on him, heavy with smoke and dusk. The world did not soften. It only grew tighter, like a snare pulled close.
Dusk bled into night, and the smoke that curled upward thinned into mist, spread flat between branches until it was no longer visible but breathed. Nameless did not move. His knees ached in the crouch, but he let them ache. The stone against his mask grew cold; he pressed harder into it, shaping himself to its contour.
Below, the cave did not fall quiet. It muttered. Ash hissed. Once, twice, he heard the bark of a cough—acolyte or torch-bearer, the sound dampened as if swallowed. Then silence again, the kind that thickens rather than clears.
Hours bent like iron. The forest shifted into other rhythms: roots cracking under weight, leaves whispering with what might have been wind or breath. Somewhere distant, a wolf gave tongue; closer, a branch broke as though by hand. Nameless let every sound pass ledger-like across his mind: noted, filed, discarded. None justified movement.
The eyes troubled him more. That glint—Perfect Sight—still lingered behind his thoughts. He replayed it, measured the angle, the duration, the patience. Manis had searched, yes. But had he truly looked away? Or was he still watching, silent as himself, each waiting for the other to move first?
"So it is duel already," Nameless thought. "One of waiting. Who will breathe louder. Who will yield silence."
He did not yield. He starved himself of motion, trimmed his breath to a thread. The smoke from the fire that had almost betrayed him now cloaked him, turning cloak into fog, mask into stone.
The night deepened. Torches sputtered near the cave's lip, faint as stars too low. Once, figures moved: the watcher pacing, staff in hand, his steps rehearsed but restless. Another shape crossed with bundle on his back—wood, perhaps, or bones collected from the grove. The hollow lived on its own routines, unaware that the ridge above watched ledger-like.
Nameless let a thought curl around him, thin as a blade: "You leave. You must leave. Fire cannot feed you forever. Novices will not come unbidden. One of you will go hunting, and I will be waiting."
The hour bent slower still. The forest, drunk with silence, grew heavy enough to suffocate. Nameless closed his eyes once, then opened them, not to rest but to measure the dark. His hand brushed the staff at his back.
He would wait. Until hunger gnawed even at those who served darkness. Until the cave itself exhaled one body into the night. Then he would descend—not to the throat, but to the neck. And cut it where it was weakest.
Nameless let the silence weigh, ledgering every cough and shift below. His first assumption held: none of them bore staffs like true sages. Their hands stayed empty, their strength bound to muscle, not to symbols. This limited them—body against body, sight against sight. They were raw, still tethered to the ground.
He leaned, slow as dust settling, tilting his mask to let the cave's murmur thread upward. The ridge carried whispers, faint but enough. Words.
"…convocation… the hall calls…"
The voice was the torch-bearer's, low, hushed, dragging weariness like a chain.
"…strange… Manis rose fast… the Order wants him seen…"
Then the watcher answered, tone clipped, irritated as stone struck against stone:
"No. Not him alone. It is general. This time all are called. Even the low."
A pause. The scrape of boot across gravel. The hollow groaned as though to muffle them, yet their voices pressed upward all the same.
"…still strange. So many new recruits. Not just here—every hollow reports the same. Ash, bone, silence—and yet they keep arriving. Faces we do not know. Not from these hills."
The torch-bearer's whisper dragged through the cave, hoarse with unease.
The watcher answered, staff scraping stone in irritation:
"You think it only here? It spreads everywhere. The forests breed strangers. The villages see them, sudden as rain. They call it a harvest, but it is no harvest I have seen."
"…they are not of these lands. They walk wrong. Speak wrong. Eyes wide, like calves at slaughter. If the Penumbra gathers them all, it is not because they belong—it is because they infest."
The cave thickened with their muttering, like smoke trapped in the throat. Then the watcher cut sharper, his tone final:
"Do not question. If the seat commands, the branches bend. Whether strangers or natives, they will be ground to the same ash."
"…orders are not ours to question. The Penumbra sows where it must. If the seat commands, the branches obey."
Nameless let the words etch into him. A general convocation. Not a single ascent for Manis, but an assembly of the whole. Something broader, larger, pulling even these hermits from their pit.
"So the throat swells," he thought. "And the body must empty. They will leave. Not all, not at once—but they will leave."
His hand brushed the soil, feeling the cold press against his glove. The night thickened. Suspicion swelled with it: why now? Yet suspicion was not his burden. Ledger was. If they left, he would be waiting. If they stayed, he would still be waiting.
The smoke veiled him, the ridge pressed like a coffin lid, and the night advanced one slow inch at a time.
Nameless waited with patient stillness for the first edge of dawn. The plan was already shaped within him.
Before the sun could clear the day entirely, he moved by the margins, steps tracing shadow, until the trees received him again—his refuge. There he lingered, eyes fixed on the cave's mouth.
He checked, waited longer. He would have to follow them, though not too far.
At last both acolytes emerged, measured in their tread, setting out to gather new novices. Nameless slipped after them through the trees, a shade moving between roots, trailing their course from behind.
He held back, patient. Then, near the fork beneath the hill from which he had come, they split ways.
"They must be heading to the nearest spawn," he thought. "They've rehearsed it by now."
A dry irony moved through him: "Strange to picture how the NPCs, saintly or profane, will bend to players. Likely Penumbra will convene a meeting, adjusting its marketing to their taste. Culum never wastes a chance to corrupt when he sights one."
He chose the left-hand path, shadowing one acolyte's route.
Perfect Sight opened, the haze cut away.
[Human — Lv 8]
Nameless already had the script. He turned the robe inside out, purple face shown outward—the colour of Penumbra, worn as password. Outwardly, he was theirs entire.
From above, hidden in the branches, he loosed the first strike:
"Doubt."
(IP − 242 → 218)
The blow landed hard, like fist against thought.
[Critical Hit: 150 Damage]
[Status Inflicted: Confused]
The acolyte jerked, a cry torn loose, dropping to his knees. A hole yawned in his back, black and pulsing, as though part of the spine had been stolen out. He writhed, almost tumbling down the slope, prostrate, hands clawing to cover the impossible void.
The acolyte clawed at his own spine, fingers trembling over the wound as though he could close it by will alone. His eyes rolled white, then snapped back, wide with terror. Words stumbled out half-broken, his voice cracking against the trees:
"B—brother? Who… who strikes me?"
Nameless did not answer. He let the mask tilt, purple side turned outward, the brooch faint in the dim light. To a mind split open by Doubt, the shape before him was no intruder but kin—harsh, silent kin.
The acolyte staggered to his feet, swaying, body still bent as if his own bones were against him. He lurched one step forward, then another, like a drunk who mistook cliff for road. The confusion dragged him sideways into a trunk, bark splitting under the weight of his shoulder.
Nameless descended the slope, measured, not rushing, each step ledger-clean. He watched the flicker of the health bar: still high enough to fight, but bleeding steady, halved by panic.
The sword whispered free, "Sacred Flame" veining its edge. He spoke then, voice low, cadence flat as doctrine:
"Your spine bows rightly. The throat bends all."
(JP − 65 → 53)
[Breath: 65/84]
The acolyte froze, caught between fear and recognition, unable to decide if the words condemned or confirmed him. His hand twitched toward the knife at his belt, then faltered.
Nameless struck.
Not at throat, not at chest. The blade fell behind the knee, cutting tendon, silencing movement before it could gather. The acolyte screamed, collapsed again, face grinding into soil.
[Critical Hit Damage: 95]
[Status Inflicted: Crippled]
[Breath: 58/84]
Nameless stood over him, mask shadowing all but the gleam of fire along steel.
"So this is how they teach the low. Rote, ritual, empty hands. No staff, no art. A body drilled to kneel. Easy ledger. My bucket of XP."
The acolyte groaned, one hand stretching backward, as if to beg, as if to prove loyalty by repetition.
Nameless raised the sword higher. The forest held its breath.
[Fatal Hit Damage: 120]
[Breath: 49/84]
[XP Gained: Kill — Human (L8)]
[XP +1000]
[Sacred Attack Proficiency +5]
[Sacred Attack Proficiency 22/10,000]
[Level Up]
Emperor - Level 11.