It was better not to let anyone near.
The things I own… they stay mine. I don't care if I die holding them.
They're valuable. Far better they rot buried with me than slip from my grasp into someone else's hands.
Who am i kidding... Me a soldier who could die at any moment...
I walked far, yet kept close to the tent—steps deliberate, weight shifted so no branch snapped, no leaf betrayed me. A faint trail parted the undergrowth behind me anyway; unavoidable. My heart hammered inside my ribs, not from exhaustion, but from the stupid, certainty that something was already watching, already reaching for what I'd hidden.
An owl regarded me from a low branch. Its eyes were wrong—milky white, fluid spilling over like tears made of moonlight, unblinking. It didn't move. It simply stared.
Then I saw her.
A girl. Red eyes—not the vivid crimson of fresh blood like Adam's, but something duller, older, closer to dried rust. A mask covered the upper half of her face, featureless, leaving only those eyes and the curve of her mouth visible. Black hair spilled like ink beneath a hooded cloak patched together from dark pads and heavy robes. The fabric behind her seemed to twist, spiraling faintly as though stirred by breath it didn't possess.
I sheathed my sword halfway, hand frozen on the hilt.
"Who are you?"
She was the witch. I had seen Adam subdue her—chains of light, screams cut short. Yet here she stood. Around her drifted faint blue motes, souls harvested slowly, drawn into the maw of something darker still: a faceless silhouette stitched from shadow and hunger, tendrils coiling lazily.
"It was annoying," she said, voice flat, almost bored, "getting out of that monster." A small sigh. "Thankfully I kept a copy."
. ..
(Souls can be mirrored if the imprint is fresh enough. The same signature, the same weight on the world. Enough to fool wards, enough to walk through barriers meant for the original.
The cult.)
Run?
How?
What could I even do? I'm a swordsman—steel and sweat, nothing more. No bloodline, no gift, no aura to speak of. These things simply happen sometimes. Monsters screech, people die, the forest keeps breathing.
I took one slow step backward.
She tilted her head. "Well… what a feast."
I exhaled sharply through my nose.
In the next fragment of a second a thorn—black, glistening, thick as a finger—lanced straight for my heart.
Steel met it.
A soldier—that soldier, the one whose name I never asked—stood between us, blade locked against the spike. His shoulders were set, stance low.
"What are you doing!" he barked over his shoulder. "Run! Get word to the general!"
He cursed under his breath immediately after. We both knew the truth: running would only delay the inevitable by seconds. Better one of us lives. Better the message reaches someone who matters.
At least… thank you, I thought, for not chasing my things.
He was faster than me. Traces of weak aura flickered around his form—enough to keep her at bay for now. She floated, drifting left and right like smoke, while his sword carved wide arcs, sweeping, thrusting, forcing distance. I turned and sprinted.
The monster lunged after me—tendrils whipping, claws raking bark. Trees blurred. My lungs burned.
Silence fell for one cruel heartbeat.
Then the forest cracked open.
Thorns erupted everywhere—wood splintering, green-black spines punching through trunks. One grazed my cheek, drawing a hot line of blood.
Is he dead already?
The thing behind me kept coming, sniffing, searching. I risked a glance upward.
An owl-thing dropped from the canopy—wings like torn leather, beak wide enough to take my throat. It snapped. Teeth raked collarbone instead of jugular. Blood soaked my shirt instantly.
Helmets, I thought dully. That's why knights wear helmets.
I clamped my right hand over the wound. Sword still in my left, tip forward. Undead staggered from the shadows now—rotted faces, shackled necks clanking. I veered right, ducked under a claw swipe, sprang toward the cliffs.
Bleeding. Vision smearing at the edges.
A thorn punched clean through my shoulder.
I dropped.
Coughing blood, I forced myself up on one elbow. Another spike hissed past my neck—I slashed wildly, severing the arm of an undead that had closed too near. Bone cracked.
I won't die here.
If I die, everything disappears. Forgotten.
Thorns flew again. I ducked, rolled, felt one slice across my scalp. The witch's voice drifted over the chaos, calm as ever.
"It's so annoying. I'm trying to end this quickly, yet you're so… enduring."
Emotions churned inside my chest—fear, rage, the stupid stubborn refusal to let go. I was bleeding out. She simply smiled down at me, soft, almost pitying.
The face of evil wearing comfort like a borrowed coat.
"You're really determined," she murmured. "Just like everyone else I've met."
Her expression shifted—naive, wide-eyed, mockingly childlike—then hardened. She lifted a sword that wasn't there a moment ago. The air around her warped. Gravity peeled away; leaves rose, momentum gathered into visible currents.
"You people boast about bloodlines, don't you?" Her smile turned vicious. "The greatest aura wins. The strongest lineage triumphs." She laughed once, short and cold. "Let's see what happens when someone with utterly no aura kills you with nothing but a sword."
I don't have aura.
Never did.
No magic. No lineage. Just steel I sharpened myself.
She moved.
I raised my blade—too slow, too heavy at the tip now. The block connected, but the force sent me crashing backward into a tree trunk. Bark exploded against my spine. I hit dirt hard.
Monsters grinned from the edges, chains rattling on their necks like laughter.
My consciousness flickered.