The wind was warmer here.
Not by much, but enough for Kael to notice. It carried the faint scent of burnt pine and iron — Hollowmark still smoldering behind them. But the silence ahead felt different now. Not hostile. Not watchful.
Just… quiet.
They walked for hours without speaking.
Then Kyo broke the silence.
"They weren't always killers," he said.
Kael didn't respond. He didn't have to. Kyo's tone wasn't defensive — just distant like someone remembering a face from a dream.
"We weren't even called Vipers back then."
---
The sun rose behind them as they crossed a weathered stone bridge half-swallowed by roots. The path curved into a dried-out glade, the earth split and crumbled. A place and time had been forgotten.
Kyo slowed his pace.
"There was a name. A different one," he said quietly. "The Righteous Guild. That's what we were. It sounded arrogant. But we earned it."
Kael glanced at him.
"You were part of them."
"I was a trainee. Barely knew how to hold a blade. I joined because they were the only ones who didn't shoot first."
Kyo's voice dropped, almost a whisper.
"They fed me. Trained me. Let me sleep under a real shelter. That was the first time I felt like I belonged anywhere."
---
They reached the crest of a broken hill. The ruins of an old tower loomed in the distance, choked by vines and silence. Kyo stopped walking and looked down across the valley.
"It wasn't like now. Back then, we patrolled settlements. Rebuilt defenses. Gave system supplies to people who didn't have the levels to earn them."
He smiled faintly, eyes half-lost.
"We had this rule — no weapon drawn unless you're ready to die. Not kill. Die. Captain Locke's rule."
Kael leaned against a dead tree, arms crossed. "The one who led you."
Kyo nodded.
"Ravel Locke. We never knew his class. He never showed off his stats. Didn't need to. The man could stop fights by stepping into a room."
There was a kind of reverence in his voice — not worship, but respect earned through blood and time.
"He taught us how to move as a unit. How to listen. Not just to orders — to people. To pain. He said the System gave us power, but not purpose. That had to come from us."
Kael's gaze was steady. "Is he still alive?"
"He is," Kyo said. "Somewhere. Still trying."
"Trying what?"
"…To save what's left of her."
---
The path narrowed again, and they passed beneath a collapsed archway — a shattered checkpoint gate now rusting in silence.
Kyo's voice softened.
"Sarah. His daughter. She wasn't a fighter. Didn't want to be. She helped in the kitchens. Trained with the medics. Always found a reason to smile, even when the rations ran dry."
Kael didn't interrupt.
"She used to slip extra food into our bowls," Kyo said. "We weren't supposed to take seconds, but she did it anyway. Said we looked too thin. Said we were still growing."
He smiled, but it didn't last.
"One time, I got caught sneaking into the infirmary after hours. Training accident. My hand was bleeding badly. She didn't report me. Just cleaned the wound and told me to rest."
Kyo looked down at his gloves.
"She made the place feel like home. Like we weren't just surviving. Like maybe there was still something worth protecting."
---
The trail dipped into a grove where scorched leaves blanketed the ground. Kael stepped around a crater — not recent, but deep. Too clean to be natural.
"Then what changed?" he asked.
Kyo was quiet for a long moment.
"We found something."
Kael glanced back.
"Where?"
"A ruin. Out in the Deadshard region. No system tags. No map markers. Just... static. The higher-ups wanted to investigate — said it could be useful. We didn't argue."
His voice hardened slightly.
"Sarah went along. She wasn't supposed to. But she wanted to help. Said she had a sense about places like that."
Kael narrowed his eyes.
"She walked into the ruin."
Kyo nodded.
"And she didn't come out the same."
---
The air seemed colder now. Even the trees looked more distant.
"She collapsed a few hours after we left the site," Kyo said. "No wounds. No warning. Just screaming. Over and over."
Kael's grip tightened on his sword. Not in anger. In instinct.
"System didn't register anything," Kyo continued. "No status effect. No trauma. Nothing. Just a blank. Like she didn't exist anymore."
He looked away.
"She didn't respond to voices. Wouldn't eat. Wouldn't sleep. Then she started whispering things. Not words. Code. Strings of corrupted syntax. HUDs started flickering when we got too close."
Kael's jaw clenched.
"And the guild?"
"They panicked. Quietly. We tried everything — healers, white-rank hackers, even off-grid ritualists. Nothing worked."
Kyo's voice lowered to a whisper.
"She was in pain. Constant. You could hear it. Even when she wasn't screaming, it was like the air around her was vibrating."
He exhaled.
"Captain Locke stopped sleeping. He sat by her bed every night. Just… listening. Sometimes, I talked to her as if she were still there. Other times begging. Not the System. Just… anything that could hear him."
---
They reached a clearing with a half-buried statue — some pre-System remnant now worn smooth by time.
Kyo sat down on a stone ledge and stared at the dirt.
"That was when things started to change. Not all at once. Just little things. Missions got more secretive. Supplies stopped going to the outposts. Locke stopped addressing the guild unless it was about Sarah."
Kael stood nearby, silent.
"We were still the Righteous Guild. But something had cracked."
Kyo looked up.
"And it started with her scream."
---
📍 Checkpoint Reached: Deadshard Outskirts – Unknown Anomaly Zone Nearby
🛡 Party: Kael, Kyo
🕯 Status: Stable. Heavy silence. No system threats detected.
🗡 Objective: Keep moving. The past is no longer buried.