The creature rose further from the water — a massive octopus monstrosity with at least eight writhing tentacles and a body covered in barnacles and glowing pustules. Its eyes — too many eyes — fixed on them with alien intelligence.
"Aim for the eyes!" wiAdo shouted, already sprinting around the lake's edge. "They're weak points!"
A tentacle crashed down where she'd been standing, leaving a crater. Another came at Tafgai. He dove, rolled, came up slashing. His blade cut into rubbery flesh, black blood oozing from the wound. Not deep enough.
The creature roared — a sound like whales singing in reverse — and three tentacles came at him simultaneously. He blocked one with his sword, but the second wrapped around his waist. The third coiled around his legs.
He was lifted into the air, ribs creaking under the pressure. His sword arm was still free. He stabbed down into the tentacle around his waist. Once. Twice. Three times. The grip loosened — he fell, hit the shallow water, scrambled back to shore.
wiAdo was climbing the creature now, spear discarded, using the barnacles as handholds. She reached one of the massive eyes and drove her fist into it.
The creature shrieked.
"That's how you do it!" she yelled, laughing like a maniac.
Two tentacles converged on her position. She jumped, caught one mid-air, and used the momentum to swing herself toward its head. This girl was absolutely insane.
Tafgai ran along the shore, looking for an opening. A tentacle swept at him — he leaped over it, landed, kept running. He needed to get higher, needed to reach the eyes.
A fallen tree extended over the water. He sprinted up the trunk, sword in one hand, and launched himself into the air. For a moment, he flew — then he brought the sword down in a two-handed strike directly into one of the creature's many eyes.
The blade sank deep. The eye burst, spraying him with viscous fluid.
CRITICAL HIT!
"Nice!" wiAdo cheered from somewhere on the creature's back.
But they weren't done. The octopus thrashed, and Tafgai lost his grip. He fell toward the water — a tentacle caught him, squeezed. His ribs cracked. Pain lanced through him, then faded as healing kicked in.
The tentacle pulled him toward a mouth filled with concentric rings of teeth.
"Oh, hell no."
He stabbed wildly, desperately. The tentacle loosened just enough — he wrenched free, dropped into shallow water, and staggered back to shore.
wiAdo had retrieved her spear. She stood atop the creature's head now, spear raised like a javelin. "Move!" she shouted.
He ran.
She drove the spear down with both hands, putting her full body weight behind it. The spear punched through the creature's skull with a wet crunch.
The octopus convulsed. Tentacles flailed wildly. Then, slowly, it collapsed back into the lake with a massive splash, creating waves that soaked them both.
Silence.
wiAdo splashed over, soaking wet, grinning from ear to ear. "See? Told you it was worth it." She offered him a fist.
He bumped it, too exhausted to do anything else.
"Now," she said, wringing out her hair, "we've got about five more hours until sunrise. Want to find somewhere to cook this octopus, or should we hunt for more points?"
He looked at her — this crazy, fearless girl who'd just punched a monster in the eye and rode it like a mechanical bull.
"Let's cook first," he said. "Then we hunt."
She grinned. "I like the way you think, tafgai."
Above them, the stars wheeled across the alien sky, and somewhere in the darkness, a monster howled.
The night was far from over.
They drank from the lake — the water was cold and clean, untainted by the monster's blood. Using wiAdo's knife and his sword, they carved strips of octopus meat and ate in silence. The flesh was surprisingly tender, tasting like something between fish and chicken. Tafgai stored the remaining portions in his inventory, the collector skill making them vanish with a faint glow.
The forest felt different now. Quieter. Like the world was holding its breath.
Then the notification came.
PHASE 1: SURVIVE THE NIGHT
THERE ARE MONSTERS LURKING AROUND.
FIND SHELTER AND FOOD.
THEY LOVE FEAR AND EXHAUSTION.
PLAYERS REMAINING: 783
TIME REMAINING: 5:23:05
DUE TO THE LARGE NUMBER OF PLAYERS DYING, TIME WILL BE DECREASED.
TIME REMAINING: 2:23:05
The numbers hit him like a punch. Two hundred and three players dead. In just a few hours. And now they were cutting the phase short — probably to prevent a complete massacre.
The sky shifted above them, the darkness lifting slightly. Not dawn, but something artificial, as if someone had turned a dial to fast-forward time itself.
"Well, that's a bummer," wiAdo said, standing and hefting her spear. "We need more points now since there's no time."
"I doubt you'll need that."
The voice came from the trees behind them. Cold. Familiar to wiAdo, judging by the way her entire body went rigid.
Tafgai spun, sword materializing in his hand.
Three figures emerged from the shadows. The one in front was a tall man with a scarred face and wild eyes. He carried a crude club studded with what looked like teeth. The other two flanked him — a wiry woman with dual knives and a heavyset man gripping a makeshift spear.
"I'm back for some payback, you weird thing." The scarred man's voice dripped with venom. "Did you already find your next victim?"
wiAdo said nothing. The confident, chirpy energy that had defined her since they met... vanished. Her face went carefully blank.
Tafgai looked between them, tension coiling in his gut. "What do you mean, 'next victim'?"
"Who are these people, wiAdo?" he asked, not taking his eyes off the strangers.
"I was her teammate," the scarred man spat. "But she sacrificed two of us. Left them to die while she ran. We barely escaped." His knuckles whitened around his club. "Not that we care anymore. I found worthy people to challenge her. So stay away from this, kid. This isn't your fight."
The accusation hung in the air like smoke.
Tafgai's mind raced. Sacrificed her teammates? That didn't match the girl who'd saved him from the tree monsters, who'd fought the lake guardian with reckless abandon. But the way wiAdo stood there, silent, not denying it...
"Well," the Tafgai continued, his smile a bit ugly, "you were surprisingly powerful for the phase since I met you, although I don't know that much. You could've maybe done more than me, but I also killed a teammate and got some awesome rewards." He gestured to her. "So this should be interesting."
Tafgai made his choice.
He stepped forward, placing himself between wiAdo and the three attackers. His sword caught the dim light.
"We're a team," he said flatly. "And I verified — we can't kill each other." He glanced back at wiAdo. Her eyes were wide with surprise. "So I'm waiting for your word. You can explain later. When do we strike?"
"You're suspicious of me too, though?" Her voice was quieter than he'd ever heard it.
He shrugged, keeping his eyes on the enemy. "Well, I don't like seeing you like this when I'm used to your energy. And I always trust my guts more than anything."
For a moment, something flickered across her face — gratitude, maybe, or relief. Then her grip tightened on her spear, and the old confidence returned.
"You idiots," the scarred man snarled, clearly unhappy at being ignored. "Be prepared — she's insanely powerful!"
They charged.
The wiry woman came first, knives flashing in the strange twilight. She was fast — faster than the man with the sword from Phase 0. Tafgai barely got his blade up in time to block the first strike. The second knife came at his ribs. He twisted, taking a shallow cut across his side that immediately began healing.
She saw the wound close and her eyes widened. "He's got healing!"
"Then bleed him faster!" the heavyset man roared, circling around.
Tafgai backpedaled, keeping both attackers in view. The woman pressed hard, her dual knives a whirlwind of steel. He blocked, parried, blocked again. His agility stat kept him moving, but she was skilled — trained, maybe, before whatever had brought them here stole their memories.
The heavyset man thrust his spear. Tafgai leaped aside, but the woman was already there, cutting deep into his shoulder. Pain flared. Healing kicked in. But they were wearing him down, making him burn through his vitality.
He needed to change tactics.
The woman lunged again. This time, instead of dodging, he stepped into the attack. Her knife punched into his stomach—agony—but his sword swept across her throat in the same motion.
She stumbled back, gurgling, hands at her neck. The wound was deep. Fatal.
No time to process. The heavyset man screamed in rage and charged with his spear leveled. Tafgai was still healing from the stomach wound, too slow to dodge completely. The spear caught his thigh, tearing through muscle.
He grabbed the spear shaft with his free hand, yanking the man forward and off-balance. Then he drove his sword up under the man's ribs. Once. Twice. The man coughed blood and collapsed.
Tafgai staggered, breathing hard, multiple wounds still knitting themselves closed. His hands shook. Two people. He'd just killed two more people.
He turned toward wiAdo, expecting to see her in the midst of battle with the scarred man.
She was standing over his body.
Just standing there, spear held loosely at her side, not even breathing hard. The scarred man lay at her feet, unmoving. His head sat at an unnatural angle.
She'd broken his neck.
And from the complete lack of wounds on her, the fight had been... easy. Barely an inconvenience.
"How long—" Tafgai started to ask.
"About thirty seconds after they charged," she said quietly.
He'd been fighting for his life for minutes. She'd ended her opponent in half a minute and just... waited. Watched him struggle.
His sword came up on instinct. In two steps, he was behind her, blade edge against her throat. Not pressing hard enough to cut, but the threat was clear.
She didn't move. Didn't even flinch. She could have dodged — with her speed and power, she absolutely could have. But she just stood there, hands visible, spear lowered.
"I know I can't beat you that easily, maybe not at all—" he said, voice tight. "But spit it out now. About this game. About the admirers. About what you really are."
His sword arm was steady despite the exhaustion, despite the fear creeping up his spine. "I want answers. Now."
For a long moment, she said nothing. Then, slowly, she let out a breath.
"Yeah," she said softly. "You deserve that."
The notification appeared, visible to both of them.
TIME REMAINING: 2:15:47
"I'll tell you everything," wiAdo said, her voice carrying a weight it hadn't before. "But you're not going to like it."
"Try me."
She looked out at the forest, at the bodies scattered around them, at the alien sky above.
"This isn't my first time," she said finally. "Not even the second too. And this exact moment has happened a lot of times too."