The forest was quiet. Too quiet, maybe, but Froden had spent enough years in the field to know that silence could mean safety just as easily as danger. He'd walked the perimeter twice during his watch, eyes straining in the darkness for any sign of movement, ears alert for the telltale sounds of cultivators moving through the woods—the unnatural stillness that preceded their passage, the way animals went silent when something that powerful drew near.
Nothing. Just the normal sounds of Ruchlime Forest settling into night—wind through leaves, the occasional animal rustling through undergrowth, nothing more.
The fire's warmth hit him as he approached, and he realized how cold he'd gotten. His fingers were stiff, and his breath had been misting for the last hour of his watch. He moved closer to the flames, letting the heat seep into his bones.
He let himself relax. Marginally.
Four others sat around the fire, all wearing the same ragged equipment that marked them as what they were—survivors of a bad situation getting worse. Mac was directly across from him, methodically sharpening his blade with smooth, practiced strokes. The man's face was set in its usual scowl, shadows from the firelight making the expression even harsher.
To Mac's left, Torvin and Yenna sat close together, their shoulders nearly touching. Newer recruits, both of them, barely two months with the crew before everything had gone to hell. And then there was old Harrick, who'd served under Klaidman even longer than Froden had, back when the boss had been nothing more than an outer guard captain at the Umbra Sect.
All of them kept throwing glances toward the center tent.
Froden did too, though he tried not to make it obvious. The boss had been in there for hours now, ever since they'd hauled that damned coffin into camp. The tent sat there in the darkness beyond the firelight, larger than the others, its canvas rippling normally in the occasional breeze. Perfectly ordinary.
Except for what was inside.
No sound came from within—no shuffling, no muttered conversation, nothing. Just Klaidman alone with that ancient thing they'd pulled from the cave. Froden had seen it when they'd carried it in. Old didn't begin to cover it. The wood was black with age, covered in glyphs that still held a faint pulse of energy.
And the boss had decided to bring it here. To open it, maybe.
His gut twisted.
"I don't like it, Mac."
The words came out before he'd fully decided to say them. Maybe it was the cold still in his bones, or the way everyone kept looking at that tent like it might sprout legs and walk away. Maybe it was just that someone needed to say it.
Mac's blade stopped mid-stroke.
Froden pressed on. "The boss has gone mad. He should have left the coffin in the cave." He kept his voice level, reasonable. Not accusatory. "Who knows if those cultivators left a trap on it."
It wasn't that he doubted Klaidman. The man had led them through worse before—ambushes, sect politics, the kind of messes that should have gotten them all killed. But this felt different.
You didn't just take something that old, covered in glyphs that still held a faint pulse of energy, and haul it back to camp. Froden didn't know what sect had carved those symbols, but he knew enough to recognize they'd been powerful once.
And they were already running for their lives. This wasn't the time to be poking at ancient mysteries.
Mac's eyes narrowed. His hand moved from the whetstone to the hilt of his blade, fingers curling around the leather grip. Froden had seen Mac make that exact movement a dozen times over the years—always the same threat, always the same cold deliberateness.
"Watch your tone." The words came out flat, dangerous. "The boss knows what he's doing. I won't have any dissent in our ranks."
Dissent. As if Froden was staging a mutiny instead of pointing out the obvious.
He felt his jaw tighten, but kept his expression neutral. Mac was the third strongest among them, close enough to Qi Consolidation that he'd started carrying himself like he'd already made the breakthrough. Started acting like he spoke for Klaidman.
Which was rich. Froden had served under the boss since the Umbra Sect days. Mac had signed on what, three years ago? Four?
Out of the corner of his eye, Froden saw old Harrick give Mac a look—the kind that said the old veteran had noticed the presumption too.
Torvin stepped forward, hands raised. "Hey, come on now. We're all on edge. Froden just got off watch, he's cold—"
"I'm fine," Froden said.
"—and Mac, nobody's questioning the boss," Torvin continued, like Froden hadn't spoken. "We're all just... it's been a rough couple of days, yeah? Let's not turn on each other."
Yenna nodded quickly. "He's right. We lost good people running from those Nelson Sect bastards. Everyone's rattled. It's going to be alright."
Mac's hand stayed on his blade for another long moment. Then, finally, his fingers loosened. He picked up the whetstone again.
"Fine," he said. "But watch what you say about the boss. He's gotten us this far."
Froden bit back a response. The fire crackled between them. The tension bled away slowly, like water draining from a bucket.
He let his shoulders relax, turned his attention to warming his hands over the flames. Maybe Yenna was right. Maybe it would be—
Light tore through the tent canvas behind them.
A beam of pure golden radiance shot straight up into the night sky.
Mac moved first. He was on his feet and sprinting toward the tent before Froden had fully processed what he was seeing. The beam of light painted everything in harsh gold—the trees, the tents, their faces—all of it wrong and too bright.
"Boss!" Mac shouted.
He made it three steps before something slammed into him.
A body.
Mac went down hard, the figure crashing into his chest and sending both of them sprawling into the dirt. The impact made a sound Froden felt in his teeth—heavy, brutal, final.
The light cut off.
The sudden return to firelight left spots dancing in Froden's vision. He blinked hard, forcing his eyes to adjust. Around the camp, tent flaps were thrown open—bandits stumbling out, weapons half-drawn, voices calling out in confusion and alarm.
"What the hell—"
"Was that the boss?"
"Mac!"
Then Froden's vision cleared enough to see properly.
The body that had hit Mac was Klaidman.
The boss lay crumpled in the dirt, Mac struggling to push him off. Blood soaked Klaidman's shirt, dark and spreading. His face was pale. Unconscious.
Maybe worse.
Froden moved forward without thinking, boots hitting the ground in a run. Around him, others did the same—Harrick, Torvin, Yenna, and more bandits streaming from their tents. A dozen of them, maybe more, all converging on Mac and the boss.
"Get him up!" Mac was shouting, finally shoving Klaidman's weight off himself and scrambling to his knees. "Someone check if he's—"
The tent in front of them tore open.
Not the flap. The entire structure. Canvas ripped like paper, poles snapping with sharp cracks that echoed through the camp.
Froden stopped dead, his forward momentum dying. His hand went to his sword hilt.
Something was rising from where the tent had been.
A cube. Golden and massive, easily twice the height of a man. Its surface was perfectly smooth, catching the firelight and reflecting it back in ways that hurt to look at. Geometric patterns covered every face—not carved, but glowing from within, pulsing with the same light that had shot into the sky moments before.
It hung in the air, silent and impossible.
Froden stared. His mind tried to make sense of it—tried to connect it to the coffin, to whatever the boss had been doing. He'd seen artifacts before, back in his sect days. Storage rings on inner disciples. Flying swords carried by elders.
But nothing like this.
The cube rotated slowly, deliberately, as if surveying them.
Then something appeared in front of his face.
A blue rectangle, hanging in the air between him and the cube. Translucent but somehow more real than anything else around him. Text scrolled across its surface—not written, but appearing as if burned into existence.
Froden tried to step back. His body didn't move. He couldn't look away.
The words filled his vision.
---
[QUEST NOTIFICATION]
Mandatory Quest: Servitude
You have been selected.
• Objective: Bow before the Reliquary Cube
• Time Limit: 10 seconds
• Failure Consequence: Excruciating pain until compliance or death
• Reward: Survival
9 seconds remaining
---
Around him, he heard gasps. Curses. Someone—Torvin, maybe—asking what the hell they were seeing.
The same thing, then. Everyone was seeing this.
Froden's knees were already bending.
His mind had gone blank except for one screaming thought: survive. This wasn't a fight he could win. Wasn't even a fight. This was something so far beyond him that resistance didn't exist as an option.
Like standing in front of an avalanche and thinking you could hold it back with your hands.
His body knew it before his mind fully caught up. Survival. Nothing else mattered.
All around the camp, bandits were dropping to their knees.