Leaving the scorched remains of the village felt like stepping out of a graveyard and straight into a storm.
The Inquisition was already mobilizing, their silver armor catching the pale morning light as they prepared to march toward the Abyssal Rift. I turned my back on them, my boots crunching over the blackened earth. Every step sent a jolt of dull, throbbing pain up my legs, but I forced myself to keep moving.
"Leo!"
A voice cut through the cold wind. I stopped, but I refused to turn around.
"Goodbye! See yaaaa! Be safe there! We will meet again!"
Liora screamed at the top of her lungs, her voice cracking with an emotion she was trying far too hard to hide.
I slowly raised my right hand, offering a weak, soot-stained wave over my shoulder. I kept walking. Looking back would only anchor me here, and I had absolutely no time to spare.
My chest felt incredibly tight. The Aurum Tear rested inside my tunic, radiating a faint, warm glow against my corrupted skin, but the warmth offered zero comfort. It only amplified my panic. Three days. That was the absolute minimum time required to cross the foothills and reach the capital.
My mind began to spiral into dark, terrifying corners. What if three days is too long? The healer, Elian, said her time was up. What if she has already drawn her last breath while I am out here walking through the mud? What if I endure all this agony, drag my broken body across the continent, only to place this golden vial into the hands of a corpse?
A heavy wave of sadness crashed over me, making my knees buckle slightly. I pressed my hand against my chest, trying to calm the violent hammering of my heart. I have to make it. There is simply no other option.
By midday, my luck shifted. I stumbled out of the thick pine forests and hit the main trading road. Sitting near a frozen creek was a large, sturdy merchant wagon.
The driver was an old man wrapped in thick, grey furs. He had a face carved from stone and eyes that looked absolutely devoid of warmth. He was a man who cared about exactly two things: his coin and his schedule.
In the back of the wagon, sitting among crates of winter supplies, were two young men. One of them looked perfectly fine—tall, broad-shouldered, with a mop of messy brown hair and a sharp, alert gaze. The other guy leaned heavily against the wooden siding. He was pale, sweating profusely despite the freezing wind, and his right arm was bound tightly in blood-soaked bandages.
I paid the old driver a silver coin. He snatched it without a single word, jerking his thumb toward the back.
I climbed up, hiding my charred face and the glowing vial under my tattered cloak. The wagon jolted forward, the wooden wheels clacking loudly against the frozen dirt.
Hours passed. The rhythmic swaying of the wagon should have put me to sleep, but my anxiety kept me wide awake. I watched the healthy guy continuously check on his injured companion, wiping sweat from the pale boy's forehead.
Eventually, the trees began to clear, and a familiar, dreaded sight appeared on the horizon. The village gates. The exact same checkpoint where Garen, the old apple merchant, had created a massive diversion to help Liora and me escape the Inquisition just days ago.
My blood ran cold. The Inquisition had locked the area down tight. Six heavily armed knights stood by the wooden barricades, holding spears and checking every single traveler.
"Halt the wagon,"
a knight commanded, stepping directly in front of our mules.
The old driver pulled the reins, his face twisted in deep annoyance.
"State your business quickly, soldier. My cargo is sensitive to the frost."
A second knight walked around to the back of the wagon. His eyes swept over the crates, pausing on the three of us. When his gaze locked onto me, his eyes narrowed into dangerous slits.
I pulled my hood down further, tucking my chin into my chest. My heart began to beat so fast it felt like a war drum inside my ribs. Thump. Thump. Thump. Sweat beaded on my forehead, stinging the burns on my skin.
The guard stepped closer, tapping the butt of his spear against the wagon floor.
"You there. The one hiding in the rags. Look up."
I froze. I could not move. If he sees my eyes, if he sees the Entropic lines on my neck, it is over.
"Hold on a second,"
the guard said, his voice dripping with sudden suspicion.
"You are the exact same size as that brat who slipped past us during the apple spill the other day. The little rat who ran into the quarantine zone."
He reached out, his metal-gauntleted hand aiming straight for my hood. Panic seized my throat. I prepared to draw the small dagger hidden in my boot. It would be a suicide move, but I had to protect the vial.
Suddenly, a heavy hand clapped down on my shoulder.
"Hey now, back off him,"
the healthy guy sitting across from me said. He slid closer, putting himself slightly between the knight and me.
"He is my little brother. Leave him alone."
The knight glared at the young man. "Your brother?"
"Yes," the guy lied smoothly, his face a picture of pure, protective annoyance.
"And he is a little bit shy. Actually, he is slow in the head. A horse kicked him when we were kids, so he gets terrified of men in loud armor. Please do not scare him, or he will start screaming, and nobody wants to hear that."
The knight frowned, clearly torn between his orders and the sheer inconvenience of dealing with a screaming local.
"He still needs to show his face. We have strict orders to—"
"Make it quick!" the old driver suddenly roared from the front seat, slamming his hand against the wooden bench.
"We got no time left! I am losing daylight, and my goods are freezing solid! I am a registered guild merchant, not a criminal! We gotta be hurry!"
Before the knight could protest, the old man cracked his whip.
*SNAP!*
The mules shrieked and bolted forward. The sudden jerk of the wagon threw the suspicious knight off balance. He stumbled backward into the mud, dropping his spear with a loud clatter.
We blasted through the checkpoint, the wooden wheels spinning wildly as the old man pushed the mules to a full sprint.
"Heyy! Come back here! Halt in the name of the Church! You miserable—blablablabla!"
the guard's furious screams faded into the distance as we left the gate far behind.
I let out a massive, trembling breath, slumping against the crates. The tension drained out of my muscles, leaving me weak and shaking. I pulled my hood back just enough to see the guy who saved me.
"Thank you,"
I gasped, my voice raw.
"Seriously. You just saved my life back there. I owe you."
The guy waved his hand dismissively, offering a warm, easy smile.
"No problem at all. Those Silver Knights are always looking for an excuse to bully people on the roads. You looked like you were about to pass out from terror anyway. I am Finn, by the way. And this miserable lump next to me is my brother, Rian."
Rian offered a weak, pained groan, his head lolling against the wood.
"Nice to... meet you."
"I am Leo,"
I replied, feeling a genuine wave of gratitude.
"Where do you guys come from?"
"We are from the Southern Valleys,"
Finn explained, adjusting his thick wool coat.
"Small farming village. Nothing but sheep, mud, and more sheep. How about you, Leo? Where do you live?"
My mind raced. I absolutely could not tell them I lived in the Duke's Manor. "I am from... a small hunting camp near the border. Just a stray."
Finn nodded, his eyes scanning my soot-stained clothes and the bandages peeking out from my sleeves.
"Looks like you have had a rough week, stray. Are you going to the North? Toward the Duke's capital?"
"Yea,"
I answered, keeping my voice steady.
"I was planning to find some work there. The capital always needs extra hands for the winter preparations, or so they say. just trying to survive, you know?"
"We get that," Finn sighed, his cheerful demeanor dimming slightly.
I looked at the trembling boy beside him.
"How about you guys? Where are you guys going in such a rush?"
Finn's expression turned grim. He looked down at Rian's bandaged arm. "We are heading to the capital, too. We need to find a specialized alchemist, or a high-priest, anyone who knows how to make a cure, we need a specific potion, or my brother is going to lose his arm... or worse."
I frowned, my curiosity overriding my exhaustion. "What happened to his arm?"
Finn carefully reached over and gently unwrapped the top layer of the bloody bandage. Rian hissed in pain, his eyes squeezing shut.
"He was exploring one of the old ruins near our village,"
Finn explained, his voice thick with guilt.
"We told him to stay away, but he wanted to find some ancient scrap metal to sell. He said something dropped from the ceiling. A spider, but massive. It bit him right above the elbow. Standard idiot behavior, but the wound is... it is really bad."
As Finn pulled the cloth away, my eyes locked onto the injury.
The flesh around the puncture wounds was entirely black. But that was not the horrifying part. Spreading out from the bite marks were thick, pulsing veins that glowed with a sickly, luminescent green hue. The skin around the green veins was actually crystallizing, turning into hard, brittle scales.
My breath caught in my throat. My eyes widened in pure shock as the "Gamer" part of my brain instantly recognized the visual asset.
That is not a normal forest spider. That is the bite of a *Caustic Void-Weaver*.
In the game, the Void-Weaver was a Level 45 mini-boss. It resided entirely in the Abyssal Rift. Its venom was a high-tier acidic neurotoxin designed to petrify the player's mana core and slowly turn their physical body into a fragile crystal statue. It was a one-hit kill if you did not have a specific 'Tear of the Goddess' potion in your inventory.
A wave of dread washed over me. The Void-Weaver is an Abyssal monster. It is not supposed to be anywhere near the Southern Valleys. Julian was right. The original master of the Sun-Blade is dead, and the seal on the Abyssal Rift is completely broken. High-tier monsters are already leaking into the beginner zones.
"How long ago did this happen?" I asked, my voice suddenly sharp and urgent.
Finn looked surprised by my sudden intensity.
"Uh... about two days ago. Why? Have you seen this kind of rot before?"
My mind raced. Two days. The petrification process usually takes exactly seventy-two hours in the lore. That means Rian has less than a day before the venom reaches his heart and shatters his chest cavity from the inside out.
"Listen to me, Finn,"
I said, leaning forward, all my exhaustion momentarily forgotten. I looked him dead in the eyes.
"When we reach the capital, you cannot just go to a normal healer. Normal magic will accelerate the crystallization. You need an Alchemist who specializes in 'Abyssal' reagents. Tell them you need a 'Nullification Draft' made with crushed Dream-Root."
Finn stared at me, his mouth slightly open.
"How... how do you know all that? You said you were just a hunter."
I looked down at my own hands, seeing the faint, Entropic black lines pulsing under my skin. I am carrying a golden lie to save the girl I care about, and sitting across from me is a brother carrying a dying boy, hoping for a miracle of his own. The world is breaking, and everyone is just scrambling for extra time.
"I have seen a lot of terrible things in the woods,"
I lied smoothly, my voice softening with deep, genuine sadness.
"Just promise me you will run the second we hit the city gates. Do not stop for anything."
Finn swallowed hard, looking down at his brother's crystallized arm. He gently wrapped the bandage back over the horrifying green veins.
"I promise," Finn whispered.
The wagon rattled on toward the North, carrying three broken boys and an old man, all of us racing against a clock that was ticking far too fast. I leaned my head back against the cold wood, pressing my hand over the Aurum Tear hidden in my chest, and prayed to a God I no longer believed in that my own clock had not already run out.