"It's always the boss room."
I woke up with those words still echoing in my head. The waterfall outside was a constant, thundering curtain of white noise, but inside the damp cave, the silence was heavy.
It was dawn. Or at least, I assumed it was dawn. In the Forest of Whispers, the sun didn't rise; the grey fog just got slightly lighter, shifting from charcoal to ash.
I sat up, wincing as my stiff back protested against the stone floor. My "mental fatigue" bar was hovering at 82%, which meant the headache was gone, replaced by a dull fuzziness, like I hadn't had coffee in three days. Which I hadn't.
"Morning, sunshine," Ria whispered.
She was sitting near the cave entrance, sharpening her dagger on a whetstone. Scritch. Scritch. She looked wide awake.
"Did you sleep?" I asked, rubbing my face.
"Power nap," she said. "Twenty minutes. Rogues don't sleep; we just buffer."
I looked around. Tybalt was curled up in a ball, muttering about "spiders wearing boots." Cian was already awake, reading his book by the faint light of a glowing moss patch on the wall. Kaelen was gone.
"Where's the big guy?" I asked, panic spiking for a second.
"Scouting," Ria said, nodding toward the waterfall. "He went out ten minutes ago. Said he smelled burning wood."
"Burning wood?"
"Campfire," Kaelen said, stepping through the water curtain. He was soaked, his dark hair plastered to his skull, but he didn't seem to care. He shook himself off like a dog. "They're close. half a click south. They camped on the ridge."
"They stopped?" I stood up, stretching. "I thought they were tracking us all night."
"The wasps did a number on them," Kaelen said, a grim satisfaction in his voice. "I saw two of them applying salves. Vance is screaming at his subordinates. Looks like his face is swollen shut."
"Good," I said. "Anger makes people sloppy. Pain makes them slow."
Tybalt groaned and sat up, blinking blearily. "Are we dead yet?"
"Not yet, Ty," I said. "But we need to move. If they're that close, they'll pick up our trail as soon as they pack up."
"So we run again?" Cian asked, closing his book.
"No," Kaelen and I said in unison.
We looked at each other. Kaelen nodded for me to continue.
"Running just tires us out," I said. "And the Relay Point is still five miles north. If we sprint, they'll just shoot us in the back when we hit the clearing. We need to thin their numbers."
"Ambush?" Ria grinned, flipping her dagger.
"Ambush," I confirmed. "But not like yesterday. They won't fall for a tripwire again. They'll be watching the ground. They'll be scanning for magic signatures."
"So what do we do?" Tybalt asked, looking terrified. "If we can't use magic traps, and we can't outrun them..."
"We give them what they want," I said. "We give them a target."
I pointed at Kaelen. "You're the bait."
Kaelen crossed his arms. "I assumed as much."
Thirty minutes later, we were in position.
The terrain here was dense—ancient trees with roots that twisted out of the ground like kraken tentacles. The fog was thick, reducing visibility to maybe twenty feet.
Kaelen stood in the middle of a small clearing. He wasn't hiding. He was standing there, leaning against a tree, casually eating an apple we'd saved from lunch. He was radiating his dark mana like a beacon. To anyone with thermal or magic sensors, he looked like a flare in a dark room.
I was twenty feet up, perched on a thick branch directly above him. I had no weapon, just a pocket full of rocks and my Observer Vision.
Ria was in the brush to the left.
Cian and Tybalt were hiding behind a massive boulder to the right.
"Here they come," I whispered, the words barely audible.
My interface highlighted five red silhouettes moving through the fog. They were in a tactical wedge formation. The Scarred Mercenary took point, sweeping a crystal wand back and forth. Vance was in the middle, flanked by the other two thugs.
They moved silently, but the forest gave them away. A twig snapped. A bird stopped singing.
The Scarred Mercenary stopped at the edge of the clearing. He raised a fist. The squad halted.
"Visual on target," the mercenary whispered. "It's the Dark User. Alone."
Vance pushed forward, squinting through his one good eye (the other was swollen purple from a wasp sting). "Alone? Where are the others?"
"Fled, likely," the mercenary said. "Left him as a rearguard."
"Cowards," Vance spat. He raised his wand. "Spread out. Flank him. I want him alive. I want to hear him beg before we finish this."
Kaelen took a bite of his apple. Crunch.
The sound was shockingly loud in the quiet forest.
"Morning, Vance," Kaelen called out. "You look terrible. Allergic to seafood?"
"Kill him!" Vance screamed, losing his composure instantly.
"Wait!" the Scarred Mercenary shouted. "It's a—"
Too late. Vance fired a Fireball.
Kaelen didn't dodge. He raised his left hand.
"Devour."
The darkness erupted from his palm. It didn't block the fire; it ate it. The swirling vortex of black mana swallowed the fireball whole, snuffing it out like a candle.
"Now!" I yelled from the tree.
I dropped a rock. Not a small pebble. A jagged chunk of granite the size of a grapefruit.
I wasn't aiming for Vance. I was aiming for the Scarred Mercenary—the one with the brain.
The rock plummeted. The mercenary, sensing the motion, looked up. He raised his shield just in time.
CLANG.
The impact staggered him.
"Ambush! Trees!" he shouted.
Ria moved. She didn't attack the men. She threw three smoke pellets—not at them, but between them.
Poof. Poof. Poof.
Grey smoke filled the gaps in their formation, cutting off their line of sight to each other.
"Tybalt! Cian!" I signaled.
Tybalt popped out from behind the boulder. He slammed his hands onto the earth.
"Mud Pit!"
He wasn't making spikes this time. He softened the ground beneath the two flanking mercenaries. The dirt turned to liquid sludge instantly. Their heavy boots sank, and they stumbled, losing their balance.
Cian stood up. He pointed his wand at the mercenaries stuck in the mud. He didn't use gravity magic—he was saving his mana. He used a simple Wind Blast.
But because their feet were stuck, the wind didn't knock them back. It knocked them over. They face-planted into the muck.
"Ren! The boss!" Ria shouted.
Vance was isolated in the smoke. He was spinning around, firing random bolts of fire into the fog.
"Show yourself, rat!" Vance screamed.
I looked down. Kaelen had drawn his sword. He was moving through the smoke like a shark in water, heading straight for the Scarred Mercenary who was recovering from the rock impact.
"Kaelen, leave the Merc to me!" Ria shouted, darting in with her dagger. "You take Vance!"
Kaelen pivoted. He locked eyes with Vance through the haze.
"You wanted a duel," Kaelen said, stepping out of the smoke. His voice was low, terrifying. "Here I am."
Vance faltered. Without his squad, without his positioning, he was just a rich kid with a wand.
"I... I am a Noble!" Vance stammered, backing up. "My father is on the Council!"
"Your father isn't here," Kaelen said. He raised his hand. Dark mana coalesced into a blade of pure shadow.
Vance panicked. He reached into his belt and pulled out a scroll. It wasn't a standard spell scroll. It was black parchment, glowing with red runes.
My Observer Vision flared red.
[Warning: Forbidden Item Detected.]
[Item: Scroll of the Blood-Bound Beast.]
[Effect: Summons a Grade-3 Carnage Wolf. Uncontrollable.]
"Kaelen! Stop him!" I screamed, sliding down the tree trunk. "Don't let him read that!"
Vance ripped the seal. "If I die, I'm taking you all with me!"
He threw the scroll on the ground.
ROAR.
The air tore open. Red lightning crackled. A massive paw, stripped of skin and dripping with blood, clawed its way out of the rift. Then a head followed—a wolf skull wreathed in muscle and fire.
A Carnage Wolf.
It was huge—easily the size of a horse. It turned its empty eye sockets toward the nearest source of mana.
Vance.
"Attack him!" Vance shrieked, pointing at Kaelen.
The wolf ignored the command. It lunged at Vance.
"Idiot," I muttered, hitting the ground running. "Summons attack the summoner if there's no binding contract!"
Vance screamed as the wolf swiped at him. He barely managed to cast a Shield in time. The claws shattered the barrier, sending Vance flying into a tree. He slumped to the ground, unconscious.
The wolf turned. It looked at Kaelen. Then it looked at the tasty, mana-rich mercenaries stuck in the mud.
"Ria! Get back!" I yelled.
Ria backflipped away from the Scarred Mercenary just as the wolf pounced on him. The mercenary shouted, raising his own shield, but the beast was a Grade-3. It mauled the shield, ripping the metal like paper.
"We have to kill it," Kaelen said, gripping his sword. "Before it kills them."
"They're enemies," Tybalt squeaked from behind the rock.
"They're human," Kaelen said. "I'm not letting a monster eat them."
That's the Hero, I thought, a surge of relief hitting me. He hasn't fallen yet.
"Okay," I said, running up to Kaelen. "It's undead, right? Bone and blood?"
"Looks like it."
"Lysandra's potion," I said, pulling the vial from my pocket. "The Holy Water."
Kaelen looked at it. "That's high-grade. It'll burn it."
"We need an opening," I said. "Cian! Can you hold it?"
Cian peeked over the rock. "Hold a Carnage Wolf? Are you crazy? It's stronger than Vance!"
"Gravity!" I yelled. "Just for a second! Make it heavy!"
Cian gulped. He stepped out, raised his wand, and screamed, "KHEM-SET!"
The grey field slammed down on the wolf just as it prepared to bite the mercenary's head off.
CRUNCH.
The wolf slammed into the dirt, its legs splaying out under the sudden increase in gravity. It howled, thrashing against the invisible weight.
"Now!" I tossed the vial to Kaelen. "Coat your blade!"
Kaelen caught the vial. He crushed it in his hand, letting the glowing blue liquid soak his steel sword. The blade hissed, steaming with holy light.
He charged.
The wolf saw him coming. It fought against Cian's gravity, snapping its jaws.
Kaelen didn't slow down. He slid on the muddy ground, ducking under a frantic claw swipe. He drove the sword upward, aiming for the ribcage.
SHIIIING.
The holy blade pierced the undead flesh like a hot knife through butter.
The wolf screeched—a sound like tearing metal. Blue fire erupted from the wound, spreading through its body, purifying the dark magic holding it together.
The beast convulsed once, then dissolved into a pile of ash and old bones.
Silence fell over the clearing.
Kaelen stood up, breathing hard, his sword smoking.
The mercenaries in the mud stopped struggling. They looked at the pile of ash, then at Kaelen.
The Scarred Mercenary, bleeding from a scratch on his arm, slowly lowered his weapon.
"You saved us," he rasped, looking confused. "Why?"
Kaelen sheathed his sword. "Because I'm not a murderer. Unlike you."
He looked at me. "Ren. Tie them up."
Ten minutes later, Vance and his "Elite Squad" were bound hand and foot with the very rope they had brought to capture us. We stripped them of wands, weapons, and scrolls.
Vance was still out cold. The mercenaries were awake, but defeated. Their morale had broken when the "target" saved their lives.
I crouched in front of the Scarred Mercenary.
"The tattoo," I said, pointing to his neck. "Iron Covenant. Who hired you?"
The man looked at me. He didn't look defiant anymore. He looked tired.
"The contract came through a third party," he grunted. "Anonymous. But the payment was in pure Mana Crystals. The kind you don't find in the market."
"From the Relay Point?" I asked, taking a shot in the dark.
The mercenary's eyes widened slightly. "I don't know where they came from. But our orders weren't just to capture the Dark User. We were told to secure the Relay Point first. 'Clear the debris,' the order said."
"Debris," I repeated. "You mean the ruins."
He nodded. "There's something buried under that flag post. Something the Client wants."
I stood up, my heart racing.
The Source Code. The "Client" knew about it. Someone else was hunting the glitches.
"We leave them here," Kaelen said. "We'll send the coordinates to Professor Hale once we reach the Relay."
"Ren," Ria called out. She was going through Vance's pockets. "You might want to see this."
She held up a device. It wasn't a standard magical compass. It was a square metal box with a glass screen.
It looked suspiciously like a GPS tracker. But the tech level was wrong for this world. It was... magi-tech.
I took it. The screen flickered. A single green dot blinked on a map grid.
[Target: Relay Point Alpha]
[Distance: 3 Miles]
[Status: Active Signal]
"This isn't Vance's toy," I whispered. "This is... advanced."
I looked at the group. Tybalt was eating a cracker, looking relieved that the violence was over. Cian was inspecting the wolf bones. Kaelen was watching the perimeter.
"Change of plans," I said, pocketing the device. "We aren't just going to tag the flag and win the race. We're walking into a dig site."
"A dig site?" Kaelen asked.
"The Relay Point," I said, pointing north. "It's not just a checkpoint. It's a door. And if the Covenant wants it, we have to get there first."
"Fourteen days," I muttered to myself.
"What?" Ria asked.
"Nothing," I said, shouldering my pack. "Let's move. We have a race to win, and a world to save."
We left the bound mercenaries in the fog and headed north. The path ahead was clearing, but the sky above was getting darker, even though it was noon.
The "Glitch" in the moon was gone, but now, the clouds seemed to be looping the same movement pattern over and over again.
We were getting closer to the source. And whatever was waiting at the Relay Point wasn't going to be as easy as a wolf.