Morning came without warmth.
The fractured sky lightened unevenly, shadows pulling back in strips rather than all at once. We cleaned the camp quickly. No traces left. No unnecessary movement. Iris erased markings. Jax redistributed what little we had used. Mireya checked everyone one last time.
No one talked about the night, we just moved out like single unit.
The terrain shifted within the hour of walking, running, and a bit or rest here and there.
Trees thinned, ground sloping downward into a wide clearing littered with broken stone and long, shallow trenches. Something had passed through here before. Recently.
Rowan slowed us with a raised hand, his face alarmed.
Too late, before anyone can respond…the ground burst open.
Creatures hauled themselves out of the trenches, massive and low to the earth, plated in overlapping bone and hardened flesh. Too many legs. Jaws that split wider than anatomy should allow. Their movement tore up soil and stone alike.
They are not fast or clever creatures. They are strong, unbelievably so, for someone like us, me specifically.
They are just relentless.
The first clash was chaos.
Owen met the charge head-on, shield cracking under the impact. Felix fired immediately, shots precise but barely slowing the lead creature. Mireya dragged one of the joiners back just as a jaw snapped shut where his leg had been.
Another wasn't fast enough. The second joiner screamed once. Then he stopped.
I saw the body torn in half before I died the first time, I too being horribly cut into two.
The impact that killed me came from the side. A sweep of bone and mass that shattered ribs and ended everything in an instant.
Darkness.
Reset.
I was back at the edge of the clearing.
Run.
Second death came when I tripped over a trench edge that didn't exist yet. Third when I hesitated half a second too long. Fourth when I tried to warn someone without knowing how.
Each time, the pattern sharpened.
By the fifth death, I stopped panicking.
On the seventh, I stopped reacting.
By the tenth, I knew.
Every movement. Every timing window. Which creature lunged first. Which one lagged just enough to be exploited. Where the ground would give way.
I shouted before it happened.
"Left flank, now!"
Rowan adjusted without question.
"Don't overcommit," I yelled. "Second wave from the trench!"
Owen shifted. Felix changed angle. Iris pulled back before the ground ruptured.
The fight changed.
It wasn't clean. Blood soaked the earth. Bone cracked. Someone screamed in pain but didn't die. The monsters fell one by one, heavy bodies collapsing into the trenches they had crawled out of.
When it ended, the clearing was silent.
One joiner was gone.
The other stood shaking, alive, staring at the place where his partner had died.
No one said his name.
I stood there, breathing hard, body whole again, mind carrying ten deaths worth of memory.
My vision flickered.
[Number of Deaths: 90]
It counted.Again.
I turned my head without meaning to.
Madison stood behind the line. She hadn't moved.
Two of her the team members stayed positioned near her, one slightly ahead, one slightly behind, like anchors rather than guards. She looked at the battlefield with mild interest, expression unchanged.
Bored.
That was the word that surfaced unbidden. She was uninterested on what was happening, like it was a chore to even.
Through all ten of my deaths, through every altered call and changed movement, she had remained exactly the same. Same posture. Same gaze. Same distance from danger.
Nothing I did touched her.
Nothing I changed altered her presence.
I wondered what that meant.
Then dismissed it. Whatever bound her to this place, to this group, to me, was not something I needed to understand right now.
It wasn't my business.
Rowan called for regrouping. Mireya moved to the injured. Iris began mapping again as if this had been a routine detour.
We moved on.
The expanse swallowed the clearing behind us, already erasing evidence.
I walked with them, quiet, mind replaying the fight again and again.
Additional te deaths.
One life lost.
And the uncomfortable truth settling deeper with every step.
Dying wasn't making me stronger. It was making me useful.
~~~
We stopped earlier than planned.
Rowan didn't need to explain why. The clearing had taken more out of us than anyone wanted to admit. He chose a narrow rise tucked between stone outcroppings and thick roots, defensible, hidden from at least two sides.
Early camp.
Iris and Silas swept the perimeter. Felix stayed alert despite the blood drying on his sleeves. Jax counted heads twice. Owen set his shield down and finally exhaled.
Mireya went to work immediately.
No skills. No healing light. No miracles.
Just hands, cloth, antiseptic packs, splints, pressure. She moved with practiced calm, teeth clenched slightly as she worked on Felix's arm, then the surviving joiner's leg. Someone hissed in pain. Someone else cursed quietly.
I sat off to the side, back against a stone, watching my hands shake now that there was nothing left to do.
"That wasn't right," Jax said finally.
Rowan nodded. "Not even close."
"Those things were too dense," Iris added. "Too coordinated. They weren't roaming."
"Planted," Silas said. "Or driven."
Felix glanced toward the direction we'd come from. "Initiates aren't supposed to see anything like that until at least mid-expanse."
"They weren't mid-expanse," Owen said. "They were guarding something. Or waiting."
No one liked that.
The surviving joiner rubbed his face with both hands. "We should've been wiped. One mistake and—" He stopped, swallowing hard.
I shifted uncomfortably.
"That didn't happen," Mireya said gently. "Because someone kept calling things before they occurred."
Her gaze moved to me.
Others followed. I felt my shoulders tense.
"Theo," Rowan said. "Your calls were accurate. Precise. Actually, too precise for guesswork."
I hesitated. "I just… saw patterns."
Felix snorted softly. "With that Intelligence stat of yours, I believe it."
Jax nodded. "Saved us more than once."
My throat tightened. "I didn't save everyone."
Silence fell again.
Rowan broke it. "No. But without you, we'd have lost more."
That helped. A little.
Madison sat a short distance away, knees drawn slightly inward, hands resting loosely in her lap. She hadn't been injured. She hadn't been touched. Two of her loyals stayed positioned near her, one forward, one back, like it was the most natural thing in the world.
She still looked nonchalant.
"Are you alright?" Nadia asked her quietly.
She nodded once, and with her gentle voice she replied. "I'm fine, should I not be?"
Nadia shooked her head with a smile, "No. That's a stupid thing to ask."
That was it.
The surviving joiner let out a short, bitter laugh. "Of course the princess is okay, why are you even asking that?"
The words landed wrong to the teams ear.
Too sharp. Too careless.
I felt it before I understood it.
The air thickened.
Felix's fingers curled around his weapon. Owen's posture shifted, shield angling just a fraction. Iris went very still. Silas's eyes darkened.
It wasn't anger. It was intent. Killing intent.
The joiner's smile faltered. "I was just…"
No one moved.
I couldn't breathe. The pressure in the air felt solid, like it pressed against my chest. One wrong word and someone would die. I was certain of it.
Madison didn't look up.
She didn't frown, didn't even seem irritated.
She just murmured, softly, almost absently, "Insignificant."
The word drifted through the camp.
And the pressure vanished just like that.
Felix relaxed. Owen straightened. Iris exhaled. The loyals returned to their neutral stances as if nothing had happened.
The joiner slumped, suddenly pale, sweat breaking along his hairline.
Conversation resumed, awkward but intact. I stared at Madison, my heartbeat still racing.
She hadn't raised her voice.
She hadn't looked at anyone.
And yet something absolute had listened to her.
I looked away.
Whatever bound her to this group, to this world, was far beyond me.
All I knew was this.
The monsters weren't the most dangerous thing we'd encountered today.
And for the first time since entering Aetherfall, I wasn't sure which side of that truth I stood on.
~~~
We left early, before the light fully settled into the expanse.
The camp disappeared behind us as if it had never existed. Marks were erased. Disturbed ground smoothed itself. Aetherfall did not like being remembered.
The pace was different this time.
Slower. Safer.
Rowan guided us without rushing, choosing routes that favored stability over speed. It gave me room to breathe, to walk without my chest burning, and more importantly, to think.
And I couldn't stop thinking about Madison. More specifically, about the people around her and their connection with each other.
I had watched them for days now. How they moved around her. How they positioned themselves without being told. How they reacted when she spoke and how quickly they stopped reacting when she didn't.
It didn't look like duty.
It didn't feel like loyalty born from fear either.
So I started asking questions.
Carefully, not in an intrusive kind of way. But more of like inserting the questions in between casual conversation.
I didn't want to offend anyone or sound like I was prying into something I wasn't supposed to understand.
I walked beside Jax for a while. "You've been with Ms. Madison for long?"
He didn't look at me, but answered in a clipped but not unfriendly tone. "A while."
That was all I got.
I tried Iris next, choosing my words even more carefully. "Do you usually travel with Ms. Madison?"
She slowed half a step, then resumed her pace. "Yes. In a way."
Nothing more.
Some questions were answered. Some were ignored completely. Felix didn't even acknowledge me when I asked if he was assigned to her. Silas pretended to focus on the terrain like I hadn't spoken at all.
The pattern was frustrating.
Eventually, I changed approach.
"So… are you contracted to her?" I asked Owen later, a bit more frank than intended. "Through the Ultima System or something like that?"
Owen frowned, genuinely confused. "Contracted?"
"To protect her. Or escort her like bodyguards," I said quickly. "Or because you owe her family something."
He let out a short laugh. "No."
"Then why are you with her?"
He looked at me for a long moment, then shrugged. "Because we are."
That answer followed me.
I asked Mireya later, quietly, when no one else was close. "Are you in debt with Ms. Madison?"
She smiled, soft but tired. "No."
"Then… why you… uhm… like this?"
"Because we want to," she replied half laughing, as if that explained everything.
It didn't.
What I slowly realized was this.
None of them were here because of debt, money, obligation, love, family, a job, a system mandate or fear.
They weren't guards.
They weren't retainers.
They weren't bound by responsibility.
They had simply chosen her.
And I couldn't understand why.
Madison walked ahead of us, sometimes drifting closer to the center, sometimes wandering toward the edge. The group adjusted naturally around her without discussion.
She never asked them to.
She never thanked them either.
They stayed anyway.
I watched her back as she moved through the expanse, steps light, posture relaxed, as if this place meant nothing to her.
I tried to apply logic to it.
Charisma. Influence. Power. Reputation. Blackmail?
None of it fit.
For the first time in a long while, my intelligence didn't help me.
Whatever connected them to Madison wasn't something I could calculate or define.
And that unsettled me more than the monsters ever had.
~~~
I stopped asking questions.
Whatever answer I was looking for clearly wasn't something they wanted to give, or something I was meant to understand yet. So I kept my mouth shut and turned my attention outward instead.
According to Rowan and Iris, we were close.
Not close in the comforting sense. Close in the Aetherfall sense. The land had started to change again. The ground grew firmer, paths less chaotic. The air lost some of its constant pressure. Signs of traffic appeared, broken stone markers, worn roots, traces of old camps that hadn't fully vanished.
It had been barely a week.
For an initiate group, that alone was already impressive.
Relief crept in, cautious and fragile. I could almost see the town in my head. Walls. People. A place where the land didn't actively try to kill you every hour.
That was when everything went wrong.
It wasn't sudden. That was the worst part.
The air shifted first. Not heavier. Thinner. Sound dulled. Even our footsteps seemed muted, swallowed by something unseen.
Rowan raised a hand.
Everyone froze.
We were standing near a shallow ravine, stone walls sloping inward, scattered with dead trees that looked burned from the inside. No tracks. No warning signs. Iris hadn't marked anything dangerous. Nadia's readings had been calm moments ago.
There was no reason for anything to be here.
And yet...
Something stepped forward from the shadow at the far end of the ravine.
It was tall. Humanoid, but wrong in every detail. Too many joints. Limbs slightly too long. Its skin looked stretched, pale gray layered with dark markings that resembled veins or old script. One arm ended in fingers. The other in something hardened and jagged, grown rather than forged.
Its head tilted when it saw us.
Eyes narrow. Intelligent. Curious.
A territory level monster.
That was the word that surfaced in my mind, stupid and automatic. If this were a game, this would be the thing guarding a zone, a creature meant to stop progression entirely.
This thing wasn't roaming.
It was waiting.
The pressure hit fully then.
My stomach twisted. My legs shook so hard I almost dropped to my knees. Nausea surged, sharp and overwhelming, my body reacting before my mind could catch up. Every instinct screamed at me to run, to hide, to beg, to disappear.
I saw the same reaction ripple through the group.
Rowan's stance tightened, feet adjusting instinctively even as his breathing turned shallow. Iris swallowed hard, fingers twitching as she scanned for escape routes that didn't exist. Silas's eyes narrowed, pupils dilating as if trying to read something that refused to be interpreted.
Mireya pressed a hand against her chest, steadying her breathing, her face drained of color. She wasn't injured, but her body was reacting anyway, heart forced to work against something it couldn't understand.
Jax clenched his jaw, jaw muscles flexing as he fought the urge to step back. Felix had already raised his weapon, but his arms shook, the tremor visible despite his effort to suppress it.
Owen planted his shield, knees bent, posture protective even though sweat rolled down his temple. He looked like a wall bracing against a wave that hadn't crashed yet.
Nadia was the worst hit.
She had one palm pressed flat against the ground, eyes wide, breath coming fast. Whatever she normally sensed from the land had turned silent, blank, as if the terrain itself had gone deaf.
"It's… not there," she whispered. "I can't feel it."
That scared me more than anything else.
The surviving joiner stood frozen, mouth slightly open, fear etched so clearly on his face it was painful to look at.
Everyone were crushed under the creature's presence.
Except her.
Madison stood behind us, hands relaxed at her sides, weight shifted casually onto one foot. Her gaze lingered on the creature for a second longer than necessary, then drifted away, already bored.
The monster's eyes passed over Rowan. Over Iris. Over Owen.
When they reached Madison, they paused.
Then moved on.
Dismissive, as if she's not worth looking at. It literally looks down on her.
The pressure spiked again. My stomach lurched violently. My knees nearly gave out and I had to brace myself against stone to stay upright. My body shook, not from weakness, but from raw instinct screaming that I should not be here.
There's no fighting with the monster yet, but I could feel we are already losing.
Madison exhaled softly.
Not annoyed.
Not threatened.
Just inconvenienced.
~~~
I knew what that monster was the moment my mind pushed past the fear.
Not from instinct.
From study.
From nights spent reading obscure registry files, realm incident reports, half-redacted hunter logs that most people skipped because they were labeled irrelevant to Initiates.
I had seen the name before.
Not as a confirmed threat but as a warning.
A Gravewarden.
Not a title. A classification given when no one survived long enough to confirm details.
A semi-humanoid execution entity that appeared near transitional routes. A being that did not hunt for food or territory, but for correction. It existed to erase things that should not pass through.
Initiates were never meant to encounter one.
Ever.
The Gravewarden stepped fully into view.
Up close, it was worse.
Its body was tall and narrow, shaped like a person stretched beyond natural limits. Its skin was a dull ash gray, split in places by dark seams that pulsed slowly, like breathing wounds. One arm ended in long, jointed fingers tipped with bone hooks. The other had fused into a massive, bladed growth, uneven and cracked, as if it had grown that way through repeated violence.
Its head was smooth, featureless except for a vertical slit that opened slowly, revealing rows of small, uneven teeth. When it exhaled, the air around it decayed. Grass blackened. Stone flaked.
No one moved.
Then it moved.
It did not rush.
It walked.
One step, and the pressure doubled.
Felix fired first.
The shot hit center mass and vanished. Not deflected. Not blocked. It simply ceased to exist halfway to the target.
Rowan shouted an order I didn't hear.
Owen charged.
The Gravewarden swung its bladed arm once.
Owen died in two pieces.
Blood sprayed across the ravine wall. His shield hit the ground seconds later.
I screamed.
That was my first death.
Something struck me from behind. I never felt it.
Darkness.
Reset.
Second death.
I tried to warn them. My voice cracked. The Gravewarden moved faster this time. Jax was crushed against the stone wall, chest caved in, bones folding inward with a wet sound.
Mireya was pulled away screaming before I died again.
Third death.
I moved earlier. Changed position. Grabbed Felix and dragged him back.
It didn't matter.
The Gravewarden reached forward and closed its fingers around Iris's head.
She didn't even scream.
Fourth death.
I stopped trying to fight. I started trying to survive.
Fifth death came when the ground collapsed beneath me. Sixth when the pressure alone stopped my heart. Seventh when a fragment of bone tore through my throat while I was already running away.
Each reset brought clarity.
Each reset brought nothing new.
The fight did not change. The monster did not adapt because it didn't need to.
We were not opponents. We were mistakes.
Eighth death.
Silas tried something desperate, forcing a distortion into the terrain. The Gravewarden stepped through it like it wasn't there. Silas died mid-sentence, body twisted into something that no longer resembled a human shape.
Ninth death.
Nadia screamed.
Not in pain but in terror.
She couldn't feel the land anymore. Whatever connection she had was gone. The terrain around the Gravewarden was dead to her.
Mireya was torn apart trying to reach her.
Half the team was gone.
Every path I saw ended the same way.
No angle nor timing.
No warning.
Hopeless.
On my ninth reset, I stood there shaking, blood already coating the ground around me that hadn't happened yet.
This wasn't something I could solve.
This wasn't something intelligence fixed.
I felt it then.
Something shift.
Not in the System.
In the space behind me.
Cold. Patient. Attentive.
The tenth death came slowly.
The Gravewarden looked directly at me for the first time.
It tilted its head.
Curious.
Its presence pressed down until my knees gave out. I tasted iron. My vision darkened at the edges.
When it struck, it did not kill me instantly.
Pain flooded my body, sharp and complete, nerves screaming as everything broke at once.
As I fell, as life drained away, I felt it.
Death.
Not the concept.
The presence.
Zeroed it's attention on me.
Watching. For the first time since I was born, Death stopped multitasking. For the first time, I had taken its attention; not from all the questions and screams I had thrown at it before, asking why this was happening to me, questions I eventually learned to accept would never be answered. It had never given me so much as a glance.
But now.
Its attention locked onto me alone.
The world froze.
Not time. Awareness.
Something unseen leaned closer.
Interested.
And somewhere deep inside that cold, endless attention, I felt a question form.
Why aren't you staying dead?
Then darkness swallowed everything.
And for the first time, I wasn't sure if I would wake up again.