The forest erupted. Leaves rustled. Boots were converging on his position. Shouted orders cut through the night, and judging from where Rorix heard them, the enemy was coordinating a pincer movement. They knew where he was.
Rorix pressed himself flat against the rough bark of the nearest tree, both hands on the bow. The alchemy on his chest had become a cold, dead weight; Rorix no longer had any mana to power it. He was a Null again, armed with nothing but steel, his wits, and a feral will to live in spite of exhaustion.
An arrow thudded onto the tree, beside his head. Then another, coming from another direction. They've been believing a lie for too long. Time to remind them what the real Rorix Thorne can do.
He didn't wait for a third arrow. Peering around the oak, he saw the enemy—dark shapes moving through the undergrowth. One was larger than the rest, carrying a heavy weapon strapped to his back, directing the others with sharp hand signals. That's the leader. Rorix dropped, his own bow ready. But he thought his weapon was about to become useless; they were getting close. At that point, he decided on firing one last perfect shot. He drew the bowstring taut, exhaled slowly, and released.
The arrow hissed through the dark and found the neck of its intended target. The large soldier—the leader—gargled, dropping to his knees with a loud thud before finally crashing into the darkness beneath him. The other figures froze for a crucial second, their discipline shattered by their leader's fall.
That was his window.
Rorix dropped the bow and charged, not into the deeper darkness, but directly at the dying man. He needed a better weapon for the close-quarter slaughter that was coming.
He reached the fallen soldier and unstrapped the heavy greatsword from the man's back. He also spotted a tubular object on the man's belt—a flare launcher. He snatched it before the others, recovering from their shock, began to close in on his position. Gripping the unfamiliar but well-balanced sword, Rorix charged into the deeper darkness, intentionally making noise—crashing through bushes and snapping twigs underfoot. He needed them to follow. He needed them to think he was running away blindly.
The sounds of pursuit grew bolder, more confident. They fell for it! He slowed his pace, silencing his steps as he melded into a thicket of dense, light-absorbing shadow. He knelt, becoming one with the dark earth, and waited.
Their whispers reached him first. Arrogant. Sure of their numbers.
"He's in here somewhere. Surround him and flush him out."
"Did any of you bring any handheld flares?" the soldier's tone was that of desperation.
A soldier, his silhouette backlit by distant fire, stepped cautiously into the darkness just feet from where Rorix knelt. He held his sword forward, probing the shadows. From behind him, other shapes followed, their own blades glinting. They formed groups, hoping to prevent another death in their numbers.
Rorix held a stone in his palm, a smooth, simple, weighty piece. He tossed it hard to his right. It crashed against a tree trunk far from his position with a loud crack, sounding almost like a heavy footstep.
Every soldier spun towards the noise, their focus absolute. It was the only opening he would get.
Now!
He exploded from his hiding spot to the left, a dark blur. His first strike was not with a blade, but with his fist. A hard, vicious punch to the throat of the nearest soldier collapsed the man's windpipe. Before the body could drop, Rorix was already spinning, using the falling man as a shield. Two of his comrades, reacting a half-second too late, drove their swords into their dying friend.
Their moment of horrified confusion was Rorix's moment of lethal clarity. While they struggled to free their weapons, he drew his second dagger and charged. A quick, brutal slash across the first soldier's neck. A reverse-grip thrust into the second's belly. He let the bodies drop as he plunged back into the pitch-black shadows before the rest of the group could process the slaughter.
"He's a monster!"
"I just saw him move right there!"
They tightened their formation, swords held outward like the spines of a terrified porcupine.
"We can't see him!"
"He fights like a Null, but moves like… something else!"
From his new position deeper in the darkness, Rorix held up the flare launcher. He didn't have Juris's toys, but he knew how to use the enemy's against them. Aiming the tube skyward, toward the dense canopy above their heads, he yanked the ignition pin.
A quiet hiss was the only sound as the projectile shot upward. A heartbeat later, it erupted with the brilliant, searing light of burning phosphorus. The incendiary charge lodged in a cluster of leaves and branches, and the treetops caught fire in no time. A circle of flames bloomed high above, casting a hellish, flickering downlight and raining embers onto the forest floor. The soldiers' desperate wish for illumination was at last fulfilled, but not in the way they would have wanted.
Their panicked faces were turned upward in shock as they dodged the rain of embers. Their shadows stretched long and stark, pointing away from Rorix.
He charged from the darkness the enemy could no longer give any attention to, the looted greatsword held with a firm grip. It was not a weapon of finesse like a standard longsword; it was a tool of raw, decisive force. The first to fall to the greatsword died before he even saw the blow coming, the blade cleaving through his helm, skull, and part of the sternum.
The others finally registered the threat, but they were a scattered, disorganized mess under the rain of fire, while Rorix was a whirlwind of grim purpose. The greatsword was a blur, its heavy blade crashing through guards, shattering bone, blade, and pieces of armor. He was neither assassin nor duelist—he was a reaper. Each movement spelled terror, and when in range, a kill was certain. At one point, he used their numbers against them, shoving men into the paths of their allies' swords, breaking their formation and their spirits at the same time.
Before a minute could pass, it was over. He stood amidst the carnage, chest heaving, his body slick with sweat and the blood of about a dozen men. The burning canopy above cast a final, sputtering light before dying out, plunging the scene back into darkness.
He listened, but silence was the only thing that spoke to him. Backup was not coming. Whoever hadn't joined in the fighting had likely fled.
He walked back to his home a stranger. The fire on his outdoor kitchen had burned down to dimming embers. The outdoor camp was abandoned, left in a chaotic state. He stepped inside his house, the greatsword ready to strike if needed.
The interior was a disaster. Gear was strewn everywhere. The place reeked of unwashed bodies and puke. An overwhelming sense of disgust washed over him. He moved through the different areas of the house, his heart a massive weight.
Then he entered the bedroom he had shared with Lyra, and he fell on his knees in disbelief at the sight of the desecration done to it—their bed was broken, frame split down the middle.
But that was not the worst desecration done to that space, he found out a moment later. Someone had tossed their wedding portrait into a dark corner, cracking a part of its frame.
Rorix lifted the image, wiping the dust and grime from its surface. There was his face, a bit younger, happier. And there was hers. Lyra. Her smiling face felt distant.
He remembered the words from Juris's mouth.
Irreconcilable differences. Lies. They had to be lies.
Rorix's foot nearly sunk into a loose floorboard. Huh? A new sensation stirred within him as he recovered, a subtle hum from the Conduit on his chest. Rorix recognized it as a low-level resonance in reaction to something nearby. A faint yet insistent pull.
He knelt and pried the board up. Beneath it, nestled in the dark space, was a small, locked wooden box. Etched onto its lid was the unmistakable, elegant sigil of the Alchemical Conclave. It did not belong to one of the soldiers.
Who put this in here?
He shattered the lock with the blunt end of his dagger. Inside, on black velvet, was a silver ring. My wedding ring?
As he was about to take it, the alchemical mark on his chest pulsed. The moment his fingers touched the ring, a jolt, like lightning, shot up his arm. Rorix felt mana flood into him from somewhere, invigorating him.
He thought his wedding ring had become something else entirely.