Chapter 3: The Unseen Shield
The sun hadn't yet breached the city's skyline when the commotion began. I pretended to be asleep as Kaelen moved around our room, the clink of his new, cheap armor a familiar sound now. His excitement was a tangible force, buzzing in the air like static before a storm.
"Dad's making eggs," Kaelen whispered, shaking my shoulder gently. "I'm heading out."
I blinked my eyes open, feigning grogginess. "The Thicket?"
"Yeah. Just a reconnaissance. In and out." He grinned, but I saw the nervous tension around his eyes. "I'll be back by lunch with enough credits to buy you that new interface slate you wanted."
"Just come back safe," I mumbled, the words thick with a genuine worry he couldn't fully understand.
He ruffled my hair. "Always."
I listened to the front door shut, the sound final. The moment it closed, I was moving. The helpless boy vanished, replaced by a creature of focused intent. From my window, I watched his figure, a speck of burgeoning heroism, join a stream of other early-risers heading towards the city's main gate and the transporter plaza beyond.
My mission was different. I didn't need the plazas or the public portals. I closed my eyes, and the map of the Vine-Tangled Thicket superimposed itself over my vision. It was a simple, linear dungeon, but its public data was a pale imitation of the real-time, instinctual knowledge Dungeon Walker provided me. I could feel its layout, its pockets of dense mana, the ebb and flow of its monstrous life.
" Target: Vine-Tangled Thicket. Proceed? "
A flicker of will. Yes.
The world bent. The quiet of my room was instantly replaced by the humid, loamy air of the dungeon. I stood atop a thick, moss-covered branch high in the canopy, my Umbral Blades already in hand. Below, dappled sunlight fought through the dense foliage, illuminating a path choked with pulsating vines and giant, carnivorous flowers.
I was a ghost in the green gloom. I activated Veil of the Nameless God, the smooth mask sealing my identity. Here, I was no one. Here, I was the Ghost.
It didn't take long to find them. Kaelen's party was easy to track—the sound of his Flame Whip cracking through the air was a clear beacon. He was with two others: a burly man with a shield and a young woman who seemed to be a ranger, firing arrows infused with light.
They were doing well. Kaelen's S+ Lightning Rush made him a blur, striking a Stranglebeast from the side before it could pin the shield-bearer. His movements were raw, unpracticed, but the potential was undeniable. Pride warred with anxiety in my chest.
I shadow-merged, moving through the treetops as a wisp of darkness, always keeping them in sight. For an hour, it was routine. They cleared minor threats, gathered low-tier herbs, and their confidence grew. Kaelen was laughing, a sound I hadn't heard in so long.
Then they reached the heart of the Thicket.
The public briefing had listed the boss as a Ancient Treant Sapling, Level 25. What stood before them was not a sapling. It was a fully mature Corrupted Treant, Level 38, its bark twisted with dark, pulsing veins, its branches ending in sharpened, spear-like points. A mutation. A one-in-a-thousand dungeon anomaly.
"Fall back!" the shield-bearer roared, hefting his shield just as a branch-spear shot forward.
BOOM!
The impact sent him skidding back, his boots digging furrows in the soil. The ranger's arrows thudded harmlessly into its thick hide.
"Stone Skin!" Kaelen yelled, his body taking on a greyish hue. He used Lightning Rush, not to attack, but to dart in and pull the dazed shield-bearer to safety. "We can't take it head-on! Its core is in the hollow of its trunk!"
My every instinct screamed to descend, to end the threat in a storm of shadow. But I couldn't. Revealing myself, a figure with EX-tier abilities in a beginner dungeon, would raise questions I could never answer. It would shatter Kaelen's newfound confidence, make him question everything.
I had to be smarter. I had to be the unseen variable.
The Treant lashed out with a wave of thorny roots from the ground. The ranger cried out as one wrapped around her ankle, pulling her off her feet and dragging her towards the monster's gnashing, wooden maw.
Kaelen moved without hesitation. "Let her go!" He surged forward, Flame Whip igniting and slicing through the root. But the act put him directly in the Treant's path. A massive, club-like limb swung down, too fast for him to dodge completely.
He crossed his arms, reinforcing Stone Skin. The impact was brutal. I heard the crack, not of his skill, but of bone. Kaelen cried out, flung through the air like a ragdoll to slam against a giant tree trunk. He slumped to the ground, his right arm bent at a sickening angle, his Stone Skin shattered.
This was it. The point of no return.
As the Corrupted Treant loomed over my brother, ready to crush him, I acted. Not with my daggers, but with precision.
From my perch, I focused on Umbral Blade Dance. I didn't summon the full blades. Instead, I manifested two razor-sharp shards of shadow, no larger than needles. With a thought, I sent them flying not at the Treant's body, but at the two weakest points I could perceive in its structure—the complex, magically-sensitive joints on the leg opposite Kaelen.
The shards struck home silently.
The Treant, mid-crush, let out a grating roar of confusion as its leg buckled unnaturally, its weight shifting. The crushing blow meant for Kaelen went wide, smashing into the ground inches from his head, spraying him with dirt and debris.
The shield-bearer, seeing the opening, roared and charged, slamming his shield into the Treant's unbalanced side. The ranger, now free, fired a desperate arrow into the hollow of its trunk where Kaelen had pointed.
The fight turned. The distraction, the minute weakness I created, was all they needed. With a final, concerted effort, they shattered the Treant's core. It exploded into a shower of splinters and glowing sap.
Silence returned to the Thicket, broken only by the party's ragged breaths and Kaelen's pained groans.
I watched, my heart thundering, as the ranger rushed to his side, pulling out a basic health potion. It wouldn't heal the break, but it would stabilize the pain.
"We... we did it," the shield-bearer panted, looking at the dissolving corpse of the Treant in disbelief. "That was a mutation! We survived a dungeon mutation!"
Kaelen tried to sit up, wincing. "My arm... it's broken. But... did you see that? Its leg just gave out."
"Lucky break," the ranger said, her voice shaking as she administered the potion. "A gods-damned lucky break."
From the shadows, I allowed myself a breath. It was done. He was alive. He was hurt, but he was alive, and his spirit wasn't broken. If anything, the desperate battle had forged it harder.
I used Dungeon Walker to return home an instant before they activated their emergency recall beacon. I was back in my bed, the scent of damp earth and battle replaced by the sterile air of my room, my mask and daggers gone as if they never were.
When Kaelen returned hours later, his arm in a sling, his face was pale but his eyes burned with a new fire. He regaled our father and me with an exaggerated tale of the mutated Treant, of his brave last stand, and the miraculous failure of the monster's final attack.
"I told you I'd be back," he said, meeting my gaze across the room.
I smiled, a genuine, relieved smile. "You did."
He saw the pride in my eyes and mistook its source. He thought I was proud of his strength, his heroism.
And I was. But more than that, I was proud of my own precision. I had been the unseen shield. I had nudged fate, just enough. I had learned the first real lesson of my power: that the most impactful blow is often the one no one sees coming.
As he talked, I pulled up my status screen. A single, new line of text glowed softly, a secret testament to the day's true battle.
[ Apocalypse's Greed Activated. +0.01 to Intellect. ]