They moved before the artificial sun rose. Zander led them back through the boundary distortion and into the dense forest of the second region. The air felt different here, heavier with organized tension. This region had structure, and structure made noise if you listened closely enough. Rowan slipped ahead first, dissolving into brush as if the trees welcomed him. Lysa followed, low and silent. Tarin ghosted along the right flank. The shield bearer and Jonas moved heavier, but disciplined. Zander stayed central, pacing their advance. The first straggler appeared sooner than expected.
A patrolman Level 8 walking alone along a narrow logging lane. Crossbow slung over his shoulder. Complacent stride.
Rowan signaled. Zander nodded once. Lysa shifted first cutting through brush at an angle that never intersected the man’s peripheral vision. She waited until he passed, stepped in behind him, and drew a single clean line across the back of his knee. The man dropped. Tarin’s hand clamped over his mouth. Worldpiercer slid through his ribs from behind. Silent. Zander caught the body before it hit the ground. After moving the body into the underbrush they moved again.
The second engagement required more precision. Two scouts rotated positions near a path leading toward the encampment’s outer ring. The rotation window was short, less than thirty seconds of overlap. Zander crouched low. “Left first,” he whispered. Rowan’s arrow took the first in the throat from forty yards, the body collapsing forward as Lysa intercepted the second as he turned towards the sound. The shield bearer stepped in and crushed the man’s larynx with controlled force before he could cry out. Jonas dragged both bodies aside.
They listened for any sounds or alarms, when they didn't hear any they pressed deeper. For nearly an hour, they dismantled the forest perimeter piece by piece. A lone archer repositioning on a ridge.
A pair of runners transporting supplies along a narrow footpath. A Level 9 who paused too long to drink from the river. Each elimination was deliberate. No unnecessary brutality. Eight. Eleven. Fourteen and then something changed. Three figures advancing cautiously, not in a lazy patrol formation, but tight and scanning. They must have noticed how many they where missing when they stopped checking in. Zander lowered his stance.
“Break pattern,” he murmured. They didn’t attack immediately. They withdrew. Two hundred yards. Then three hundred. Let them search. The trio split, one circling left, one advancing straight, one holding back. That was a mistake. Zander moved first this time. He intercepted the isolated left scout at full sprint, spearpoint punching clean through clavicle seam before the man understood what he’d seen. Zander pivoted instantly and hurled a rock into the brush opposite their position. The central scout turned toward the noise. Rowan’s arrow struck him in the eye. The third tried to runaway but Tarin was already there. She hamstrung him mid-step. Lysa finished him off. Their bodies hit dirt within seconds of each other, unfortunately one managed to shoutout before dying.
Zander exhaled slowly. “They are going to fallback and tighten security. They know they are being hunted” They retreated immediately, back toward tree cover with multiple exit lines. Minutes later, a horn sounded from the encampment. He watched from the shadows as movement increased near the outer ring. Defenders pulling inward. Patrol frequency spiking. The forest had grown hostile.
“They’re collapsing their perimeter,” Rowan whispered. They continued picking at edges for another hour, but resistance stiffened quickly. Teams of four now. Overlapping sight lines. Less isolation.
Their stealth mission was over.
Zander made the call. “Fall back.” They withdrew fully into dense canopy just outside visual range of the encampment. From a concealed ridge, they observed. The outer ring was now fully manned.
Central fortification active. The supply runners pulling inward. They had done enough. The enemy region was no longer comfortable. It was coiled ready to strike at the first threat that came it's way.
Zander crouched and began drawing again in the dirt. “Their perimeter patrol is gone,” he said quietly. “They’ve fallen back to centralized positions.” Mara would have approved of the structure.
But centralization created fragility. He looked at Lysa and Tarin.
“Where is the storage location?”
“Still east,” Lysa replied. “Lightly guarded but reinforced now.”
Rowan added, “Two Level 10s inside central structure. One patrolling outer ring.”
Zander nodded. “So we don’t breach blind.”
Jonas frowned slightly. “They’re expecting pressure.”
Zander’s gaze remained steady on the encampment below. “They are but we give them fear first.” He tapped the storage location. “We ignite the supply at night. Draw them out.” He drew arrows inward from opposite sides. “While they scramble to put out the fire, Rowan takes elevation and removes their ranged attackers.” He marked the central structure. “When their formation breaks we don’t fight the wall.” He stabbed the spear tip through the center of his dirt map. “We attack the head of the snake directly.”
The shield bearer nodded slowly. “Decapitation.”
Lysa tilted her head. “And if they hold formation?”
Zander’s eyes hardened slightly. “They won’t.” He stood. “They’re disciplined. But they’re not ruthless.” He looked at each of them. “We are.”
The artificial sun dipped lower. There was a slight breeze, smoke would carry well tonight. They retreated another hundred yards to prepare. Each of them reviewed their routes mentally.
Zander stood alone at the ridge for a moment longer, watching the encampment settle into guarded quiet. They were alert now. Wary. Pressure had begun. Tomorrow night they would break them open. Zander turned back to his squad. “Rest in cycles,” he said calmly. “Tomorrow we finish it.”
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
They waited for full dark. Not the dimmed artificial twilight that the event cycled through politely but the deeper phase, when the sky shifted into a muted violet and the light sources along the encampment perimeter grew brighter by contrast. Zander studied the glow from the ridge. Central fire pits active. Outer ring fully manned. Watchtowers doubled. Fear made people predictable.
He crouched low, drawing lines in the dirt. He tapped the supply point east of the encampment. “Lysa. Tarin. You move first.” They nodded. “Fire spreads inward. Not outward. We want panic inside the structure.” He shifted his gaze to Rowan. “You take north ridge. You have three minutes after ignition before their archers reposition.”
Rowan adjusted his quiver. “Understood.” He turned to the shield bearer and Jonas. “You’re with me. We breach west once they pull inward.”
Jonas exhaled slowly. “Direct?”
“Yes.” Zander rose. “Move.”
Lysa and Tarin disappeared into the forest. Zander tracked their movement by faint shifts in foliage and the barely perceptible rhythm of foot placement. Minutes passed. The encampment remained steady. Then Smoke. Thin at first. Then thicker. A shout rose from inside the eastern perimeter. Another. A bell rang sharply twice. Rowan’s first arrow flew almost immediately. A silhouette dropped from a watchtower without a sound. Zander didn’t wait. “Now.”
He and his two flankers surged from tree line at full sprint. The western ring reacted slower than expected. Defenders turned inward toward smoke. Wrong direction. Zander hit the outer barricade like a falling spear. Worldpiercer punched through timber and into the defender behind it in a single thrust. The shield bearer crashed through the gap, smashing aside a second guard before he could raise his weapon. Jonas stepped in and cut low. Chaos erupted inside the ring. Flames licked higher near the supply storehouse. Black smoke poured into the bowl of the encampment, distorting visibility. Rowan’s arrows found exposed shapes with surgical precision. Zander advanced without pause. He drove straight toward the central structure. Two Level 10 defenders met him halfway. They had disciplined stances, controlled breathing. Better than the last region. They attacked together. Zander welcomed it. The first exchange was clean, metal striking metal, sparks flaring in dim light. He pivoted around the shield bearer’s mass as Jonas engaged one opponent briefly to split their timing. Zander’s spear moved faster than thought. Thrust. Withdraw. Feint. Reverse grip.
The first Level 10 faltered when smoke forced a half-blink. Worldpiercer entered beneath his arm. Sovereign Rupture. The internal detonation shattered armor from the inside. The second stepped back instinctively. First and last mistake. Zander closed distance before he could re-anchor his stance. Three rapid thrusts drove him against the central timber wall. He tried to shout orders. Worldpiercer silenced him. Around them, the encampment fractured. Defenders abandoned outer positions to protect the inner ring. That collapse created blind spotes. Lysa and Tarin emerged from the smoke like phantoms cutting down runners attempting to regroup. The shield bearer smashed through a secondary barricade, widening the breach. Within minutes, organized defense dissolved into isolated pockets of resistance. Zander moved through them methodically. A final cluster attempted to retreat toward the river. Rowan intercepted from elevation. Three arrows. Three bodies. The central structure caught flame next. Whether from accident or intention no longer mattered. The bowl of the encampment glowed orange. The fighting stopped not out of mercy but because no one remained standing.
He had been there for two days. Hidden. Watching. Assigned by the Southern Region to gather intelligence on potential targets before committing forces. He’d thought this region promising. Organized. Disciplined. Strong leadership. He had mapped patrol rotations. Counted Level distributions. Assessed fortification quality. He had even considered recommending alliance. Then the smoke rose. From his concealed vantage point high in a pine, he saw shapes move through darkness with impossible coordination. He watched the western barricade collapse in seconds. Watched a spear flash in and out of bodies with terrifying precision. The man at the center moved differently than the rest. Not faster, though he was fast. Not louder, though he dominated the battlefield. He moved like inevitability. The defenders reacted. The attackers adjusted. There was no pause between correction and execution. The scout’s breath slowed involuntarily as he watched the Level 10 defenders fall within moments of engagement. He had seen Level 10 duels before. They lasted longer. They were louder. This was… surgical. The fire spread inward. The attackers did not chase fleeing survivors into the forest. They intercepted them in pre-calculated lines. The scout realized with cold clarity, this wasn’t spontaneous aggression. This was by design. The leader with the spear did not waste motion. He did not taunt. He did not posture. He eliminated. System text flared above the burning encampment.
Region Eliminated
The scout swallowed. He remained perfectly still, barely breathing. The attackers regrouped quickly checking bodies, scanning the perimeter. Then the spear-wielder looked up. Not directly at him.
But toward the trees. The scout’s pulse spiked. For a split second, he felt seen. Measured. The man turned away after a moment, issuing quiet instructions to his squad. They moved out efficiently, leaving the encampment to burn. No looting frenzy. Just departure. There mission was done. The scout remained in the tree long after the flames dimmed. Two regions eliminated in less than a cycle.
No casualties visible among the attackers. He slowly exhaled. If the Southern Region engaged them directly, they would be slaughtered. He memorized the spear-wielder’s silhouette. His level was unreadable from this distance but his presence was undeniable. When he finally climbed down from the tree, the forest felt smaller. And the event no longer felt competitive. It felt predatory. And somewhere beyond the smoke, the spear-wielder walked calmly toward his next hunt.
