We moved out again immediately, not wanting our presence to draw anything nearer to the site.

  The teleporter hummed softly behind us, buried and waiting, its presence already fading from my awareness as soon as we put distance between ourselves and it. Every one of us had felt the binding take hold—that subtle, uncomfortable tug somewhere inside. No one said it out loud, but knowing we had an escape didn’t make what came next feel easier. It just made it feel possible.

  Jessica led, as she always did when the terrain mattered. She didn’t hurry us, but she moved with such grace that Mark and Glenn huffed trying to keep up. The forest closed in quickly once we left the road behind—dense growth, twisted roots, and uneven ground that would’ve been a nightmare without her setting the pace. She moved with quiet confidence, every step deliberate and calculated.

  The sun filtered down through the canopy in fractured light, turning dust and pollen into drifting sparks. Somewhere behind us, the abode waited. Tonight, it would be tested again.

  That was the reason we weren’t striking the raid now. Not because we weren’t ready. Not because we needed more planning. The system had already shown its hand once. If the demon wave and the raid were connected—and everything we’d seen suggested they were—then engaging the raid while a wave was inbound might be suicide. Worst case, we’d pull the wave into open ground while already committed against fortified enemies.

  Without walls, choke points, any form of control, we would be surrounded and slaughtered.

  So we would wait to strike.

  After several miles, the forest thinned just enough for Jessica to slow. She raised a fist, and we halted immediately. A few moments later, she angled left, pushing aside low brush to reveal a jagged opening in the earth.

  An old mine entrance.

  It dropped steeply, a slanted shaft descending at least thirty feet into darkness before leveling out. The supports were ancient, half-rotted beams wedged into stone that had long since shifted out of alignment. The place smelled like damp rock and old air—stale, but not foul.

  Jessica nodded once. “This’ll do.”

  Inside, the temperature dropped noticeably. The sounds of the forest dulled, swallowed by stone. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was hidden—shielded from sight, from sound, from most things that might wander and ruin our plans.

  We settled in.

  The mood stayed tense. It showed in body language. No one collapsed or rushed to sit. Instead, people leaned against rock walls, checked gear that didn’t need checking, drank water they didn’t need yet. Nerves were taut.

  Eventually, the tension loosened—just enough.

  “Well,” Richard said at last, resting his shield against the wall with a grunt, “if we all die tomorrow, at least it won’t be because we were impatient.”

  Maria snorted from where she sat cross-legged, inspecting the fletching on one of her arrows. “Bold of you to assume patience has ever been your strong suit.”

  He glanced at her. “I held a shield through three waves without complaining.”

  “You complained,” she said calmly. “You just did it while killing things.”

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  A few quiet laughs rippled through the group. Those two were always oil and water, and it seemed Maria hadn’t forgotten his comments after the last wave.

  Marcus sat nearby, armor partially unfastened, staring at the dirt floor like he was mapping it. “If this raid goes sideways,” he said, “I’m blaming the amulet.”

  “You did choose the amulet,” Alan reminded him. The unsaid offer that he would put that cursed amulet around his neck at a moment’s notice if given the chance.

  “I chose not dying,” Marcus shot back. “It’s cursed for sure…” He muttered while gripping it in his hand, eyes tracing its shape uneasily before slipping it back beneath his armor.

  Even Jessica cracked a small smile at that—though it faded quickly as she checked the mine entrance again.

  As the light outside dimmed, conversation drifted into quieter territory. Stories of a past world. Half-finished jokes. Things that mattered precisely because they didn’t. How far we’d come. How far we might go.

  Night settled slowly. The forest beyond the mine darkened until only Jessica’s eyes could pick out movement past a few yards. Once dark, we ate quietly, conserving energy, conserving words. No one needed a speech. No one needed reassurance.

  Still, before we slept, Jessica came to sit beside me.

  She flexed her shoulder once, experimentally.

  “Still holding?” I asked.

  She nodded. “Healed clean. No weakness.”

  I studied her a moment longer than necessary. She’d said the same thing the day before, but I knew she hadn’t been at her best during the wave.

  “You did good,” I said quietly. “Out there. Before.”

  She didn’t look at me at first. “I didn’t.”

  “You lived,” I replied. “That counts more.” More than the raid. More than the teleporter.

  That got her attention. She met my eyes, searching for something, then gave a short nod. “Tomorrow,” she said. “We finish it.”

  Sleep came in fragments.

  When I woke, it was still dark—but the quality of the darkness had changed. Thinner. Edged with anticipation. The forest outside was silent.

  We moved before dawn, fully geared and already in formation. No one spoke, and no movement was wasted as Jessica slipped ahead and we followed as one.

  The forest felt different in the early morning. Every sound that broke the silence came too sharp, every movement too deliberate. Sixth Sense prickled at the back of my neck as I half expected a demon ambush at any moment.

  We traveled fast, and after nearly an hour, Jessica finally slowed her pace.

  She stopped in what looked like an ordinary stretch of trees. No clearing. No structure. Nothing that marked it as important.

  Then she stepped forward—and vanished.

  We froze.

  A heartbeat later, her voice came from somewhere ahead, clearer than it should have been. “It’s here.” She stepped back into view.

  We moved forward together, passing through the veil. The forest peeled away like a curtain, revealing landscape that hadn’t existed in our world-view just moments before. Trees straightened. The ground leveled. The sky darkened, tinged with a muted crimson glow that bled through thin clouds like old bruises.

  It clearly wasn’t a new space. We hadn’t been teleported anywhere. The area had just been camouflaged with some mysterious power. What was scary though was just how big the camouflage was, and how none of us outside of Jessica even realized it was there.

  We all saw it in the distance—a small castle.

  Stone walls. Narrow towers. Demons perched along its fortifications like gargoyles. It was obvious now they were the lowest fodder. The entire structure was stained so dark it seemed to devour my sight at a glance.

  It felt as though it was watching us.

  Richard exhaled slowly. “That’s… not what I expected.”

  “No,” Maria said softly. “That’s worse.”

  The pressure settled deeper then—the same sensation as before the wave. The same attention. The system hadn’t placed a raid for us. It had placed a stronghold.

  And for the first time since we’d learned the raid existed, I understood with perfect clarity: this wasn’t optional. This was where we would fight the world for the right to survive.

  We stood at the edge of it, unseen—but not unnoticed.

  And somewhere far behind us, the demon wave had already begun its assault on the abode.