The village edge was cloaked in stillness—an unnatural hush that settled over the trees like a warning. Ash still hung in the air, carried by a breeze too faint to stir leaves. The usual sounds of the forest were absent. No birds. No insects. Just silence—and the sharp scent of steel and old blood.
Marcel crouched low behind a splintered log, eyes narrowing toward the treeline. His hand rested on the bone-handled blade he'd taken from the tomb—a weapon with no name, just a keen edge and a weight that felt right in his grip.
Behind him, Tarin's breathing came fast and uneven. The boy had followed despite Marcel's orders to stay hidden in the cellar. Now they were both here. Exposed.
"They're close," Marcel murmured, not looking back.
"How many?" Tarin whispered.
Marcel didn't answer. He didn't have to. The answer came a heartbeat later.
A crunch of leaves.
Then another.
Shadows stepped from the trees—three of them. Masked. Hooded. Blades drawn. Their movements were fluid, precise. Hunters—not scavengers. Not amateurs.
One lunged without warning.
Marcel pivoted, but the blade caught his shoulder. Pain tore through him like fire, but he didn't cry out. He retaliated with a punch to the attacker's gut, then spun, bringing the hilt of his blade down across the figure's head.
Another figure dropped from the trees. This one was faster, wielding twin crescent daggers that shimmered with faint red glyphs.
> [System Alert: Host Vital Levels Dropping – Combat Mode: Adaptive Instinct Engaged]
The dagger sliced toward Marcel's throat. He ducked, grabbed a stone from the forest floor, and smashed it into the attacker's knee. A crack. A yell. Marcel followed with an uppercut that sent the figure sprawling.
But the first one was back, this time with a glyph-etched blade pulsing with relic energy.
"Give us the shard," the masked hunter growled. "We'll make it painless."
Marcel's mouth twisted into a grim smile. "I don't do painless."
He lunged. Their blades clashed—one glowing, one bone-handled and ancient. Marcel took another hit, deep across the ribs, but the shard in his palm flared.
> [System Threshold Breached – Legacy Mode: Fragment Surge Initiated]
The pain dulled. His vision sharpened. Time slowed. Every heartbeat felt deliberate. Every step precise.
Marcel surged forward, disarmed the hunter with a brutal twist, and drove his blade deep into his chest. A gurgle. A stumble. The body hit the ground.
He turned—too late.
The third attacker held Tarin at knifepoint.
"Let the shard go," the hunter said. "Or the boy bleeds."
The shard pulsed violently in Marcel's hand—this time not golden. Crimson. Dark. Alive.
> [New Trait Unlocked: Crimson Threshold] "To kill without fear is survival. To kill without hesitation is evolution."
Something primal ignited in him. He moved. Fast. Faster than he ever had.
He slammed into the attacker, blade cutting deep. The man gasped, cursed, tried to cast something—but Marcel silenced him with a second strike, then a third. Tarin broke free, stumbling backward, eyes wide.
"Are you hurt?" Marcel asked, voice low.
Tarin shook his head. "No. Just—what was that? Your hand, it—"
Before Marcel could answer, the last figure emerged.
A tall, masked man. Cloaked in black. No weapon drawn. Just watching.
Unlike the others, his mask bore a single rune over one eye.
"You're not ready," he said simply. His voice was calm. Unshaken. "But he waits, just the same."
Then he vanished.
No footsteps. No sound.
Just the wind returning.
And the blood on Marcel's blade beginning to cool.
> [Target Eliminated: 02] [Warning: Observation Entity Detected – Tracking Suspended]
Marcel looked down at the shard in his palm. The pulse had stopped, but the mark it left lingered.
He didn't understand it—not fully.
But tonight proved one thing:
He wasn't just being hunted.
He was being tested.