The sll reached them first. Woodsmoke, close now, layered with sothing cooking over an open fire—at, sothing starchy, and a bitter scent that couldn’t possibly be coffee but slled desperately like it. It was dostic. It was the sll of people who had been in one place long enough to make it theirs.
They rounded a long bend in the trail, and the sound hit them like a physical wall. Voices. A dozen at minimum, probably more. Overlapping conversations, rough laughter from sowhere to the left, and a single, sharp voice giving orders with the distinct tone of soone who expected to be obeyed.
Will stopped the group with a raised hand.
There was still a thick line of trees between them and the source. All they had was sound. Six survivors stood dead still in the overgrown hills, listening to absolute proof that they weren’t alone.
"How many?" Maddie whispered, her hand drifting toward her scavenged gear.
"Dozen minimum. Probably more."
Allison stepped up close beside him. "Friendly?"
"Sounds human," Will said.
"So did we," Maddie replied coldly. "Twenty minutes before the monsters showed up."
In Will’s chest, Khan went dead still. The ancient conqueror was giving the situation his undivided attention.
Soone is already organizing, Khan rumbled, an unfamiliar, sharp edge to his archaic voice. Soone got here before you, Will, and they have already started building.
Khan paused, his spectral gaze turning toward the dark corners of Will’s mind. You think you are playing a ga, boy. You think the System is a gift. It is a cage. And the things outside are finally starting to chew through the bars.
Will kept his eyes on the tree line.
How you enter a room you did not build, Khan added, tells everyone in it exactly who you are.
Then how do we walk in? Will asked.
Do not walk in there like a refugee. Walk like you were already planning to be here.
Will looked at Maddie. Her jaw was set. She was already running the exact sa math.
Will lowered his hand, squared his shoulders, and pushed through the heavy curtain of hanging ferns.
They found a vantage point on a massive shelf of fossilized foundation stone that had been completely swallowed by moss—elevated enough to give them a clear line of sight, and dense enough to hide in.
Five n.
Maddie dropped into a low crouch next to Will, her ruined sneakers sinking silently into the wet loam. "Tell I’m seeing things," she whispered, her eyes tracking the patrol routes. "Look at their belts."
Will already was. He ignored the dull, grinding ache in his fractured right rib and leaned closer to the foliage. "Real blades. Not Tutorial scrap."
Allison slid up on his other side, her hands gripping her makeshift spear tight enough to turn her knuckles white. "It’s not just the blades. Look at the archer on the periter. Those arrows are uniform. Machine-fletched. And the guy on the left has a fully stocked, modern trauma kit strapped to his thigh."
"They didn’t scavenge any of that," Maddie said, her voice dropping to a flat, cynical whisper. "They unpacked it."
Will looked down at his own gear: two miserable Tutorial rations, a lted pouch, a rusted piece of rebar, and ash permanently ground into his skin. "How?" he asked quietly.
The sa way kings have always been prepared while peasants scramble, Khan rumbled, the Sovereign’s resonance vibrating deep in Will’s skull. Soone knew this was coming. Soone has known for a long ti.
Will concentrated, narrowing his eyes at the man who was clearly running the camp. He pushed his [Predator’s Instinct] forward, treating it like a muscle he was flexing for the first ti. He just wanted a level. A threat assessnt. Anything to give them an edge.
The blue System interface didn’t fade in gently. It flickered violently across his retinas, glitched with a burst of static, and spat out a single line of jagged, red text.
[Target Level Exceeds Observation Threshold]
Will winced, rubbing his temples as a sharp spike of vertigo hit him.
"What are you squinting at?" Maddie whispered, catching his flinch.
"Trying to see if the System will give a read on them."
"And?" Allison asked, keeping her eyes fixed on the camp below.
"It told to mind my own business." Will blinked away the lingering red static. "They’re too high-level. Or they have gear that actively blocks observation."
Of course they do, Khan said, his tone dripping with ancient disdain. You do not wear armor like that and leave your status open to any peasant peering through the bushes. Stop staring at him before he feels it.
People can feel you looking at their stats? Will asked through the telepathic tether.
The dangerous ones can.
Will blinked and quickly shifted his gaze away from the leader, taking in the rest of the clearing.
"Oh, god," Allison breathed, her voice cracking.
The captives were mostly won, with a handful of children pressed desperately close to their mothers. They sat in a tight, terrified cluster on the dirt, completely exposed to the elents.
"They aren’t even testing the edges of the camp," Maddie observed, her jaw locking in sharp, adrenaline-fueled aggression. "They already know what happens if they try."
"Look at the n," Will said, his stomach turning.
Four n were hooked to a heavy picket line on the far side of the fire. Real steel chains. They wore thick, punishing harnesses across their chests, loaded down with massive crates of modern gear. The guards weren’t just holding them hostage; they were using them as pack animals.
"You don’t just find chains like that in the woods," Maddie whispered. "You bring them because you’re planning to fill them."
Recognize what you are seeing, Khan said quietly. This is not chaos. This is a harvest.
Will pointed to the man standing slightly apart from the rest. Mid-thirties. He wore pristine tactical gear, completely untouched by the desperate, scrap-tal modifications of the surface survivors.
"The guy in charge. He’s not doing this for fun. He’s working a quota."
Down in the camp, one of the chained n stumbled under the crushing weight of a reinforced crate. His knees hit the dirt. The leader didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t draw a weapon. He just looked at the nearest guard and gave a single, bored nod. The guard stepped up and delivered a brutal, rciless kick directly to the chained man’s ribs.
Allison flinched, turning her face away. Will didn’t. He morized the leader’s face, burning the man’s absolute indifference into his mory.
A lieutenant, Khan noted coldly. Competent. Following orders he believes in. More dangerous than a man acting on his own, because he carries the weight of sothing larger behind him.
Will signaled the group back with one hand. Slow. Quiet.
They retreated twenty ters, inching backward until they slipped into a natural, bowl-shaped hollow heavily shielded by dense ferns. As they settled into the brush, Don shifted his weight nervously, his eyes wide with panic. His boot ca down hard on a dry piece of deadwood buried under the moss.
Snap.
The crack echoed through the quiet jungle like a gunshot.
Will’s heart spiked violently against his bruised ribs. He snapped his gaze toward the camp.
At that exact millisecond, a colossal rusted billboard a quarter-mile down the opposing hill finally lost its hundred-thousand-year battle with gravity. It tore through the ancient canopy with a deafening, tallic shriek. The sheer weight of the collapsing steel sent a heavy gust of displaced, rot-scented air rushing over their hollow, drowning out every other sound in the basin.
Down in the camp, the guards instantly drew their weapons and tracked the massive plu of rising dust, their floodlights sweeping the far hillside, completely ignoring the hollow where Will and his group were hiding.
Maddie stared at the dust. She looked at the dust, looked at Don’s boot, and then turned her head slowly to stare directly at Will.
"Did you do that?" she whispered.
"I didn’t touch anything," Will said, equally stunned.
I am beginning to hate your stat sheet, Khan muttered.
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