Izak had been walking for an hour or two when he heard voices. The gentle gurgling of the stream beside him was drowned out by the faint murmurs, carried on a breeze that whispered through the dense canopy. The air felt heavy, tinged with the earthy scent of moss and damp leaves. Straining to make sense of the distant sounds. Men, by the sound of it. Slowly, he moved closer, careful not to snap any twigs or disturb the underbrush. The voices grew clearer, louder—a heated argument.

From the safety of a large tree, Izak peeked out, his heart pounding. Somehow, he understood their words. English. For a moment, disbelief overtook him, and his mind raced. The familiarity unsettled him, yet it also filled him with a strange sense of connection to his lost reality. What were the chances? He was in another world, and yet they spoke his language. Or was it this world’s language? If what Azelia had said was true, this place was connected to Earth. That might explain the overlap. He made a mental note to ask her—if he survived long enough.

From his vantage point, he saw them: four figures in a clearing. A tall, muscular man with tanned skin and short hair was yelling at the others—a woman and two men. They looked like warriors, clad in mismatched pelts and leather. The woman had a bow slung across her back, while the leader carried a massive double-headed axe. The other two men wore swords at their hips. Bandits, probably. They didn’t have the discipline or uniformity of soldiers.

A crude shelter stood off to the side, cobbled together from branches and fur. The remnants of a campfire sat in the middle of the clearing, now nothing but ashes.

“Why are you already coming back empty-handed?” the leader barked, his tone sharp and accusatory. “There were at least two dozen soldiers fighting!”

“I swear, boss,” one of the swordsmen stammered. “There’s nothing left. Not even corpses.”

“He’s right,” the woman chimed in. “We double-checked the area. It’s like the battle never happened—no bodies, no blood, no tracks. Nothing.”

“We should leave,” the second swordsman muttered, his voice low and uneasy. “This forest feels... wrong.”

Izak felt a chill creep up his spine. A battle with no trace of blood or corpses? He shuddered at the thought. It had to be the same clash involving the soldier he’d fought.

The leader sneered. “Stop your whining, you lazy bastards. You just didn’t look hard enough. I’m not paying you to tell me ghost stories. Follow me!”

The group began to move, the leader grabbing a fur bag hanging from an arrow lodged in a tree. They headed deeper into the forest, opposite to where Izak stood and in the direction he assumed led to the battlefield.

He stayed hidden, holding his breath until their voices faded into the distance. Only then did he dare to step into the abandoned camp. His eyes darted around, searching for anything useful. Supplies meant survival—and he wasn’t above scavenging to stay alive.

The camp was almost bare, but Izak pressed on. The shelter was a small, shoddy construction of branches and fur. Inside, he found a fire-starting kit, a map, and a set of relatively clean clothes—enough to preserve what little dignity he had left.

The real treasure was a leather harness, designed to carry a sword on one’s back. That alone would make traveling much easier.

But just as he prepared to leave, a voice pierced the air—a sharp, irritated voice, unmistakably close.

“I want to put an arrow between his eyes. What a son of a bitch, sending me alone to fetch his fucking map!”

Izak froze. The woman. She was back.

Izak had no way to hide. She would see the camp had been disturbed, and it wouldn’t take her long to figure out someone was still here. Running was out of the question; she had a bow, and the clearing offered little cover. Even if he somehow reached the trees, the scavengers would hunt him down. But staying meant fighting—and he wasn’t leaving without his haul.

His only option was to kill her before she killed him.

Izak tightened his grip on the sword, his pulse hammering in his ears. I need to get close without being seen.

Her footsteps grew louder, approaching from behind, opposite the shelter's entrance. Luck was on his side; she couldn’t see him yet. There was no time to plan—only act. He crouched low, both hands gripping the sword, his muscles coiled like a spring.

“What the—!”

The woman’s scream was cut short as Izak drove the blade through her chest as she stood in the entry. Steel pierced flesh, emerging from her back in a spray of crimson. Her body sagged, dead weight pulling the sword from his hands. She collapsed in a heap, the blade still embedded in her corpse.

Izak staggered back, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Sweat dripped from his face, mixing with the blood pooling at his feet. His heart thundered in his chest, but there was no time to spare.

“I need to go. I have to run,” he whispered to himself.

Grabbing the fur bag where he had found a set of clothes, he stuffed his findings inside, yanked the sword free, and bolted into the forest.

He ran straight from where he had arrived, adrenaline propelling him forward. Branches scratched his naked skin, and uneven terrain threatened to trip him at every step. He didn’t dare stop until his legs burned and his lungs screamed for air.

Finally, he ducked behind a massive tree, his chest heaving. He listened, straining to hear any sounds of pursuit. Only the forest’s natural chorus greeted him.

Relief flooded his senses, but he knew it wouldn’t last. The scavengers would come looking for the woman soon, and when they found her body, they’d know someone else had been there.

Wasting no time, Izak dressed quickly and struggled for a moment but managed to finally secure the sword to his back. With the bag slung over his shoulder, he set off downstream, deliberately avoiding the direction the scavengers had taken.

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The thought of what he’d overheard about the battlefield gnawed at him—a mysterious, bloodless place where bodies vanished. Whatever had happened there, he wanted no part of it.

Just a few kilometers from where Izak had taken refuge, the dense forest gave way to a picturesque town nestled at its edge, standing unbothered for years. Its small houses, built from sturdy timber and capped with thatched roofs, blended harmoniously with the surrounding wilderness. Smoke from chimneys spiraled lazily into the crisp air, a serene contrast to the dense, shadowy forest that bordered it to the east. It was a peaceful place with around a hundred villagers, where everyone knew everyone.

The town was ideally situated. On the eastern side, the dense forest stretched endlessly, while to the north, tall cliffs descended into the woods, blending seamlessly with the landscape. To the south and west, vast valleys stretched as far as the eye could see, with the distant Red Sea to the far south. The nearest settlement was over seven days' journey on horseback to the west. Here, people lived in harmony with what nature provided. Nestled in a remote corner of the kingdom of Nosgarth, the village had been spared the horrors of war for decades. Its isolation had been a blessing—until now.

This time, that same remoteness brought ruin upon them. A group of deserters—former soldiers of the kingdom—stumbled upon the village after weeks of wandering and surviving in the depths of the forest. Starving, desperate, and stripped of humanity, they had succumbed to madness. When they saw the peaceful village, they simply raided it, sparing no thought for mercy.

“You have to run, Ailee. Run to the forest!” the burly village chieftain, Jack, shouted at her. His voice was strained but commanding, even as fear flickered in his eyes. Jack had spent a lifetime chopping trees and caring for the villagers, his broad frame a testament to years of hard labor.

Ailee hesitated. She was a woman nearing thirty, the town’s only healer and magic user, trusted to tend to injuries and illnesses with a rare combination of skill and magic. Her rare abilities allowed her to mend wounds, ease pain, and even slow the effects of certain poisons. Her magic wouldn't pale in comparison to the kingdom’s elite healers. If the kingdom knew of her abilities, she would have been sent to battlefields to aid soldiers.

Despite her delicate frame, she carried an inner strength—though right now, she felt that strength slipping away. Her pale skin, almost as white as snow, contrasted with her clear blue eyes, now swollen and red with tears. She looked fragile, far too delicate for the burdens she bore. Yet it was her kindness, not her appearance, that the villagers admired most. It had been her anchor and theirs—until today.

Just moments ago, no fewer than twenty soldiers had emerged from the forest, their tattered uniforms smeared with dirt and blood, still faintly bearing the colors and emblem of the kingdom. Their eyes were hollow, their faces gaunt from weeks of starvation, and the stench of unwashed bodies and desperation clung to them like a second skin.

The villagers, at first, had stared with a mixture of confusion and tentative relief, drawn in by the soldiers' ragged uniforms and gaunt faces, believing they might be there to seek shelter or aid. That brief hope was shattered the moment swords were drawn and torches lit, the air filling with screams as chaos erupted. They began killing indiscriminately, burning homes, and looting whatever they could find. The village had been caught completely off guard.

In less than fifteen minutes, the once-peaceful town was reduced to ashes. Almost everyone had been slaughtered—men, women, even the children. No one was spared. The soldiers wanted no witnesses.

Ailee had been tending to Jack in her small home near the cliffs to the north when the chaos erupted. He had bruised his leg while chopping wood earlier, and she had been using her healing magic to ease his pain. Her house was one of the furthest from the center of the village, which had bought them a little time. But now, a group of soldiers had spotted them and were marching in their direction.

Jack gritted his teeth as he grabbed his axe. “I’ll hold them off. You need to go, Ailee! Run to the forest, now!”

Tears streamed down her face, her vision blurred from the salt stinging her eyes. Each scream from the village echoed in her mind, a relentless reminder of her powerlessness. Her chest tightened, and guilt weighed heavily on her as she struggled to push past the panic and move her legs. The weight of fear and helplessness bore down on her, freezing her in place as the screams from the village echoed in her mind.

She shook her head weakly. “I can’t…” Her voice was barely a whisper. “I can’t move my legs…”

Her whole body trembled as panic and guilt took hold of her. I’m so useless… I couldn’t save anyone.

“GET OUT! RUN!” Jack bellowed, his voice breaking through her daze.

Her mind burned, but sheer willpower forced her legs to move. Staggering to her feet, she turned and began running toward the forest. Behind her, she could hear Jack shouting and the heavy footsteps of soldiers closing in. One of them, a grinning brute with a scarred face, broke away from the group. He had a crossbow in his hands, his eyes gleaming with malicious glee as he loaded a bolt and took aim.

Ailee was just a few steps from the edge of the trees when a searing pain exploded in her side. She stumbled, gasping as the crossbow bolt pierced clean through her body, the tip protruding from the other side. She collapsed onto the ground, the world spinning around her. The last thing she heard was Jack’s desperate cry, echoing through the chaos.

But beyond the pain and despair, another sound broke through—the heavy, hurried footsteps of someone approaching, cutting through the night like a harbinger of fate.