A sound echoed through the cave’s entrance. A footstep—light, precise. Too precise.

Sid’s posture changed instantly, his exhaustion forgotten as he reached for his weapon. My own hand went to my sword as I turned toward the cave mouth, heart pounding. The others reacted just as fast, Drea already drawing her axe, Malric shifting to the shadows with an arrow nocked.

Then, we heard another sound.

A whisper of movement. The scrape of steel against leather.

We weren’t alone.

The fire flickered, shadows shifting unnaturally along the cave walls. And then, like specters stepping from the void, they were there.

The Ashen Court.

They didn’t charge. Didn’t shout. Didn’t move like common bounty hunters or reckless mercenaries.

They simply appeared.

Three figures, clad in dull gray armor, the kind that didn’t reflect light. Their faces were covered by smooth, featureless masks, each one carved with faint etchings—lines that looked like scars, jagged and random. One of them had a mask with a single, vertical crack through the middle. Another had no markings at all.

They carried no banners, no insignias, no symbols. Just steel.

The one in the center took a step forward. Their movement was unnatural—too fluid, too controlled. Every step was deliberate, their boots making no sound against the stone. The way they moved was wrong.

Trained killers didn’t move like this.

This was something else.

Sid exhaled sharply beside me. I glanced at him, and for the first time since I had met him, I saw something in his eyes I had never seen before.

Fear.

“Move,” Sid muttered. “Now.”

And then, without a word, the Ashen Court attacked.

The air seemed to freeze the moment they moved.

No war cries, no taunts—just swift, calculated violence.

The Ashen Court were unlike any enemies I had ever faced. They didn’t fight like soldiers, nor like mercenaries used to skirmishes on the road. They moved in unison, silent and precise, like parts of the same machine. Their blades were long and thin, curved slightly at the edge—not made for hacking or brute force, but for cutting through flesh with surgical precision.

Malric fired first, his arrow screaming through the air. The lead agent tilted their head just slightly—not dodging, just letting it miss. The arrow buried itself into the stone behind them, and before I could blink, the agent was on him.

Malric barely managed to roll back as the curved blade sliced clean through the bowstring in his hands.

Drea roared, bringing her axe down with full force. A normal warrior would have raised a weapon to block. The agent sidestepped instead, avoiding the strike entirely, as if they had known exactly where it would land.

I barely had time to react before another was on me.

I swung my steel sword, fast, aiming for center mass. It should have landed. Should have. But the agent moved in a way that wasn’t natural. Their body twisted just slightly, bending at the last possible moment, my blade scraping harmlessly off their armor.

Their counterattack was instant. A dagger flashed toward my ribs. I barely leapt back in time, the tip kissing my side and leaving a thin red line.

Fast. Precise. Efficient.

The System should have given me an idea of their level. I should have been able to see their strength. But the moment I tried to inspect them, my vision flickered—blocked.

I didn’t have time to think about what that meant.

Sid stepped in beside me, moving faster than I had ever seen. His blade met the lead agent’s, the clash of steel sharp in the confined cave. But even Sid—level 73, a warrior trained for years—was barely keeping up.

“They’re reading us,” Sid snarled. “They know our movements before we do.”

“How?” I hissed, ducking another slash.

“I don’t know,” he growled. “But they’re not here to fight.”

He parried another strike, then took a step back.

“They’re here to kill.”

The fight dragged on, every moment pressing us further onto the defensive.

Malric had lost his bow, forced to draw his short sword instead. He moved fast, but not fast enough—his blade barely clipped an agent’s shoulder, and the response was a counterattack that sent blood splattering across the cave floor.

Drea fought with everything she had, her axe cleaving the air, but every time she attacked, the agents weren’t there. They didn’t block. They didn’t parry. They just moved, slipping past her swings like water around a rock.

And Garvin—Garvin was pale. He had fought plenty before, but this was different. This wasn’t a battlefield. This was a hunt, and we were the prey.

“We need to go!” Garvin shouted, raising his shield to barely deflect a stab aimed at his throat.

“We can’t just—” I started, but Sid grabbed me and shoved me toward the entrance.

“We’re leaving,” he snapped. “Now.”

He didn’t wait for an argument. He just moved.

I hesitated. Only for a second. But that second was enough.

The Ashen Court adjusted.

The lead agent stepped forward, faster than any human should be. They pivoted toward Sid, ignoring the rest of us. Their movements were sharper, more direct.

They had been waiting for him to run.

“No—!” I lunged forward, but Sid turned and met them head-on.

The clash of blades rang out, but it was clear in an instant—he couldn’t win this fight. Not alone.

His eyes met mine for just a moment.

“Go.”

I clenched my fists. “No—”

“Go!”

Drea grabbed my arm, yanking me back. Malric was already pulling Garvin toward the entrance. We had to run.

Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

I gritted my teeth, my entire body screaming at me to turn back.

Sid held his ground, but the agents were shifting, circling him now. They weren’t worried about us anymore. They had their target. And if we stayed, we would die here. I turned and ran.

The cold night air hit me like a wall as we burst from the cave, running full speed down the frozen path. The cliffs loomed high above us, the wind howling through the crags, but I barely heard it over the pounding of my own heart.

Sid is still back there.

I clenched my jaw, my breath coming in sharp gasps as we ran. My instincts screamed at me to turn back, to do something—but what? What could I do?

The Ashen Court wasn’t normal. They weren’t bounty hunters. They weren’t warriors. They moved like ghosts, reading our attacks before we even made them. Sid was level 73, stronger than all of us combined, and even he was barely holding his ground.

And now he was alone.

“We have to go back!” I shouted over the wind.

“No!” Drea snapped. “Not like this! We’ll just die too!”

I growled in frustration, but I couldn’t argue. She was right. As much as I hated it, as much as every part of me wanted to turn around, I couldn’t save him.

Not now.

We kept running, pushing through the snow-covered forest as fast as we could. The Ashen Court could have chased us, could have cut us down if they wanted to.

But they didn’t.

Because we weren’t their targets.

Only Sid was.

That fact made me feel worse.

We reached a ridge and stopped, chests heaving, trying to catch our breath. The cave was far behind us now, the cliffs casting long shadows under the moonlight.

Garvin bent over, hands on his knees. “What… the fuck… was that?”

“The Ashen Court,” Malric said quietly, wiping the blood from his arm where a blade had barely nicked him. “Whoever they are, they fight like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

I turned back, staring toward the cave. The firelight inside was still flickering, distant but undeniably there. The fight wasn’t over.

Sid was still alive.

For now.

I tightened my fists, forcing my breathing to slow. We ran—but this isn’t over.

Sid was my friend. My first friend in this world. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to let some faceless killers erase him.

I turned to the others. “We need to regroup. We need a plan.”

Drea nodded; her face grim. “And fast.”

Garvin took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “We’re going to my family’s estate. If we’re being hunted now, that’s the safest place to start.”

I clenched my jaw. I hated it. Hated that we were running again. But we needed more than just bravery. We needed a real plan. And the next time we faced the Ashen Court…We wouldn’t be the ones running.

We didn’t slow down.

Even though the Ashen Court hadn’t pursued us, none of us trusted that they wouldn’t. Every snapping branch, every gust of wind through the trees made my nerves spike. I kept expecting one of those gray-masked killers to appear out of nowhere, blade ready to finish what they started.

But they didn’t.

And that somehow made it worse.

They didn’t see us as a threat. We weren’t worth their time.

Only Sid was.

That thought sat like lead in my stomach as we moved through the dark forest, keeping a grueling pace. No one spoke. Even Garvin—who could usually be counted on to crack some ill-timed joke—stayed silent.

Eventually, after what felt like hours, Malric held up a hand.

“Here,” he said, voice barely above a whisper.

We’d reached a clearing near a frozen river. Trees formed a natural barrier around us, and the cliffside loomed in the distance, the cave and the fight long behind us. This was as safe a place as we were going to get.

I exhaled and bent over, resting my hands on my knees. The exhaustion hit all at once. My lungs burned from the cold air, and my side ached where the Ashen Court blade had cut me. The wound wasn’t deep, but it was a reminder.

A reminder that I should be dead.

“We camp here,” Drea said, already kneeling to start a fire.

I clenched my fists. “We should go back.”

Drea’s hands froze over the flint and steel. She looked up sharply. “We just barely escaped, and you want to go back?”

“We left him,” I said through gritted teeth. “We just—left him.”

“We had no choice.” Her voice was calm, but there was steel underneath it. “I hate it too, Sigvard, but we’re no good to him dead.”

I turned, glaring toward the distant cliffs. I couldn’t see the cave from here, but I knew it was there. Sid was there. Alone. Fighting a battle he couldn’t win.

And we had run.

Malric spoke up from where he was checking his gear. “Even if we went back, there’s no guarantee he’s still alive.”

I whipped around. “Don’t say that.”

Malric met my glare with his usual unreadable expression. “You know it’s true.”

The worst part?

I did.

We had no idea how strong the Ashen Court truly was. Sid had lasted longer than any of us, but… could anyone last forever?

Garvin sighed and stretched his arms, trying to shake off the tension. “Look, I don’t like it either. But right now, we’re low on options. We go to my family’s estate, regroup, and figure this out. If Sid’s alive, we’ll find him. If he’s not…” He trailed off.

I didn’t let him finish. Because I wasn’t accepting that. Sid was alive. He had to be.

I turned back to the forest. The wind cut through the trees, rattling the branches above us. I tried to ignore the hollow feeling in my chest, the sinking dread in my gut. We were still breathing. Still standing. But Sid wasn’t with us. And I wasn’t sure if I would ever see him again.

Sleep didn’t come easy.

I lay on my bedroll, staring up at the dark canopy of branches above us. The fire crackled softly nearby, giving off just enough heat to keep the biting cold at bay. The others had settled in—Drea kept her axe close, her eyes barely closed, while Malric rested with his back against a tree, his bow across his lap. Garvin, for once, had no snide remarks. He lay on his side, one arm draped over his pack like he didn’t trust anything around him.

I should have been exhausted. Every muscle ached from the fight, and my body screamed for rest. But my mind wouldn’t let go of the image of Sid standing alone in that cave, facing them.

The Ashen Court. I clenched my jaw, replaying every moment of the battle. Their movements. The way they read our attacks like they already knew what we would do. No wasted energy. No unnecessary motion.

They fought like they had already won.

Because, in their minds, they had.

I shifted onto my side, exhaling slowly. The System had given me a second life. A chance to become something more than what I was before. I thought I had been growing stronger. That we all had.

But tonight proved just how far we had to go.

Sid had been the strongest of us, and it hadn’t been enough.

I don’t know when I finally drifted off. The last thing I remember was the fire flickering, the cold pressing against my back, and the distant sound of the wind howling through the mountains.

We broke camp before the sun had fully risen, the gray dawn light barely filtering through the trees.

No one talked much.

We all knew the plan. Head to Garvin’s estate. Regroup. Figure out the next move.

It still felt like running. But what choice did we have?

The road ahead would take us south, through the lower mountain trails and past the border of the Slate-controlled lands. Garvin’s family estate wasn’t close, but it was far enough from major cities that it would buy us time.

I slung my pack over my shoulders and took one last look back toward the mountains. Toward the place where we had left Sid behind.

Got it. I'll keep everything in full paragraphs unless there's a strong reason to break it up. Here's the continuation with that in mind:

The fire in my chest hadn’t gone out. We would find him. We had to. But for now, we had no choice but to leave. I turned away from the mountains and started walking, the others falling in step behind me. The road ahead would take us south, through the lower mountain trails and past the border of the Slate-controlled lands. Garvin’s family estate wasn’t close, but it was far enough from major cities that it would buy us time. None of us spoke as we walked, our minds still trapped in the events of the night before.

The forest was quieter than usual, the cold morning air making everything feel brittle and fragile. Each footstep crunched softly against the frost-covered ground, and the only other sound was the occasional rustling of birds shifting in the trees. It should have been peaceful, but it wasn’t. The weight of Sid’s absence pressed down on me like an invisible force, making every step feel heavier than it should have. He was the strongest of us, and we had still been forced to run. That thought gnawed at me with every mile we put between ourselves and that cave.

After a while, Garvin was the first to break the silence. “We’ll figure this out.” His voice lacked its usual carefree tone. It wasn’t a reassurance. It was a promise—to himself as much as to the rest of us.

Drea, who had been walking ahead, glanced back. “If he’s alive, we’ll find him.”

She didn’t say what we were all thinking. If he wasn’t, we would have no way of knowing. No body, no grave, just a disappearance into the shadows.

Malric kept his eyes on the road ahead. “We need more information. We still don’t know what the Ashen Court really is or why they exist.”

That was true. Sid had only known their name, and that they were hunting him. We had no idea who controlled them, why they operated in such secrecy, or if they had always existed. How many Outlanders had they erased before Sid? Before me?

The thought made my stomach turn.

We continued walking, the distant sun rising higher in the sky, casting long shadows through the trees. We had a long road ahead of us, but this wasn’t over. Not even close.