Salos slipped through the smoky streets, silent as a shadow, for all the good it did him. Behind him, the little girl Cass saved scurried, her feet loud as she ran over the dirt road, her breathing gasping and choking in the smoke.

They needed to be faster than this. Every minute they spent on these streets was another minute the bartiangs might find them. It was another minute Cass might get herself into trouble on her own.

But the child was slow.

Human Child (Lvl 1)

[Humans are a common physical-bodied race with large variation in stat distribution and skill affinity. This is one of their younglings, their system only recently awakened but their path not yet determined.]

It was hard to blame the child for their inadequacies. She was only a child. There was only so much she could do. It was not her fault her guardians had not taken her out for leveling yet.

“Please, wait for me, Mister Kitty,” the girl called.

She was so slow. Between her tiny legs and her nonexistent Dex and Str, she moved at a snail’s pace. A clumsy, clumsy snail.

He grumbled to himself but stopped at the end of the street. His claws flexed, digging into the loose dirt road. His tail flicked back and forth, back and forth.

The world was not kind to children. Too many died before they were granted their system. Too many died before they were given that chance to control their own lives. Too many died before they reached the First Step.

His claws dug deeper into the dirt. Cass was well past that point now. She was not a child. She was strong enough to handle this much.

When the girl was a pair of steps from him, he bolted off again.

Only for a figure lurched onto the street before them.

Bartiang (lvl 14)

Salos clicked his tongue and slipped into a shadow with Shadow Step. The world slowed as he filtered into that space that was neither outside this world nor properly within it. Here, all the shadows were connected, the space with light cut away as if it did not exist. What was a pair of long leaps in the physical world compressed to but a step, the deepness of the bartiang’s shadow pulling him across the shallow haze of the smoke.

He stepped out behind the ape, his claws fully extended. They sunk into the creature’s spine, Hidden Blade increasing the depth his claws dug.

He jumped away, back toward the child as the monster staggered. It swung its arms uselessly, trying in vain to catch him with no knowledge he had already leapt to safety.

This was the mark of a proper assassin. In and out. Deal damage on your terms and deny the option to the opponent. One hit, one kill, where possible.

A toothy grin slipped across his feline face. This was what it meant to sit at the Precipice. To be close enough to kill but far enough away to never be hit in return.

The girl froze in the pathway as the near-dead monster teetered out of the smoke and into her piddling Perception. They could run past it at this stage. It was dead, its slow brains just had not figured it out yet. But the girl had no way of knowing either.

Simple enough to show her.

He stepped around the floundering beast, staying well outside its reach.

“M-m-mister Kitty,” the girl whimpered.

Salos glanced back at her.

Her hands were clenched over her heart, her eyes wide and fearful. “Wait, please!”

He was barely three meters from her. What was she—

Oh. Level 1. Right. She probably could hardly see him through the smoke with her nonexistent Perception.

He stalked back toward her. As he did, the bartiang’s body finally realized that there would be no more orders from its head and it slumped to the dirt.

She scurried to his side. “Thank you!”

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Smoke swirled around them. The bartiangs’s howls had not lessened. The screams of the villagers continued unabated.

The girl struggled to keep up with him. He let her. Struggle was good for her development.

If she tried hard enough, she would find a movement skill to compensate for her low stats. This was the ideal environment for growth.

All the more reason he should not be worried about Cass. Cass was strong enough to make the most of an environment like this. If they happened to save some people along the way, all the better.

A roar stopped Salos in his tracks. His head whipped around to its source. Behind them, a wooden building exploded in splinters, flaming wood flying in every direction as a hulking beast rammed its way through.

Bartiang Silverback (lvl 20)

[A powerful male bartiang. Silverbacks lead raids of lesser bartiangs into other territories for their queens. Silverbacks are by necessity far stronger than their subordinates as they are constantly fighting off challengers who would claim their position.]

The child turned too, her eyes squinting through the smoke. But even she could see the hulking beast’s approach. Every step reverberated through the ground and up Salos’s legs.

It was twice the size of its fellows. Probably twice as strong, too.

The child trembled. Her legs shook.

The silverback howled, its eyes scanning the smokey street. It locked on the child. It charged forward.

The child froze.

Under the auspices of his Concepts, Patience and Precipice, the world froze, too.

The silverback was far too strong for him to fight alone. He was only level 14. He had gaping holes in his skills list. One of his Concepts was broken, the jagged pieces slicing at his soul.

The smart thing to do would be run. Warn Cass there was a creature of this caliber running around the village.

No.

He should warn Alyx or her guard there was such a monster. It would be only a minor challenge for Cass and less than that for the two humans.

But if he did that, the child would die.

The child would die regardless. The monster was moving too fast. The girl was frozen in place, the shock too much for such a small child. Had she ever seen combat before today? Was this her first taste of bloodlust and malice?

The thought bothered him.

But what could he do about it?

Perhaps if he were still level 74. If he still had all his skills. If he were humanoid rather than this tiny cat.

The child would die. There was nothing he could do about it.

Repeating the truth did not make it any easier.

He needed to leave. Getting crushed by this monster would help no one. Not himself. Not Cass.

Cass.

Cass would not run here. It grated. But that was just as much a truth.

Cass would stand her ground. Maybe it would mean a bird took off with her. But maybe she would kill the charging beast.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

He was not Cass. He did not want to be Cass.

Cass was an idiot. Cass was going to get herself killed and then who knew what would happen to him.

Cass trusted too easily. In herself. In others. In plans that had no business working.

He did not want to be Cass.

But Cass would find some way to save this child.

There was no plan. He Shadow Stepped anyway, appearing on the girl’s shoulder.

“RUN!” he yelled in her ear, lighting up a post on the far end of the street with Fairy Fire.

The girl flinched, her head snapping to him, her wide eyes widening further.

“Run! To the purple post. Stay there. Stay out of the way. GO!” He leapt from her shoulder.

She took a step back, her head darting back and forth for the post in question. She ran.

She could not possibly be fast enough. The silverback pounded down the street. It was fast. At its size, with the Str it must have, there was no way it could be anything else.

And the girl was slow. So slow.

Salos’s claws dug into the dirt, every bit of him wishing he had another option.

He moved his Fairy Fire to himself as he angled away from the child.

“Hey, muscle brain!” he shouted at the silverback. Its eyes reflected the purple glow of Fairy Fire. The angle of its charge shifted.

Salos hated it. But if Cass could make this strategy work, there was no reason he couldn’t.

He stood his ground as the beast raced down the street, its attention fixed on him. There was no room for error. Every pounding step brought doom closer. Closer.

Four meters.

Three.

Two.

He could feel the beast’s fetid breath on him, unnaturally moist in the dry smoke.

Salos dropped Fairy Fire. The beast’s shadow loomed over him. He Shadow Stepped, melting into the darkness.

The girl had made it to the post. She cowered behind the rubble of another building. Good. She had some sense then.

Salos materialized next to the girl.

“Safety is that way.” Salos pointed with his body down the cross street away from the silverback.

The silverback careened through the space Salos had occupied, not yet realizing he was gone.

She flinched. “Mister Kitty! You’re okay? You, you can talk?”

“No time for that. Get a move on, move quickly. Move Quietly. Keep your body low and put all your focus toward reducing your presence. Understand?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know what that means.”

Salos scowled. “Wish with all your heart to not be seen.” There was not time for a more detailed explanation.

The silverback pulled itself from the ruins of another burning building, a howl ripping from its lips.

“Wait until I distract it again,” Salos said. “Then go that way. Fast. Quiet. Inconspicuous.”

The girl nodded, but fear swirled in her eyes.