The silence was heavy.
Abnormally heavy, as if the entire city was holding its breath without realizing why.
It was the kind of silence that didn’t soothe—it warned.
As though the world had paused for a moment before deciding what it was going to do next.
We sat inside the Mercenary Guild.
The same table.
The same faces.
But the atmosphere wasn’t what we’d grown used to.
This wasn’t simple boredom anymore.
It was something closer to anticipation—that feeling that settles at the bottom of your stomach and refuses to leave.
The feeling that something is waiting to happen, and that waiting for it is somehow more exhausting than the event itself.
I tapped my fingers against the table slowly, absentmindedly, my gaze fixed on the empty space ahead.
That feeling from the forest.
That sensation that had brushed against me while standing among the wolves’ corpses after our mission ended.
It hadn’t disappeared.
If anything, it had become clearer.
Heavier.
Closer.
“Daron.”
I looked up.
Noor was watching me.
Her calm eyes studied my face with quiet concern.
“You’ve been distracted for a while…
Are you still thinking about what you said before?”
I exhaled slowly.
“Yeah.”
Then the door burst open.
No—not opened.
It was ripped open violently and slammed into the wall with a crash that jolted life back into every corner of the guild hall.
Everyone turned at once.
A man stumbled inside.
No.
Not a man.
The wreckage of one.
His clothes—or what remained of them—were torn in several places.
Fabric that had once been white was now stained black and dark crimson.
His body was covered in blood, some dried and crusted over his skin, some still fresh and slowly dripping from a wound on his right shoulder.
His breathing came in painful gasps, as though every inhale demanded effort.
And his eyes…
His eyes were unnaturally wide.
Filled with something I had never seen in another person’s gaze before.
True terror.
Not ordinary fear.
The kind of terror that comes when a person witnesses something their mind cannot comprehend.
He took a second step.
Then collapsed.
His knees struck the stone floor with a dull thud.
“Help…!”
His voice was hoarse.
Not a scream.
The voice of someone who had burned through the last of his strength just to say that single word.
In an instant, everything vanished.
The boredom.
The silence.
The dead lethargy that had hung over the guild all morning.
Gone.
Replaced by living chaos.
Mercenaries surged from every direction.
Voices overlapped.
Chairs scraped across the floor.
Boots hammered against stone.
Mary was behind her desk in a heartbeat.
The composed expression I was used to seeing had lost all color.
“What happened?!”
Her voice carried both authority and urgency.
The man raised his head with visible effort.
His lips trembled.
His eyes searched desperately for words capable of describing what he’d seen.
“The caravan…”
He stopped.
Swallowed painfully.
“The caravan…
was destroyed…”
Silence fell.
Heavy.
Sudden.
As though that final word had stolen the air from the room.
Then, in a more broken voice:
“The monsters…”
I swallowed unconsciously.
“There were…
too many…”
His breathing shook.
“They weren’t normal…”
His eyes trembled.
“They were…
organized.”
Something tightened inside my chest.
That word.
Organized.
The same word Mary had used days ago when discussing the forest.
“How many casualties?”
A mercenary asked sharply.
The man closed his eyes.
As if he didn’t want to say the number.
“…More than sixty.”
This silence was different.
It wasn’t merely the absence of sound.
It had weight.
Sixty people.
Dead.
In a single attack.
The air in the hall suddenly felt heavier.
Slower.
Then the man opened his eyes again.
A faint spark remained within them, as though one final thought was keeping him conscious.
“There are still survivors…”
His voice changed slightly.
Desperate.
Urgent.
“About twenty…
maybe a few more…”
“They’re trapped…”
“If we don’t move now—”
He didn’t finish.
He didn’t need to.
Mary moved before the silence could return.
“Emergency rescue mission!”
Her voice cut through the hall like a blade.
“All mercenaries capable of fighting, prepare immediately!”
But before the rush could begin…
They descended.
From the second floor.
Three figures walked down the stairs with calm, confident steps.
They didn’t shout.
They didn’t hurry.
They did nothing outwardly remarkable.
Yet the moment they appeared, the atmosphere in the entire guild shifted.
A different kind of weight entered the room.
As if the very air acknowledged their presence.
I found myself staring.
The first was a tall, lean man with short black hair and sharp features.
His gray eyes were cold in a way that made meeting them uncomfortable—like the eyes of someone who had seen too much and long since stopped being affected by it.
A long spear rested in his left hand.
Dark wood.
A faintly gleaming steel tip.
Light gray armor designed for mobility.
The second was a woman.
Short silver hair that didn’t quite reach her shoulders, part of it tucked behind her left ear.
Her calm expression differed from Noor’s.
Colder.
Sharper.
Less warmth.
Twin daggers rested in sheaths strapped to her thighs, and beneath her right eye ran a thin old scar.
Her gaze swept across us rapidly, evaluating every person within seconds.
The third was the largest.
Broad-shouldered.
Massive.
He wore heavy armor forged from a darker metal than anything most mercenaries carried.
A gigantic sword rested across his back.
He didn’t speak.
Didn’t move.
Simply stood there.
And somehow that alone made the space around him feel smaller.
Mary approached them with undisguised respect.
“The Gray Shadows Squad…”
She gestured toward the three.
“And the Silver Spear Squad…”
Then she turned to us.
“And Daron’s Squad.”
I looked at her.
“The three teams will handle this mission together.”
A brief silence followed.
Then Karl flashed his usual wide grin.
“Finally…
something worthwhile.”
Gene slowly tightened his grip around his axe.
“A rescue mission…
good.”
Amy looked toward me.
“Daron.”
I nodded.
“I’m ready.”
But inside…
I wasn’t.
We left the city quickly.
The dirt road leading toward the Western Forest was familiar to my feet from previous trips.
Yet today it looked different.
Narrower.
Darker.
Even beneath a bright sky.
It simply felt natural.
The silver-haired woman moved on the right, her eyes constantly shifting between the trees, the road, and the horizon.
The giant walked at the rear, every step subtly vibrating through the ground.
The air outside the city felt wrong.
No wind.
No rustling leaves.
No insects.
No birds.
Even the birds were gone.
“This isn’t normal…”
Noor whispered softly.
No one answered.
But everyone felt it.
Even Karl, who could usually find something to say in any situation, walked in unusual silence, one hand resting casually—but ready—on his sword.
As for me…
Something pressed against my mind.
Not pain.
Not a voice.
Just pressure.
As though something wanted me to notice a certain direction.
“How far to the site?”
Karl asked.
The spearman answered without turning around.
“Less than an hour.”
His voice remained perfectly calm.
Cold—not emotionally, but with absolute focus.
“But we’ll get there sooner.”
Then he accelerated.
His speed wasn’t normal.
This wasn’t the sprint of an ordinary human.
It was the speed of a fighter whose physical abilities had surpassed conventional limits.
The ground seemed lighter beneath him.
His strides impossibly long.
We exchanged brief glances and immediately followed.
The closer we got to the forest, the stronger the pressure became.
It wasn’t just in my head anymore.
It was in the air.
In the silence.
In the way the trees grew denser and darker with every step.
“Daron?”
Amy’s voice came from beside me.
“I’m fine.”
I lied.
We arrived.
No.
That wasn’t the right word.
The correct phrase was:
We saw what remained.
The caravan…
Was a massacre.
There was no more accurate description.
Six wagons.
Maybe seven.
Some shattered as though something enormous had crushed them.
Others overturned.
One at the far end still burned with weak orange flames that looked disturbingly vivid in daylight.
The ground around them was coated in dark stains.
Dried blood had turned thick brown.
In some places it had accumulated in layers.
Bodies…
Were everywhere.
Some lay in positions suggesting they had tried to run.
Others looked as though they had made their final stand.
And some…
Were in states that shouldn’t be described.
I froze.
The smell hit me first.
Blood.
Smoke.
And something else.
The scent of the damp forest mixed with something that had no right to exist within it.
This wasn’t like our training expedition.
It wasn’t like the ghoul hunt we had chosen to undertake.
This was something else entirely.
This was the aftermath.
The exposed result of what happens when people don’t get to choose.
“Spread out.”
The spearman’s voice remained utterly calm.
As though he stood in a completely different place than the rest of us.
“Search for survivors.
Quickly.”
Everyone moved.
I didn’t.
Not immediately.
A few seconds passed while I searched for something inside myself that could drag me from witness back to participant.
I found it when I heard:
“Daron!”
Amy.
I tightened my grip.
And moved.
We searched through the caravan wreckage.
The silence here was worse than any scream.
After a tragedy, noisy places are filled with sounds.
Crying.
Groaning.
Calls for help.
But here…
Nothing.
Only the crunch of our footsteps over broken wood and the crushing silence pressing from both sides.
I moved between wagons.
Checked every depression.
Lifted every tarp.
Examined every shadow.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Then—
“Over here!”
Noor’s voice.
Sharp.
Clear.
We rushed toward her.
Leaping over shattered wagons.
Weaving between bodies without looking directly at them because doing so would have slowed us down.
Then we stopped.
Inside a small natural depression hidden between two overturned wagons and shielded by piles of wreckage…
They were gathered there.
Twenty-one people.
Men supporting wounded companions.
Women clutching one another.
And two children in the center.
Small.
Terrified.
Their eyes carried that unique horror only children possess when they’ve witnessed something no child should ever see.
Their faces were pale.
Their lips dry.
But they were alive.
I exhaled deeply.
A long breath.
Some of the weight crushing my chest since arriving finally eased.
“We found them—”
I stopped.
Because something inside me suddenly awakened.
Violently.
Sharper than before.
As if the pressure that had followed me all the way here had finally located its source.
“Wait…”
I whispered.
Everyone turned.
“There’s something—”
Then we heard it.
Rustling.
From the trees.
One sound.
Then another.
Then dozens.
Multiplying from every direction.
As though the forest itself had begun moving.
Ahead.
Left.
Right.
Then the eyes appeared.
Glowing within the shadows.
Green.
Yellow.
And colors somewhere in between.
Bodies emerged behind them.
One after another.
After another.
Ghouls.
But…
Not like the ones we’d fought before.
Those had been large.
Dangerous.
Difficult.
These were bigger.
Sharper.
Their movements slower and more deliberate.
Like creatures that didn’t rush because they knew they didn’t need to.
And their formation…
They occupied positions methodically.
Encircling us.
Sealing every escape route with a level of coordination that clearly revealed intelligent direction.
Then one stepped forward.
From the center.
From the front.
Larger than the others.
Broader.
Taller.
Its eyes didn’t glow like the rest.
And on its face…
A smile.
Not the smile of a beast smelling prey.
The smile of a creature that understood exactly where it stood.
And exactly where we stood.
My blood ran cold.
I heard Gene whisper:
“…That’s not normal.”
He wasn’t wrong.
The spearman spoke calmly.
As though he had encountered situations like this before.
“Formation.
Protect the survivors.”
Everyone moved immediately.
We spread into a defensive ring.
The survivors at the center.
Us around them.
The giant positioned himself in front.
The silver-haired woman on the left.
The spearman on the right.
Our team filled the remaining gaps.
Karl stood ready with his sword drawn.
Relaxed posture.
Razor-sharp vigilance hidden beneath it.
Gene lowered his center of gravity, axe held firmly in both hands.
Noor raised her bow.
Her first arrow already nocked.
Amy unsheathed both swords.
I recognized that stance well.
The exact stance she always took before everything changed.
And me.
I tightened my grip on my sword.
Closed my eyes for a single moment.
The ability stirred.
Not fully.
Not enough to exact the terrible price I knew it could demand.
Only partially.
The same level I had learned to control during my first battle.
Enough to see.
Without burning myself alive.
I opened my eyes.
And saw them.
Thirty-three ghouls.
Arranged in a circle.
I saw movements before they happened.
The subtle shifts in posture before a leap.
The slight lowering of heads before an attack.
I saw the pattern.
Saw who would move first.
And where.
But beyond them…
Deep within the forest…
There was something else.
Not among the ghouls.
Not physically present.
Yet undeniably there.
Its presence spread from somewhere far away and wrapped around the entire battlefield.
As if these ghouls were merely its fingers.
Not its body.
Watching.
Observing.
Waiting.
I whispered:
“There’s something deep in the forest…
something bigger than all of this.
It’s watching us.”
Amy answered quietly:
“You can feel it?”
“Yeah.”
I swallowed.
“And it can feel us too.”
A brief silence.
Then the spearman spoke without turning around.
“I know.”
His voice remained calm.
“Ignore it for now.
Focus on what’s in front of you.”
The monsters took a step.
One step.
Together.
Every single one.
As if an order had been given without words.
And then everything began.
Karl moved first.
Exploding toward the left flank.
His sword carved a wide horizontal arc aimed at the neck of the nearest ghoul.
The creature dodged faster than expected.
The blade cut into its shoulder instead.
A sharp impact rang through the clearing.
The ghoul snarled.
Not like an animal.
There was conscious anger in the sound.
It lashed out with its claws.
Karl ducked beneath them.
Spun.
His sword slashed upward toward its abdomen.
At the same moment, Gene’s axe crashed down onto the back of a ghoul leaping toward the survivors.
The strike halted the creature midair and smashed it into the ground.
Gene didn’t stop.
He rotated the axe and brought it down again.
Noor’s arrows flew in steady rhythm.
Never wasted.
Every shot targeted an eye.
Every eye struck meant one less threat.
As for the spearman…
I’d never seen combat like that before.
The long spear moved as though it were part of his body.
A single circular motion halted three advancing ghouls simultaneously.
No effort.
No wasted force.
Every movement accomplished exactly what it needed to.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.
The giant faced two ghouls at once.
Instead of dodging the first, he grabbed it.
Lifted it bodily.
Then slammed it into the second.
Both crashed to the ground.
Moments later, his massive sword plunged downward.
Deep.
Decisive.
Amy fought two enemies simultaneously.
Her footwork constantly repositioned them so they obstructed one another.
Never her.
Her right sword defended.
Her left attacked.
Then they switched.
Her eyes tracked both opponents at once.
And the smiling ghoul leader…
Simply watched.
Studying the battle.
Then it looked at me.
I still hadn’t moved.
I was trying to understand the pattern.
To identify the weakness.
To determine what was directing these creatures.
And the leader’s gaze told me something no monster’s eyes ever had before.
It told me that it knew what I was doing.
My heartbeat accelerated instantly.
Then it began moving toward me.
Not charging.
Not leaping.
Walking.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
As though the distance between us wasn’t worth hurrying across.
The surrounding ghouls shifted aside to create a path.
As though they understood.
As though they’d been instructed.
I moved toward it as well.
The ability surged further.
Pain immediately blossomed behind my eyes.
That familiar throbbing.
The reminder that the clock had started.
But I saw.
I saw its movements before they began.
I saw it would leap left, not right.
I saw the left claw was the true danger.
Not the right.
I moved first.
I shifted right at the exact instant it lunged left.
Its claw passed two inches from my shoulder.
I felt the wind it created.
My sword struck its side.
Not a deep wound.
The ghoul rotated faster than I’d fully anticipated.
Its right arm slammed into my chest.
The impact drove me two steps backward.
I steadied myself.
Forced my breathing under control.
The ghoul looked at me.
And smiled again.
This time there was something different in that smile.
Recognition.
Acknowledgment.
And in that instant—
As our gazes met—
I felt it.
That thing deep within the forest.
It was watching.
Watching through this ghoul’s eyes.
And it was intereste