Raven reached the mill before dawn.
Not because he thought the darkness favored him.
Quite the opposite.
According to the records, the Gloom Stalker was a nocturnal predator with a Trait specialized in low-light camouflage. Going in at night would mean fighting on the creature’s terrain, during its preferred hours, under the exact conditions it wanted.
So Raven did something much simpler.
He arrived early.
And waited for sunrise.
The old mill stood at the end of a secondary road that branched off from the main route about two and a half miles north of Greyhaven. The area must have been farmland once. On both sides of the road, Raven could still see collapsed fences, irrigation channels swallowed by weeds, and remnants of fields no one had worked in years.
The forest had begun reclaiming them.
Young trees grew between old furrows.
Vines covered stone walls.
Tall grass concealed enough of the terrain to turn every depression into a possible hiding place.
Raven didn’t approach directly.
He watched from a low hill roughly four hundred yards away.
The mill consisted of three structures.
The main building.
Two stories of stone and timber, with a motionless waterwheel partially submerged in the channel.
A small barn to the east.
And what had once been a house about a hundred feet to the south, now missing part of its roof.
The stream ran behind the mill and continued into the forest.
No smoke.
No animals.
No people.
That didn’t mean it was empty.
Raven lay down in the damp grass.
Pulled out the report.
He had read it so many times during the night that he no longer needed to.
Gloom Stalker.
Level 14.
Awakened.
He was Level 3.
The difference was ridiculous.
Darius had reminded him several times before Raven left Greyhaven.
Their final conversation had been particularly short.
"You can still change your mind."
"Yes."
"Will you?"
"No."
"Then I don’t know why I keep trying."
"Neither do I."
Darius had ended up lending him a better backpack and an extra roll of bandages.
Mira had been less kind when she found out.
"If you die, I’m not going out there to recover your stuff."
"I wasn’t planning on asking."
"Good."
"Although if you find my body before anyone else, keep the money."
Mira had stared at him.
"You’re a very strange person."
"I’ve been told."
Now, several hours later, Raven watched the mill and thought he would probably get the chance to prove it.
Predator’s Instinct remained quiet.
Nothing was attacking him.
Yet.
That didn’t help him locate the creature.
He needed something older.
Tracking.
He waited until the first gray light appeared behind the hills.
Only then did he descend.
The first track was about four hundred feet from the mill.
A footprint.
Four toes.
Claws.
Larger than the illustration in the records.
Raven crouched.
Deep impression in damp soil.
Considerable weight.
He studied the direction.
Toward the mill.
Found another.
Then another.
The spacing between steps was irregular.
The creature didn’t move like a wolf.
The rear legs left deeper prints.
Burst Step.
Specialized muscle and tendons.
Raven followed the trail without moving closer to the building yet.
He found droppings.
Fur.
Two animal bones.
Then dried blood on a rock.
Old.
Several days.
Not enough.
He continued.
The Copper mercenary’s corpse appeared exactly where the report said it would.
Or what remained of it.
No one had recovered the body.
That said quite a bit about how much the House valued its lower-ranked members.
The corpse lay on its back near the main entrance of the mill, partially sheltered by the overhang.
Weather and scavengers had done their work.
Raven approached carefully.
Predator’s Instinct reacted faintly.
Not toward the corpse.
Toward the building.
Raven stopped.
The pressure disappeared.
Interesting.
It didn’t necessarily mean the creature was inside.
His brain might simply have picked up some signal he hadn’t consciously identified yet.
Or the Skill might be interpreting the territory itself as hostile.
Raven backed away.
He wasn’t going inside.
Not yet.
He crouched beside the dead man.
As the report had stated, the right leg was destroyed. Not completely torn off, but the joint had failed in a way the human body wasn’t designed to tolerate.
Four puncture wounds in the torso.
Claws.
Cervical trauma.
Raven examined the neck.
Not a bite.
Impact.
Probably a paw.
The man had died quickly.
That was useful.
It meant the Gloom Stalker could kill with a single opening.
Raven examined the hands.
One still had dirt beneath the fingernails.
He had tried to crawl.
The other was clenched shut.
Raven pried open the stiff fingers.
There was fur inside.
Black-gray.
"You got something."
He stored several strands.
Then examined the body’s position.
Exactly as he’d suspected.
Dragged.
Not eaten.
Displayed.
Territorial warning.
That meant behavioral intelligence.
Not necessarily human.
Enough to be dangerous.
Raven stood.
Now he knew something else.
The creature wanted intruders to see the corpse.
Which meant it probably watched the area from somewhere that allowed it to observe anyone approaching.
Raven looked around.
Windows.
Second floor.
Barn.
Trees.
Canal.
The most obvious option was the upper window.
Too obvious.
Then he looked at the mill wheel.
Water.
Wood.
A dark space between the paddles and the wall.
Raven smiled faintly.
"There you are."
He hadn’t actually seen the creature.
But if he’d had to choose somewhere to watch the entrance without being seen...
the wheel structure would have been better than any window.
He backed away.
Didn’t check.
Didn’t need to yet.
First, he would prepare the terrain.
Raven spent almost three hours turning the mill into a place less favorable to its owner.
He had no explosives.
No military wire.
No mines.
So he worked with what he had.
Rope purchased in Greyhaven.
Nails.
Two bottles of cheap oil.
A small sack of flour.
Three brass bells normally used for livestock.
Scrap wood from the mill.
Rocks.
And magic.
The first problem was Burst Step.
A creature capable of covering several yards almost instantaneously made relying on short-range distance useless.
So Raven didn’t try to stop it from moving.
He decided to control where it could move.
He found a narrow passage between the mill and a collapsed wall.
About six feet wide.
He placed several short stakes beneath a thin layer of dirt and grass.
Not long enough to kill.
Long enough to injure a leg if the full weight of a large creature came down on them.
Then he prepared a second point.
A rope stretched close to the ground and connected to a damaged section of timber above the barn.
If something passed through with enough force and triggered the mechanism, several beams would fall.
Again, he wasn’t expecting a kill.
He wanted to stop it.
Change its direction.
Force it to spend mana.
The third point was fire.
Raven mixed some of the oil with flour and dry dust from the mill.
It wasn’t a real explosive.
But it could create an ugly flash of flame and enough smoke to interfere with vision.
He placed the mixture in two locations.
Ember Spark would ignite them.
The fourth resource was the stream.
There was a section where the ground dropped sharply toward shallow water, with round stones covered in moss.
Raven had learned from the Nightfang that a lot of force and very little traction could be a useful combination.
Then he did something even more important.
He prepared routes for himself.
Traps were useless if he ended up stepping into them.
He memorized every step.
Every rock.
Every place he could turn.
Every door.
Every window.
He cut a small opening through a fence.
Moved a plank.
Cleared leaves from one section of ground so he wouldn’t slip.
He didn’t need to know exactly where he’d be ten seconds from now.
He needed to make sure that when the moment came, there were fewer bad options.
By midmorning, he was finished.
He ate.
Ravager meat.
Bread.
Water.
Then waited.
His mana was full.
Mana: 18 / 18
Raven studied the interface.
Stonehide would consume too much if he tried maintaining it.
Ember Spark had to be used precisely.
Predator’s Instinct was passive.
None of that erased an eleven-level difference.
If the Gloom Stalker landed a clean hit on his neck...
he died.
If it opened his abdomen...
he probably died.
If Raven ran out of mana before the creature did...
he died.
The traps didn’t change that.
They only improved the odds.
Raven had never needed more than that.
At noon, he entered the mill.
Not through the front door.
He climbed the western wall.
A section of the roof had collapsed, leaving access to the second floor.
Raven used an angled beam.
Every movement slow.
Weight distributed.
No jumping onto rotten wood.
He reached the edge.
Predator’s Instinct reacted.
Strong.
Raven froze.
No movement.
No deep breaths.
Only his eyes.
The interior was dark.
Light entered through holes in the roof and dirt-covered windows.
Suspended dust.
Old flour.
Broken wood.
Motionless gears.
Nothing.
The feeling remained.
Raven didn’t need to see it.
Something was there.
He lowered himself slowly.
One boot.
Then the other.
The floor creaked.
No response.
Raven drew his knife.
Advanced.
The darkness between two pieces of machinery looked too deep.
He watched it.
Nothing.
Another step.
Predator’s Instinct changed.
Above.
Raven threw himself to the floor.