Rhea had been staring at Kael for almost ten minutes.
At first, she had tried to be subtle about it.
She would glance toward him while stepping over a root, look away whenever he turned slightly in her direction, then observe him again a few moments later.
Unfortunately, being subtle became increasingly difficult when the person she was observing apparently knew what was happening around him without needing to look.
Kael eventually glanced at her.
“What?” Rhea hesitated before deciding that becoming his disciple should at least give her permission to ask questions.
“Master, about last night…those other versions of you really were you?” “Yes.” “They weren’t copies?” “No.” “Illusions?” “No.” “Some kind of technique that creates another body?” Kael shook his head.
“There wasn’t another body.” Rhea frowned.
She remembered touching two of him with her own hands.
Both had been warm, solid, and completely real.
“Then what happens if one of you gets injured?” “One of me?” “The you standing somewhere else.” “That’s still me.” “I know, but if that you gets injured—” “Then I’m injured there.” Rhea’s frown deepened.
“But not here?” Kael thought about the question before answering.
“You’re still thinking of them as separate bodies.” Rhea stared ahead for several steps.
She had the uncomfortable feeling that understanding his explanation would only create more questions.
Unfortunately, curiosity won again.
“Can you see through all of them at the same time?” “Yes.” “Hear?” “Yes.” “Feel things?” “Obviously.” Rhea rubbed her forehead.
Kael looked mildly amused.
“You asked.” “I thought the answer would make things clearer.” “That was optimistic.” Daren, walking several steps behind them, heard the conversation and wisely decided not to participate.
Rhea remained quiet for a while, but once she started paying attention to Kael, another question became impossible to ignore.
She could feel the presence of the hunters traveling behind them.
Even without turning around, years of training allowed her to roughly recognize where Daren and the others were.
Small creatures moving through the nearby vegetation were harder to notice, but they still created subtle disturbances her senses could sometimes catch.
Kael was walking close enough that she could reach out and touch him.
Yet there was nothing.
Rhea looked at him again.
“Master.” “Hmm?” “Why can’t I sense you?” Kael continued walking.
“Because there’s nothing to sense.” Rhea waited for the rest of the explanation.
It never came.
“What does that mean?” “It means what I said.” “But you’re right here.” “Yes.” “So there should be something to sense.” “Apparently not.” Rhea stared at him before releasing a long breath.
Talking to her master was beginning to feel like repeatedly opening doors only to discover another door behind each one.
During their next rest, the subject spread to the other hunters.
Curiosity had been building since the moment they first encountered Kael, and now that they had survived long enough to recover some of their composure, even Daren was interested in understanding the strange man traveling with them.
Kael had no objection to their experiments.
The scout stood roughly twenty meters away and closed his eyes.
He had spent years learning to recognize tiny disturbances created by living creatures, and at that distance detecting an ordinary human should have been effortless.
“Ready?” Daren asked.
The scout nodded.
Kael moved.
The scout’s head turned slightly, but in the wrong direction.
Kael walked around him.
Nothing.
Eventually Kael stopped directly behind him.
The scout opened his eyes and nearly jumped when he saw how close Kael was.
“Nothing,” he muttered.
“Absolutely nothing.” The archer tried next.
Her detection method differed from the scout’s, relying more heavily on sensing disturbances created by living beings in the surrounding environment.
She could locate Rhea without looking.
She identified Daren almost immediately.
When Kael’s turn came, she detected an empty patch of forest.
They made him stand behind a large tree.
The effect became considerably stranger.
As soon as Kael disappeared from direct sight, every indication that a person had been standing there vanished with him.
No breathing reached their trained senses.
No subtle pressure.
No instinctive awareness that another living creature was nearby.
Rhea knew he was behind the tree.
Her mind still insisted there was nothing there.
Then Kael spoke.
“Done?” The archer flinched so badly that she almost drew her bow.
Kael stepped around the trunk.
Rhea stared at him.
“Master…are you even alive?” Kael looked down at himself before touching his chest.
“Seems like it.” “That’s not reassuring.” “You asked a strange question.” Rhea approached him before suddenly reaching for his wrist.
Kael allowed it.
She pressed two fingers against his skin.
There was warmth.
There was also a pulse.
Rhea frowned.
“What are you doing?” “Checking.” “For?” “Whether you’re alive.” “I answered that.” “I wanted another opinion.” Kael let her continue for several seconds.
Everything she could physically observe suggested he was human.
His skin was warm.
He breathed.
He ate.
He spoke like a normal person, although Rhea was beginning to question the last part.
Yet none of those things produced the presence that should accompany life.
Rhea released his wrist.
“Do you need to eat?” “Not really.” She froze.
Daren looked over.
The archer stopped packing her equipment.
Rhea slowly narrowed her eyes.
“Then why did you make me cook yesterday?” Kael looked genuinely confused by the question.
“Because food tastes good.” Rhea stared at him.
Kael continued, “Not needing something doesn’t make it useless.” The answer was so reasonable that Rhea couldn’t argue with it.
Their journey resumed soon afterward.
As the hours passed, Daren gradually began recognizing landmarks.
The enormous trees became less dense, familiar plants started appearing, and several old markings left by previous expeditions could be found carved into stone.
Relief spread through the team.
They were reaching the regions of the Hollow Depth that humans actually entered.
For the first time since the Graveback Ravager began hunting them, survival no longer felt impossible.
One of the injured hunters quietly laughed when Daren identified an old boundary marker.
Their healer sat beside it for several seconds and covered her face with both hands.
Nobody mocked her.
They had expected to die.
Several times.
Yet here they were.
Rhea looked toward Kael.
He was examining an insect crawling across a nearby leaf.
The absurdity nearly made her laugh.
The person responsible for turning their hopeless retreat into something resembling an unusual hiking trip appeared completely uninterested in the achievement.
They continued for another two hours before Kael suddenly looked toward the northwest.
Rhea noticed immediately.
“What is it?” “People.” Daren stopped.
“How many?” “Eleven.” The scout concentrated but shook his head.
“I don’t sense anyone.” “They’re coming.” Several minutes later, the scout finally noticed movement.
His expression changed.
“He’s right.” Not long afterward, eleven hunters emerged between the trees.
The newcomers were far better equipped than Rhea’s exhausted group.
Their armor was intact, their weapons were prepared, and a silver insignia on the leader’s chest marked them as part of an organized search unit.
The moment they recognized Daren, their formation broke.
“Daren!” The rescue leader rushed forward.
Relief quickly turned into disbelief as the missing hunters were counted.
The search team had apparently expected to recover bodies, if anything at all.
Questions came immediately, mixed with hurried examinations of injuries and several emotional reunions.
Then someone noticed Kael.
“Who’s that?” Everyone became strangely quiet.
Daren looked toward Rhea.
Rhea straightened slightly.
“My master.” The rescue leader stared at her.
“Your what?” “My master.” “You disappeared for days and came back with a master?” Rhea considered it.
“Apparently.” Daren rubbed his forehead.
One member of the rescue team had not joined the conversation.
He was an older tracker with narrow eyes who had been studying Kael since noticing him.
His expression gradually became uncomfortable.
He activated his detection technique again.
Nothing.
The tracker frowned and strengthened it.
Still nothing.
He could detect Daren.
Rhea.
The injured hunters.
Small animals in the surrounding forest.
But the young man standing directly in front of him did not exist according to his senses.
The tracker approached cautiously.
Kael watched him.
“May I?” He gestured toward Kael’s shoulder.
Kael shrugged.
The tracker touched him.
His hand met solid flesh.
His face became even stranger.
The rescue leader noticed.
“What?” “I can’t detect him.” The leader looked toward Kael.
“At all?” “Nothing.” Understanding slowly appeared in the man’s eyes, though it was completely wrong.
He cupped his hands respectfully.
“Senior’s concealment technique is extraordinary.” “I’m not hiding.” The rescue leader nodded knowingly.
“Of course.” Kael stared at him.
Rhea turned away before he could see her smile.
Daren quickly changed the subject by explaining what had happened to their expedition.
The rescue team’s expressions became increasingly shocked as he described the Graveback Ravager and their forced retreat into deeper territory.
“How did you escape the Graveback?” Daren pointed toward Kael.
The rescue leader looked at him.
“Senior killed it?” “Yes.” The leader’s respect immediately increased.
Then Daren mentioned Blackroot Basin.
The rescuers became silent.
Then the Stonehide Brute.
Then the unidentified creature beneath the Gravespine Range.
The rescue leader finally raised a hand.
“Wait.
Gravespine?
How did you get here from the western side that quickly?” “We crossed it.” The man nodded.
“Which pass?” “No pass.” The rescue leader frowned.
Daren pointed toward the distant mountains.
“We went through.” “Through the range?” “Through the mountain.” Silence followed.
The rescue leader looked at Daren as though checking whether the man had suffered a head injury.
The archer sighed.
“There’s a tunnel now.” That did not help.
Kael had already lost interest in the conversation.
The combined group resumed traveling, and the terrain became increasingly familiar to the rescue hunters.
Old trails appeared.
Trees bore expedition markings.
Eventually, even the air seemed different as the oppressive density of the Hollow Depth slowly weakened.
Then Kael stopped.
Far beyond what any of the hunters could perceive, his awareness had reached something unfamiliar.
Straight lines.
Cut timber.
Stone arranged deliberately rather than naturally.
A road stretched between cleared sections of forest.
Wooden towers stood at intervals along it.
Walls enclosed a large area farther beyond, and inside those walls were humans.
Many humans.
Kael remained still for a moment.
Rhea approached him.
“Master?” “Nothing.” She waited.
Kael looked ahead.
“There are a lot of people.” The rescue team’s tracker immediately focused in the same direction.
He detected nothing.
“How far?” Kael answered casually.
The tracker slowly lowered his hand.
At that distance, even his strongest detection technique would have been useless.
Yet Kael had spoken as though the settlement were directly in front of him.
The others began walking again.
For Daren and his team, the sight waiting beyond the forest meant safety, warm food, proper beds, and the end of an expedition they had never expected to survive.
For Kael, it meant something else.
Beyond the thinning trees was a world of roads, walls, settlements, and people he had not bothered seeing for a very long time.
Kael placed his hands comfortably in his pockets and continued forward.
For the first time since the hunters had met him, the Hollow Depth was finally beginning to fall behind.