After dealing with the Night Walkers, Nyx didn’t stick around; she immediately started heading back toward the camp.
Her urgency was justified—these creatures were unlike the other two races inhabiting the world of Raeth.
The Night Walkers were the most numerous beings on the world, forming the ten thousand clans that existed outside of the main six clans.
This was because they were born in almost endless numbers on random nights each year.
With her understanding that spotting one Night Walker meant an entire group was likely nearby, she knew there was no time to waste.
— “Everyone, up now,” Nyx called out in a cold tone as she stepped to the edge of the campfire’s glow.
“We’re moving immediately—those vile Night Walkers have discovered our camp.” In that moment, the pale, ashen figures rose with surprising coordination and strength, despite their appearance of near-death.
They all gazed at Nyx with a kind of open admiration that no words could ever truly capture.
Among them, a man whose face bore a few more lines of age than the rest stepped forward, his voice calm and sincere.
“Thank you, Nyx… for all you’ve done for us, even if, in the end, it may never be enough.” Nyx turned to look at them for just a moment, saying nothing in return.
This was nothing new for her; these one hundred beings were all that remained of her clan and, in truth, the only members she had ever known.
She had reminded them on numerous occasions that their gratitude was unnecessary, for her actions were not driven by a desire for thanks, but rather by a steadfast sense of duty and responsibility toward them.
In that brief quiet, the woman who had been seated by the fire slowly began to stand.
“My daughter,” she said, addressing Nyx as her eyes opened, revealing the same deep purple as Nyx’s own.
“You’ve become quite lethal over the past few years…
have you gained any new inheritances or something?” A fleeting trace of emotion crossed Nyx’s face, barely there before it vanished.
She let out a quiet sigh, the icy shield of her usual composure slipping just enough to reveal a hint of vulnerability.
“Mother… this isn’t the time.
We have to move.
I’m really not in the mood to take on an entire horde of those things right now.” “You’re right,” her mother replied with a warm, knowing smile and a gentle nod, then turned to the others.
“Come along,” she said, her voice steady and sure.
The small group left the camp behind, disappearing into the deeper shadows of the last untouched forest without hesitation.
Just moments after they left, the clearing seemed to shift, filling with an entirely different presence.
From the shadows, thousands of sharp, white eyes began to glow, sprouting in every direction like eerie blossoms in the dark.
They encircled the deserted campfire and the empty bedrolls, as if the Night Walkers had emerged only a heartbeat too late to seize the prey they’d been stalking.
—- Nyx and the others traveled through the forest with the practiced ease of people who had long since learned that hesitation could mean death, moving in a loose but disciplined formation beneath the towering canopy.
She led them without looking back, the dark blood on her hands already drying into flaking stains, yet her thoughts drifted despite the urgency.
‘One year…” she mused silently, “just a single year left…
and if I fail, everyone else will die.’ The thought lingered heavily, as the remnants of the Unos Clan weighed on her like an old, familiar burden.
Memories of the beginning—of how it had all unraveled—slipped free from the corner of her mind where she usually kept them locked away, flooding her with images and feelings she had tried so hard to forget.
—– Twenty years ago, only two years after the Game had first descended upon the world of Raeth, the world still held a far gentler shape.
The bloody sun hung in the same red-tinged sky, yet the land beneath it retained most of its green.
Forests stood largely unbroken, mountains retained their original silhouettes, and the great plains had not yet been carved into endless graveyards.
Even so, an unusual number of battles flared across the supercontinent at any given hour; distant columns of smoke and the faint clashing of powers marked places where the new order was already testing its teeth.
Within one of the many clans, the atmosphere remained deceptively ordinary.
The Osmos Clan sprawled across the wide valley, clearly a place untouched by Earth’s distant technologies.
There were stone halls and wooden bridges, bustling markets rich with the aroma of roasting grain and fresh herbs, and children darting between the legs of adults who still carried reasons to smile.
People came and went, tending to the small necessities of daily life.
Yet, an underlying tension threaded through every conversation and every glance toward the horizon, as though the entire world had begun to hold its breath.
— Outside a modest bar-like establishment,nt two men sat with cups of dark wine, their faces downcast and their voices low.
“It’s getting harder every day to resist,” the older one murmured, turning the cup slowly between his hands.
“It’s been two years since the grace period ended, and every moment the chaos only deepens.
Pretty soon…
we will find ourselves out there fighting as well.” The younger man nodded, eyes fixed on the surface of his wine.
“Who even created this cursed Game?” he asked, as over the last two years the world of Raeth had gathered enough information to understand the Existential Game… And…
It was nothing less than a living hell.
“I mean… who gives one person the power to dictate the fate of an entire world?” the young man grumbled in frustration.
Over time, they had come to the grim conclusion that the Existential Game came with beings known as Game Controllers—entities who essentially set the rules of the Game.
And the most frightening thing about it all… The rule changed the world, not by force, but through an ultimatum.
These rules were as inevitable as anything could be without complete mind control; they could be resisted, and some could even gain complete immunity to the rule imposed on the world.
However, such a feat depended entirely on Authority… and it wasn’t something that could be easily measured.
To resist the rule without repercussions, one would need at least the same amount of Authority as the Game Controller.
To gain full immunity, one would need even more Authority than the Game Controller.
This was common knowledge across the entire world… yet the greatest mystery remained: no one knew who the Game Controller was.
To this day, no one understood why the being never revealed themselves, or why they never changed the rule.
The young man finally sighed, casting a glance at the older man.
“How long do you think it’ll take before the whole world learns what that rule really asks of us?” At his words, the Older man said nothing because, in truth, neither man had an answer.
They knew they couldn’t resist the rule’s power much longer; every moment they did, their own bad luck worsened.
What they didn’t realize was that in the world of Raeth, when a whole clan resisted the rule, the resulting omens were far worse than any faced alone.
They drank in silence while the distant sounds of conflict rolled across the valley like far-off thunder.
—- Farther into the heart of the clan, inside the grandest building of all—the residence of the Matriarch—a different kind of struggle was underway.
Nyx’s mother labored alone within a wide stone pool filled with warm water, her long black hair plastered to her shoulders and back, her breathing measured yet heavy with effort.
No attendants stood nearby; she had chosen solitude for this moment.
Each contraction drew a low, controlled pant from her lips as she pushed, the water rippling around her.
Between the waves of pain, her voice remained steady, speaking to the child who had not yet drawn breath.
“You…
my daughter…
will be…
the hope of everything,” she whispered, the words shaped by equal parts exhaustion and absolute conviction.
“Everything…
will depend on you.”