They came at dawn.
I felt them before I heard them — a shift in the System’s ambient energy, like a current changing direction.
The constant background hum that saturated this world tightened, focused, and pointed directly at our campsite like a spotlight.
The System was guiding them.
I opened my eyes.
The sky was pale grey, the twin moons fading into morning light.
The fire had burned to embers.
Sera was still asleep beside me — genuinely asleep, not the shallow, alert rest of a hunted woman.
The curse suppression had given her the first real peace she’d had in years, and her body had seized it greedily.
She looked different in sleep.
Younger.
The rigid military discipline melted away, leaving someone who was simply tired.
The curse marks on her forearm pulsed faintly — a slow, dormant rhythm.
I didn’t wake her.
Not yet.
Instead, I stood, stretched, and counted the approaching energy signatures.
Eight.
No — nine.
One was hanging back.
A commander, probably.
Letting the foot soldiers go first.
[SYSTEM NOTICE: CHURCH SCOUT PATROL DETECTED IN YOUR VICINITY.]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: THEY HAVE BEEN INFORMED OF THE HERETIC’S LOCATION.]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: I WONDER WHO TOLD THEM.]
“Subtle,” I murmured.
[SYSTEM NOTICE: I AM NOT TRYING TO BE SUBTLE. I AM TRYING TO BE EFFECTIVE. THERE IS A DIFFERENCE.]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: ALSO, THEIR STATS HAVE BEEN TEMPORARILY ENHANCED. YOU ARE WELCOME.]
I rolled my shoulders and walked toward the tree line where the signatures were converging.
Hands in my pockets.
Unhurried.
The first scout appeared between two pale-barked trees about forty meters out.
He wore white-and-gold armor — lighter than Sera’s ruined set, designed for speed rather than protection.
A Church emblem blazoned on his chest: a golden circle bisected by a vertical line.
The Axiom symbol.
He spotted me immediately.
His hand went to the sword at his hip.
“Halt! By the authority of the Holy Church of the Axiom, you are ordered to—”
“No.”
He blinked.
“…What?”
“You were about to give me a speech. I’m declining to hear it. You’re here for the woman. You’re not getting her. We can skip the part where you explain why you think you’re justified and go straight to the part where I tell you to leave.”
The scout’s face reddened.
Behind him, seven more emerged from the tree line, forming a loose semicircle.
All armed.
All armored.
All radiating that slightly-too-bright energy of System enhancement.
[SYSTEM NOTICE: CHURCH SCOUT PATROL — 8 MEMBERS. BASE LEVELS 25-35. TEMPORARILY ENHANCED TO LEVELS 45-55.]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: THE COMMANDER IN THE REAR IS LEVEL 62. ALSO ENHANCED.]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: GOOD LUCK. (THIS IS SARCASM. I HOPE THEY KILL YOU.)]
Eight soldiers and a commander.
Enhanced well beyond their natural abilities by the System itself.
Against any normal person, this would be a death sentence.
I wasn’t a normal person.
The lead scout drew his sword.
The others followed suit — a ripple of steel in the morning light.
“By order of the Grand Inquisitor,” the lead scout announced, his voice carrying the rehearsed weight of someone reciting scripture, “the heretic Seraphina Blackthorn is to be apprehended and returned to the Holy Capital for final judgment. Any who harbor or assist the heretic are subject to immediate—”
“I said no.”
My voice was quiet.
Conversational.
But something in it made the nearest scout take a half-step back.
Killer’s Instinct.
Not a skill — a trait.
Carried over from a life spent learning exactly how to make people understand, on a primal level, that they were standing in front of something dangerous.
The lead scout hesitated.
His enhanced stats were telling him he was stronger than me.
His instincts were telling him to run.
Stats won.
They usually did with soldiers.
Training overrides fear.
“Take him,” the lead scout ordered.
Three of them rushed me simultaneously.
Coordinated.
Professional.
A triangular formation designed to eliminate escape routes — one high, one low, one flanking.
Good formation.
Useless execution.
I moved.
The Void Core didn’t roar this time.
It didn’t need to.
This wasn’t a dragon or a boss monster or a world-ending threat.
This was work.
And work, I understood intimately.
I sidestepped the first attacker’s overhead slash by three inches — just enough, no more.
Economy of movement.
My palm caught his wrist, redirected his momentum, and used it to slam him into the second attacker.
They collided with a satisfying crack of armor-on-armor and went down in a tangle.
The third — the flanker — swung at my exposed back.
I felt the blade coming before I saw it.
The combat precognition fired, painting a ghost-image of the attack trajectory across my awareness.
I ducked.
The sword passed over my head.
I drove my elbow into the flanker’s solar plexus with precisely measured force — enough to crack his enhanced armor, collapse his diaphragm, and drop him without killing him.
He folded like a paper doll.
Three down.
Four seconds.
The remaining five scouts stared.
“He’s — one person—” one of them stammered.
“Obviously,” I said, straightening.
“Are we done?”
They were not done.
All five charged at once.
No formation this time — just desperate, adrenaline-fueled aggression.
The System’s enhancement flared brighter around them, pushing their bodies beyond natural limits.
[SYSTEM NOTICE: ENHANCING SCOUTS BY AN ADDITIONAL 20%. COME ON. JUST ONE HIT. ONE.]
I sighed.
The next twelve seconds were mechanical.
Not enjoyable.
Not dramatic.
Just efficient.
Dodge.
Strike.
Redirect.
Counter.
I used their own momentum against them, their own weapons as obstacles, their own formations as traps.
Each one went down with a single precisely placed blow — throat, temple, knee, solar plexus.
Nothing lethal.
Not because I was merciful, but because killing church soldiers would escalate things faster than I wanted.
Pragmatism, not morality.
Eight scouts.
Sixteen seconds total.
I stood in the middle of eight groaning, semiconscious bodies, hands back in my pockets, breathing unchanged.
[SYSTEM NOTICE: …]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: I ENHANCED THEM BY 40% TOTAL AND YOU DIDN’T EVEN USE A SKILL.]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: THIS IS BECOMING PERSONALLY OFFENSIVE.]
“You could try enhancing them by 400%. Might buy them an extra second.”
[SYSTEM NOTICE: I WILL REMEMBER THAT SUGGESTION.]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: ALSO THE COMMANDER IS BEHIND YOU.]
I turned.
The ninth signature — the commander who’d been hanging back — stepped out from the trees.
A woman.
Older than the scouts, maybe mid-thirties.
She wore heavier armor, marked with an Inquisitor’s insignia — a step above standard Church military.
Short brown hair.
Hard eyes.
A mace crackling with System-granted holy energy.
[SYSTEM NOTICE: INQUISITOR CAPTAIN HELENA VOSS. LEVEL 62. ENHANCED TO LEVEL 78.]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: SHE HAS KILLED FOURTEEN ANOMALIES IN HER CAREER.]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: FIFTEENTH TIME IS THE CHARM PERHAPS.]
Helena Voss looked at her fallen squad.
Looked at me.
Her expression didn’t change — but her grip on the mace tightened.
“You’re the anomaly,” she said.
Not a question.
“And you’re the one who hangs back and lets subordinates die first. We all have our roles.”
Her jaw tightened.
“They’re not dead.”
“Not yet. Whether that stays true depends on what happens in the next thirty seconds.”
She assessed me.
Unlike the scouts, she didn’t let stats override instinct.
I could see the calculation in her eyes — the recognition that something was fundamentally wrong about the man standing casually among her defeated squad.
But she was an Inquisitor.
Doubt was trained out of them.
She attacked.
The mace came fast — faster than any of the scouts.
Holy energy blazed around it, white-gold and searing, leaving afterimages in the morning air.
The System’s enhancement pushed her beyond her natural limits, turning a competent warrior into something genuinely dangerous.
Level 78.
Enhanced.
Experienced.
Against most opponents, she’d be terrifying.
I caught the mace.
Bare-handed.
Mid-swing.
The holy energy crackled against my palm — and the Void Core drank it.
White-gold light bled into black-violet nothing, absorbed, consumed, converted.
Helena’s eyes went wide.
“Impossible—”
I twisted the mace out of her grip with one hand.
It was easy — not because I was dramatically stronger, but because she was so shocked that her fingers loosened for a fraction of a second.
In my old life, that fraction was all I’d ever needed.
I tossed the mace aside.
It clattered into the grass, holy energy sputtering and dying.
“Fourteen anomalies,” I said.
“Were any of them like me?”
She didn’t answer.
She was staring at her empty hand like it belonged to someone else.
“Leave,” I said.
“Take your people. Tell whoever sent you that the heretic is under my protection. And next time the System points you at me—”
I leaned closer.
Just slightly.
Just enough.
“—bring more people.”
She held my gaze for three seconds.
I watched the war behind her eyes — duty versus survival, faith versus fear.
Survival won.
She backed away.
Gathered her groaning scouts.
Retreated into the tree line without turning her back on me — a professional’s caution, even in defeat.
Within minutes, they were gone.
“You didn’t kill them.”
Sera’s voice came from behind me.
I turned to find her standing at the edge of our campsite, greatsword in hand, fully armored despite the cracked plates.
She’d been awake.
Watching.
Ready to fight, even though she could barely stand twelve hours ago.
Stubborn woman.
“Killing them creates problems,” I said.
“Dead Church soldiers mean investigations. Investigations mean more soldiers. I’m lazy. Math favors restraint.”
She studied me with those ice-blue eyes.
The analytical gaze of a former Knight-Commander evaluating a combatant.
“You disabled eight System-enhanced soldiers in sixteen seconds without using any skills,” she said.
“Then you disarmed an Inquisitor Captain barehanded.”
“Was it sixteen? Felt longer.”
“It was sixteen. I counted.”
She was quiet for a moment.
Then:
“What were you? In your previous life?”
A fair question.
I considered lying.
Considered deflecting.
But she’d been honest with me about her past.
And something about the way she asked — direct, no judgment, just a soldier’s need to understand the capabilities of someone she’d chosen to follow — made me answer truthfully.
“I killed people for money,” I said.
“For a long time. I was very good at it.”
No reaction.
No flinch, no disgust, no moral condemnation.
She processed the information with the same clinical efficiency she processed everything.
“That explains the precision,” she said.
“That’s your response?”
“I was a Knight-Commander. I’ve killed people on orders I later learned were unjust. I have no standing to judge you for the same sin in different clothing.”
Something shifted between us then.
Not dramatic.
Not romantic.
Just…
an understanding.
Two people with blood on their hands, standing in a field full of unconscious soldiers, recognizing each other for what they were.
Broken things that still had edges.
“The Inquisitor will report back,” Sera said, sheathing her sword.
“Mordecai will know where we are within days.”
“Mordecai?”
“Grand Inquisitor Mordecai Ashworth. The man who cursed me. The man who will send everything the Church has to bring me back — and to eliminate you.”
She said it without fear.
Without hesitation.
Just fact.
“He’s strong?” I asked.
“Level 187. The most powerful human in the Church’s history. System-blessed with abilities I’ve never seen matched. He’s killed more anomalies than anyone alive.”
“Sounds like someone I should meet.”
She looked at me like I’d suggested we go swimming in lava.
“You’re insane,” she said.
Again.
“You mentioned that yesterday. Come on. There should be a town nearby. I want real food and information.”
I started walking.
She fell into step beside me — closer than yesterday.
Not by much.
But enough to notice.
Behind us, the System’s notification appeared one last time:
[SYSTEM NOTICE: THE INQUISITOR WILL REPORT YOUR LOCATION.]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: MORDECAI WILL COME.]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: AND UNLIKE THOSE SCOUTS, HE WILL NOT RETREAT.]
[SYSTEM NOTICE: …I AM ALMOST LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS.]
I smiled.
So was I.