The strategy was boredom. Zane had weaponized tedium itself.

  For four days, they escorted a shipment of third-rate iron ore through the sun-baked canyons of the Aridian Expanse. The quest was a masterpiece of narrative inertia, chosen from Jax’s databases for its profound lack of dramatic potential. No hidden artifacts, no tragic NPCs, no world-ending threats. It was a calculated retreat from the grand stage, an attempt to become so profoundly uninteresting that the ever-watching eye of a bored god would simply glide over them.

  Mara craves drama, Zane’s internal monologue ran, a cold counterpoint to the monotonous creak of the wagon wheels. Betrayal, sacrifice, impossible odds. She has no time for the logistics of ore transport. We hide in plain sight by becoming part of the background noise.

  The peace was a unique form of torture for Liam, whose very soul seemed to vibrate with the need for action. He walked beside the lead wagon, a stoic giant forced to endure the merchant’s droning anecdotes. Evie remained a ghost, a silent presence that scouted ahead, her patience a stark contrast to Liam’s.

  “He needs a real fight,” Zane had stated to Evie earlier. This enforced calm was wearing on them all. But it was the price of survival.

  It was halfway through the fourth day when the price proved insufficient.

  The change was subtle at first. The harsh, white glare of the sun softened, shifting to a bruised, violet-tinged twilight, though the sun itself was still high in the sky. An oppressive silence fell over the canyon, swallowing the buzz of insects and the cry of distant hawks.

  Liam moved to Zane’s side, his hand already on his sword. “Zane? What is this?”

  “It’s not a weather pattern,” Zane said, his voice flat and cold. His heart began a slow, heavy drum against his ribs. This feeling was horribly familiar. It was the sensation of the script being torn up. “It’s a rewrite.”

  As if on cue, a soft, golden chime echoed, not through the canyon, but inside each of their minds. A text box materialized in their vision, its characters glowing with a faint, divine light.

  [DIVINE INTERVENTION: Regional parameters are being rewritten.]

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  A cold dread washed over Zane. He had not been boring enough. Or perhaps, his attempt to be boring was, in itself, a form of defiance Mara found amusing. The puppeteer had grown tired of the slow act and decided to force the climax.

  “Form up!” Liam roared, his Protector instincts taking over. “Wagons in the center! Guards, shields out!”

  The men scrambled, their panic given focus by his command. But Zane knew it was useless.

  From the base of the canyon walls, where the shadows were deepest, the darkness began to move. It flowed like ink bleeding through paper, coalescing into a dozen sleek, silent forms. They were insectoid, encased in carapaces of midnight-black chitin that seemed to drink the unnatural light. Their heads were smooth, featureless ovals of polished obsidian—absolute voids.

  Nothing, Zane’s mind raced, a decade of memory flashing by in a useless, frantic search. No record. No data. They are new. She made them.

  This was Mara’s statement, written in the flesh of a creature he had never seen: Your knowledge is worthless now.

  The creatures, the Nyctians, fanned out, their silence more terrifying than any roar.

  “Evie, left flank. Target the joints,” Zane commanded, his voice a low, urgent hiss. “Liam, with me. Front. Don’t let them break the circle.”

  “What are they?” Liam asked, his shield a bastion of steel against the unknown.

  “Unwritten,” Zane replied, drawing his sword. He was no longer a man with a perfect memory fighting a predictable past. He was a strategist with a useless script.

  The Nyctians attacked not with a charge, but with a fluid, physics-defying rush. Evie’s daggers flashed, but the creature she struck barely flinched. Liam’s shield boomed under the impacts of two more, the sheer force staggering him. “They’re strong!” he yelled. “And fast!”

  Zane parried a blow, his mind a whirlwind of analysis. Their combat style was alien, efficient, devoid of the tells and weaknesses of System-programmed monsters. They were fighting blind.

  Then, one of the Nyctians at the edge of the fray vanished. No shimmer, no sound. It was there one instant, and gone the next.

  Zane’s [Data-Stream Sight] flared instinctively. His mind reached for the tell-tale packets of a teleportation skill and found nothing. It wasn’t a skill. It wasn’t magic. It was as if the creature had simply deleted its own spatial coordinates and written new ones. As it vanished, however, his Sight snagged on a trailing wisp of energy—a single, corrupted packet of data, utterly alien to the Oracle System. It was infinitesimally small, but it was something. A clue.

  Acquired: [Unknown Data Fragment], his mind registered, even as a spike of pure ice shot through his veins. He knew the tactic. The target is always the anchor.

  “Liam, behind you!” Zane screamed.

  But it was too late. The Nyctian reappeared in the space between heartbeats, its form solidifying from nothingness directly behind the Protector. Its movements were silent, its obsidian claws, sharp as razors, already descending in a vicious arc aimed directly at Liam’s throat.