The night air hung heavy, thick as wet wool, pressing against Del’s skin and congealing in his lungs. He breathed through it slowly, shallowly, each inhalation dragged through clenched teeth. A low mist clung to the forest floor like ground-hugging fog, curling lazily around his boots as he stepped. It turned the underbrush into half-shapes—ghosts of ferns and brambles, slick roots glistening like tendons.

  Above, branches shifted with the occasional whisper, wind threading through their blackened silhouettes. Somewhere nearby, an owl called out once, then fell silent.

  Shadows leaned long across his path, the moon high but veiled behind a ceiling of cloud. Its light seeped through in thin, silver strands that laced the trees with just enough glow to see—and to be seen.

  Del made no sound.

  He moved like smoke.

  Every footfall was placed with precision, weight rolled from toe to heel, soft as breath. The forest floor welcomed him—mulch, damp soil, and leaves mouldering under months of rain. Nothing cracked. Nothing gave. It was as if the night itself conspired to carry him forward.

  Muscles coiled beneath his skin, tighter than bowstrings, ready to unspool at a twitch. His blade rode low in his hand, not raised, not posturing—just there. Part of him now. Like teeth in the mouth.

  His breath was steady, but his pulse told a different story. It hammered behind his ribs in a slow, relentless rhythm. Not fear. Not nerves. Anticipation—violent and inevitable.

  Every beat pounded the same words into his skull:

  ‘They took her. They took Naomi.’

  Not grabbed. Not stolen.

  Took.

  The forest narrowed as he moved, trees pressing closer. Thorns scratched the edge of his coat. Sap clung to his sleeve. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t blink. The landscape ceased to matter; it was backdrop now. The world had reduced to a single axis of movement: forward.

  The rage had passed through heat already. Fire was a child’s tantrum—brief, useless. What moved in Del now was older. Harder. Coal-forged and compressed. It lived below the bones, beyond breath. A buried sun, white-hot and without flicker.

  He did not run. Running was for prey.

  He advanced.

  The scent of them struck him in stages. First the smoke, woodsmoke and grease. Then the stink—unwashed bodies, sweat soaking into too-worn clothes. Then meat. Roasted. Burnt. Spoiled. Then something worse—copper and rot. Blood gone old in the dirt.

  The campfire was a dim smear between the trees ahead, flickering against bark. Faint silhouettes moved across it—bodies weaving, laughing, gesturing. Drunk. Loud. Arrogant.

  They weren’t even trying to stay hidden.

  ‘Why would they?’ he thought. ‘They don’t believe anyone will come.’

  The blade shifted in his grip. Not tighter—just more certain. His fingers read the leather like braille, each groove, each notch remembered. It knew what was coming.

  So did he.

  The memory came unbidden—not of Naomi screaming, not the thought of her dragged away, but of her hand clutching his just a few days ago. That small, absurdly human gesture. The way her fingers had found his like it was normal. Like he was something safe.

  They took that from her.

  They made him into this.

  Del lowered his stance, eyes fixed on the glow ahead. They had no idea.

  He paused behind the thick trunk of an old pine, pressing one gloved hand to the bark. His breath came slow, evenly spaced between heartbeats. The forest pressed in around him, branches hissing softly in the breeze, but his focus was absolute.

  Ahead, the camp sprawled like a wound in the clearing—its shape messy, unplanned. One fire, maybe two dozen paces across, ringed by loose logs and makeshift crates. Broken bottles glittered like teeth in the firelight. Rusted pans leaned against a stump. Boots were kicked off haphazardly. A long coat flapped on a branch like someone had hung it to dry and forgotten.

  Eight men. He counted them again.

  Six seated or sprawled near the fire—one passing a wineskin, another hunched over a haunch of meat, tearing with his teeth. Two on the perimeter. One pacing lazily with a crossbow half-cocked, the other pissing against a tree with his trousers around his thighs.

  One of them was humming.

  Del watched. He listened. Their movements were loose, cocky. No one expected company tonight. They’d eaten well. Drunk deeper. They laughed too hard at each other’s stories, slapped backs, tossed bones into the dark.

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  One leaned forward to throw something into the fire—a scrap of meat, maybe, or a finger. Laughter followed. A thick man with a broken nose leaned back to spit phlegm into the flames. It hissed and crackled.

  Del did not feel disgust. He had moved past that.

  The muscles in his arms and legs flexed, ready. His body had become a different machine these past weeks—rewired, refined, rebuilt from the bones outward. He remembered limping to the corner shop just a few months ago, favouring one leg, shoulders hunched against the cold. A packet of tea, some bread, and home again before the world could look too long.

  Not now.

  Now, he moved through trees like they welcomed him. His boots kissed the earth without leaving trace. His pulse was steady. His grip strong.

  The system enhancements had changed more than his stats. They’d rewired the way he occupied space. He didn’t just approach the camp. He infiltrated it.

  He sank lower, crawling now, letting the ferns part around him in slow motion. His blade was already drawn. He didn’t remember unsheathing it. It felt natural, like it had grown from his hand.

  He circled right, angling toward the latrine sentry. The man had finished relieving himself and was adjusting his belt with one hand, scratching his belly with the other. No helmet. No clue.

  Del was a few paces away when he paused again, body low, weight balanced. He was close enough now to hear the man muttering. Something about the meat being too raw. Something about needing more ale.

  Then silence.

  Del rose without a sound. One step. Another.

  The knife entered the man’s kidney from behind, buried deep to the hilt. Del twisted. The man jerked, tried to scream—but Del’s other hand clamped over his mouth, dragging him back into the brush. The gurgling was soft, muffled against his palm.

  The blade withdrew and slid in again, higher. The man bucked once, twice—and sagged.

  Del eased him down, eyes scanning the tree line. The body lay still, limbs twitching.

  He moved before the corpse had time to even consider cooling.

  The second sentry stood near a pile of bundled gear, one foot propped on a crate, picking his teeth with a splinter. He was facing the wrong way. Del closed the gap in a blink.

  His arm went around the man’s neck, pulling him backward with brutal efficiency. The blade drove up beneath the chin, punching through the soft palate and into the skull.

  The man shuddered. Del held him tight, waiting for the spasms to stop. When the body went limp, he lowered it with care. Not for mercy. For silence.

  Two down.

  The others laughed on, oblivious.

  Del wiped the blade against the man’s tunic and straightened. His breath came steady. Measured.

  There was no thrill in it. No victory. Only the rhythm. The necessity.

  He ghosted toward the edge of the firelight. Closer now. He could see the crude tattoos inked into one man’s neck. Could smell the yeast on their breath. Could hear one bragging about how the “little bitch kicked harder than he thought.”

  ‘You will die first.’

  The thought wasn’t loud. It didn’t shout or burn. It was quiet. Flat. A decision already made.

  A judgement.

  Karth threw his head back and laughed again, that coarse, open-throated kind of laughter that men use when they think no one in the world is watching—because why would they be?

  Del moved.

  He rose from the thicket without rustle or warning, each muscle obeying with fluid precision. The world compressed. The stars vanished. The wind held its breath.

  Ten metres. Nothing between him and the first target but open ground and a heartbeat.

  The drunk man turned lazily, bottle in hand, lips parted to speak.

  Del’s blade punched up under his jaw with a wet, crunching glide. Steel split tongue, palate, brain. The man’s eyes went wide—more confused than afraid. His knees buckled. Blood sprayed in a sudden arterial cough, catching firelight in a red mist.

  Del didn’t watch him fall. His other hand was already closing around the collar of the second.

  This one had just begun to react—eyes widening, hand going for a weapon that wasn’t even halfway out. Del yanked him down off balance, fast and brutal. The man hit the dirt hard, wind knocked from his chest.

  Del followed, slamming the man’s face into a knotted tree root.

  Once.

  Twice.

  The third time cracked bone. The fourth left no doubt. Blood pooled instantly beneath the man’s head, dark and thick in the moss.

  The firelight hadn’t flickered.

  Del rose, shoulders squared, blade dripping.

  He didn’t hesitate.

  He stepped into the clearing like a phantom, his figure cut from shadow and violence. The fire popped behind him. Ash drifted. The night held its shape.

  Del’s blade whispered through the air and took his hand at the wrist. It flopped sideways into the fire with a dull thump. The man stared dumbly at the stump, eyes wide, mouth opening in a rising scream—Del drove his blade into the side of his neck.

  The sound cut off in a choking gurgle as blood sprayed in a pulsing arc. The man toppled sideways into the dirt, legs kicking once, then still..

  Now they saw him.

  “Who the hell are you?” one of them barks, scrambling for his weapon.

  Del didn’t answer. Words were wasted on the dead.

  Chairs scraped. Voices shouted. Bottles were dropped. Metal rang on stone as hands fumbled at weapons.

  Del moved through them like a blade in water.

  He surged at the next one—broad-chested, swinging a rusted axe overhead. Del ducked low, drove a knee into the man’s shin and swept his other leg out from beneath him. The crunch of bone was immediate and messy. As the man dropped, Del elbowed his throat mid-fall, sending him down in a choking heap.

  Another came from behind, knife gleaming. Del turned with just enough time to take the slash along his ribs—burning, shallow, but real. He gritted his teeth, twisted inside the man’s guard, and rammed his own blade into the man’s gut.

  Deep. Twist. Twist again.

  The man shrieked, tried to back away, hands scrabbling at the wound.

  Del didn’t let him. He stepped into the man’s space and drove his forearm hard against the screaming mouth, crushing it shut and pushing forward, forward, until the man folded in half and something inside gave with a sharp internal pop.

  His side stung where the knife had caught him. He pressed it once. Sticky, but not deep. Nothing that would slow him down.

  Another came with a club, screaming something—Del didn’t catch the words. He met the man’s first swing with his shoulder, absorbing the blow, pain flaring. The second swing never came. Del rolled inside it and bit down, hard, into the man’s neck.

  Flesh tore.

  Hot, coppery blood burst against his teeth and tongue. The man howled, staggering backward, hands flying up.

  Del spat and lunged. His head crashed forward into the man’s face with a sound like fruit splitting. Nose shattered. Teeth snapped loose. The man went down retching blood and vomit, trying to crawl away on all fours.

  He didn’t get far. Now they were scattering.

  Two ran. One with his weapon still drawn, the other dropped his as he fled—pissing himself as he vanished into the trees, feet pounding like frightened deer. Del let them.

  He didn’t chase. Not yet, they weren’t leaving. They were buying him time.

  Time to finish the rest.