The village was asleep when we arrived.

No guards. No patrols. Just darkness and a few scattered torches flickering lazily in the wind. Our boots barely made a sound as we crept between huts and fences, testing the perimeter like wolves circling a wounded animal.

Vex checked the east side. Toren and I swept the main path. Weak barricades, no traps. Only a few spears stacked at a gate that wasn’t even locked. A child could’ve slipped past.

“They’re scared,” Vex whispered. “I’d be too, knowing we’re coming.”

“Still breathing, though,” Toren muttered. “Not for long.”

We regrouped at the center of the village, next to a dried-up well.

I gave the signal.

Toren raised the horn and let out a low, drawn-out note. A Velkar signal — one the main army would hear and understand instantly.

The village is clear.

All that was left was for the forward force to move in and wipe out whoever was left.

I should’ve felt relief.

But the moment the sound faded, something brushed past us.

A gust.

Fast. Cold. Heavy.

Not natural.

The air thickened like a storm was crawling under our skin. Leaves scattered. The flames on the torches hissed and bent hard in one direction before blinking out entirely.

Toren raised an eyebrow. “The hell was that? Wind doesn’t move like that.”

“Mountain cat?” Vex offered, glancing around. “Something big, maybe.”

“I didn’t see anything,” I said, narrowing my eyes at the trees beyond.

That’s when we heard it.

A scream.

Not close. Not from the village. Far—maybe half a league away. But unmistakable.

High. Sharp. Human.

Vex let out a dry chuckle. “Wow, they must have sprinted here! Our boys are already throwing a party, it seems!”

I didn’t laugh.

“That scream,” I said slowly, “came from the wrong direction.”

Vex’s smile faded.

I turned to face the woods.

“That was where our troops were.”

---

We ran.

Three shadows cutting through the dark, deeper into the trees.

I was ahead, heart pounding with something that wasn’t quite fear yet. Just a pressure behind my ribs, like my body already knew what I didn’t want to admit.

Then we saw them.

Bodies.

Dozens.

Laid out in the clearing like they’d been gently set to rest.

Not a drop of blood spilled on the grass. No panic. No signs of resistance. Just clean, precise death. Each soldier killed by a single strike — throat crushed, heart pierced, skulls shattered dead-center.

Toren froze. “Wh… what did this?”

“No animal,” I said. “No beast. Look at the spacing. They dropped exactly where they stood.”

My voice came out tight. My hands clenched.

This was calculated.

Suddenly, more screaming — closer now.

We bolted toward the sound.

And then we saw him.

---

The figure stood tall in the chaos — almost two meters, looming over the soldiers around him.

Kalen.

The Va’tar.

But this wasn’t the same man we saw back in the village.

He moved like a machine—no, faster. More deliberate. A predator among prey.

He spun behind one man, snapped his neck in a single twist, then ducked low under a swing. His leg swept out, tripping another before he slammed an elbow into the soldier’s temple so hard his helmet cracked like fruit.

He dodged attacks without looking. Disarmed a sword mid-swing, redirected it into another soldier’s chest. No wasted effort. No expression.

Another man screamed and charged him. Kalen caught him by the wrist mid-swing, twisted until the arm snapped, and drove a knee into the soldier’s sternum. With a loud thud, The man dropped in an instant.

His eyes gleamed violet in the dark, like an animal perfectly at home.

Vex stared, pale. “He’s not fighting. He’s executing them.”

“He’s alone,” Toren said, voice shaking. “There’s… there’s forty of them.”

Not anymore.

---

Kalen paused.

Breathing steady. Surrounded by bodies.

His back was turned.

Vex raised his bow. “Now.”

“Don’t—” I started.

But it was too late.

The arrow fired.

It flew clean—right under the shoulder blade. A shot that would’ve killed any man.

It hit.

Kalen staggered slightly… then turned.

Slowly.

His face showed nothing.

Not pain.

Not rage.

Just a void.

His hand reached back and snapped the bolt off like a twig. Let it drop.

He looked at us.

I’ve faced rebels. Monsters. Mages fueled by kav’ra. But nothing in my life ever made my legs shake like that look.

There was no malice in it.

No humanity either.

Just the eyes of something that couldn’t understand why we were still standing.

Toren stepped back. Vex’s hand trembled.

And I...

I couldn’t move.

The Va’tar was real.

And he had turned against us.

—

Kalen Vorr's POV

I hadn’t felt this in centuries.

The rush.

The silence in my mind as instincts override thought, each motion honed to mechanical precision.

It brought back memories—not of this world, but of Earth, during the siege of Sol Gate.

A millennium ago, the Martians—humans who migrated to Mars—had grown arrogant. Drunk on breakthroughs and a rare mineral buried beneath the red sands, they believed they were destined to reclaim Earth, to dominate the cradle they’d abandoned.

Their pride sparked the Sol Gate War.

I fought on its frontlines.

Seeing these Velkar warriors now—with their crude movements and misguided pride—reminded me of the same arrogance the Martians once carried. Their bodies had been warped by generations in low gravity and altered further by synthetic evolution. Fueled by a rare mineral unearthed from Mars’s crust, they convinced themselves they had the right to reclaim the world that had birthed them—the very planet they have turned their backs on.

How foolish.

A flick of my wrist disarmed one. A sharp rotation sent my heel into another’s throat—crushed windpipe, instant kill. Their formation was sloppy, just like the first Martian wave. Overconfident. Panicked.

I relished it. That old rhythm. The dance of combat. The sync between breath and blood.

So much so, I didn’t notice the arrow until it pierced me.

A jolt—not of pain, but of awareness.

The shaft stuck just below my clavicle, where it would’ve punctured a lung in a baseline human. Not lethal for me. Still… unacceptable.

"How undisciplined," I muttered, pulling it free.

Not at them. At me.

If this had been during the Ascension Trials back home, a lapse like that would've earned me demotion or worse. My enjoyment had cost me. I turned, eyes adjusting in microseconds.

Three figures. The scouts.

I recognized them by posture, gait, minor scars I remembered tagging in my memory earlier.

But something was off.

Their bodies—there was a faint hum around them. Not light or heat. Could it be quantum augmentation? That shouldn’t be possible here. Stranger still, the effect seemed internal—something coursing through their veins.

On Earth, quantum augmentation required a complex compound, precisely engineered and quantum-coded. One misstep in composition could cripple or kill.

But this—this was simpler. A single substance applied to the skin. Temporary, lasting only two days based on my calculation. On Earth, even the cheapest lasted at least a week.

Still, for something so short-lived, it was surprisingly stable and low-risk. Too stable. It had to be an early version. But who made it? How did they learn?

This shouldn’t be possible with their current intellect. Not without guidance. Not without centuries of trial and error.

Something’s off. But that’s for later.

I narrowed my eyes.

"Where did you get that?" I asked, my voice low, crisp in the night air. "Who gave it to you?"

No response.

The leader, Rovek, spoke to his men in the native tongue of Nysera—the name of this planet that I'd learned from Turo. “Sahal ven'dakar,” he commanded, meaning, “Prepare yourselves.”

So they attacked.

Toren and Vex fired, bows drawn faster than what was biologically possible. The arrows came in a near-instant, but I'd already shifted sideways between blinks, the shafts whistling past. One caught the tip of my tunic. Sloppy angle.

Rovek surged forward, low stance, blade aimed for my torso.

I leaned into him.

He didn’t expect it.

My hand shot forward, caught his wrist mid-strike, twisted it until the bones cracked, and then launched him backward with a single palm to the chest. He flew five meters and skidded into the dirt.

Toren tried again, faster this time. I ducked under the second arrow, then dashed—not toward them, but past. A blur of motion, a gust of wind. Before they could process it, I was behind them.

Vex fell to one knee—hamstring severed.

I caught Toren by the collar, yanked him off his feet, and flung him into a tree hard enough to leave a crater in the bark.

Only Rovek remained standing.

He roared, his eyes glowing faintly from whatever had been done to him. He attacked with a speed rivaling the weakest Earth warriors who had no body equipment. But no training. No structure.

I ended it with a parry and a knee to the diaphragm, collapsing his lungs. I left him coughing on the ground.

I stood over them, watching as their bodies trembled. The energy inside them was beginning to flicker out. Cellular degradation would follow.

“I could destroy your entire army alone,” I said flatly. “But that would jeopardize my plans.” I needed the villagers to trust me.

I looked up at the night sky. The army was still advancing. I wasn’t supposed to kill any of them, but there wasn’t enough time to build more traps. I had to thin their numbers, leaving just enough for the traps to handle. Fortunately, the scouts missed the hidden traps—had they noticed, they might've delayed their advance and called for reinforcements.

I reduced their numbers—just enough.

I turned my attention back to the area. My pupils narrowed, filtering the spectrum of heat. My ears tuned, amplifying distant frequencies.

A breath.

A heartbeat.

Someone was watching.

I turned sharply, locking on to a small ridge behind the treeline.

Erek.