2025-12-17 14:22:25
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184
~LaurentThe monster lunged again. Fast. Brutal. Its claws arced toward me, aiming for my chest, my throat, the places that mattered most. I rolled through the strike, Shadow Step flickering me through its line of attack. My feet touched the floor behind it. Its momentum carried it past me, and I delivered a palm strike to its back. Sinew compressed beneath my fingers. It staggered but didn’t fall.Not even close.The monster snarled, splitting into three duplicates mid-spin. Shadowed versions of itself, coiling around me, clawing, snapping, a whirl of sinew and teeth. I smiled.I exhaled slowly, letting my eyes scan the chaos. Calculated. Precise. I wasn’t intimidated.“Clones,” I muttered. “Cheap tricks.”I Shadow Stepped between the duplicates, striking one across the shoulder. The shadows around me surged into tendrils, latching onto another. Its body screamed against the pull, tendrils wrapping tighter, shredding sinew with precision.Another clone lunged. I countered with a slas
183
~LaurentI led the way, Denzel and Kendrix flanking me, Calista behind, hands clenched, eyes darting to every shadow. The tags we’d intercepted earlier guided us, each step bringing us closer to her. Ivellé. Every heartbeat in my chest pulsed with urgency, anger, and fear all at once.“Left,” I whispered, pointing to a narrow service corridor. The walls here were low, forcing us to stoop, but the cover was perfect. Denzel’s eyes flicked to me, questioning.“I know,” I murmured. “We move quiet. We move fast.”The air grew heavier as we advanced. Monster patrols shifted in predictable rhythms, yet the deeper we went, the more unpredictable the barracks became. Odd architecture, half-destroyed walls, scorched floors—Vyrath didn’t leave anything simple.Kendrix crouched beside me. “Signs,” he hissed. “Fresh debris, slight scuff marks… she’s close.”I nodded, narrowing my eyes. “Keep your ears open. Keep your head down.”Calista didn’t respond. She didn’t need to. Everyone knew what was at
182
~LaurentThe barracks sat beyond the ash line, a cluster of shadows and broken stone, like a wound in the land. Even from here, I could feel the pulse of movement: monsters pacing, patrolling, sentries shifting with mechanical precision. Not human patterns. Cold. Efficient. Deadly.I crouched behind a ridge of scorched rock, surveying, mapping in my head. Denzel and Kendrix flanked me, silent. Calista lingered behind, tense.“Courier,” I whispered. A figure moved along a narrow path connecting two towers. One of Vyrath’s messengers, light on its feet, unaware it was being hunted.Denzel’s eyes narrowed. “Timing is critical.”I nodded. “We can’t risk being seen. Not yet.”I stepped into the shadows, feeling the stones hum underfoot. Every inch counted. I could hear Denzel’s restrained breath beside me, Kendrix’s silent awareness. We were a unit, but each of us carried different weights—fear, memory, experience.The courier passed close enough that I could see the thin metal strip dangl
181
~LaurentThe word now hung in the air long after I said it.No one moved.That alone told me everything.Denzel was the first to recover. He straightened slowly, eyes narrowing—not in fear, not in anger, but calculation. The same look he wore before a storm broke. Kendrix stayed where he was, shoulders hunched, like he’d already started carrying the weight of whatever came next. Calista lingered a few steps back, arms folded too tightly, watching us the way someone watches a conversation spoken in a language they don’t understand.Good.She couldn’t understand this one.I turned away from the Maze’s sealed mouth and started walking. Not toward the city. Not toward safety. Just far enough that my thoughts could line up without the stone listening.Denzel fell into step beside me.“Where,” he asked quietly, “is the barracks.”I didn’t slow. “Eastern front. Beyond the ash line.”“That’s not an answer.”“It is if you know what that means.”He did. I saw it in the tightening of his jaw. “T
180
~LaurentI knew before Kendrix spoke.It was in the way he wouldn’t meet my eyes.In the way his jaw stayed clenched, like if he loosened it even a little, something ugly would spill out.Calista stood a few steps away, arms folded, confusion written all over her face. She didn’t understand the silence yet. She hadn’t lived in this world long enough to recognize the shape of bad news before it spoke.Denzel said nothing. He watched Kendrix instead.I exhaled slowly. “You’re the only one who saw what happened,” I said. Not a question.Kendrix nodded once.“Start from the beginning.”He swallowed. Then finally looked at me.“When you disappeared… everything collapsed fast.” His voice was rough, scraped raw by memory. “Vyrath’s forces flooded the lower districts. Monster patrols, trackers, bloodhounds—whatever you want to call them. They weren’t searching randomly. They knew our patterns.”My hands curled into fists at my sides.“You and Ivellé went into hiding,” I said.“Yeah.” A bitter
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~LaurentThe air outside the Maze felt almost unreal, sharp with the scent of dust and stone, but clean. We were only in the maze for a few hours but it felt definitely longerDenzel’s eyes found mine immediately. Not wide with panic, not desperate. Just steady, calculating. Even in relief, he carried the aura of someone who had endured something far worse than what I could imagine.Kendrix spoke first, voice sharp. “How… how the hell are you alive? We saw the exit seal. We saw you get left behind.”I let a small smile play at my lips, rubbing my neck tiredly. “I made a clone,” I said simply. “The Maze wanted someone to stay behind. I gave it one.”For a beat, none of them said anything. The idea seemed to settle like a heavy stone in the air. Then Calista’s jaw tightened, disbelief written across her face.“A… clone?” she said slowly, like she was tasting the word, trying to make sense of it.Denzel’s lips twitched, almost imperceptibly. “So… you can make clones now,” he said, voice
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