CHAPTER 35: THE HUMAN WARD

Isilra stood beside the communication crystal, watching its pale blue light pulse beneath her fingertips.

The cavern around her remained quiet. Her companions were finishing what was left of the feral spider, collecting its useful parts before returning to their assigned route. They still had several passages left to clear.

Then, the crystal brightened. A deep voice emerged from within.

"Report."

Isilra straightened. "Senior Sereth has returned to the outer tunnels. He's traveling with a human ward."

A brief silence hung in the chamber. "A human?"

"Yes, Captain."

"How old?"

"Around fourteen, by the look of him."

The captain paused. "Is he armed?"

"Two short swords and a warbow."

"Did he display anything unusual?"

Isilra weighed her words. "He spotted the weak point on that feral spider before any of us. And when two smaller ferals tried to blindside our position, he took them down before they even cleared the wall."

"Anything else?"

"He moves like he's trained in close combat."

"By Sereth?"

"I couldn't say, Captain."

The captain’s tone turned firm. "Your current assignment is suspended."

Isilra blinked. "Suspended?"

"Yes. Call off the culling."

The other warriors had drifted closer, listening in.

"Your new objective is to follow Senior Sereth and his ward," the captain continued. "Keep your distance. Observe them. Report what you see."

"Understood."

"Do not approach them. Do not interfere with their actions." The voice grew sharper. "Do not challenge the human, do not test him, and do not make your presence known."

"What if they run into ferals?" Isilra asked.

"Observe. Unless Sereth or the human is on the verge of death, you do not intervene."

The line went dead, the crystal dimming back to a dull glow. Their mission was over; the uncleared tunnels would have to wait. Sereth's return took precedence.

Isilra lowered her hand, turning to face the rest of the squad.

The older swordsman raised an eyebrow. "What did the captain say?"

"Our orders changed," Isilra replied. "We're dropping the culling operation."

The younger swordsman frowned. "Then what are we doing?"

"Following Senior Sereth and the human."

"From where?"

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"Far enough that they won't spot us."

The older swordsman nodded slowly, glancing at the butchered spider. "What about our route?"

"Suspended."

That settled it. They gathered their gear and moved out, tracking the faint trail left by Sereth and the boy. Isilra took the lead, using her knowledge of the tunnels to anticipate their path while keeping them safely out of detection range.

They hadn't been tracking them long before the sound of combat drifted down the corridor—the sharp ring of steel against stone.

Isilra raised a hand, and the squad froze, slipping into the shadows around the edge of the next chamber. She peered into the cavern, and what she saw made her breath catch.

The human boy was fighting alone.

A large male feral stood across from him—not as massive as the spider from earlier, but heavy-set, its thick chitin and brutal limbs more than capable of crushing an inexperienced fighter. A lone warrior had no business engaging a beast like that without backup.

Yet that was exactly what the boy was doing.

Isilra scanned the cavern for Sereth. The veteran stood a few paces away, arms crossed, weapons completely sheathed. He was just watching.

In the center of the floor, the human drifted around the feral. The creature lashed out; the boy side-stepped cleanly, letting the heavy limb slam into the empty stone. He countered with a quick slash, leaving a shallow mark on the creature's side, then immediately backed away.

The feral whirled and attacked again. The boy dodged effortlessly.

Isilra narrowed her eyes, watching the pattern. He's not trying to kill it.

The older swordsman caught on a moment later, his expression tightening. "He's holding back."

The boy could have gone for the joints or the throat. Instead, he was letting the creature press the attack, treating it like a moving sparring dummy.

"He's studying it," Isilra murmured.

The feral lunged again. The boy raised one sword, catching the heavy limb along the flat of the blade. Instead of absorbing the impact, he rolled his wrist, redirected the force, and pivoted off his lead foot, sliding right past the creature's blind spot.

The older swordsman blinked. "Flow Step?"

"Yes," Isilra said quietly.

"That's just a basic footwork drill," the younger warrior muttered, bewildered.

The human moved again, and this time the transition was so fluid his form seemed to blur. It wasn't supposed to look like that—Flow Step was meant for mobility, not evasion of this caliber.

Then, movement flickered in the periphery. Two smaller ferals were creeping out of the shadows, angling to flank him.

The younger warrior instinctively reached for his bow, but the older veteran stopped him with a sharp hand gesture. "Wait."

The boy already knew they were there.

Both ferals sprang forward. For a second, Isilra lost track of the boy's movement; he seemed to vanish right between the lunging beasts.

A flash of steel. The first feral collapsed. Before the second could even twist around, the second blade sheared through its neck.

Both creatures hit the ground dead within a heartbeat. The boy reappeared a few paces away, his breathing steady.

The older swordsman stared, dumbfounded. "How did he use Flow Step like that?"

Before anyone could answer, Sereth's voice broke the quiet across the cavern.

"Finish the large one. We're moving on."

The boy glanced back. "Right."

His posture shifted instantly. The restrained, experimental rhythm vanished.

The feral charged. The boy met it head-on. Flow Step carried him through the gap in its guard, making him look as though he'd slipped right through its shadow. He appeared beside it, the Warden catching its momentum while the Executioner swept down.

Dark, oily energy—unlike any mana Isilra had ever seen—began to coat the edges of his blades, clinging to the steel like smoke.

He waited for the exact moment the beast shifted its weight, exposing the vital gap beneath its plates.

Clang.

One blade forced the beast's guard wide; the second sank deep into the weakness.

The feral shuddered, stiffened, and crashed onto the stone.

Silence settled over the cavern once more. The boy pulled his blades free, the strange black energy fading away as if it had never been there. He didn't celebrate or look tired; he simply knelt beside the carcass and went to work, harvesting the core and stripping away the valuable pieces of chitin with the practiced hands of a veteran hunter. There was no hesitation, no wasted motion.

Isilra exchanged a look with the older swordsman. Neither of them said a word.

Sereth waited patiently until the boy finished packing his spoils, then turned toward the opposite tunnel. "Come."

The boy stood, slung his gear, and followed.

Isilra waited until they were well out of sight before signaling the squad to move. They fell back into step behind them, silent and unseen.

Their culling duties were forgotten. Their orders were absolute: follow Sereth, watch the human, and keep out of sight.

As she moved through the dim corridors, Isilra's mind raced. A fourteen-year-old human had toyed with a feral, executed low-level footwork with master-class fluidity, killed two ambushers in the blink of an eye, and handled a heavy beast with terrifying efficiency—all while wielding an unfamiliar, pitch-black energy.

She wasn't going to ask. She wasn't going to interfere.

The captain's orders were clear. They would remain ghosts in the dark, tailing the veteran and his strange human ward deeper into the heart of the mountain.