Chapter 305: Get Behind Me

The stiff, high collar of the dark grey woolen tunic Cassandra’s quartermaster had handed me felt sharp against my skin, but I pulled it up as high as it would go.

I reached up with my hand, rubbing the side of my neck where the throbbing sting of her bite still burned like a fresh brand.

I pushed past the heavy canvas flap of the command tent, stepping back out into the freezing, ash-dusted air of the creek bed.

The two guards stationed outside instantly straightened, their hand-guards clinking against their chest plates as they watched me walk out completely unharmed.

Word had clearly spread through the vanguard posts like wildfire, the stranger who had walked out of a dead zone was the Commander’s missing brother. The frightened glares from earlier had vanished, replaced by a tense, hushed reverence as soldiers parted to give me a wide berth.

I paid them no attention, my boots crunching rhythmically against the frozen gravel as I walked down the main alley of the camp.

My mind was working methodically picking apart the glaring, nonsensical anomalies that were stacking up around me.

First Emma, now Cassandra… What the hell is actually happening to this world?

I ran through the timeline again. Back at the Academy, before the sky tore open, Emma had wrapped her arm around mine in front of the entire dining hall, kissing my cheek and purring about us “dating for a while.”

When I had questioned it, she had looked at me like I was insane, and Tobias, Sira, and Kyle had casually validated it as an undeniable, established fact.

Now, Cassandra.

She was the distant, arrogant prodigy of House Raith who treated me like background noise. She had given me cold shoulders, ignored my existence, and regarded me as an inconvenient footnote in the family bloodline.

Yet today, she had sealed a command tent with high-tier spatial wards, pinned me to a chair, declared absolute ownership over my life with an unhinged, dark intensity, and bit my neck hard enough to leave a permanent bruise.

This wasn’t just a sudden shift in personality brought on by the stress of war. This felt like a fundamental rewrite of reality itself.

Is it the System? I thought, narrowing my eyes as ash drifted past my vision.

Did my Debugger overrides, Administrator Mode, or Yuki’s data transfer alter the memory parameters of the world around me?

Or did the timeline glitch when the planar seals shattered?

The idea made my blood run cold. If the world’s code was warping around my presence, then the memories of the people around me were being rewritten, creating a reality where their deepest, darkest latent inclinations toward me were being dialed up to an extreme.

I took a deep, steadying breath, letting the freezing, sulfur-tainted wind clear the lingering haze from my mind.

“One step at a time,” I muttered under my breath, adjusting Oathstorm back onto my hip where Cassandra had personally returned it to me.

“First, I find Emma and the others.”

I looked down the winding path of the camp toward the northern defensive perimeter, where the banners of Cassandra’s battle-mage company fluttered against the crimson sky.

Whatever was happening to this world, I needed to see my friends with my own eyes.

—

I reached the wooden perimeter gate of the camp, stepping toward the open trail leading into the ash-covered wasteland.

“Hold on, sir!”

The guard captain from earlier—the scarred officer who had interrogated me—hurried down the earthen rampart, his hand resting on the pommel of his longsword.

He stepped directly into my path, his brows furrowed in deep concern.

“Sir Raith, you can’t leave the camp perimeter,” the captain insisted, keeping his voice respectful but firm.

“The Commander’s orders are absolute. All personnel are to remain within the ward boundary unless deployed on active patrol.”

I stopped, adjusting the collar of my tunic to ensure Cassandra’s bite mark remained hidden.

I looked the captain up and down, keeping my expression completely unbothered.

“My sister gave me full freedom of movement within her jurisdiction,” I lied smoothly, tilting my head with a cold, aristocratic nonchalance.

“Are you standing in the way of me, Captain? Or would you prefer I go back inside and ask Cassandra if she wants you questioning her decision?”

The captain’s jaw twitched. The ghost of pure panic returned to his eyes as he remembered how Cassandra had cleared the entire tent for me just half an hour ago.

He swallowed hard, visibly retreating behind his armor.

“I… of course not, Sir Raith,” he stammered, stepping aside and making a stiff military gesture toward the gate.

“Go right ahead.”

I stepped past him onto the open, ash-dusted gravel path.

Internally, I couldn’t help but let out a quiet chuckle.

So this is what abusing privilege feels like… I have to admit, it’s pretty damn convenient.

I kept walking, expecting the captain to return to his post. But as the crunch of my boots against the frozen ground echoed through the quiet valley, I heard a second set of heavy iron boots following right behind me.

I stopped and turned around, looking at the captain, who was maintaining a steady five-pace distance.

“Is there a reason you’re tailing me, Captain?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Commander’s orders or not, sir,” the captain replied, his voice grimmer now, “I can’t let you wander into a contested dead zone unaccompanied. If anything happens to you, the Commander will have my head on a pike by nightfall.”

I clicked my tongue in mild annoyance.

Tch. Great. A babysitter.

“Suit yourself,” I grunted, turning back around and continuing along the winding trail that led into the withered, blackened outskirts beyond the ridge.

We walked for nearly ten minutes into the ruined terrain.

The landscape was dead, shattered ironwood trunks jutted out from the grey earth like jagged teeth, and the thick, sulfurous mist hung low over the frozen gullies.

The captain kept his hand glued to the hilt of his sword, his eyes frantically scanning the craggy rocks above us.

“Sir Raith, we’ve gone far enough,” the captain warned, his voice tight with growing anxiety as he surveyed the eerie, silent canyon.

“The fog is getting thick, and this sector hasn’t been swept by our scouts since yesterday. We should turn around and head back to camp now—”

CRACK!

A sharp, brittle sound echoed through the gloom—the distinct noise of a heavy bone snapping underfoot.

The captain instantly froze mid-sentence.

From the dense sulfur mist twenty paces ahead, a low, wet growl vibrated through the cold ground.

A lower demonic beast. A quadruped abomination covered in jagged bone plates, its maw unhinged to reveal rows of needle-like teeth dripping black sludge, slid silently out from behind a craggy boulder.

Its crimson eyes glinted with a hungry, rabid light as it locked onto us.

The captain’s face hardened instantly. He drew his steel broadsword with a sharp, metallic ring, stepping squarely in front of me to block the creature’s path.

“Get behind me, sir!” the captain barked, raising his weapon into a high guard. “I’ll handle this!”