A few minutes before the fight between the Vaekk.

  She climbed the stairs with Napoleon on her shoulder, his green eyes cutting through the darkness and illuminating the stone steps ahead.

  Her HUD displayed the countdown in the corner of her vision.

  Three minutes remaining.

  She looked down past her feet and saw where the stairs ended far below. Wind was howling up from the chamber, pulling debris and dust into a massive vortex. Everything loose was being sucked toward the center, spinning faster and faster.

  Can't stay when this place moves. But she could be up there.

  She kept climbing, one hand on the wall for balance.

  The door's going to make noise. If she's close, she'll hear.

  Her pace quickened.

  It's been over a day. She left. Had to.

  The logic didn't convince her.

  She couldn't stay below. That much was certain. When the Guardian said this zone was relocating, he'd meant it. The machinery sounds. The collapsing chamber. The time limit.

  If she stayed, one of three things would happen. She'd move with the zone to wherever it went. Everything would collapse into empty void and she'd fall forever. Or, most likely, everything would revert to solid earth and stone and she'd be crushed or buried alive.

  The Guardian had given her twenty minutes for a reason.

  He knew what was up here. Could've warned me. But no, just cryptic bullshit as usual.

  The sound of machinery below grew deafening. Metal screaming against metal. Stone cracking. The entire structure groaning like something alive and dying.

  The stairs shook under her feet hard enough that she had to grab the wall to keep from falling.

  One minute, thirty seconds remaining.

  Time to go. Whatever's up there, I deal with it.

  She looked at Napoleon perched on her shoulder. "Listen. If you see a woman and she talks and I freeze, if she starts giving me orders and I can't move, you kill her. Don't hesitate. Don't wait for confirmation. Just kill her."

  Napoleon's eyes flashed brighter. "Understood, Operator."

  I'm an engineer. That's it. No speed, no strength, no training.

  But Napoleon was different now, faster and sharper than before.

  Please let it be enough.

  One minute remaining.

  She could see the hatch above now. Sealed.

  Don't let her be up there. Please.

  "Napoleon, open it. Let's see if everything I did to you actually works."

  She kept her voice steady despite the fear crawling up her spine.

  "Tera," she added. "Monitor Napoleon's performance when we get up there. Track his movements, his speed, his energy consumption. Analyze everything like you did for me. I need to know what he can actually do."

  Monitoring active, Tera responded. I'll compile a full analysis.

  Napoleon jumped from her shoulder to the control panel beside the hatch. His legs moved in rapid sequence. The hatch mechanisms engaged with a series of mechanical clicks.

  The metal began to grind open.

  Daylight flooded down from above, so bright after the darkness that she had to squint. Below, the vortex roared louder, pulling harder, the entire chamber screaming as it tore itself apart.

  Twenty seconds remaining.

  "Operator, move NOW," Napoleon said.

  She didn't need to be told twice.

  She scrambled up the last few stairs, grabbed the edges of the hatch, and pulled herself through.

  Her hands hit moss. Solid ground. Open air.

  The moment she cleared the opening, Napoleon launched himself from the control panel and landed on her shoulder. His eyes shifted from green to red. Blades extended from his front two legs with a soft metallic sound. Those same legs began vibrating, moving so fast they blurred.

  Ready to kill.

  She pushed herself to her feet and looked around.

  What she saw made her freeze.

  Two warriors in silver armor. Same design. Same markings. Both clearly professional warriors.

  One stood with three spears floating in the air around him, hovering without support, pointing in different directions. His eyes were wide open, unblinking, blood running from his nose.

  The other knelt on the ground ten meters away, badly wounded, holding a cracked shield. Blood covered his face. His armor was dented in multiple places.

  Same uniform. Same people. Fighting each other.

  Behind the wounded man stood two children. A boy with brown hair. A girl with blonde hair. Both maybe fourteen years old. Both wearing leather survival gear. Both standing completely motionless like statues.

  All of them staring at her.

  She forced herself to look. Count, measure and decide.

  Then she saw the bodies.

  She had maybe ten seconds before the ability burned out. She used them.

  Man with shield. Wounded. Protecting children. Defensive posture. Not attacking.

  Man with floating spears. Attacking the other one.

  Same uniforms. One of them betrayed the other and they're fighting. Or one's not really part of the group, disguised himself, and got discovered.

  Two dead adults near the children. Same gear. Teachers?

  Decapitated bodies to the right. Executions. All killed the same way.

  Her eyes went back to the left.

  The boy. The tiger.

  She forced herself to look closer.

  Similar cuts on both bodies. Especially the necks. Burns on both. Eyes destroyed on both. Wounds in matching locations despite completely different anatomy.

  Same technique. Same weapon. Same killer.

  A thought tried to form. Ridiculous. Impossible.

  No. That doesn't work. You can't kill an animal and have a person die the exact same way at the same time. That's not how biology works.

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  There had to be a reason. There was always a reason.

  Coincidence. Or I'm missing information.

  She pushed it aside.

  Doesn't matter right now. Survive first.

  The psycho bitch who controlled people wasn't here, and that was the important part. But these two men were, and both looked like they wanted her dead.

  Her mind ran through options.

  The one with the spears is a kinetic. Same as the soldier in the forest. He'll wrap that invisible force around me and yank me straight to him. I'll fly through the air with no control and land right where he wants me. Probably impaled on a spear before I can even react.

  The wounded one is a tank. Two meters of muscle built to absorb punishment. Even kneeling, even bleeding, he could break me in half with his bare hands. That shield alone probably weighs as much as I do.

  The children are frozen. Controlled by something. Can't move on their own. Not a threat unless whatever's controlling them makes them attack.

  Talking won't work. These people don't negotiate. They came here to hunt. To kill. To evolve by taking lives. Words mean nothing.

  Only one option. Fight.

  She let Predictive Planning drop. The world snapped back into motion. Color returned. Sound returned.

  "Napoleon," she said quietly. "The one with the three spears. Attack him. Now."

  Napoleon didn't hesitate.

  He launched himself from her shoulder, legs extending, blades out, moving so fast he became nothing but a streak of metal in the air.

  The man with the spears reacted on pure instinct before Napoleon even crossed half the distance. He moved like someone who had survived too many fights to die in this one. His body twisted sideways, turning his neck away from the attack

  Almost fast enough.

  Napoleon's blade caught the side of his throat as he turned. A shallow cut that opened skin and drew a line of red across pale flesh. Deep enough to bleed. Not deep enough to sever anything vital.

  The man jerked back and his hand shot to his neck. Blood welled between his fingers and ran down onto his armor.

  The children and the wounded man didn't see what happened. Too fast. But they saw the blood and started searching for the source of the attack.

  She unwrapped one of her remaining nano threads from her hand, letting the nearly invisible filament hang ready. She took a defensive stance and kept her eyes on the children and the wounded man.

  He was massive. Easily two meters tall. Broad shoulders. Heavy muscle. Young face, maybe twenty-three to twenty-six. Even kneeling, even bleeding, he looked like he could break her in half.

  Napoleon vanished into the undergrowth, his hand-sized body disappearing completely among the bushes and moss and shadows.

  She couldn't see him anymore. Lost him. No movement. No sound.

  The man with the spears could track him somehow. His eyes stayed locked on a specific point in the vegetation, following something invisible to her, his head turning slightly as Napoleon repositioned.

  Napoleon exploded from cover without warning, launching himself through the air in a blur of metal legs and extended blades.

  The man's three spears moved to intercept before Napoleon even reached the halfway point. One spear swung in a tight arc and caught Napoleon mid-flight, the impact sending him spinning sideways. He hit the ground, absorbed the momentum with his legs, and launched again from a completely different angle.

  The spears were already there, blocking the strike.

  Napoleon adjusted mid-air, twisted, came at the man's left side.

  Parried. Again. Parried.

  The attacks came faster. Napoleon moving at speeds that should have been impossible for something his size. The spears matching him. Blocking every strike.

  She could only watch.

  The man stood completely still, eyes wide open, not blinking. The three spears around him moved like living things, spinning and striking and blocking in patterns that seemed random but clearly weren't.

  Years of battle experience. Instinct honed by survival. He couldn't see Napoleon clearly. Too fast. But he could sense where the attacks were coming from.

  And Napoleon's attacks weren't strategic. Weren't planned. Just crude aggression. Strike. Strike. Strike. No feints. No deception.

  That predictability kept the man alive.

  Blood continued dripping from his nose. The mental strain of controlling three weapons at once while tracking an opponent he could barely see was destroying him from the inside.

  But he kept fighting.

  She couldn't see Napoleon at all anymore. Just sparks where metal met metal. Just the blur of the spears moving.

  Please be okay. Please don't get destroyed.

  One nano thread wouldn't save her if Napoleon lost. The kinetic would turn those spears on her next. She had a dagger. He had three floating weapons that moved faster than she could see and mental powers that could grab her and pull her wherever he wanted. She'd be dead in seconds.

  She pulled out the dagger from her backpack and gripped it tight anyway.

  He's distracted. Focused completely on Napoleon. I could get behind him. One strike to the spine or the back of the neck.

  She started moving, feet quiet on the moss, circling wide to get behind the kinetic while he was focused on Napoleon.

  Something flew through the air with a whistling sound.

  A sword buried itself in the ground three feet in front of her, the blade sinking deep into the moss and stopping her advance cold.

  She jerked back and looked up.

  The giant wounded warrior had thrown it from across the clearing, at least fifteen meters away, with enough force to drive the blade halfway into the ground and enough accuracy to land exactly where he'd aimed. Even kneeling. Even bleeding from multiple wounds.

  "DON'T," he shouted across the clearing. His voice was raw. Damaged. But loud enough to carry. "Don't you dare stop this fight. Don't interrupt it."

  His voice dropped lower and she saw him smile slightly. Blood on his teeth. "My lord Tarn is smiling. That's all we wanted to see."

  She stared at the sword embedded in the moss.

  The strength it takes to throw a weapon that far... that hard...

  She raised her hands slowly and stepped back. Away from the sword. Away from the fight.

  The man with the spears was slowing down and she could see it now in the way his shoulders sagged slightly, in how his jaw clenched tighter, in the tremor that had started in his hands. His movements were getting sluggish, reaction time dropping by fractions of seconds.

  The spears weren't moving as fast, their arcs becoming predictable, easier to track. Blood poured from both nostrils in steady streams, running down over his lips and dripping off his chin onto his armor.

  Napoleon saw the opening.

  He came in low, staying beneath the spears' defensive arc, and drove two of his front legs deep into the side of the man's neck where the earlier cut had weakened the tissue.

  All three spears clattered to the ground, control severed.

  The man staggered backward but didn't fall, his hand shooting to the wound as blood poured between his fingers in pulses that matched his heartbeat.

  He turned his head with visible effort and looked directly at her across the clearing.

  One spear lifted off the ground, shaking violently, barely under control as the man's concentration fractured.

  He aimed it at her chest with the last of his strength.

  Napoleon's eyes went from red to something brighter, almost white, glowing with an intensity she'd never seen before.

  He moved faster than physics should have allowed.

  Faster than he'd moved against the tiger. Faster than against the soldier in the forest. His legs became invisible as they worked on the man's throat, cutting and cutting and cutting until the neck severed halfway through.

  Napoleon dropped to the ground, covered in blood.

  The man fell beside him. Dead.

  Napoleon vibrated his entire body. The blood scattered off in droplets. He jumped back onto her shoulder, leaving red footprints on her shirt.

  She stood there breathing hard, her chest heaving, adrenaline flooding her system and making her hands shake uncontrollably. Her heart hammered against her ribs. Sweat ran down her back despite the cool air.

  Okay. Move. Now. Before anyone else shows up.

  She looked across the clearing.

  The wounded man was still kneeling in the same position, his massive frame hunched slightly from exhaustion or pain or both. His shield remained up in a ready stance, battered and cracked but functional.

  His eyes never left her, tracking her smallest movement with the focus of someone who'd survived too many fights to let his guard down now.

  The two children behind him. Standing frozen. Unable to move.

  She hesitated.

  She looked at the dead teachers. Looked at the children. Looked at the man kneeling between them and danger.

  He was protecting them. Gave everything he had to keep them alive.

  That's not the action of an evil person.

  She put the dagger away slowly, making sure he could see every movement, and raised both hands where he could see them clearly.

  "Napoleon. No aggression toward them. Stay calm. But if he attacks me, kill him."

  "Yes, Operator."

  He watched her raised hands for a moment, then stood up slowly, raising his shield into position.

  She stopped far enough back that he couldn't reach her in one move.

  They stared at each other. The children behind him were moving again, their bodies unlocking, but they stayed close to him, watching her and Napoleon.

  He spoke first. His voice was rough. "You killed the Rathen Apex."

  "The what?"

  “The animal behind you.”

  "It attacked me first."

  He looked at Napoleon on her shoulder. Then at Tarn's body. His face showed anger, but something else too. Something like respect fighting against rage.

  "And that... machine... just killed Tarn." He paused. "Killed one of my brothers in the forest before that. Fastest thing I've ever seen move. Didn't even know something could fight like that."

  She said nothing.

  "But it wasn't you," he continued. "You just gave the order. The machine did the killing." He seemed like he was trying to work something out in his head. "I'm a warrior. I understand killing in combat. But this... I don't know what to think about this."

  "Why are they attacking you?"

  "Because I wouldn't follow orders anymore." He looked at the two kids. "She wanted me to kill them. Students and children. I said no."

  She looked at the dead teachers on the ground. At the terrified kids.

  "You saw the fight," she said carefully. "If I wanted to attack you, I could've done it already. After he killed your... Tarn. That's not what I want."

  He studied her for a long moment.

  "I need to get out of this forest," she continued. "I don't know where I'm going. I'm taking a risk talking to you right now. But looking at this..." She gestured at the clearing. "We're in the same situation. You know what I can do now. What he can do." She nodded at Napoleon. "Maybe we can help each other."

  Reth was quiet for several seconds.

  "There's a Vorminian camp. About twelve miles toward that mountain."

  "Alright."

  The girl spoke up, her voice small and shaking. "Reth... our teachers..."

  He looked at the two bodies.

  "We can't leave them," the boy said. "Please. It's our tradition. They need to be buried."

  Reth closed his eyes briefly. Then he walked to the bodies and lifted both onto his shoulders.

  He looked at her. "You walk ahead. That direction. Keep twenty meters between us. We'll talk more when we're somewhere safer."

  "Fine."

  "And move fast," he added. "Lady Aram will be here soon. We don't want to be anywhere near this place when she arrives."

  They started toward the trees.

  At the edge of the clearing, Reth stopped and looked back one last time.

  At Davan's body. At Tarn's. At his spear lying in the moss.

  Then he turned and entered the forest.

  A PATH OF METAL TO AN AMBER DAWN

  ?

  Fantasy LitRPG Adventure Time Travel Progression Crafting Sci-Fi Magitech Reincarnation Genetically Engineered Gamelit

  Where flowers wilt, grow metal. Where animals die, build life.

  Evelyn Anima has survived for years in the ruins of District Zero, a sealed-off land at the heart of a continent-sized magitek city shattered by a magical disaster that left millions dead—or twisted into monsters.

  After countless failed attempts to become a Classer and earn the right to leave the exclusion zone, time is finally running out.

  The experimental Core implanted in her as a child threatens to kill Evelyn and the last remnants of her mother's green dream with her.

  To fix this broken future and herself, the answer may lie in a distant time. When druids still walked the world, and magic wasn’t trapped in circuits and metal.

  But to know history is to live it, and Evelyn may be bringing more of the future with her than she intended.

  * A Journey of Hope & Discovery*