Chapter 3: The Bck TractThe morning sun struggled to pierce the thick, grayish fog shrouding the muddy roofs of Ladvia. I stood by the window of my rented room, casually sipping a bitter herbal infusion. It tasted like brewed hay mixed with dirt, but at least it was warm, and it allowed me to fully wake the senses of my vessel.

  The bck, jagged anomaly from the previous night was gone without a trace. Someone had simply retracted it, withdrawing the energy in a heartbeat before the first ray of light touched the ground. I committed the signature of that power to my memory—it was specific, irritating, like the scent of ozone just before a lightning strike. A clear imprint of that essence remained in my mind. When I ran into them again, I would know exactly who I was dealing with.

  I blinked, allowing a blue pulse of Shin Gan to wash over my vision.

  The world instantly gained depth. The grayness of the morning gave way to a tapestry of energy weaves permeating the walls, the floor, and the very earth beneath the building. Some threads of mana were stable and old, while others shivered with every strong gust of wind, as if reality in this pce were merely a thin fabric. My body felt excellent—muscles supple, bones dense and ready for any exertion. I could feel the raw power pulsing deep beneath my skin, but I had to ration it. This vessel was a perfect tool, but even the finest brush can burn if subjected to too much heat. I didn't come here to burn out my shell at the first sign of trouble. I wanted to enjoy this world, not reset it instantly.

  I adjusted the colr of my bck coat, ensuring the fabric sat perfectly, and headed downstairs.

  The edge of the vilge was a chaotic mess, typical of people with too much silver and too little discipline. Count Valerius’s convoy was just assembling. Three richly decorated carriages, ten heavy cargo wagons, and a mass of heavily armored men who were making enough noise for a parade rather than a dangerous trek. The loudest of them was Captain Kael. The man wore silver armor that polished so brightly it practically hurt to look at—the absolute antithesis of practicality. He was currently screaming at a terrified stable boy because his horse had a bit of mud on its hoof.

  I approached the group with a slow, confident stride, hands in my pockets.

  "You’re making a lot of noise, Captain. At this rate, the monsters of the Pass will hear us before we even clear the st shack in the vilge," I stated casually, stopping right beside him.

  Kael spun around, his armor groaning metallically. He swept his gaze over my bck coat, my lean frame, and—what clearly bothered him most—the absolute ck of visible weapons.

  "And who the hell are you?" he scoffed, wiping his face with a gauntlet. "Another beggar looking for a free meal in the Count’s shadow?"

  "This is Dave," Valerius interjected hastily, stepping out from behind one of the carriages. He looked like he hadn't slept all night. "Captain, this is the additional escort I mentioned. I paid him from my own purse, so don't waste my time questioning my decisions."

  Kael turned an ugly shade of red, a vein in his forehead beginning to throb. "This kid? Count, with all due respect, my men are professionals trained in the academy. We don't need a vagrant slowing us down and panicking at the first howl of a wolf."

  I smiled at him, narrowing my eyes slightly. It was the kind of smile that usually makes intelligent people start to sweat. Kael, however, did not belong to that group.

  "I prefer to travel light, Captain. It allows one to focus on what matters. Besides, judging by how your men are holding their shields—too low and with far too much tension in the shoulders—I’ll likely be the one pulling you out of trouble before we’re halfway there. Shall we move, or do you pn to shout the rest of the way?"

  Without waiting for an answer, I walked past the officer and took my position at the head of the column. I heard his furious huffs and whispered curses behind me, but I couldn't have cared less.

  The "Bck Tract" was exactly as described—dark, narrow, and drenched in the scent of rotting leaves. The forest pressed in from both sides, and the treetops interced above our heads, creating a natural tunnel of eternal twilight. I walked silently, my boots making almost no sound. Behind me, Kael rode his stallion, constantly shooting me murderous gres and barking orders for me to stay to the right or not to outpace the vanguard.

  "Your armor is scraping with every stride of your horse, Captain," I replied calmly, without breaking my pace. "Your men are panting as if they're climbing the highest peak in the world, and the horses are so tense I can smell their fear from a mile away. You’re like a massive bell ringing an arm. Don't you hear it? The birds fled this pce minutes ago. Silence in a forest like this is never a good sign."

  Kael was about to snap back with a retort about my ck of experience, but then the forest literally exploded.

  Three massive silhouettes leaped from the dense undergrowth on the left. Chimeras. The beasts were enormous—lion bodies covered in matted fur, goat heads with gssy eyes, and long, serpentine tails that shed out independently. Through Shin Gan, their auras looked like jagged, messy clusters of energy, as if some force had stitched these creatures together from scraps of dark magic and rotting meat. It was low-quality magic, devoid of any elegance.

  One of the Chimeras nded squarely on a guard’s horse. The crack of a breaking spine and the horse's terrified shriek tore through the silence. Kael screamed something about forming up, but his men were too busy trying to control their own panicked mounts.

  A second Chimera decided I was the easiest target. It lunged with a predator's grace, aiming its cws straight for my throat. To my senses, its leap was a slow-motion animation. I saw the tension in its muscles, the saliva dripping from its maw, and above all, I saw the central point of its energy in its chest. I made a minimal dodge, letting it pass by me by mere millimeters, and struck. A simple, open-palm strike directly into its sternum.

  I felt the kinetic force of my body transfer through my hand and explode inside the monster. It wasn't just a hit; it was a shockwave. The Chimera's chest colpsed inward, and its heart simply ceased to exist. It fell dead before its hind legs even touched the ground, crashing into the mud like a heavy sack of stones.

  Simultaneously, the third Chimera had a guard pinned to the ground and was opening its maw to bite his head off. Its serpentine tail whipped through the air, ready to strike anyone who approached. I moved. I didn't run—I was just suddenly there. I gripped the space around the tail, using a sliver of my will. An invisible vise crushed the scales, and with one violent jerk, I ripped the entire serpentine appendage straight from the creature's spine. The Chimera let out a shriek that sounded nothing like a living thing. I silenced it with a swift, precise kick to the temple that drove its skull into its own brain.

  Seeing the sughter of its kin, the st beast tried to flee back into the thickets. I don't like it when someone interrupts my fun and leaves a mess behind. I kicked up a spear abandoned in the mud by a guard, caught it in mid-air, and threw it. It whistled so hard the air vibrated. The spear broke the sound barrier, piercing the fleeing Chimera clean through and pinning it to a thick oak tree.

  Silence fell, broken only by the heavy breathing of the wounded horses. I looked at Kael. He sat frozen in his saddle, spttered with bck monster blood, holding a sword he hadn't even managed to swing. He stared at me as if I were some weather phenomenon he couldn't comprehend.

  "Check the perimeter, Captain," I said, wiping my hand with a handkerchief I pulled from my pocket. "The noise will attract scavengers with much worse taste than ours."

  Valerius stepped out of his carriage, gripping the door frame for support. He was pale, and his hands were shaking visibly. "You... you didn't even use magic," he whispered, staring at the carcasses. "No words, no circles..."

  "Magic wasn't necessary here, Count," I replied with a light smile. "Sometimes you just need to know where to hit and have a sufficiently capable body."

  We set up camp before dusk on a small clearing surrounded by thick ferns. The atmosphere was heavy with unspoken questions. The guards were afraid to approach me, giving my fire a wide berth, whispering among themselves and casting furtive gnces. Valerius stayed in his carriage, pretending to review documents, but I could see through Shin Gan that his aura was pulsing with unease.

  In the night, while most of the camp tried to sleep off the stress, more creatures emerged from the gloom—pack shadows, magical beasts that fed on mana and fear. I didn't wake anyone; there was no point in causing a panic. Sitting on a fallen log, I dealt with them quickly and methodically. I used short, almost invisible kinetic pulses that tore through their ethereal forms before they could even reach the light of the fire. I saw only their glowing, hungry eyes, which went out one by one in the darkness of the forest. It was like dusting—tedious, but necessary.

  At dawn, Kael, who had been nursing his wounded pride all night, finally snapped. He approached my fire as the sky began to turn gray. He drew his sword, and green sparks of wind magic danced across the bde.

  "Stand up when an officer addresses you!" he roared, his voice echoing through the trees. "You got lucky with those mutts in the woods, but in Oakhaven, the w belongs to those with rank and blood. You will not humiliate me before my men!"

  I didn't even move. I sat calmly, holding a cup of hay-tasting tea. "Captain... I saved your ass yesterday, and now you want to duel at breakfast?" I asked quietly. "That's quite unrefined."

  "Silence!" he swung, intending to hit me with the ft of his bde to force me to stand.

  I didn't give him the satisfaction. I simply "pressed" the gravity around him, focusing my will on the vectors of force pushing down on his shoulders.

  Kael suddenly doubled over as if someone had pced an anvil on his back. His expensive armor ptes groaned under the weight, and he smmed into the mud on his knees with a loud thud. His sword slipped from his hand and fell into the ashes. I released a bit of my aura, letting the icy chill and the weight of my presence fill the clearing. The air grew thick, and the fire in the pit dimmed, as if bowing before something greater.

  "Tell me, Captain Kael," I whispered, looking him straight in the eyes from my seat. "Did that armor suddenly get too heavy? Because it looks like you’re very eager to apologize for interrupting my morning."

  "P-please... sorry..." he choked out, his face turning purple as the pressure on his lungs became almost unbearable. In his eyes, I saw pure, primal terror of something he couldn't name.

  I released the pressure and withdrew the aura. Kael crawled away into the shadows, shaking like a leaf and gasping for air. Valerius, who had watched everything from a distance, approached the fire and shook his head in disbelief. "Oakhaven is not ready for someone like you, Dave. This city lives by rules that you just broke with a single look."

  "Oakhaven will have to adapt, Count," I muttered, returning to my tea.

  Three hours before reaching the city walls, our route was brutally blocked. It was a gang of at least fifty—a collection of thugs, deserters, and scum who thought their numbers would be enough to rob a noble's convoy. Their leader, a massive man with a scar across his face, stepped into the middle of the road, wielding a heavy axe.

  "Leave the wagons and the gold, and maybe we'll let you—" he began his rehearsed speech.

  I wasn't in the mood for monologues. I had a vision of a warm bath in the city, and I wasn't going to waste another second on this muddy tract.

  I moved. I didn't activate magic; I didn't cast spells. I relied exclusively on the terrifying, raw motor functions of my vessel. I was nothing but a blurred, bck shadow to them. The first strike, delivered in full stride, hit the leader directly in the sternum, crushing his chest and killing him instantly before he could even close his mouth.

  Then I tore into the center of the group. It wasn't a fight; it was a mechanical, perfect execution. I moved between them at a speed their human eyes couldn't track. Short, precise strikes with bare fists snapped necks; quick palm thrusts shattered joints and spines. I felt the resistance of their bodies, heard the crunch of breaking bones, but to me, it was just the work of clearing the road.

  In less than a minute, the tract was littered with corpses. The remaining bandits who were still on their feet dropped their weapons and fled into the woods with madness in their eyes, tripping over themselves and their fallen comrades. I flicked the blood off my hands, adjusted my coat, and returned to the column as if I had just finished a short, bracing walk.

  A silence fell so deep that only the heavy breathing of the horses and the dripping of blood from abandoned weapons could be heard.

  Kael sat in his saddle, stiff as a statue. His hand, still gripped on the hilt of his sword, was shaking so violently the steel cttered against the scabbard. I saw complete capitution in his eyes. He realized in an instant that all his training, rank, and armor meant absolutely nothing in the face of the force he had just witnessed. He couldn't even look at me anymore; he stared at his horse's mane, praying silently that I wouldn't see him as another obstacle to be removed.

  Valerius slowly stepped out of his carriage. He stood at the edge of the road, looking at the sughter, then at me, as if I were a deity who had just descended to earth in a very foul mood.

  "Fifty men... in less than a minute... without a single spell," he croaked, his voice breaking. "Dave... I’ve seen masters of magic and great warriors in my time, but what you just did... it doesn't fit anything we’ve ever been taught. Oakhaven will try to measure you, and they will simply break their yardstick."

  "They don't need to cssify me, Count," I replied, passing him with a light smile and returning to the head of the column. "It's enough that they don't get in my way. Let’s go, I want to make it in time for dinner."

  Just before noon, the massive stone walls of Oakhaven finally loomed on the horizon. Colossal gates, towering watchtowers, and that giant, shimmering dome of mana stretched over the city like an invisible kxon. My Shin Gan fred with an excess of new colors, energy weaves, and complex magical structures floating over the metropolis. This was no longer the primitive mud of Ladvia. This was a real system, full of life, intrigue, and powerful magic.

  "Warm-up in the mud is over," I muttered under my breath, feeling a thrill of joyful anticipation. "Time to see what this city has to offer."