Ryliegh didn't stop walking until the corpse smell faded behind him and the trees changed again.
These ones weren't twisted — they were dead. Hollowed trunks, bark stripped like flayed skin. No moss. No life. Just pillars of rot standing in a circle like witnesses.
He stopped in the center.
Didn't sit. Didn't rest.
He just stood there, sword in hand, shield at his back, and waited.
Night fell quickly in the Darkzone. Not with a sunset — with an absence. Light thinned until there wasn't enough to see the lines on your gauntlet. Then it was gone.
Still, he didn't make a fire.
He didn't even shift his footing.
Somewhere out there, something was watching.
It had been two hours since the beast. He'd killed it clean, but the forest hadn't returned to silence. It had changed.
It was listening.
Branches creaked, but not in the wind — there was no wind. It was the weight of movement. Of something brushing too hard against a trunk, or climbing too high for anything human.
Once, he heard something scrape across bark behind him — high-pitched and wet. He didn't turn.
They wanted movement.
They wanted to see how he reacted. Where he looked. How fast he was.
So, he didn't react.
Black knights were trained for this. Taught not to blink in the dark. Taught that stillness was a weapon.
Minutes passed.
Then hours.
Then—
A rock rolled near his boot. Not thrown. Dropped.
He didn't flinch.
Another scrape. Closer.
Then a sound he hated more than claws or snarls: breathing.
Slow. Shallow. Just outside his left periphery.
Not human.
Too wet.
He counted heartbeats. Thirty. Forty.
A single drop of sweat slid down his back beneath the armor.
They were testing him. Multiple. Two, maybe three. Trying to learn.
Another breath. This one in front of him.
Still, he didn't move.
He'd wait. Let them circle. Let them think he was meat.
Let them lean in.
He was the sword in silence. The patience in armor.
And when they came close enough—
A twig cracked behind him.
He pivoted then.
Fast. Fluid.
Sword high. Shield raised.
But nothing struck.
Only trees.
Only dark.
Nothing ran. Nothing fled. They were still out there — close, but never touching. Just watching.
Learning.
He waited the rest of the night.
No sleep.
No words.
When the first hint of gray bled into the treetops, the breathing stopped. The forest exhaled as if it had held its breath all night.
Ryliegh turned slowly and moved on, eyes scanning every shadow.
They hadn't attacked.
They were hunting something else.
Or someone.
He tightened his grip on the sword.
It wasn't over.
It was beginning.