They found the first real evidence of Arthur's presence in a zone that had been completely abandoned.
Not empty like the collection sites, not destroyed like a battlefield - just abandoned. As if something had passed through and everyone had collectively decided to be somewhere else.
"Well, shit," Lyka muttered, her usual rapid-fire commentary dying as she took in the scope of the settlement.
The zone had been home to what looked like a massive Forsaken hive - complex structures built into cliffsides, evidence of organized society, defensive positions that should have been nearly impregnable. All of it was intact, pristine, and completely devoid of life.
"How many do you think lived here?" August asked, trying to process the scale of the empty settlement.
Lyka was studying the architectural scope with professional assessment, her sonic daggers humming faintly as she moved through the abandoned structures. "Based on the infrastructure? Hundreds, easy. Maybe pushing a thousand. This wasn't some outpost - this was a proper city."
"And they just… left?"
"No." Lyka knelt beside what looked like a communal dining area, plates still set on tables. "They didn't leave. They stopped being here."
August's Foundation monitor was quiet - no residual threats, no dimensional contamination, no traces of the violent reality-warping they'd encountered in previous zones. Just emptiness so complete it felt unnatural.
They found Arthur's trail marker carved into a stone archway at the settlement's center. Unlike the fake markers they'd been following, this one was simple to the point of being dismissive. Just his initials and an arrow pointing deeper into the zones.
"That's it?" August said. "No message? No warning?"
"What's he going to say? 'I was here and now they're not?'" Lyka stood, brushing dust off her knees. "Some things don't need explaining."
They found the civilian camp on the far side of the empty zone, tucked into a defensive position that had clearly been established recently. Forty-three people - humans who looked like they'd been through hell but were still processing what had pulled them out of it.
"You're looking for him," one of the civilians said when they approached. It wasn't a question. The woman speaking had the weathered look of someone who'd survived by being observant. "The quiet one."
"Arthur Solvain," August confirmed. "He was here?"
The woman nodded slowly, glancing at her companions as if seeking permission to speak. "Few hours ago. Set us up with supplies, showed us the safe route out. Didn't say much."
"What was he like?" Lyka asked, her tone unusually subdued.
The woman considered this, absently rubbing a healing cut on her arm. "Tired. Really fucking tired. Not like he needed sleep - like he'd been awake too long to remember what sleep was for."
An older man joined the conversation, limping slightly. "My granddaughter broke her leg when they took us. Infection setting in. He spent two hours cleaning it, setting the bone, making sure she could travel." He paused, looking uncomfortable. "Kept asking if he was hurting her. Like he genuinely couldn't tell."
"That's… considerate," August offered.
"That's what scared me," the man admitted. "Someone that powerful asking a ten-year-old if he's being too rough? Makes you wonder what happened to make him doubt his own touch."
A younger woman spoke up from where she was packing supplies. "He gave me food. Just handed me a can of peaches and told me I should eat something. But the way he did it…" She shook her head. "Like he was following a checklist of human behaviors."
"Did he say where he was going?" Lyka asked.
"Deeper," the first woman said. "That's all. Just 'deeper.' But he did say something odd when he left."
"What?"
"Said if anyone else came looking for him, we should tell them to go home. That the coordination source wasn't worth finding."
August and Lyka exchanged glances. "But you're telling us anyway," August noted.
The woman shrugged. "You don't look like you'd listen even if we told you to go home. Besides," she gestured vaguely at the empty settlement behind them, "after what he did for us, least we can do is be honest with people trying to help him."
"Help him?" The older man laughed, but there was no humor in it. "What makes you think he needs help?"
"Everyone needs help," Lyka said quietly.
They left the civilians to their evacuation preparations and followed Arthur's trail deeper into the coordination zones. Lyka was unusually quiet as they moved, her normal energetic commentary replaced by focused tracking.
"You're thinking," August observed.
"I'm remembering," Lyka corrected. "Stories about Arthur. Not the legends - the other stories. The ones people tell when they think no one's recording."
"Like what?"
"Like the time he spent three days teaching a Forsaken child to fish because her settlement was starving. Like the zones he's cleared without killing anyone, just by being there until they decided to leave. Like the fact that no one's ever seen him enjoy anything."
August considered this. "Maybe he just keeps that private."
"Maybe. Or maybe when you've done what he's done, enjoyment becomes another thing you can't afford."
They found evidence of Arthur's passage growing more recent as they tracked him through the zones. Campsites that were still warm, their fires carefully extinguished and scattered. Water sources that showed signs of recent use, always with the containers carefully cleaned and replaced. Trail markers that looked fresh-carved, each one simpler than the last until they were just arrows scratched into bark.
"We're catching up," August said.
"So is someone else," Lyka replied, pointing to tracks in the soft ground beside Arthur's path. "Look at these."
August studied the impressions. They looked human at first glance, but something about them made his skin crawl. Too perfect, too uniform, like someone had calculated the exact optimal way to walk and never deviated.
"Those are fresh," Lyka continued. "Whoever made them started following Arthur after he passed through. Maybe an hour behind him, two at most."
August's Foundation monitor flickered green briefly - not adapting to an immediate threat, but detecting the residual traces of something that had passed through recently. Something that registered as human but felt fundamentally wrong.
"The coordination signals Arthur was tracking," August realized. "What if he found the source?"
"And now the source is tracking him back," Lyka finished. "Yeah, that's what I'm thinking too."
They pushed harder, following Arthur's increasingly direct trail toward what their maps suggested was a major infrastructure point in the deep zones. The landscape around them grew progressively more unnatural - not chaotic like the reality-warping areas, but deliberately modified. Controlled. Shaped.
"Someone's been terraforming," Lyka observed, gesturing at sight lines that were too perfect, cover that had been systematically removed. "This whole area's been turned into a funnel."
"Leading where?"
"Where do you think?"
They crested a ridge and saw their destination spread out below them. A complex of buildings built into a natural valley, clearly designed as some kind of coordination center. But it was the silence that struck August most - not empty like the abandoned settlement, but waiting. Expectant.
And there, walking toward the center of the complex with measured, deliberate steps, was a lone figure.
Arthur Solvain looked nothing like August had imagined. No dramatic presence, no obvious markers of power. Just a man, maybe five-nine, carrying a weapon that looked well-used rather than mystical. He moved like someone who had calculated exactly how much energy each step required and refused to waste even a fraction more.
"There he is," August said unnecessarily.
"Walking right into it," Lyka observed. "No attempt at stealth, no tactical approach. Just… walking."
They were too far away to call out effectively, but close enough to see other figures moving within the complex. Positioned. Ready. Waiting for Arthur's arrival with the patience of predators who knew their prey was coming.
"It's an ambush," August said.
"It's a meeting," Lyka corrected. "Look at how he's moving. He knows they're there. This isn't a surprise - it's an appointment."
August watched Arthur's steady approach toward what was obviously a trap, and felt something cold settle in his stomach. "He's not trying to win. He's trying to finish something."
"Or something's trying to finish him," Lyka said quietly. "Either way, we need to get down there."
"He chose to go alone."
"So? Doesn't mean we have to let him."
They began their descent toward the coordination complex, moving carefully through the modified terrain. Behind them, August could feel the presence of those perfect footprints, following the same trail, closing the same distance.
"What do you think we'll find down there?" August asked as they moved.
"Honestly? I don't know. But whatever it is, it's been wearing Arthur's name and destroying his work. That makes it our problem too."
They picked up their pace, racing against whatever schedule Arthur had set for himself. The complex grew larger as they approached, revealing defensive positions and kill zones that had been built into the architecture itself.
And somewhere in that carefully constructed trap, Arthur Solvain - the man who had cleared entire zones without witnesses, who had saved thousands of lives, who asked ten-year-olds if he was being too gentle - was walking toward a confrontation that would determine the fate of every autonomous Forsaken community in the region.
August just hoped they'd reach him before whatever was waiting in that complex got the chance to test whether the legend of Arthur Solvain was more durable than the man himself.