Crossbows clicked as soldiers took aim. The captain's lifted hand hung in the air like a guillotine waiting to fall.
A pane bloomed.
[Quest: Choose Your Allegiance]
A) Submit to the Crown
B) Resist and Escape
C) Negotiate via Reputation: Ashvale +50 (Check Required)
Alex exhaled once, slow.
"System," he murmured, "run the check."
[Reputation Check vs. The Solar Crown Captain]
Threshold: 50
Your Reputation: Ashvale +50 (witnessed by villagers)
Result: Qualified — Persuasion Window 00:20
Mira, the priestess, stepped forward without fear. "Captain, he saved us. That boar would have leveled Ashvale."
The smith lifted his hammer. "Saw it with my own eyes."
A dozen voices followed—raw, shaky, real. The captain's stare flicked between Alex and the villagers, jaw working.
Alex raised his empty hands. "I'm not your enemy. Give me a way to make this official and I'll take it."
The captain held his gaze a beat longer, then dropped his hand. Crossbows lowered—slightly.
"Provisional writ," he said at last. "You will report to Sunhold within three days for registration and assessment. Until then—" He signaled. A soldier brought a steel band the width of a thumb, engraved with sunburst sigils. "A watch-ring. It marks your location and records hostile acts."
Mira's eyes narrowed. "A leash."
"A safeguard," the captain said evenly. "He is an Outsider."
Alex took the ring. Cold. Heavy for its size. [Item: Solar Watch-Ring | Effect: Location Mark, Hostility Log | Mana Drain: None] Good. Not a shackle—just eyes.
He slid it on. "Fine. I'll play by your rules."
The captain nodded once, as if a ledger had a new line filled in. "Escort leaves at dawn. Do not run."
A horn sounded beyond the palisade—low, mournful.
The System whispered: Note: The surge of levels has attracted a regional predator.
From the broken gate, the night seemed to bend. Wolves and Hollows had fled, but something else approached, each step a wrongness pressed into the dirt.
Villagers backed away. Even soldiers shifted, their horses skittering.
It emerged with the quiet of a knife unsheathed: a tall figure in pale armor grown like bone, hood thrown back to reveal a face too perfect, eyes all pupil. A thin blade hung at its side, not held but grown from the gauntlet itself.
[Identify]
[Warden of Stillness — Outsider Hunter | Rank: C]
Health: 2200/2200
Trait: Level Suppression (within 10m, raw stat gains are dampened)
Tip: Avoid sustained melee. Disrupt footing. Attack joints between grown-armor plates.
"By order of Her Radiant Majesty," it said, voice smooth as glass on water, "unregistered Outsider energies are to be neutralized."
The captain swore under his breath. "Warden, stand down. I've issued a provisional writ."
The Warden did not even look at him. Its eyes drank Alex in like a problem to be solved.
"Host," the System said calmly, suppression field detected. Your effective stats reduced by approximately 20% inside the radius.
"Great," Alex muttered. "And here I thought tonight might get boring."
The Warden moved. Not fast—inevitable. The blade whispered toward Alex's throat.
Predator's Focus. The skill bloomed; the world thickened into honey. Alex slipped sideways, the blade tasting smoke instead of skin. He grabbed a fallen cart, heaved—the wood groaned—and flung it. The Warden cut it in two without changing expression.
"Keep it off the villagers," Alex said, then sprinted for open ground, drawing it after him.
The captain barked orders. Soldiers dragged people into doorways. Mira murmured a prayer that sounded like flint striking steel.
The Warden crossed the square in a ghost of motion. Alex kicked up a scatter of coals, then a table, then an entire water barrel that burst across cobbles. The Warden did not slip. It simply was where it needed to be, blade always a breath from his life.
Tip, the System offered, grown-armor joints: inside elbow, behind knee, base of skull. Create elevation change.
"On it."
Alex vaulted a low wall, took three steps along a slanted roof, and jumped. The Warden followed—impossibly light, almost floating.
Alex stomped. The roof beam cracked. Slate and timber sagged. The Warden's foot sank a fraction. Fraction enough.
Alex dropped past it, caught the edge with one hand, and, upside down, slammed his heel into the back of the Warden's knee. Something clicked.
[Armor Joint Disrupted]
He rolled, snatched a broken spear, and drove for the gap inside the elbow. The Warden twisted; the spear slid along bone-plate with a shower of white sparks.
The blade kissed his ribs. Pain flared hot.
[Health -72] → 1928/2000
He grinned despite himself. "Okay. You bite."
The Warden cocked its head, almost curious. "Your rate of growth is anomalous. You will be cataloged."
"Hard pass."
He feinted high, then hurled the spear not at the Warden—at the ground between them. The wood shattered. Splinters and grit leapt. He kicked the butt, sending shards up like caltrops.
The Warden glided forward—and its bare sole met a shard at a precise angle. It didn't stumble. It paused.
Alex surged inside the suppression ring, slammed his fist into the base of the skull where the plates met. The bone-armor rang like a bell. The Warden's eyes flared; its blade flashed, carving a furrow in the earth as Alex slid under and out.
"Captain!" Alex yelled. "Ropes!"
The smith didn't wait for orders. He and two others flung a coil. Alex snatched it, looped a post, and yanked as the Warden advanced. The line snapped taut across its shins. The Warden cut it—but its next step landed on the wet, ash-slick cobbles left by the burst barrel.
For one priceless heartbeat, it slid.
Alex was there, all new strength and ugly leverage, shoving with everything he had. The Warden crashed into the half-collapsed stall. Timber fell. A beam pinned its sword arm against the ground.
The suppression pressure eased a fraction.
"Now!" the captain roared. Four soldiers hurled sun-bolts—short javelins capped with bright sigils. They struck the Warden's armor and detonated in flares of hard light.
The world went white, then ringing.
When the glare faded, the Warden knelt amid scorched cobbles, armor spider-webbed with cracks, blade still pinned. It looked up at Alex, and for the first time, a sliver of something like interest crossed its perfect face.
"This will be recorded," it said. Then its body softened—collapsed into flakes of chalk-pale dust that blew away on a wind no one felt.
[Hostile Repelled]
[Temporary Suppression Field Dissipated]
[Ashvale Reputation +10 (Defended Village from Warden)]
[Standing with The Solar Crown +5 (Cooperated in Defense)]
People stared. Someone whooped once, wild with leftover fear.
The captain stepped forward, visor up, expression carved from stone. "You should have run," he said, but there was no heat in it. He extended a folded parchment stamped with wax. "Writ of Passage. Sunhold in three days. Do not miss it."
Alex took it. "Wouldn't dream of it."
Mira came to his side, eyes searching his face. "You bleed."
He glanced at the red line along his ribs. Already closing. "Perks of leveling."
Her mouth tilted. "Then level wisely, Outsider. Sunhold is not a village. It has more ladders—and more pits."
A new pane flickered.
[Main Quest Update: Report to Sunhold]
Time Limit: 72:00:00
Reward: Access to legal training grounds, markets, information broker
Penalty: Branded "Rogue Outsider"
Another line appeared beneath it, quiet and sharp.
[Hidden Quest Revealed: The Wardens' Origin]
Clue: "Cataloged." Why do they hunt Outsiders?
Progress: 0%
The captain turned away to bark orders. Soldiers began righting stalls, checking injuries, gathering the dead.
Alex looked down at the watch-ring glinting on his finger, then at the road running east, black as ink under twin moons.
"Three days," he said. "Plenty of time to get stronger."
Plenty of time to be noticed, the System replied.
He smiled anyway. "Then we'll make the noticing worth it."