The path ahead was a stone serpent, so narrow we had to move in single file, our shoulders brushing against cold, damp rock.
The air grew heavier, thick with a damp, metallic scent that coated the back of my throat.
It was the smell of old blood and deep earth.
Tobias led, his broad back a wall of reinforced leather and muscle, blocking most of the flickering torchlight from up ahead.
Lily followed, an arrow perpetually nocked, her head on a constant, fluid swivel.
Marcus was a whisper behind her, his footfalls making no more sound than a falling leaf.
Evelyn stayed close to me, the soft glow from her staff a small, warm defiance against the oppressive chill.
The only sound was the rhythmic scuff of our foot, a grim procession into the belly of the beast.
"That went better than I expected," Marcus said, his voice cutting the silence with a forced lightness that couldn't hide his fatigue.
Lily smirked without turning around.
"Speak for yourself. I wasn't the one who almost got skewered."
"I was luring it in," Marcus retorted, a hand flying to his chest in mock indignation. "It's a classic tactic. Create an opening."
"Sure it is," Lily drawled, her amusement evident. "You keep telling yourself that."
Evelyn let out a soft sigh.
"Can we not do this right now? We're still in enemy territory." Her voice was like a cool cloth on a fevered brow, calm and rational.
Tobias glanced over his shoulder, his expression a mask of stern reproach.
"She's right. Save the banter for when we're safe."
Marcus muttered something under his breath but fell silent.
I said nothing, my mind a whirlwind. I replayed every moment of the fight, the sidestep, the dagger thrust, the precise bolt of lightning.
The goblins had been weak, but their numbers and ferocity were a lesson in themselves.
'Observe everything. There is a lesson in it.'
The old mantra, drilled into me by a father who never got to see me use it, echoed in my head.
This lesson was simple: relentlessness could be a weapon all its own.
"You're awfully quiet, newbie," Lily said, dropping back to walk beside me. Her sharp eyes studied my face. "Something on your mind?"
I hesitated, weighing my words.
"Just thinking about the fight."
"Don't overthink it," She said, her tone uncharacteristically gentle. "First fights are always messy. You'll get the hang of it."
That wasn't what I meant.
I wasn't lamenting my performance; I was dissecting it, cataloging the data for improvement.
Marcus chimed in from ahead.
"She's right. You did better than most rookies. I've seen newbies freeze up completely or run at the first sign of blood."
"My parents were Hunters," I offered, the explanation feeling both true and incomplete. "I think what they taught me helped a lot."
And what I taught myself in the cold, lonely years after they were gone.
"Your parents were Hunters!" Lily's surprise was genuine, her head turning slightly.
"Yeah."
"I knew it," she said, a note of satisfaction in her voice. "Something was off. You handled yourself too well. You knew how to move, how to channel your ability. That's not first-day stuff."
Evelyn glanced at me, her silver hair catching the faint light, making her look like an ethereal spirit in the gloom.
"You'll learn more from experience, Allen. Just don't forget why you became a hunter."
Her words struck a chord, resonating in the quiet part of me I kept locked away.
Why did I become a Hunter?
The question was a ghost that had haunted me since I got my ID.
To prove myself? No. That was a child's reason.
For fun? Absolutely not. This world wasn't a game.
I became a hunter because survival, to me, had always been an active verb.
It wasn't about staying alive; it was about dominating the space you occupied.
It meant clawing your way up from nothing, turning every lesson into leverage, every scar into strength.
Luck had never saved me. I had fought. I had adapted. I had taken what I needed and made sure no one could ever take it back.
Power just wasn't given; it was seized by proving you were stronger, smarter, or more ruthless.
Strength wasn't just muscle; it was the endurance to keep going when others broke.
Wealth was the reward for outthinking, outworking, or outright taking from those too weak to hold onto it.
Connections were the threads that moved the world, and if you wove them right, they became a net to catch you when you fell.
I wouldn't beg for my place in this world. I would take it. And once I had it, I would make damn sure no one could rip it from my hands.
It was selfish. I didn't care. It was the only truth I had left.
I sighed inwardly, pushing the violent clarity of that thought aside as we entered another chamber.
It was smaller than the last, but somehow more foreboding.
The walls were covered in strange, jagged markings, scraped into the stone by something sharp and desperate.
The very air seemed to vibrate with a low, malevolent hum.
"Scout it," Tobias ordered, his voice a low growl.
Marcus nodded and simply melted, his form dissolving into the shadows as if he were made of smoke.
The rest of us waited, weapons held tight, every sense stretched to its limit.
The minutes stretched, each one an eternity.
When Marcus finally reappeared, his face was grim.
"Five goblins. Heavily armored. They're not milling about, they're standing guard. Over something."
"Another leader?" Lily asked, her bowstring taut.
"No," Marcus replied, shaking his head. "Something different. This is too… organized. They're positioned like soldiers."
Tobias's frown deepened, the lines on his face carving deeper shadows in the torchlight.
His hand tightened around the hilt of his claymore.
"We take them out quickly and quietly. Same formation as before."
We flowed into position, the tension so thick it was a physical pressure.
Lily's first arrow was a death sentence, silencing one guard before it could even turn.
Marcus was a phantom of precise violence, his daggers finding the weak points in thick armor with chilling accuracy.
Tobias was a thunderclap, his charge ending one goblin and stunning another with the sheer force of his impact.
Evelyn's magic wove through the air, a golden thread of energy that bolstered Tobias's strength and sharpened Marcus's reflexes.
I held my position, my body humming with contained energy, watching for the opening.
"Allen!" Tobias's shout was a blade through the chaos.
I didn't hesitate. I focused a wisp of mana, a fraction of a fraction, and a thin, precise bolt of lightning lanced from my hand.
It struck a goblin raising a spear toward Tobias's exposed side.
The creature convulsed, a clean hole burned through its chest, and collapsed.
The fight ended as quickly as it began. Silence rushed back in, broken only by our heavy breathing.
"Good work," Tobias said, his voice low and steady as he surveyed the scene.
Marcus was already wiping his blades, his expression not triumphant, but troubled.
"Something's off."
"What do you mean?" Tobias asked, his eyes narrowing.
Lily knelt by one of the dead goblins, prying at its unusually crafted chest plate.
"He's right. This isn't scavenged junk. This is forged. These aren't normal grunts. They're… upgraded."