The deeper they moved into the Tier 2 Shroud, the more it resembled the corpse of a city. Buildings leaned like ribs jutting from a carcass, streets were swallowed by fog and fractured stone, and broken towers loomed in the murk like the teeth of something long dead. Some said the Shrouds were echoes of the world before the Great One perished—unfinished memories rotting in real time. Looking at the skyline of collapsed arches and hollowed fortresses, it didn't seem far-fetched.
After Silas Drey broke off with his self-made faction, the rest of the thirty-five staggered forward in loose clusters. The fog didn't just mute sound—it warped it. Marching men could vanish behind a corner and never circle back. Visibility flickered between a few dozen paces and a few steps. Every shadow was a mouth.
Roegan walked near the center of the survivors, his eyes sweeping the darkness ahead and behind. He didn't bark orders this time. There was no point pretending he owned their fate—the Shroud had already taken that. What he needed were people who wouldn't panic, people who knew when to obey, and people who'd follow him even if the sky fell. Strength meant nothing here if cowardice cut your throat while you slept.
He slowed his stride and spoke without raising his voice. "Farlen. Corin. Desla. Jorik. With me."
Four soldiers broke away from the shifting masses without hesitation. Farlen had served under him in three campaigns. Corin and Desla were disciplined enough not to challenge him. Jorik was quiet but brutal in a fight. None of them were ambitious the way Silas was. They formed a tight knot around him and moved forward.
As the squads fractured, Bright and his team drifted the opposite way, keeping their distance. Bright adjusted the grip on his weapon—his wrist hadn't fully recovered from the last fight. Duncan strode beside him, silent and watchful. Link scanned every alley and crevice like something might crawl out at any second, and Adam walked with a stillness that was too deliberate, his thoughts clearly elsewhere.
Ahead, the path split around a sunken courtyard choked with broken columns and a toppled statue. The fog pooled in it like congealed breath. Around its edge, two small squads stumbled into each other—each group battered, blades slick with dark gore.
They weren't enemies, not officially. But they were already circling one another like predators.
Between them lay the carcass of a Night Crawler, bigger than a hound and covered in patches of hide that looked charred and pitted. One of its mandibles still twitched. Acid burned holes through the stone beneath it—its drool still hissing as it ran.
A glistening crystal core the size of a clenched fist jutted from the crawler's chest cavity, half-exposed. Faint, toxic vapor curled around it.
A crystal core with an ability—Acid Spittle.
One of the surviving soldiers kicked another in the ribs and snatched the core.
"It was our kill!"
"Bullshit, we weakened it first!"
"You threw us at it to save your cowards!"
"Drop it or I'll cut your fingers off!"
Weapons rose. Shouts turned into snarls. The hunger for power snapped what little unity remained.
Bright's group slowed at the edge of the courtyard. Duncan's jaw tightened. Adam's eyes narrowed—not at the core, but at the way the ruins around them offered too many hiding spots.
"This'll end badly," Link muttered.
"No," Adam said quietly. "It already has."
Roegan wasn't there yet. Neither was Silas. There was no authority and control here, just desperation, blood, and the knowledge that whoever held a crystal core stood a chance of surviving this hell.
In the swirl of shouting, no one saw the smaller crawler crawling low across the stones to feed on the corpse of its kin. It was no bigger than a dog, its hide dull and featureless, its eyes fixed on the remains instead of the men. And Bright… Bright didn't register to its instincts the way the others did.
It didn't see him as a threat.
Silver hiss flashed as one of the fighting soldiers swung wide with a sword, missing his opponent and slamming the blade down onto the small crawler's back by accident. The creature convulsed once, teeth scraping stone, and died silently in the confusion.
In bright's mind the only thought he had was how pitiful a crawler could be if they wanted. But the insane thought died as he remembered how Tobin was squashed.At least he'll be swooning were ever the dead go when they're eaten by damnable creatures .Poor guy, couldn't live to die here with all of them today.
A faint core rolled free from the crawlers abdomen—a crystal. A dull glimmer with no glow.
The fight over the Acid Spittle core escalated. Two men crashed into a column. A third stabbed someone in the thigh to pry his fingers from the prize. Blood spattered the stones. Another soldier was knocked to his knees and trampled underfoot.
Adam shifted behind Duncan, bending near the larger crawler's corpse under the guise of checking for movement. His hand moved with unsettling precision, cutting out strips of sinew and chitin. He slipped them into his crystal storage container, hidden beneath his coat, sealing away food and flesh no one else would think to claim.
Bright crouched slowly, pretending to tighten his boot strap. The small dull core lay inches from his foot, unnoticed by everyone else. He slid it into his palm and tucked it into his inner pocket without a sound. His heartbeat thumped once, slow and heavy, but no eyes were on him. As he held the core, he realized it was an ability core of danger sense, no wonder that rat looking crawler swaggered into this bloody fight with that much bravado.
Link glanced his way but said nothing. Duncan either didn't notice or pretended not to.
Two more soldiers went down fighting over the Acid Spittle core. One man lost fingers. Another had his cheek opened to the bone. A woman smashed someone's head against the stones until he stopped moving. The core dripped with their blood as hands passed it between fists.
Adam slipped in and smuggled some human remains from the fight for good measure. Didn't know when food will become a problem and if people were to turn into cannibals he was better off ahead of the curve.
By then, Roegan's group reached the edge of the courtyard. They didn't intervene. They watched.
Roegan's face was unreadable, his gaze tracking death like he was counting casualties on a ledger. He could've stepped in. Could've asserted command. But he didn't. He simply waited for the screams to thin.
When only four remained standing and the others bled on the ground, he spoke. His words weren't loud.
"If this is how quickly you tear out each other's throats, you won't last the night."
One of the men holding the crystal hissed, half-mad with adrenaline. "We earned it!"
Rogan's gaze shifted to the acid-eaten stones. "You think the Shroud cares who earned what?"
Silas Drey's group stood in the shadows beyond the broken statue, silhouettes just barely visible. Bessia was there among them, eyes darting across the carnage without flinching. Silas didn't move to claim the core or stop the fight. He only watched, lips curved in the faintest trace of amusement or calculation.
The fog thickened at the edges of the courtyard, curling around fallen limbs and cracked armor.
Bright's core pressed against his chest under his coat, the weight of it unreal. His wrist ached, but a slow heat throbbed in his blood, like the Shroud itself was aware he'd taken something from it.
Adam wiped his blade clean of gore and said nothing.
Duncan turned his back before the argument ended, uninterested in the spoils.
Link glanced again at the spot where the small crawler had fallen, then at Bright, his expression unreadable.
Roegan lifted his hand and signaled for his loyal squad to move on. The others began to scatter, limping or staggering away, clutching their wounds or their loot.
No one buried the dead.
No one closed their eyes.
No one asked who had taken the lesser core. A rat that died so easily couldn't have an ability core, they thought.
Silas and his group melted back into an alley. Bessia cast one last look at Bright's team before vanishing into the haze.
The fog reclaimed the courtyard in silence. Blood soaked the cracked stones. The Shroud didn't need to kill them outright.
They were already doing it themselves.
And somewhere deeper in the city's ghostly sprawl, something heard the noise and began to move.