Insomniac Player

Silas moved before the broken irrigation pipe struck the ground.

His body blurred beyond Damien’s clear night vision. Nocturnal Eyes could remove darkness; it could not make a Level 61 swordsman slow.

Damien turned toward the faint pressure at his left.

The black sword cut his shoulder instead of his neck.

Silas passed him, stopped on the flooded road, and flicked blood from the blade.

"Good instinct," he said. "It delays the same conclusion."

Damien touched the wound. It was deep enough to matter, shallow enough to ignore for the next several minutes.

"You practice conclusions?"

"I practice ending conversations."

Silas came forward without a skill this time.

Steel met the First Blood Dagger. Damien expected the swordsman’s level to appear as overwhelming force. Instead, his arm held.

The Nine-Forged Body-Strengthening Pill had given him thirty points of Strength, thirty of Physique, and thirty of Stamina without raising his level. Player Killer now increased those attributes again.

Silas knew none of that.

Surprise appeared in his eyes when Damien pushed the sword aside.

Damien entered the longer weapon’s reach. The path beneath Silas’s ribs was open. Against a goblin, Damien would already have buried the dagger there.

He saw skin instead of green flesh. A human chest rising with breath. A face that could speak, laugh, and fear death.

His hand changed direction.

The dagger cut Silas’s coat and moved toward his sword arm instead of his heart. That moment of hesitation was enough. Silas twisted away and returned a short cut across Damien’s ribs.

They separated.

"Your level is false," Silas said.

"It’s accurate."

"Your Strength isn’t."

"Also accurate."

Silas smiled. "You are irritating."

"I’ve heard that."

The swordsman glanced at the harmless line Damien had chosen.

"You’ve never killed a person."

Damien said nothing.

Silas’s smile widened. "That is useful."

The swordsman changed his grip.

➤[Sevenfold Rend.]

Seven pale sword lines appeared around Damien.

The first came from above. He blocked it. The second cut low, forcing him to jump. The third and fourth crossed before he landed. One opened his sleeve; the other struck his ribs and tore through recently healed flesh.

Damien caught the fifth line on the dagger.

The impact drove him backward through shallow water.

The sixth missed his throat by less than a finger.

The seventh entered his side.

Silas withdrew the blade immediately, denying Damien the chance to trap it. He had the technique, speed, and experience of someone who had spent decades turning one weapon into an answer for every distance.

Damien had a dagger, several useful abnormalities, and a growing collection of scars.

"Still brief," Silas said.

"You’ve used two named skills."

"Does that comfort you?"

"It means ordinary attacks weren’t enough."

Silas’s smile disappeared.

"Drop the sword," Damien said. "The Queen is dead. Your recruits are captured. This mission is over."

"You are bleeding because you spared me, and your answer is to offer surrender?"

"It’s still available."

Silas lifted the point of his sword toward Damien’s throat. "Then keep it available while you die."

He attacked again.

Damien stopped trying to match the sword. He watched Silas instead: the shoulder settling before a thrust, the rear heel turning before a cut, and the brief stillness that preceded Sunder Step. Attention was not genius. The duplicate in the Tower had made that clear.

It remained useful.

Damien avoided the next thrust and slashed Silas’s forearm. The wound was narrow, but it was the first blood he had drawn.

Silas looked at it.

Damien had possessed the angle to open the artery. He had turned his wrist at the final instant and made the cut shallow.

Silas noticed that too.

"You are proud of observation," he said.

"Not particularly."

"People like you always are. You wait for someone else to act, study the result, and call caution intelligence."

The words resembled the perfect duplicate’s accusations closely enough to be almost funny.

Damien had already heard the better version.

"You talk too much for someone who ends conversations."

Silas cut at him.

Damien stepped inside the line and drove his shoulder into the swordsman’s chest. His hidden Strength lifted Silas from the ground. They struck the side of an irrigation machine together.

The dagger rose toward Silas’s heart.

Damien saw the man’s eyes and shifted the blade toward his shoulder.

That second choice cost him another second.

➤[Blade Reversal.]

The black sword turned along an impossible angle. Its flat struck the dagger, caught Damien’s force, and returned it through his wrist. Pain traveled to his elbow. The First Blood Dagger left his hand.

Silas’s pommel broke Damien’s nose.

A kick sent him through the machine’s thin outer panel.

Metal folded around his back.

Silas straightened his coat. "Strength without technique is a gift to the person redirecting it."

He touched the place over his heart where Damien’s dagger should have entered.

"Mercy is an even better gift."

Damien pulled himself free and wiped blood from his mouth.

"That one was useful."

"What?"

"The explanation."

Silas approached more carefully now. He no longer treated Damien like a Player thirty-one levels beneath him. That removed one advantage, but it also confirmed another.

Damien could hurt him.

Across the broken field, Daria maintained the pesticide wind while Doctor Smoke treated contaminated water before it entered the canal. Hamari and Naked Nun pursued the fleeing recruits. Nobody could reach Damien without abandoning a larger danger.

Silas had chosen the location well.

He had not chosen Damien as well.

Damien stepped behind the dead Queen. Its enormous body cast a deep shadow across the mud.

Silas stopped outside dagger range.

"Your shadow tricks were in the Tycho reports," he said.

"Then you studied."

"Enough."

Damien thought of the skill he had gained inside the Tower.

➤[Doppelganger Lv. 1 activated.]

➤[Duplicate duration: 00:01:00.]

➤[Cooldown initiated: 24:00:00.]

Another Damien formed behind the Queen’s damaged wing.

Its face, wounds, and bloodied clothes matched him perfectly. Its First Blood Dagger was only a visual copy, and its physical ability was too low to threaten a Level 61 swordsman. That did not matter.

Damien gave it one command.

Run.

The duplicate broke from the left side of the carcass.

Silas followed it with his eyes.

The real Damien activated his second skill.

➤[Shadow Imitation activated.]

➤[Maximum duration: 00:10:00.]

➤[Cooldown initiated: 00:50:00.]

His body merged into the Queen’s shadow.

He could not move while fully integrated. He could only wait and watch through darkness as his Doppelganger fled across the field.

Silas did not attack immediately.

"A clone," he said.

The duplicate kept running.

Silas glanced back at the carcass.

He suspected the trick, but suspicion demanded a choice. If he searched the shadow, the figure could escape. If he pursued, the hidden Damien gained time.

Silas raised his sword.

➤[Execution Arc.]

A black crescent crossed the field.

It cut through the duplicate, two irrigation posts, and the corner of an empty storage building. Damien’s copy separated into smoke before it hit the ground.

Silas turned immediately and drove his sword into the Queen’s shadow.

Damien ended Shadow Imitation an instant before the blade reached him.

He appeared on the other side of the carcass and recovered the First Blood Dagger from the mud.

Silas ripped his sword free.

"That was your plan?"

"Part of it."

"You spent three skills to avoid one."

"Yours made a larger hole."

Silas looked toward the destroyed building.

It was not much of a distraction.

It was enough.

Damien activated Shadow Dash.

➤[Shadow Dash activated.]

➤[Destination confirmed: 18.4 meters.]

➤[Cooldown initiated: 00:50:00.]

He crossed the space between shadows instantly and appeared inside Silas’s sword reach.

The First Blood Dagger entered the swordsman’s side.

Damien felt the blade approaching something vital and stopped pushing.

Silas did not return the mercy. He caught Damien’s wrist, drove the dagger back out, and struck Damien’s stomach with his knee. The black sword followed, opening a long wound from Damien’s hip to his lower ribs.

The two men separated with fresh blood on both weapons.

The balance had changed.

Silas’s strongest attack had cut a copy. Damien’s three shadow skills were now unavailable, but the swordsman had a real wound and a slight weakness in his left turn.

"What gave you those attributes?" Silas asked.

"A pill."

"No pill gives thirty levels of physical improvement."

"Then mine was overpriced."

Silas laughed once. It contained no humor.

"Neva would have found a use for you."

"You found one. You’re trying to kill me."

"I mean a profitable use."

"I bought corn."

For the first time, Silas seemed unsure whether Damien was joking.

Then he understood something more important.

"Three chances," Silas said. "You had three chances to kill me."

Damien pressed one hand against his side.

"You could still surrender."

"And you could still learn."

Then his sword rose.

The final exchange began without a skill announcement.

Silas no longer wasted movement. Every cut aimed at an artery, joint, or old wound. Damien gave ground through the flooded field. His higher Stamina kept his body functioning, but it did not close cuts or replace blood.

He could not win by lasting forever.

That had once been his preferred plan in every fight: survive until someone stronger arrived, until the timer ended, or until an opportunity appeared.

No one was coming.

The opportunity had to be made.

Damien had called Neva’s members criminals because criminals were still people. People could be arrested. People could regret what they had done. People might stop when offered a way to live.

Silas had been offered that choice three times.

He had answered by cutting deeper every time Damien held back. He had directed locusts toward food meant for millions, murdered his own recruit, and tried to turn Damien’s mercy into a weakness he could exploit.

Human skin did not make those actions human.

Skinwalker.

The word settled into Damien’s mind. Not a Class. Not a race. A name for monsters who wore human faces while feeding on humanity.

Killing a Skinwalker was all right.

Leaving one alive meant allowing it to hurt humanity again.

For the first time since the duel began, Damien looked at Silas without searching for a way to spare him. The hesitation disappeared. His grip became firm.

Silas thrust toward his heart.

Damien saw the shoulder settle.

He did not retreat.

He turned just enough for the sword to enter below his collarbone instead of his chest. Pain erased the field for a fraction of a second. His strengthened Stamina kept the arm moving.

Damien caught Silas’s sword wrist with both hands.

Silas tried to withdraw.

Thirty hidden points of Strength refused him.

"Let go," Silas said.

"No."

Silas struck Damien’s ribs with his free hand. Once. Twice. The third blow cracked something.

Damien pulled him closer.

The First Blood Dagger was trapped between their bodies. Damien shifted it beneath Silas’s guard.

The swordsman saw the blade too late.

"You’re Level 30," he said.

"You mentioned that."

Damien drove the dagger upward.

Silas Vane stopped resisting.

For several seconds, they remained standing against each other, held upright by the sword through Damien’s shoulder and the dagger beneath Silas’s ribs.

Then Silas fell.

Damien pulled the black sword from his body and dropped beside the dead Queen.

He looked at the human face in the mud and waited for his resolve to disappear.

It did not.

The weight remained. A human life had ended by his hand, and no word could make that meaningless. But Silas would never redirect another swarm, murder another subordinate, or choose another victim.

"Not a criminal," Damien told himself through an unsteady breath. "A Skinwalker."

This was not killing for profit, anger, or pleasure.

It was preventing the monster from feeding again.

The Level 1 locusts continued moving around both men. One landed on Silas’s coat, found a crushed leaf stuck to the fabric, and ate it.

The System displayed its final notices.

➤[Hostile Player eliminated: Silas Vane, Level 61.]

➤[Level Up!]

➤[Level Up!]

➤[Level Up!]

➤[Level Up!]

➤[Level Up!]

Damien lay back in the mud. His Walk of Night manual remained untouched inside his inventory.

He had not understood a single step of it. At the moment, walking normally also seemed ambitious.

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