A couple of miles to the north, above the broken crowns of the dead trees, the "Fan" was unfolding. Five hovering search Spheres moved in perfect formation. From their crystalline pupils, fan-shaped beams of the "Light of Truth" pierced into the fog, methodically combing the area. Where a pale beam touched the water, steam soared upwards, accompanied by the dry crackle of magical discharges.
I tried to focus, to isolate the frequency of their scanning, but there wasn't enough data. An annoying thought involuntarily popped into my head:
"Damn, if only I still had that background analyzer the Hunters issued me once... How could I have lost it?"
"Do we run?" I reached for the stone, feeling it respond to the approach of the Spheres.
Ephraim intercepted my hand.
"If you wake it up to full power right now, they'll pinpoint us in the blink of an eye."
He turned sharply and strode back toward the hut.
"Gather everything. Food. Water. Copper shunts for stabilization. We're abandoning the hut. You have two minutes."
I grabbed the canvas bag and started throwing everything into it. My hands wouldn't obey. The toolbox slipped out and spilled. I swore, dropping to my knees and scooping the clamps right out of the mud.
When I jumped back out onto the threshold, Ephraim was dousing the corner of the hut with a viscous liquid from a flask.
"What is that?"
"An alchemical veil," he threw out, striking a flint. "This crap eats mana and distorts etheric traces. We'll blind their 'Eyes' for an hour or two."
The veil flared up with a thick smoke that didn't rise, but crept along the ground, corroding the air.
"We're leaving into the channels," Ephraim commanded.
We waded waist-deep in the icy slush, pressing ourselves against fallen trunks. Ephraim's alchemical smoke mixed with the natural fog, creating a viscous, impenetrable wall.
The low hum of the Spheres overhead was replaced by a sharp, whistling sound. To the right, just ten meters away, a black shadow emerged from the cloudy shroud.
"Careful..." Ephraim threw out quietly. "A bone golem. Stitched from bones boiled in mana, reinforced with steel tendons."
The head—a smooth obsidian sphere, rotating without stopping.
A thin crimson targeting thread stretched from it.
"Get down!" Ephraim exhaled, trying to yank my shoulder.
[Will to Live: Forced Synchronization]
[Target: Autonomous Golem, "Hunter" Class]
[Structure Analysis...]
The world around me instantly drained of color. The reeds became a set of vertical lines, the fog—gray noise, and the Hunter turned into a pulsating schematic of vectors and mana nodes.
I took a step toward it, feeling the mana in my veins begin to boil. The crystal in my pocket howled, working at its limit. My hand, wreathed in a pale glow, plunged into the articulation of its front paw. I struck the most vulnerable node—the point where motion impulses were distributed.
The golem jerked; its left side went numb instantly. It let out a sound like metal scraping against glass and tried to turn for a strike.
I saw its next movement even before it began. Ducking under a bone sharp as a razor, I delivered a second strike straight to the base of the "skull."
A dry crack rang out. The Hunter's magical core, unable to withstand the direct interference in its algorithm, detonated inside the chassis. The golem's shadow flared from within with a blue flame for a moment and collapsed into the mud, crumbling into pieces of dead material.
I straightened up, coughing up blood. My temples throbbed, and it felt as if molten lead had been pumped through my veins.
"Let's go. We don't have much time until the other spheres register the core explosion."
We collapsed into the viscous sludge under the roots of a fallen oak. The icy water instantly knocked the air from my lungs, soaking my clothes and burning my skin with cold. Above us—no further than five steps away—another shadow froze. A Hunter hovered right over the tangle of roots; its magical discs drove the air with such force that the remnants of the reeds were pressed to the water.
Through the gaps in the roots, I saw the crimson crystalline pupil rotating in its obsidian head.
"Don't breathe," Ephraim hissed, pressing my head into the mud. He pulled out his mirror shard wrapped in copper wire. It was a primitive absorber, capable of hiding us for a couple of seconds, but against the "Light of Truth," it was useless.
And then the crystal in my pocket vibrated at a tempo that didn't match my heartbeat. The hum filled my skull, coalescing into the flat, emotionless whisper of hundreds of voices. My mind, trained by the system to think in vectors, interpreted this noise as a stream of system logs:
[Object 4-0-9. Flow synchronization complete]
[Initiating protocol "Shadow"]
[Zeno resonance detected...]
A feeling as if red-hot drill bits were being screwed into my ears. A grid of power lines superimposed itself onto the fog. The golem's chassis above us became transparent, exposing its pulsating core—a beating heart of liquid silver and runes.
"Run to the triangulation node," the voice sounded so close, it was as if he were standing right behind me. "Don't let them close the circuit."
I froze, feeling everything inside turn cold.
What are you talking about?
"Quiet!" Ephraim pressed me harder into the silt. He saw the faint glow breaking through my jacket.
The Hunter above froze, focusing on our cover. From its bone belly, a needle slowly extended, its tip lighting up with the crimson brand of a target lock.
"Damn it, if he touches us, the Spheres in the sky will turn this oak to ash in a fraction of a second," the old man hissed.
"When I say 'now,' dash for the channel. Jump across the hummocks, stick to the yellow reeds. I'll distract it."
I looked at Ephraim and didn't know who to believe. Him or...
"NOW!" the old man yelled.
Hesitating slightly, I dashed forward, slipping on the slick roots and tearing my palms to the blood. A dry crack rang out from behind, followed by the golem's screech. Ephraim did something with his mirror—it threw out a blinding flash of magical junk, overloading the Hunter's sensors.
I ran without feeling my legs. The "Fan" Spheres began to burn away the fog, turning it into scorching steam. Every strike of a beam into the bog echoed with a dull thud in my chest, as if they were hitting not the ground, but my ribs.
[Will to Live: Critical channel overheating]
[Energy consumption: 140%. Emergency deactivation recommended]
"Shut up," I snapped at the system mentally.
I looked back. Behind me, where the hut had been, a pillar of black smoke was rising. Ephraim was nowhere to be seen. The golem's hum died down, replaced by the crash of collapsing trees. The old man either left through another channel, or... I chased the thought away.
Ahead, the fog suddenly parted, exposing open water—a wide black channel over which two Spheres were already hovering. Their beams were slowly converging, catching me in a vise.
I had about twenty seconds left before they closed the perimeter.
"Come on," I wheezed, squeezing the crystal through the fabric. "If you're so smart, give me a solution."
The crystal responded instantly. Reality stratified. I saw the structure of the magical "Fan"—it was a net woven from the thinnest mana threads. And in this net, there was a "blind spot"—a point where the frequencies of the two Spheres overlapped, creating a zone of resonant noise.
[Activation of protocol "Shadow"]
[Target: Triangulation node 0-4]
At that moment, a new sound echoed over the swamp—the heavy, rhythmic flapping of wings. The winged chimeras of the Order, with Hunters on their backs, were already moving in to intercept.
"Sorry, Ephraim, if I'm wrong," I whispered.
Instead of running in the direction the old man had pointed. I dashed straight for the center of the channel.
Splash.
The icy abyss closed over my head. I dove deep. The layer of cold mud and the mana-saturated water were supposed to muffle my pulse. I pressed the crystal to my stomach, trying to merge with the background noise of the marshes.
Through the mass of water, I saw deathly blue beams sweeping over the surface.
I lay in the darkness, feeling "Will to Live" slowly shut down my senses, one by one, to conserve the remnants of energy.
Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!
Use arrow keys (or A / D) to PREV/NEXT chapter