Chapter 102 ‒ Shadows in the Gate
Chapter 102 ‒ Shadows in the Gate
The river flowed beside Tyler like a pale, silent witness. Moonlight glimmered off its slow-moving surface, breaking into shards on passing eddies. Each step along the mossy banks felt heavier than the last.
He slipped a hand into the supply sack Bongo Banana had thrust into his arms. Inside, he found bundled food packs — dried roots, smoked meat strips, strange hard fruits preserved in brine. Nothing surprising. But at the very bottom, hidden beneath folded cloth, something glinted faintly.
Tyler’s fingers closed around a small chunk of uranium ore. Cold, dense, almost humming with quiet menace. He turned it over, studying the greenish glow barely visible in the moonlight.
“Uranium… what exactly were they planning with this?”
He slipped it back, tightening the strings.
A cold breeze brushed against his cheek, prickling under the helmet. Tyler looked up at the empty, endless sky.
“Did I make the right choice? Sending Bongo away and coming here alone…”
His thoughts curled inward, unspooling in jagged threads.
Ever since Milo’s death, a strange silence had grown inside him — a silence that no battlefield roar or allies’ laughter could pierce. Farnak and his mother had found a gentle life; Theodore and Nyelisse, an echoing peace; Shindo’s people had built new smiles among ruins.
Tyler had helped them all, shaped them into something brighter. Yet each time, when he turned away, the warmth slipped through his fingers like river water. No matter how many lives he rebuilt, he remained a ghost outside every hearth, a lone shape on every horizon.
He thought of his hunts, his endless duels with gods and beasts. What is he turning into? A hero? A monster? Something between?
His hand curled tighter around the sack.
“Humans… maybe… maybe if I saw them, met them, lived among them — I might find that spark again. The warmth I lost… the piece of myself that died with Milo. The piece that understood joy and fear beyond combat and survival. The piece that was simply… human.”
He kept walking, boots crunching against loose stones, each step echoing softly off the water.
In that drifting hush, a flicker of desperate hope glimmered inside him. “If they’re truly human… maybe they can remind me who I was before I became this… thing wearing a hunter’s face.”
His eyes narrowed toward the dark treeline ahead. Ashborough waited in that black maw of branches and fog.
No turning back now.
---
The moon had climbed higher by the time Tyler neared Ashborough. A cold hush wrapped around the settlement, shadows clinging to the walls like silent sentries.
The tall wooden barricades loomed, splintered and overgrown — no lamps, no guards. Only the hollow hush of a place that had forgotten how to breathe.
Tyler lit a torch, its flickering light throwing grotesque shapes against the walls. He stepped forward, peering through a heavy iron gate. Wooden houses slumped behind it, outlines ghostly in the darkness.
“Anyone here?” he called out, his voice echoing in the emptiness.
Nothing.
A breeze drifted by, carrying the scent of rotting wood and something older, heavier — despair.
Suddenly, shapes darted above him. He heard scraping, then felt the vibration of many feet against rooftops. White eyes opened in the shadows, glimmering like pearls in tar.
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Blightspawns — dozens. They poured down walls and leapt from roofs, lunging with spindly limbs and reaching tendrils.
[Enemies Identified: Blightspawn, Level 12 x18]
In that heartbeat of stillness, he stood alone at Ashborough’s gate, torchlight flickering at his feet, surrounded on all sides by a tide of sorrowful monsters.
No running now… Only forward.
Tyler dropped the torch, his hands flying to the Dark Twinswords at his sides. Steel flashed. He activated [Eagle Eye], his vision sharpening — every crack in their bark-flesh, every twitch of a vine highlighted in sinister red.
A Blightspawn lunged, eyes wide and wet. Tyler dashed low, slicing off its arm at the elbow. Sap exploded onto his visor, hissing faintly as it slid.
He pivoted, severing a second creature’s head. It stumbled forward, body flailing, before collapsing in a ragged heap. Another slammed into him from the side — he twisted, slammed his knee into its abdomen, and stabbed upward, the blade splitting the jaw and emerging through the skull.
A sharp gasp escaped his throat as sap splattered across his chest.
Their faces… they all look so human… why do they look so afraid?
He blocked another swing, rolled forward, and sliced through a leg. Even as it fell, the Blightspawn clawed forward with a stump, mouth stretched open in a silent, pitiful cry.
He gritted his teeth.
Don’t look. Just move.
A tendril whipped past his cheek, grazing the edge of his helmet. Another Blightspawn leapt down from a roof, landing just behind him — Tyler spun, slicing across its chest in one motion, the blade humming with lethal purpose.
They crowded in, pressing close. Tyler darted, pivoted, cutting shallow gashes that left them crawling, crawling always forward.
They won’t stop… they don’t even understand…
He swept under a grasping claw, slicing the creature’s knees. Another lunged from behind, Tyler pivoted, cutting its head clean off. A third grabbed his arm — he twisted and slammed his elbow into its face, then slashed upward to split it down the middle.
The system window pulsed with red warnings. Tyler’s breath rattled, sweat stinging his eyes despite the inner seal.
I could use firestorm… no. The entire settlement could ignite… focus. Precision only.
He leapt sideways, dodging a writhing tangle of tendrils. Another Blightspawn crawled on its stomach, dragging itself with broken hands, white eyes pleading. He hesitated, just a moment — then ended it with a swift plunge.
Piece by piece, they fell. Each one crumbled into silence with a final, mournful shudder.
At last, there was only the echo of his heartbeat and the soft drip of sap from his blades.
Tyler stood alone, chest heaving, blades dripping black sap onto the cracked cobbles.
[Level Up! Tyler Level 148 → Level 150]
[Attribute Points: +2]
[Achievement Unlocked: Master Huntsman]
[Grade: A]
[Condition: Reach Level 150.]
He exhaled, slowly opening his stat screen.
[Remaining Attribute Points: 4]
His eyes scanned the screen, vision trembling.
“Who… decides these? Who watches and rewards me like a dog performing tricks? Do they sit above me, laughing? Watching me crawl and kill for their amusement?”
He swallowed, fingers flexing on the hilts.
“I wanted warmth. I wanted humanity… but I’m just a butcher wearing a mask.”
He selected his points, almost spitefully.
[Stat: Accuracy: 14 → 15]
[Stat: Dodge: 12 → 15]
The screen faded. He looked up at the silent houses, imagining a thousand unseen eyes peering down.
“At least… I’m not the only human anymore. Even if it’s all a lie… at least I know I’m not alone.”
A sudden, sharp pain cracked across the back of his helmet. Tyler staggered forward, hands swinging wildly.
A thick puff of purple smoke exploded around him. His vision blurred, limbs turning sluggish.
Charm bomb…!
He fumbled at his menu, fingers trembling toward [Undying Tenacity] — but too late. Another heavy swing crashed into his head.
His knees buckled. The torch clattered to the ground.
The last thing he saw was a blurred figure, shovel raised high, stepping from the shadows.
In the heart of silence, the hunter fell… and Ashborough swallowed his light whole.
---
A sharp jolt of pain stabbed into Tyler’s upper arm, lancing straight to his core. His eyes flickered open, lashes heavy with sweat.
Through the haze, he saw a figure standing over him — draped in a long, crisp white coat, its folds almost glowing in the lantern’s dim, wavering light. A stethoscope glimmered faintly at the man’s neck, glasses perched precisely on a sharp nose.
Tyler’s breath caught.
A doctor…?
A desperate, aching hope flooded his chest all at once, fierce and fragile.
Am I back… in the real world? Was this all some twisted dream?
All the screams, the blood, the frost, the countless faces… gone?
For a heartbeat, his mind scrambled toward that fragile thread. If it were a dream… I’d be disappointed beyond words… but also… I’d be relieved beyond measure.
Please… let it be real. Please be the real world.
The man in white watched him calmly, eyes narrowing slightly behind his lenses as Tyler struggled to focus.
“So, you’re finally awake… [Player]?” the man said, his voice low, tinged with a scientific curiosity. “Looks like the rumours weren’t entirely wrong after all.”
The words hit Tyler like ice water. His fragile hope splintered in a silent collapse inside his chest.
He sat up slowly, wincing as he clutched the dull throb at the back of his head.
“You… who are… are you human?” he rasped, his voice raw.
The man adjusted his glasses with a small, clinical motion. Then, a faint, tired smile curved his lips.
“Yes, [Player]. I’m a human. My name is Doctor Frank. Nice to meet you. And welcome to Ashborough.”