Chapter 142: Observing and Learning
The ruined city held its breath.
Nero moved quietly through its skeleton.
He learned quickly, always had, but here, every hour felt like another test.
He had spent nearly two days ghosting through the Shatterveil’s outskirts, learning its rhythms.
He slept in short bursts, always shielded behind a carefully-woven barrier, a dome of silence and distortion that masked his presence from monsters and men alike.
He chose his hiding spots with precision: narrow crevices, beneath the collapsed arches of old arcades, or wherever the city’s own magic helped him blend in.
Every sense was a tool: sight for movement, smell for decay or wild magic, and the constant pressure of danger that pressed in from all sides.
He trusted his barriers, but never completely, in Shatterveil, nothing was ever foolproof.
He mapped landmarks, portal anchor, bioluminescent moss, cursed fountains, and the silent roads monsters traveled.
He discovered the city’s strange rules: monsters patrolled in packs but rarely crossed certain zones, some plazas seemed untouched, with even the bravest beasts circling wide.
He marked those, guessing at invisible borders, wondering what older horrors kept even the monsters at bay.