Sai stood at the edge of the forest, casting one last look at the castle. The wind picked up, tugging at his coat as if trying to hold him back. But he did not stop. He had already decided to leave this place as soon as he could stand on his feet. He had warned the vampires—calmly, without emotion—that he needed to move on. And they did not detain him.
Everyone understood: the path he was choosing concerned only him. No one could accompany him where he was going.
---
When he took his first step onto the narrow path leading down the hill, the air changed. It grew denser, heavier—saturated with the scents of mist, earth, and a long-lost, distant warmth. His footsteps were silent, as if the very earth hesitated to meet his sound.
But Sai did not look back. He did not belong to this castle, nor to the vampires, nor to the forests.
He belonged to the road.
His legs moved automatically, without effort. There was no tension inside his body—no fatigue, no quickened breath. His muscles worked with perfect evenness, like a mechanism, smooth and without failure. What had been a human body just yesterday now served merely as a shell for something else.
He felt this especially strongly now, as he advanced further.
His organs—the ones that remained—had ceased to be true organs. His heart beat, but not like a human's—more like an energy core, maintaining the balance of shadow. His lungs expanded, but they didn't need air. They did so out of habit, as if the body was trying to remember what it meant to live in the old, human world.
But that world was gone.
The shadow inside him was warm, alive. It breathed for him. It registered every movement of monsters within a radius of several kilometers. Sai sensed them—like cold, blurred signals at the edge of his consciousness. The System marked them with a weak, pulsating glow on the edge of the map.
Some approached, but, as if sensing him, veered away.
He didn't even raise a hand to his revolvers.
His very presence here was a threat.
---
The path led through a dense part of the forest where trees soared dozens of meters high, forming a canopy of interwoven branches and shadow. The fog hung low, not dissipating even under the rays of the rising sun. Sai walked between the trunks without touching the branches, though they should have been in his way.
His body slid between them, as if space itself yielded to him.
After twenty minutes, he emerged at an old bridge—stone, cracked, spanning a turbulent stream. The water crashed violently against the rocks, trying to break through. Sai looked down, and the dark surface of the river reflected his silhouette—dim, blurred, as if he didn't truly belong to that reflection.
He stopped for a moment.
He wasn't looking at the water—but into its depths.
As if expecting to see something looking back.
But it was only a river.
He crossed the bridge confidently, without speeding up his pace. The gravel crunched faintly under his heels, but the bridge held his weight, as if sensing he was not an enemy.
Beyond the bridge began a valley—wide, overgrown with tall grass, hiding numerous small monsters. Sai noted the movements but did not stop. They retreated as soon as they felt the vibration of his energy. Like insects sensing the footsteps of a great beast.
Exiting the valley, he climbed another hill—smaller than the one near the castle, but with a good view. Here he stopped again and activated the map.
The holographic line indicated the route: through three passes, two earth fractures, a forest with "critical" monster density, and only then—towards Virteground, the new human zone.
The System monotonously listed potential threats:
"Point A113 — breeding ground for Rank C beasts.
Point A114 — patrol of large organisms.
Point A115 — inhabited Rank B den.
Detour via northern arc recommended."
He listened but did not react.
All threats were merely information.
Fear was absent as a concept.
He continued on his way.
---
When the sun rose higher, the mist dissolved, revealing the fortress ahead—the one he had noticed earlier. Massive, grim, as if grown directly from the earth, it loomed over the surroundings.
But Sai was not heading there for help.
He was not seeking allies.
He was seeking an answer.
The path he was on was not merely a convenient route—it was a passage he needed to traverse. He knew: fortresses of this kind always held something—archives, old records, secret passages, mechanisms from the past world.
Perhaps he would find fragments there about monsters.
About demons.
About the Shadow.
About what now flowed within him.
But he did not enter blindly.
He stopped at the border of the forest and the fortress wall, crouched on the root of an ancient tree, and observed.
The fortress was alive.
He saw movement on the towers—shadows, figures.
Some creatures looked humanoid, while others were too distorted to be human.
But they did not attack.
They watched.
They knew he was approaching.
Sai tilted his head, feeling a slight tremor of shadow in his chest.
His core reacted—calmly, but with wariness.
He ran his fingers over the grips of his revolvers, feeling the cold metal.
It was not a threat, but a reminder:
if he had to shoot—he would shoot.
He rose.
And headed towards the hidden path that ran along the wall, leading to the rear courtyard, where he could enter unnoticed.