The Dead Zones earned their name. The landscape was a graveyard of shattered war-engines and rusted weapons, half-buried in the ashen mud. Itachi had been walking for six hours since the slaughter at the trench. His broken rib throbbed with a dull, rhythmic ache, but he had already calculated the exact angle to hold his posture to minimize the friction. Pain was just data; he could ignore it.
He needed supplies. A Pawn's stamina wasn't infinite, and the Military Academy was a three-week march across hostile territory.
As he crested a ridge of jagged black rock, he heard the unmistakable sound of steel clashing. He dropped instantly, pressing his chest flat against the cold stone, blending into the shadows like a ghost. He peered over the edge.
In the gorge below, a skirmish was reaching its messy conclusion.
Four enemy scavengers—deserters from the rival Hegemony, judging by their mismatched armor—had surrounded a lone figure against a sheer cliff wall.
The figure was a girl, barely older than Itachi. Her armor was fractured, the silver plating scorched black, but the crest on her shoulder was still visible: the crossed lances of a Knight.
Itachi watched silently, his dark eyes analyzing the geometry of the fight.
She's fast, he noted.
The girl—Lyra—gripped a slender longsword. As a scavenger lunged with a spear, she didn't just dodge; she blurred. A Knight's inherent ability: the [Short Jump]. She materialized two feet to the left, seamlessly slicing the tendon behind the scavenger's knee. The man roared and collapsed.
But Itachi could see the micro-tremors in her hands. The slight drag of her left foot. Her [Jump] was sluggish. A Knight without a mount—or worse, a broken core—was a target. She was burning through her reserve energy. Within three minutes, she would be dead.
Does this benefit me? Itachi thought, his mind running a cold calculus.
Cons: Revealing his position. Wasting energy. Risking further injury.
Pros: A Knight piece, even a damaged one, possesses mobility a Pawn lacks. She knows the terrain. She could serve as an effective vanguard or a distraction. High utility.
The calculation took less than a second. The decision was made.
Down in the gorge, the remaining three scavengers rushed Lyra simultaneously. She raised her sword, her breath coming in ragged gasps, preparing for a final, desperate [Jump] she knew she couldn't complete.
Suddenly, a stone clattered down the ridge.
The scavengers glanced up just in time to see a lone Academy cadet walking down the slope. He wasn't running. He wasn't screaming a battle cry. He was just walking forward, his face completely devoid of expression, one hand resting casually on the hilt of his blood-stained combat knife.
"Another Academy rat?" the lead scavenger sneered. "And it's just a Pawn. Kill the girl, I'll deal with the trash."
The leader charged up the slope, swinging a heavy spiked mace aimed right at Itachi's skull.
Lyra screamed a warning. "Move, you idiot!"
Itachi's eyes locked onto the mace. Trajectory: downward arc. Lethal if struck cleanly. Solution: intercept and advance.
[Skill Activated: Stubborn Advance]
Itachi took a smooth step forward, leaning directly into the swing.
CRACK.
The spiked mace slammed into Itachi's shoulder pauldron. Lyra flinched, expecting the boy's collarbone to shatter into powder. Instead, an unnatural, concussive shockwave rippled outward. Itachi didn't stagger. He didn't even break his stride. The kinetic force of the blow was halved by the System's absolute law, and his forward momentum absorbed the rest.
The scavenger's eyes bulged as his weapon bounced off the boy like a toy.
Before the man could recover his balance, Itachi was inside his guard. A flash of cold steel. Itachi drove his combat knife through the gap in the scavenger's armor, directly into the subclavian artery, twisting the blade to ensure maximum blood loss.
He stepped past the dying man without watching him fall, his eyes already locked onto the remaining two scavengers below.
Lyra stared at the Pawn in shock. What the hell was that? Pawns died when you hit them. They didn't just walk through a mace strike like it was a stiff breeze.
The sight of their leader dropping like a stone broke the remaining scavengers' morale. They turned to run.
"They'll alert the perimeter camp," Itachi stated flatly, his voice carrying over the wind. He didn't yell. It was simply a fact.
Lyra snapped out of her daze. Gritting her teeth, she activated her [Jump], blurring across the gorge to cut down the slower of the two runners. The last one scrambled up the far wall, desperate to escape.
Before Lyra could pursue, Itachi picked up the dead leader's fallen mace. It was heavy, poorly balanced, but the math was simple. He calculated the wind resistance, the distance, and the elevation.
He hurled the mace like a javelin. It spun through the air in a brutal arc, catching the fleeing scavenger squarely in the back of the knee. The man tumbled down the cliffside with a sickening crunch, lying still in the mud.
The gorge fell dead silent.
Lyra leaned against the cliff wall, sliding down to the mud, utterly exhausted. She looked at the boy standing amidst the bodies. He was wiping his knife clean on a scavenger's cloak, his face an impenetrable mask.
"Who..." Lyra panted, gripping her sword tightly just in case. "Who are you? You're wearing 7th Vanguard colors. They were wiped out this morning."
Itachi sheathed his knife and finally looked at her. His gaze was heavy, calculating, stripping her down to her base value on the board.
"I am Itachi," he said quietly. He walked over to her, his shadow falling over her face. He didn't offer a hand to help her up. "You are a Knight. But your movements are compromised. Your core is damaged."
Lyra bristled, her pride stinging. "I can still fight."
"You can survive," Itachi corrected smoothly. "There is a difference. You need a safe zone to recalibrate. I need a piece with high mobility to cross the High Prince's territory. Our goals align."
Lyra laughed bitterly. "Cross Valerius's territory? You're a Pawn. You take one step out there, and a Bishop will snipe you from a mile away."
Itachi turned his gaze toward the distant, stormy horizon, his expression unreadable.