Kana’s heartbeat hammered in her chest. Suri was gone—vanished as though ripped from reality. Even with [High Awareness], Kana couldn’t feel the faintest trace of her.
“Where did Suri go?” Boris growled, bracing against the scarecrow’s clawed strike. His spear caught the blow, wood groaning under the impact.
“I don’t know.” Kana’s voice was steady, but her gut churned with unease. “But one thing’s certain—these things are tied to that smiling man.”
The scarecrow lunged again, jerky and wrong, its leather skin stretching with every movement. Kana spun low, twin blades flashing, slicing into its torso. The wound sealed almost instantly, straw and sinew knitting together like a grotesque mockery of life.
Her calm expression didn’t match the storm within. Regret gnawed at her, sharp and bitter. She had the chance. The chance to end Balt. But she’d hesitated, confident she could handle him later, confident she would be able to find him later. Foolish. Some men have to die.
“What now?” Boris asked, pushing back the second scarecrow with a surge of his [Giant Spear]. The ground cracked as the monster skidded back, already jerking upright.
“We trust Suri,” Kana said, though her blades shook as she tightened her grip. “She has her effective escape illusion ability, and she just reached level twenty. If anyone can escape him, it’s her.”
She darted forward, blades carving quick strikes at joints and tendons, searching for a weakness. Again, the creature regenerated, its hollow eyes unblinking.
“But first…” She slashed across the scarecrow’s face, straw and shadow spilling into the air. “We deal with this.”
Boris nodded grimly, though his eyes flicked once toward the horizon. He had a feeling about where Suri had gone. He smothered it, shoving the thought aside. For now, there was only the fight.
……………
Balt’s laugh echoed through the clearing, jagged and loud, rattling against the trees like broken glass.
The girl didn’t flinch.
Red hair, staff resting against her palm, her stance so straight it looked unnatural. Her face? Blank. A doll carved from winter itself. No tremble in her hands. No shifting of her weight. No widening of eyes.
Just silence.
Balt’s grin twitched wider. Ah. So that’s what this is. A child pretending to be brave. He’d seen it before—dozens of times. Illusionists. Tricksters. They made a lot of noise on the battlefield, but they weren’t fighters. They weren’t killers.
They were simply distractions.
“Don’t worry,” Balt said, spreading his arms wide as though welcoming her. His teeth gleamed white against the paint of his red smile. “I’m not going to kill you. Not yet. I’ll keep you barely alive.”
Her eyes didn’t move. Her lips didn’t twitch. She just stared. It was unsettling.
Mana stirred, sharp, cold, like frost forming in the air. It gathered around her body, spiraling upward, and then it shaped. A bird—no, a beast, vast and indistinct—formed of light and shadow, feathers shimmering like moonlight. Its wings did not flap, yet the thing bore her aloft, lifting her higher, higher, until she hovered above him like a judge at an execution.
Balt looked up, breath misting in the winter air. “…You can fly?!”
Balt clicked his tongue, she could simply escape.
That wasn’t right. Illusions weren’t supposed to do this. Illusions distracted, deceived. They didn’t carry anything physical. Yet there she was—suspended in the sky, staff steady, thick cloak stirring in the cold.
Looking down on him.
Her gaze met his.
Balt froze. He knew that look. He had seen it before, his eyes were like that in front of the mirror. The eyes of someone who had been shattered by humanity’s cruelty… and had chosen not to break, but to sharpen.
He chuckled, low at first, then louder. “Ah. I see. You’ve killed before, haven’t you? We’re the same, you and I.”
Still no answer. Just that stare. A stare that promised not panic, not fear—she was thinking of killing him.
“You dare?” Balt snarled. He whipped out his dagger, the steel flashing. “You’re not a match for me!”
The world shifted.
Pebbles shivered, then rose. Dozens. Hundreds. Thousands. Suspended weightless above the clearing, hanging like a storm frozen in time.
Balt cursed and swung, instincts taking over. His dagger snapped through the first wave, cutting empty air as rocks burst into smoke, fragments of illusions scattering.
He barked a laugh. “Illusion rocks? Pathetic!”
Then one struck him in the temple.
Balt staggered. Another cracked against his shoulder, real weight slamming flesh and bone. His grin faltered.
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No. Not illusions. Not all of them.
He snarled and activated [Roulette Strike], his dagger flaring as he blurred through a series of arcs, faster than most men could track. He cut, deflected, pierced—stones shattered into mist. Yet others struck real. They came faster, a rain of illusions and reality mixed so seamlessly he couldn’t tell one from the other.
Pain. Then nothing. Then pain again. His senses stuttered, the world refusing to stay in place. The ground shifted like water. The girl’s outline flickered, her red hair bleeding into smoke. The forest tilted sideways, the sky too close.
The pain in his shoulder… gone. The pain in his head… gone. The memory of pain lingered, echoing, wrong.
Balt’s grin cracked at the edges. This girl… this girl isn’t right.
Survival. Always survival. He bolted, boots tearing up snow and soil. Branches whipped against his shoulders as he plunged into the forest. The phantom storm followed—stones slamming into him seconds too late, wounds appearing in delayed echoes. A cut opened along his knee, blood slick and hot in the cold air.
He risked a glance back.
She had landed.
Not chasing. Not rushing. Just walking. Slow. Steady. As if she had all the time in the world.
Damn it. Damn it all.
Balt’s breath tore through his lungs. His legs burned. He whispered the words, desperate: “[Mirage Escape]”
Mana erupted. A second Balt flickered into existence—perfect mimicry, a decoy that ran as he ran, breathed as he breathed. At the same time, his body shimmered, his presence swallowed, erased for two heartbeats—three. Enough to vanish into the undergrowth.
By the time his camouflage faded, the decoy was tearing through the trees, drawing pursuit. Balt collapsed against the trunk of an oak near the river, clutching his leg. The current whispered beside him, icy and dark.
He stripped cloth, wound it tight around his knee, hissed as blood seeped through. His chest heaved. His grin returned, shaky but defiant. He’d lived through worse. He always lived.
“Finally,” a voice said.
Balt froze.
“Found the real you.”
His head snapped up.
She stood over him. Red hair like flame, staff in hand. No crunch of snow to announce her. No warning at all.
Balt’s hand twitched toward his dagger. His legs tensed to rise. Neither moved. His body felt slow, heavy—like chains coiled around his muscles.
And then he felt it.
A blade pressed against his throat. His blade. The dagger he hadn’t drawn. Cold metal slid along his skin, deliberate, savoring the moment.
How?
Balt’s breath came ragged. His grin faltered for the first time in years. He should have sensed her. His class—his instincts—they never failed. Unless…
Unless his senses were lies. Unless every breath, every sight, every sound since the clearing had been drowned in her illusions.
Her eyes bored into him. No heat. No hatred. No satisfaction. Just a void. Cold, precise, inevitable.
The eyes of a killer who didn’t need to hate to kill.
Balt’s mind screamed to run, to fight, to move. His body betrayed him. Darkness crept in at the edges of his vision, heavy, irresistible.
For the first time in years, Balt knew what it was to be afraid.
Truly afraid.
And then the world went black.
….
Steel clashed against twisted scarecrows. Again. And again.
Kana’s twin blades cut into the scarecrow’s chest, but the pieces writhed and knitted together, ropes of enchanted twine pulling limbs back into place. Her breath puffed in the cold air, ragged and sharp. Beside her, Boris heaved with every thrust of his spear, his muscles corded, his boots dragging furrows in the dirt.
Half an hour.
Kana’s arms ached, her mind even more so. Not from the fight, but from the gnawing question: Where is Suri?
The scarecrows pressed in, each strike hollow yet heavy, their wooden limbs creaking with eerie persistence. They fought like puppets without strings—yet whoever had sent them clearly intended one thing. To delay. To distract. To keep Kana and Boris occupied while…
Kana shoved the thought aside. No. She couldn’t let her mind wander to what Suri might be facing alone. The girl had her illusions, her tricks—but Balt was different. The Smiling Man wasn’t some bandit or thug. He was a monster wrapped in skin and a very bad matchup for her.
A scarecrow’s arm slammed into her guard. She staggered back, boots skidding. Boris lunged, knocking it aside with a grunt. “Kana,” he hissed, sweat steaming from his face in the cold, “she’s been gone too long. We need to end this.”
“I know!” The words came sharper than she intended. Her heart was already screaming it.
The scarecrows pressed forward again. Straw crunched beneath their steps. Kana pivoted low, slicing through legs, but even dismembered they writhed, crawling like grotesque insects before re-forming again. She cursed, spinning out of the way.
And then—
Light.
It was faint at first, a shimmer above the treeline. Kana’s eyes snapped upward.
A shape hovered in the gray sky. A great bird, its wings still as stone yet somehow suspended against the cold wind. Upon its back—red hair gleamed like fire in the morning light. A figure stood, calm, staff in hand.
“Suri…” Kana whispered, her throat tight.
The scarecrows turned too, their empty faces tilting skyward. For the first time in half an hour, they hesitated.
The girl atop the illusion lifted her staff. Mana pulsed, rippling the air.
A sound like shattering glass echoed through the field.
The scarecrows exploded. Straw, wood, and rope burst apart into fragments, scattering in every direction. The ground was painted with the remnants of their bodies. And this time—this time—they did not rise.
Silence fell, broken only by Kana’s own heartbeat.
The bird descended, its form too solid, too real, for simple trickery. Suri rode it like a queen returning from conquest. Her expression was unreadable, until she leapt down.
Kana didn’t think. She dashed forward, and before she could stop herself, wrapped Suri in her arms. Relief washed over her in a flood, her legs almost giving way beneath the weight of it.
“You’re safe…” Kana breathed.
Suri giggled, the sound light but edged with mischief. “You guys are hopeless without me. Can’t even handle two scarecrows?”
Boris snorted, leaning on his spear. His voice was dry, but there was something softer beneath it—relief he wouldn’t show. “Not funny. What about the smiling man?”
Suri puffed out her chest, staff resting against her shoulder. Her eyes gleamed, not playful this time, but dangerous. “Well,” she said with mock grandeur, “the great me defeated him, of course.”
Kana pulled back slightly, searching her face. There was something new in Suri’s gaze—something colder.
The red-haired girl tapped her staff against the ground, and illusions sparked briefly around her, whispering half-formed shapes. “Turns out my new skill—[Disrupt Senses]—is very interesting.”
