He didn't scream. He didn't make a sound. His emergence from the thicket was swift and utterly silent, as if a shadow born from the crimson light of this hellish sky had fluttered onto the clearing.
The "Assassin's Skill" was operating at its peak, narrowing his perception to a single target—the clay monster reaching its long arm toward the stunned soldier. Azrael's brain coldly analyzed: distance, trajectory, the one true angle of attack. A scarlet line, visible only to him, sliced through the air, showing the blade its path.
But for the first time in this short span of his new life, something else simmered beneath the cold calculations of the system. Something hot. Alive. Disgust at the senseless cruelty and rage—a blind, human rage for the one who had courageously made a terrible decision to end his comrade's suffering.
His sword, black with scarlet patterns, flashed in a short, furious burst. He didn't chop with force. He made one precise, lightning-fast movement—a short thrust into the base of the monster's skull, right where the system highlighted.
The blade entered without a sound, meeting a moment of resistance like piercing dense clay, then sinking deeper into something more fragile.
The monster froze. Its arm, which had almost touched the soldier's chest, went limp. The creature swayed silently and fell to its knees, then face-first into the bloodstained snow. A neat, smoking hole gaped on the back of its head.
Silence.
The soldier, still clutching his rifle with convulsively trembling fingers, slowly raised his wide eyes, full of unspoken horror, to Azrael. He didn't understand where this youth had come from. He only saw a fleeting shadow and a monster falling dead. His brain, overloaded with grief and shock, refused to process the information.
— You... — he exhaled hoarsely, the rifle barrel trembling involuntarily, momentarily pointing at Azrael.
But Azrael was no longer looking at him. His gaze, cold and empty, slid over the remaining clay monsters. They had finally noticed him. Their faceless "faces" turned toward him. He had become the new threat. The new target.
The "Assassin's Skill" rejoiced. Four targets. Four sets of weak points. Four portions of experience.
— Don't move, — Azrael said quietly but clearly, addressing the soldier. His voice sounded unnaturally calm amidst the surrounding chaos.
He took a step forward, toward the remaining SP-07s. His sword was ready. He was ready.
Suddenly, an alarmed, shrill bark came from the bushes behind him. The Kitsune, disobeying his order, burst onto the clearing. It stood between Azrael and the soldier, bristling, its three tails puffed up. It wasn't growling at the monsters. It was looking at the soldier, who still had his weapon at the ready, and emitting warning sounds, protecting its involuntary master.
The soldier looked confusedly from Azrael to the strange three-tailed creature and back. His finger on the trigger loosened.
This moment of hesitation was a signal for the monsters. They moved forward as one, their clay bodies creaking, long arms reaching for their prey.
Azrael sighed. The scene had become too complicated. Too many variables. Soldier. Fox. Four monsters.
But the "Skill" didn't see complications. It only saw a sequence of actions.
— You're all so annoying, — he whispered and rushed into battle.
This time it wasn't a single thrust. It was a dance of death. He ducked under the first outstretched arm, his sword describing a short arc, and a headless carcass crashed to the ground. He pushed off from it, doing a somersault in the air, and the blade plunged into the back of a second monster, precisely hitting a nerve cluster. He hamstrung a third with a blow to the knee and, as it fell, finished it with a thrust to the crown of its head.
The last monster was a bit more agile. It managed to turn around, and its long arm caught Azrael on the shoulder, tearing his uniform and leaving a long, shallow scratch on his skin. Pain, sharp and burning, pierced his adrenaline barrier for the first time.
The pain was… familiar. Human.
With a roar that held not the cold rage of the system but his own for the first time, Azrael maneuvered, caught the monster's arm, and using its own momentum, drove his blade into its armpit, into the unprotected joint. The creature collapsed with a quiet, gurgling sound.
It was over as quickly as it began.
Silence fell over the clearing, broken only by his own heavy breathing and the quiet whining of the Kitsune, which had run up to him again and was nuzzling its nose against his wounded shoulder.
Azrael stood, leaning on his sword, among the bodies of the monsters slowly turning into black sludge. He looked at his own blood on the blade. At his trembling hands.
"Threats neutralized. Experience gained. Swordsmanship has increased to 18%. Injury sustained: Minor Bleeding. Recommended: Treat wound."
He raised his eyes to the soldier. The man was still standing in the same spot, the rifle barrel lowered. His face was pale, his gaze empty. He had seen too much in these minutes.
— You... who are you? — the soldier finally exhaled. — Special forces? Where did you come from?
Azrael slowly straightened up, trying to control the trembling in his knees. He was strong. Unnaturally strong. But he was still alive. And he had just been wounded for the first time in this world.
He looked at the soldier, at the corpses of his comrades, at the loyal Kitsune at his feet.
He needed to say something. He needed to come up with a cover story. To answer.
But the only thing that came to mind was a bitter, tired truth.
— I'm just surviving, — he said quietly. — Like you.
I sat at a rough wooden table in a cramped hut that smelled of smoke and sweat. I took another piece of meat from the bowl. Tough, fibrous, with a distinct gamey taste. Wolf, I think. Washed it down with a sip of warm, almost tasteless broth.
The soldier—he'd introduced himself as Viktor—sat across from me, not taking his wary eyes off me. His rifle was leaning against the wall a step away from him. My own wound on my shoulder was tightly bandaged—the same first-aid kit I'd found in my pocket came in handy.
Through the frozen window, I could see my three-tailed "hanger-on" curled up by the doorstep, pretending to sleep. But I saw one of its ears twitch, catching every sound from inside. It was standing guard.
— Phew, — I exhaled, pushing the empty bowl away.
An awkward pause ensued. The questions swirling in my head needed to be asked carefully. I couldn't just ask outright: "Hey, is this by any chance the world from my novel 'World of Humanity'?"
I looked at Viktor and finally opened my mouth, asking the simplest and most harmless question I could think of:
— What year is it?
Viktor blinked in surprise, as if I'd asked what color the sky was.
— Now? 2317.
Something inside me jolted. 2317. In my book, the main character, Lin, entered the "Side" Academy in 2320, after miraculously surviving an attack on a refugee transport.
"So, I have three years," was the first, purely practical thought. And then I caught myself. "Wait. What am I even thinking? Faceless and clay monsters aren't one hundred percent proof. Who knows what kind of freaks exist in other post-apocalyptic worlds."
I needed to dig deeper. I looked at Viktor again.
— Where are we? Specifically.
— We're in the north, — he replied, still looking at me with slight suspicion. — The Resei continent. Close to the former Arkhangelsk, if those names mean anything to you.
Resei.
That was it. No more doubts. In my novel, I had named the territory of the former Russia exactly that, thumbing my nose at all political norms. This was my world. My creation. I was inside the book I had written myself.
The irony of fate was thick and bitter, like the soup I had just eaten.
"Heh. So what do I do now? Wait three years and go help the main character? Take the villain's path and try to destroy him?" — thoughts raced like a whirlwind. "Okay, I'll leave that for later."
But then another, more down-to-earth and unpleasant thought struck me. "But wait. If I'm seventeen now, then in three years I'll be twenty. But the 'Side' Academy only accepts students strictly between the ages of sixteen and nineteen. I won't be able to get in under normal circumstances."
Realizing this somehow caused not annoyance, but a strange relief. So, I didn't need to fit into the plot. I was free from it. I wasn't here as a spectator or a spoiler, but as... someone else. A character that never existed in the original.
"Okay," I mentally waved it off. "I'll think about that later too."
I looked at Viktor, who was still studying me with his gaze.
— Thanks for the food, — I said neutrally. — And for the shelter.
— Thank you, — he responded, finally breaking the silence. His gaze became a little less suspicious. — You saved my life back there. I won't forget that. Just... where did you come from, alone, without a squad? And with this... your little beast?
He nodded toward the window at the Kitsune.
It was an inevitable question. I needed to come up with a story. And fast.
I looked at my hands, then raised my eyes to him.
— My squad... — I paused, letting him draw the most obvious conclusion himself. — I'm the only one left. I made it here. And the little beast... tagged along on the way.
I hadn't told a single lie. But I hadn't told the truth either.
Viktor slowly nodded, and understanding flickered in his eyes. He had seen those corpses on the edge of the forest. He knew how it happened.
— I see, — he drawled. — So you're alone now. Where are you headed?
Where? The great question. I had no goal. No plan. For the first time in a long time, I had no deadline and no need to publish a chapter a day.
I looked out the frosty window, at the sleeping (or pretending) Kitsune, at the crimson sky of this cruel, beautiful world I had created myself.
— I don't know, — I answered honestly. — For now—just survive.
And in that simplicity, there was a strange, frightening freedom.