The debuff timer in Kage's quest log was a ticking bomb. One minute and forty-seven seconds. He couldn't get the next clue. He was locked out.
Standing in the chill of the grotto, Kage felt the cold, sharp clarity of a problem that had no brute-force solution. The path laid out by the game was now closed to him. Asura, or whoever his rival was, had gotten here first through a different thread. They would be moving on to the next objective while Kage was stuck waiting for a cooldown.
In a race, that was a death sentence.
Following the breadcrumbs is a loser's game, Kage thought, his eyes flicking from the dead bat to the quest log. It's a chase. If my suspicions are correct, I can't chase Asura. He's a grinding machine. He'll out-level me, out-gear me, and out-pace me on a linear track.
The Operator's worldview, the one that saw systems everywhere, took over. He wasn't just playing a quest. He was playing against the quest designer. The developers, or rather, the AI, hadn't created a single secret path. They had created a puzzle with multiple, interlocking pieces.
He had the insignia. The hawk clutching the broken crown. His pre-launch research was not just about finding the first step. It was about seeing the whole picture.
He closed his eyes, the real-world map of the Whispering Woods overlaid with the tyrant's insignia burning in his memory. Eagle's Peak. The Old King's Watchtower. The Grasping Woods.
They were anchor points. The Sunken Stones, the Alpha Wolf, this cave… they were just the threads leading to those anchors. But the goal was not the anchors themselves.
The goal was the intersection. The point where all lines converged. A single, unmarked clearing deep in the woods. The heart of the entire puzzle.
His original day-one target.
The quest was designed to lead players on a grand tour—depending on their entry point—of the region before finally guiding them to the center. And in the process, grant them a specific key. And he was confident that he already had his - [Sealed Stone Tablet].
It was thematic. It was dramatic. A heroic journey of discovery and shared legacy.
It was also false and inefficient.
My research painted a different picture. The insignia was the tyrant's blueprint for hidden power.
Kage opened his eyes. The decision was made in less than a second. He would not wait for the debuff. He would not follow the next clue.
He was going to skip to the end.
His rival was following the script. Kage was going to solve the puzzlemaker.
He turned his back on the slain bat and walked out of the cave, leaving the next step of the quest to rot with the corpse. The map in his mind was clear. The most direct route to the tower was a straight line.
Unfortunately, that line cut directly through Tanglefang Ridge.
***
The air changed first. The ambience was replaced by a low, menacing hum. The trees grew darker, their branches twisting together into a thorny canopy that snuffed out the sun. A notification shimmered at the edge of his vision, its red text a stark warning.
[You are entering Tanglefang Ridge (Level 10-15 Zone). Your level is too low. Proceed with extreme caution.]
Kage didn't slow down. The ground became a treacherous mess of gnarled roots and sharp rocks. The very air felt heavy, oppressive. He was a trespasser here, a Level 2 anomaly in a world built to crush him.
Ahead, a hulking shape moved between the trees. Kage ducked behind a moss-covered boulder, his movements economical and silent. He peeked around the edge.
It was a Ridgeback Troll, a lumbering brute dragging a stone club. A red Lv. 15 hovered over its head.
Kage's internal monologue became a clinical, running assessment.
I'm not sure if even a perfect parry would negate the full damage. The level difference is too high. My STR and AGI are high for my level, but my STA is garbage.
My kill potential is effectively zero. [Novice's Rusted Sword] would barely scratch its hide. The durability loss would be catastrophic.
Another creature slinked through the undergrowth nearby. Sleek, black, and unnaturally silent. A Shadow Stalker. Lv. 10. Its movements were fluid, predatory.
High AGI, high damage, likely has a bleed or stealth ability. Impossible to break LoS once aggro'd. Even harder to fight than the Troll. Could probably manage a few parries before dying, its STR is much lower than the Troll's.
His path was clear. Path that he had to thread as a ghost. Evasion, stealth, and environmental manipulation were the only viable options. Every step was a calculation. Every shadow was a potential sanctuary. Every sound was a potential death sentence.
The race was forgotten, momentarily replaced by a far more primal objective.
Survive.
The Ridgeback Troll blocked the only discernible path forward, a narrow choke point between two sheer rock faces. Kage watched it from a high ledge, his body perfectly still. He was a predator studying his prey's pattern.
The troll would scratch its back against the rock wall, grunt, and then pace somewhere else. While there was no static cycle, no predictable pattern, the beast's low intelligence was enough to beat the RNG.
For a brief moment, as the troll turned to lumber back, its massive frame cleared the passage. The window was tight. But it was enough.
Kage moved.
He slid down the ledge, landing silently on a patch of moss. He walked, his pace measured, his kendo training dictating a perfect stride that made no sound. He passed through the choke point just as the troll's back was fully turned. The smell of damp earth and unwashed monster filled his nostrils. He didn't flinch.
He was through. The troll grunted, oblivious. Kage never looked back. One obstacle down.
The terrain grew worse. The trees disappeared entirely, ending at the lip of a deep, shadowy chasm. Fifty feet across, at least. A fall would be fatal. He scanned the area. Far to the south, the faint outline of a rope bridge was visible, but it would be a thirty-minute detour. An unacceptable loss.
His eyes fell on a massive, dead tree that had fallen across the gap. It was a natural bridge, but it was dangerously exposed. No way to break LoS. Worse, he could see several panther-like Shadow Stalkers prowling on the far side, their senses likely sharp enough to detect him halfway across.
His gaze swept the area, cataloging resources. Roots, rocks, moss, vines. On the cliff face to his left, just above a pack of sleeping Stalkers, he saw it. A section of the wall was unstable, a precarious jumble of loose stones and scree.
An idea sparked.
He crept to the edge of the chasm, found a fist-sized, well-balanced rock, and aimed. He was aiming for the weak point in the cliff face, a hundred feet away. He waited for a gust of wind to pass, adjusted for the drop, and threw.
The stone sailed through the air in a perfect arc, striking the unstable rock formation with a sharp crack.
For a second, nothing happened. Then, with a low groan, the entire section of the cliff gave way. A torrent of rock and dirt cascaded down, crashing into the forest floor with a deafening roar.
The Shadow Stalkers, startled from their rest, instantly reacted. Every head snapped towards the sound of the rockslide, their bodies tensing as they searched for the source of the disturbance.
That was his window.
While their attention was fixated on the loud, obvious distraction he had created, Kage sprinted onto the fallen log. His feet were light, his balance perfect. The log creaked ominously beneath his weight, but he didn't hesitate. He was across, slipping into the cover of a thicket on the other side just as the Stalkers began to relax.
He had crossed the chasm. The cost: one thrown rock and a massive spike in adrenaline that he clinically noted and filed away.
He pushed deeper, his confidence growing. He was winning. He was beating the zone.
And that was when he made a mistake.
He was parsing the patrol routes ahead, and he dismissed the faint aftershock from his rockslide as irrelevant. High above, however, that tremor shook a stone loose. It landed on the path with a sharp crack, a sound insignificant to him, but a dinner bell to something else.
A blur of motion erupted from the shadows to his right. A Shadow Stalker, one he hadn't spotted, burst from its hiding place, its attack animation already in full swing. There was no time to think, no time to plan. Only to react.
Kage's body moved on pure instinct. His kendo training, the years of ceaseless drills, took over. He didn't try to dodge backward. He knew the Stalker's lunge would track him. Instead, he pivoted on his heel, letting the creature's momentum carry it past him as he brought his rusted sword up in a perfect parry.
It didn't land. He managed a normal parry instead, which chipped heavily at his HP.
[-26 HP]
The sound of claw on steel screamed. The impact jolted up his arm, but he held his ground.
The Stalker recovered instantly, swiping with razor-sharp claws. Kage sidestepped, the attack missing by an inch. He was in a desperate duel he could not win. His health bar, meager as it was, wouldn't survive a single clean hit, and could not continue the chip damage through the parries. His sword was already flashing, its durability plummeting.
[Weapon Durability Low!]
He couldn't damage it. He couldn't kill it. He had to escape.
His mind, even in the heat of combat, was a whirlwind of calculations. He scanned his surroundings, his memory of the terrain flashing through his thoughts. And a plan formed itself with perfect clarity.
He feinted a lunge, drawing a swipe from the Stalker. He ducked under it, the wind of the blow ruffling his hair. He didn't run away from the beast. He ran towards it, past it, forcing it to turn and give chase.
Now he was leading.
The Stalker was faster in a straight line, its claws digging into the earth as it gained on him. Ten yards. Five. He could feel its hot breath on his neck.
Just as it lunged for the kill, Kage dropped into a slide. He shot across the slick mud and roots, passing right through the heart of the thorn vine patch he'd spotted earlier.
The Stalker, blinded by pursuit, plunged in right after him.
The effect was immediate. The thorny vines, coded as an environmental hazard, wrapped around the creature's legs. A status icon appeared over its head.
[Snare]
The Stalker roared in fury, its movements suddenly sluggish and clumsy as it struggled against the grasping vines.
That was all Kage needed. He scrambled to his feet and sprinted, not looking back.
He finally collapsed behind a grove of pale, sickly-looking trees, his heart hammering against his ribs. He dared a glance at his HP bar.
HP: 11 / 120
One more non-perfect parry and it would have been over. His [Novice's Rusted Sword] was a wreck.
He had survived. But the cost had been immense. The risk he took had nearly ended his race.
Battered, bruised, and running on fumes, Kage finally stumbled out of the oppressive darkness of Tanglefang Ridge. The sunlight that hit his face felt alien. Before him lay a stretch of rolling, green hills, the standard Level 5-7 zone leading towards the center of the region.
And there, in the distance, silhouetted against the afternoon sky, was his goal. A tall, slender spire of grey stone, unmarked on the map.
A grim, triumphant satisfaction settled over him. His calculation had been correct. His gamble had paid off.
He broke into a determined jog, pushing his exhausted virtual body onward. As he crested a small hill, he glanced back. He looked far to the south, along the winding, "safe" path he had bypassed.
In the distance, a figure was moving. Even from this range, the sheer speed was breathtaking. The figure wasn't sneaking or hiding. It was a whirlwind of steel and motion, cutting down the zone's normal mobs—the boars, the oversized beetles, the forest sprites—with contemptuous ease. Not even breaking stride.
Kage recognized the relentless efficiency. The pure, optimized aggression. Asura.
A cold realization washed over him. Asura was probably around level 5 by now. Better geared. In a fair race, on a clear path, Kage would have lost. He was losing, right until he decided to stop playing their game and start playing his own.
He hadn't won by being a better warrior. He had won by being a better strategist. But the victory tasted hollow, a reminder of the swordsman he'd buried. Master Jin's words echoed unbidden: 'A blade without soul is just metal.'
The knowledge spurred him on. He pushed his avatar into a desperate, all-out sprint. The tower loomed closer. He could hear the faint sound of Asura's combat, a continuous rhythm of steel on flesh, growing slightly louder. He was closing the distance fast.
The race was down to minutes. No, seconds.
Kage reached the base of the ancient stone tower. A single, heavy oak door stood before him, bound in dull iron. He threw his entire weight against it.
The door was open. Now, for the prize.