Cyrus didn’t consider herself remarkable…
The tavern bards of Bastion would have said otherwise, of course.
"Hero of the Shatterplanes," they sang.
"Flame-tipped spear, soul forged in fire!"
But Cyrus? She called it doing her job.
Level 77. Warrior class. Fire affinity. Martial discipline. Nothing flashy, just efficient. Her armor was dented but well-maintained. Her spear, etched with ember-lit runes, flickered faintly in the dark. Her eyes were tired. Focused. The kind of focus you only earn from watching everyone else lose it.
Bastion—coastal city, port of trade, and semi-sacred stomping ground for any upstart adventurer worth their salt—was home. Not a utopia, but structured. Predictable. The kind of place where systems worked, quests paid, and monsters stayed outside the gates.
Usually.
"Think it'll be a banshee?" Darien asked, walking just behind her, bow slung across his back.
"More likely a ghoul," Elise murmured, her holy staff clutched tight.
"Either way," Roren said with a grunt, tightening his shield straps, "it dies tonight."
Cyrus didn’t reply.
They were heading east of the docks, out where Bastion’s walls cracked into broken shipping lanes and half-sunk warehouses. A cryptid had been sighted—tall, humanoid, unsettling. No known classification. No known threat level. Multiple bodies, no wounds, and a rising sense of dread.
Standard fare. Supposedly.
Her team was solid:
Roren: Old-school tank. Level 44. Shield-first. Pure defensive wall.
Elise: New cleric. Green but promising. Level 19.
Darien: Quiet ranger. Level 27. Reliable.
The first body lay slumped beside the warehouse gate.
Eyes wide. Face slack. No injuries.
"No wounds," Elise whispered, kneeling. "But... his soul feels hollowed out."
Inside was worse. Crates broken open. Symbols scratched into the floor. A ring of corpses, seated neatly, as if waiting for something. Or someone.
"Necromancer?" Roren muttered.
Elise nodded, visibly shaken. "Definitely."
Then, a sound. Bare feet on wood.
A girl stepped out from behind a crate.
Small. Pale. Wearing a simple black cloak. Her long hair clung to her cheeks. Piercing green eyes. Her face was expressionless.
Cyrus raised her spear.
"You’re the one?"
The girl tilted her head. Smiled.
"Are you here to save me?"
If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
“What are you?" Cyrus asked, her voice low.
The girl tilted her head again, eyes reflecting nothing.
"My name is Miren," she said softly. "I don’t know what I am. But I know I love you."
[Target Identified: “Miren”]
Class: Necromancer
Affinities: Dark
Disciplines: Psionic
Level: 4
The corpses stood.
Not like zombies.
Not shambling. Not jerky. They stood as if they’d never fallen. Seamless. Natural. Eyes open. Breathing.
"They’re... moving like they're alive," Darien whispered.
"Necromancy doesn’t work like this," Elise hissed. "This—this isn’t possible—"
"Level reading?" Roren asked, half-turning.
Cyrus glanced. "Level 4."
"...Bullshit."
The warehouse exploded into movement.
Cyrus surged forward, flame igniting down her spearshaft. She spun low, slicing through a pair of corpses. They twitched, but did not scream.
Darien fired. Arrow after arrow. One into the eye. One through the heart. The body kept moving.
Elise raised her staff, chanted—Too slow.
A dozen cold hands grabbed her. Dragged her under.
"Elise!" Cyrus shouted, eyes wide. "No—!"
And then—
She rose again.
Not gasping. Not coughing.
Just standing. Same robes. Same face.
Her eyes were wrong.
"Elise...?!"
Elise turned. Tilted her head the same way as the girl had.
Cyrus’s heart dropped.
"Darien, fall back!"
He didn’t.
They swarmed him. He screamed—once—and vanished under the tide.
Roren bellowed, holding his shield high.
"Cyrus, they’re—"
Elise walked up to him.
Whispered something.
Then drove her staff into his throat.
Cyrus snapped.
The spear blazed. Her shout tore through the air as she spun, striking down the risen with all the strength her body could muster. Fire traced every edge of her weapon.
"You’re not them!" she howled. "You’re not them!"
She cut through Elise’s throat. Through Darien’s body. Through Roren’s spine.
Cyrus felt her heart hammering violently, shock and grief flooding through her veins, hot and disorienting.
Her breaths came ragged and rapid, her eyes wide with horror at the sight of her friends—her allies—falling and turning against her.
"What have you done to them?" she screamed, voice breaking with anguish, rage fueling each strike of her spear.
She spun and thrust with desperate fury, flames roaring brighter and more intense, scorching undead flesh in futile retaliation for her lost companions.
Sweat blurred her vision, mixing with tears she hadn't noticed falling.
And then—She saw Miren.
Still standing. Still watching.
Unarmed. Untouched.
She had a blank stare.
Cyrus charged.
"Who are you?!"
"Because I love them," the girl said softly.
Cyrus’s momentum faltered.
"...What?"
"Because I love you. Because you’re all mine."
Cyrus hesitated, spear trembling in her hands, confusion warring with revulsion.
Miren spoke with unsettling sincerity, a tenderness interwoven with horror.
Cyrus surged forward again, spear aimed carefully, intending to incapacitate rather than kill.
The strike connected, slicing across Miren's shoulder, blood blossoming brightly against pale skin.
The girl staggered back, eyes wide in genuine shock and pain.
The corpses fell.
Cyrus stared at Miren, her heart still thundering, eyes stinging from the tears she couldn't suppress. Anger, disbelief, and raw grief churned painfully within her chest.
"Why?" she choked out, her voice thick with emotion, spear shaking visibly in her grip.
"Why do this? They were my friends—good people. How can you just—how can you just take that away?"
Miren gazed up, eyes bright and earnest, filled with a disturbing depth of sadness and longing.
"I don't know. I just wanted you to notice me."
Cyrus felt a chill, deeper than any fear she'd ever known.
Miren vanished silently into the shadows with tears in her eyes, leaving behind only silence, ruin, and a lingering dread.
She stood there, shaken, alone among fallen allies and crumpled corpses, the runes on her spear slowly fading back into darkness.
Level 4... Yet something deeply wrong had occurred here. This was no ordinary cryptid encounter.
Cyrus turned back toward Bastion, haunted by questions and a cold understanding that tonight she had survived something far more sinister and incomprehensible than she'd ever faced before.
Bastion.
Morning.
The city’s walls loomed—familiar, clean, uncaring.
Cyrus walked alone. Her armor scorched. Blood dried into every seam. Her hands shook.
The guards at the gate saw her and stepped aside.
She passed through the city like a ghost.
Vendors called out their wares. A bard plucked strings. A baker offered cinnamon bread.
It all felt fake. Too soft.
Too clean.
At the guild hall, she handed in her quest slip.
"Status?"
She stared blankly at the form.
"Incomplete."
No one questioned it.
Back in her room, she sat on the bed in full armor.
Spear leaned against the wall. Hands limp. Heart quiet.
She had failed.
But worse—she didn’t understand how.
The girl was only Level 4. A Level 4.
And she—
She wasn’t human.
Cyrus’s jaw clenched.
Next time? She would notice.
Next time?
She’d burn the whole world down to stop it.