Lester sat through the briefing, heart pounding.

  The same words. The same map. The same inevitable march toward death.

  But this time, Franklin looked unsettled. His brow furrowed, his fingers tapping against the table in a slow, uneven rhythm. He turned to Lester, something unspoken in his eyes. *He knows. Or at least, he feels it.*

  Before they could speak, before they could acknowledge the wrongness pressing down on them like a heavy fog, the briefing ended.

  And the battle began again.

  This time, they didn’t charge head-on.

  This time, they waited.

  While the others fought and fell, Lester and Franklin stayed in the shadows, watching, calculating. Lester’s memories swirled like smoke—fragments of past failures and fleeting moments where things had almost changed.

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  And then, they saw it.

  Watts moved like a god among men, his power carving through the battlefield. But even gods had blind spots.

  They struck from behind.

  Franklin wove the darkness around them, bending the battlefield itself to mask their approach. Lester felt the ink surge through him, coiling around his blade like liquid night.

  Watts never saw it coming.

  The strike was clean. Final. Watts gasped, his eyes wide with shock as the ink- laced blade tore through him. Energy crackled around his failing form.

  They had done it.

  Lester exhaled, chest heaving. Franklin stood frozen, staring at the body. Around them, the battlefield fell silent.

  Was it over?

  A slow ripple passed through the air, as if the world itself had taken a breath.

  Then— Everything snapped.

  The sky shattered like glass. The ground dissolved beneath them. The battlefield twisted, stretched—ripped apart.

  And Lester awoke.

  The briefing room.

  The same dim lights.

  The same stale air.

  The same nightmare.

  Franklin gasped beside him, his hands gripping the table. His eyes darted to Lester, wild with panic.

  “We killed him,” Franklin whispered, voice shaking. “We *killed him.*”

  Lester swallowed hard. His stomach lurched.

  Killing Watts hadn’t freed them.

  Because Watts wasn’t the one keeping them here.