Servius had long since stopped keeping track of how far or how long he had been walking. Time in the Warp was a cruel trickster—endless, shifting, and meaningless. The barren terrain around him shifted constantly, forming and reforming itself into jagged rock, slick mud, or fractured glass. It was a mockery of reality, and the only constant was the oppressive sense of something watching him. Always watching.

  He paused atop a rise of bone-white stone, his ears twitching as he scanned his surroundings. The air was thick, heavier than it had been before, and carried an electric tension that made the fur on the back of his neck stand on end. He tightened his grip on the power knife at his side, his tail flicking once in irritation.

  The landscape stretched out before him in all its desolate chaos. Twisted trees with gnarled, bone-like branches dotted the horizon, their roots digging into ground that writhed like living flesh. Pools of stagnant, black liquid reflected a distorted version of the sky, where stars wept blood and distant shapes writhed with impossible geometry. It was a scene that should have sent most mortals into madness, but Servius felt only a cold, simmering resolve.

  “Come on, then,” he muttered to the silence. “I know you’re out there.”

  The sound came first—a faint rustling, like dry leaves scraping across stone. Servius stilled, his sharp eyes scanning the uneven terrain around him. The sound grew louder, circling him, though there was no wind to carry it. It was deliberate, calculated.

  “Another game, is it?” he said dryly, his voice carrying into the oppressive quiet. “You lot can’t help yourselves, can you?”

  The rustling stopped, and for a moment, there was only silence. Then a low, guttural growl rolled through the air, reverberating in his chest. Servius’s ears twitched, his muscles tensing as the growl shifted into something more unsettling—a distorted, mirthless chuckle that sounded like it was coming from everywhere at once.

  A shadow moved at the edge of his vision, darting between the jagged trees. Servius turned sharply, his knife raised, but the shadow was gone. Another flicker appeared to his left, then behind him. Each time, it moved faster than he could track, its form fluid and undefined.

  “Not very original,” he muttered, shifting into a defensive stance. “At least show me what I’m supposed to be afraid of.”

  The laughter stopped. The silence that followed was thick and suffocating, pressing down on him like a weight. Then, slowly, a figure stepped out from behind one of the warped trees.

  Servius froze, his breath catching in his throat.

  The form stepped forward, its movements eerily familiar. It was Servius—down to the smallest detail. The same feline features, the same carapace armor, the same piercing eyes. But there was something wrong about it, something off. Its fur was black as void-space, its eyes glowing faintly with an unnatural green light. It carried no weapons, but its claws—sharper and longer than his—dripped with an inky substance that hissed as it hit the ground.

  It cocked its head, studying him with an expression of faint amusement. “Well,” it said, its voice a distorted echo of his own, “aren’t you a sorry sight.”

  Servius didn’t flinch, but drew the rifle off his back. “Another trick,” he muttered, his tone sharp. “This place really loves its games.”

  The shadow smirked. “A trick? Hardly. You’ve been running from me for a long time, haven’t you? Pretending I’m not there. But here, in this place, there’s nowhere to hide.”

  Servius’s tail flicked once, sharp and deliberate, though his face remained impassive. “I don’t have time for this,” he said coldly. “Either fight or get out of my way.”

  The shadow chuckled, a low, resonant sound that seemed to come from all around him. “Oh, we’re going to fight. But don’t think of this as a battle. Think of it as a lesson.”

  The shadow lunged.

  It moved with impossible speed, its inky claws slicing through the air where Servius had stood a moment before. He rolled to the side, his rifle coming up instinctively. A single shot cracked through the silence, the round tearing through the shadow’s shoulder. Black ichor splattered the frost-covered ground, hissing and smoking where it landed.

  The shadow staggered, but it didn’t fall. Instead, it straightened slowly, its glowing eyes fixed on him with an unsettling calm. The wound on its shoulder writhed, the ichor flowing back into place, sealing the injury as though it had never been.

  “Is that all you’ve got?” it asked, its tone dripping with mockery. “No wonder you keep losing. You’ve always been better at surviving than winning.”

  Servius didn’t respond. He fired again, the rifle’s recoil slamming into his shoulder. The round struck the shadow in the chest, sending it reeling, but once again, the inky black substance knitted the wound shut.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “Come on, then,” the shadow taunted, its voice rising to a snarl. “Show me what you’re really made of.”

  Servius slung the rifle over his shoulder, drawing both bolt pistols in a single fluid motion. The twin weapons roared as he fired in rapid succession, the explosive rounds slamming into the shadow with enough force to shatter stone. Each impact sent chunks of black ichor flying, but the creature kept coming, its movements erratic and unsettlingly fluid.

  It lashed out with its claws, and Servius ducked beneath the strike, twisting to fire point-blank into its side. The bolt round detonated, tearing a gaping hole in the shadow’s torso. For a moment, it faltered, its form flickering like a dying flame.

  But then it laughed.

  “You’re quick,” it said, its tone almost admiring. “Smart, too. But you’re not fighting me, Servius. You’re fighting yourself.”

  The shadow’s form rippled, its limbs elongating, its features growing more distorted. It wasn’t a perfect copy anymore. It was something worse—an exaggerated, monstrous version of him. Its claws grew longer, its movements more feral. It moved with the same speed and precision he prided himself on, but with an unpredictability that made it nearly impossible to anticipate.

  Servius gritted his teeth, holstering one pistol to draw his power knife. The blade hummed faintly in his hand as he braced himself. “Then I guess I’ll just have to kill myself,” he muttered.

  The shadow lunged again, its claws slashing through the air in a blur. Servius parried with his knife, the blade sparking as it met the inky black claws. He countered with a quick slash to the shadow’s side, but it twisted away, its movements too fluid, too precise.

  It struck again, its claws raking across his armor. Servius felt the impact, the force driving him back a step, but the carapace held. He retaliated with a vicious upward slash, catching the shadow under the chin. Black ichor sprayed across his armor, sizzling where it landed.

  The shadow staggered, and for a moment, its glowing eyes dimmed. “You think this is about strength?” it snarled, its voice losing some of its composure. “It’s not. It’s about what’s inside. And you… you’re empty.”

  The Cat didn’t respond. He stepped forward, his movements deliberate, and slashed again with his power knife. The blade cut deep into the shadow’s chest, and this time, the wound didn’t close immediately. The creature hissed, its form flickering violently.

  The shadow reeled, its form collapsing inward as it struggled to maintain its shape. Its glowing eyes burned brighter, filled with a mixture of rage and desperation. “You think you’ve won?” it snarled. “You can’t kill me. I’m the part of you that survives. The part of you that keeps going when everything else falls apart.”

  Servius leveled his pistol, the barrel trained on the creature’s head. “Then it’s time I learned to live without you.”

  He pulled the trigger.

  The bolt round struck true, detonating the shadow’s head in a burst of black ichor and green light. Its body convulsed, collapsing into a pool of inky black liquid that hissed and evaporated into the air. The fog began to recede, the oppressive cold lifting as the silence returned.

  Servius stood there for a moment, his breath heavy, his pistol still raised. Slowly, he holstered the weapon and wiped the ichor from his knife before sheathing it.

  The battlefield fell into silence once more, the oppressive fog retreating into the distant horizon. Only the faint scent of acrid ichor and the burned-out smell of bolt rounds lingered in the still air. Servius stood amidst the emptiness, his breath heavy, his body aching from the exertion.

  His eyes drifted downward, catching his own shadow stretching faintly across the pale ground. It was still there—silent and in its rightful place. But something about it was wrong. It wasn’t as sharp or defined as it used to be. The edges were lighter, fuzzier.

  The Cat narrowed his eyes, crouching slightly to study it. His shadow seemed thinner, like it had been drained or diluted. When he moved, it followed him, but somehow sluggish, as though it were reluctant. Servius straightened, a cold unease coiling in his chest.

  “Lost a piece of me, did I?” he muttered, his voice dry and laced with quiet bitterness. “That’s probably not good.”

  He brushed some of the black ichor off his armor, its faint hiss lingering as the liquid evaporated on the cold surface. Glancing at the ground, he noted the scattered shell casings from his rifle and bolt pistols—a grim reminder of how much he had used during the fight. Crouching down, he retrieved one of the spent casings from his rifle, the large, blackened 20mm shell still warm to the touch. He turned it over in his hands before letting it fall back to the ground.

  Reaching for his magazine pouch, Servius confirmed the sinking suspicion. His ammunition was dangerously low. He mentally calculated what remained: only a handful of rifle rounds and just a few magazines for his pistols. Every shot he’d taken had been necessary, but the fight had left him severely under-equipped for whatever else the Warp had planned.

  “Wasteful,” he muttered under his breath, though there was no one around to hear. “Stupid.”

  He flexed his fingers, forcing himself to focus. The damage was done, and there was no way to undo it. Dwelling on it wouldn’t help. He couldn’t afford to lose his edge—not now, not here. He adjusted the sling of his rifle, letting its weight settle on his shoulder, and drew his power knife again, its faint hum oddly reassuring in the quiet.

  With a final glance at his faint shadow, Servius turned and resumed walking. The endless horizon stretched out before him, the ground pale and unyielding, the air eerily still. His boots crunched softly against the frost-coated ground, each step measured and deliberate.

  The Cat didn’t look back. But as he moved, a thought lingered at the edges of his mind, a quiet question he couldn’t shake.

  Was it worth it?

  The answer didn’t come. Instead, the silence swallowed him whole, and the journey continued.