Finn’s body was slowly giving out from the blood loss and the injuries he’d sustained.

His ribs ached with every step. The shallow cuts on his forearms had scabbed over, and something in his left ankle clicked whenever he put weight on it.

[HP: 31%]

The only reason he could still walk at all was because of the five stat points he’d gained across all attributes from the achievement he’d unlocked. The boost to his endurance was just enough to keep him moving in spite of everything.

Nyx walked beside him in a way that, at first glance, looked like a leisurely stroll.

On closer inspection, it wasn’t.

She was matching his pace deliberately—slowing when he slowed, pausing every third step as though giving him time to catch up without ever pointing it out.

He glanced sideways at her.

The long black raincoat he’d put her in was at least two sizes too big. It swallowed her hands almost to the fingertips, and the hem dragged over the tops of the cheap trainers he’d laced onto her feet. The hood was pulled far enough forward that only the lower half of her face was visible, while a charcoal scarf covered her mouth and throat.

She looked, more or less, like a pale woman recovering from some kind of illness.

Which had been the entire point.

It had taken him two streets after leaving the alley where they’d killed the Hollow Knight to realise he’d made a serious tactical error.

She stood out. A lot.

And they were heading for a safe zone—a place that was almost certainly going to be crowded with people. Standing out would only invite unwanted attention.

So he’d decided to disguise her and had looted a clothing shop.

She seemed rather pleased with the result. That had been five minutes ago, and she still hadn’t stopped looking down at her own sleeves every thirty seconds with quiet satisfaction.

They were nearing the safe zone when Nyx stopped dead in her tracks.

Nyx went utterly still in that way that meant she could shadow-step at a moment’s notice. Finn’s hand tightened around the kitchen knife before he even fully registered why.

"What?" he asked. "What is it?"

She was staring at a Toyota Yaris.

It was flipped upside down on the pavement, its hazard lights still ticking away, the driver long gone. The engine had died sometime in the last hour, but the battery still had enough life left to keep the orange lights blinking.

Nyx’s crimson eyes tracked each flash with the intensity of someone watching a cobra decide whether or not to strike.

"Bearer. We have walked past several of these creatures already. The others lay quite still, so I did not deem them worthy of concern..." Her voice trailed off. "This one, however. This one is plotting something."

"...No. It’s just a car."

"A car."

"A car."

She tilted her head. "And is it dangerous?"

"Not currently, no."

"Not currently."

"Well, if it hit you, it would—" He noticed her knuckles whitening around the length of rebar she had, at some point, tucked under her arm. "—Okay, I can see where this is going. No. No, don’t stab the Toyota. It’ll set off the alarm. It’s just a vehicle. It carries people around."

"A vehicle," she repeated, in the tone of someone filing a new word away for later cross-referencing. "That carries people. How terribly civic of it."

Nyx stared at the Toyota for another two full seconds. The indicator flashed four more times before she made a small, thoughtful sound in her throat and resumed walking.

She did not, he noticed, take her eyes off it until they had passed the bonnet.

’That,’ she thought internally, ’was a metal beast.’

’It’s a Toyota.’

’I heard you the first time, Bearer.’

The safe zone was a mile away, according to his earlier eyeballing of the distance, and that estimate turned out to be generous.

On the way there, they occasionally passed other people. Small groups, mostly. All of them seemed to be heading toward the blue field of the safe zone visible in the distance.

Most were too shell-shocked to give Finn or Nyx more than a passing glance.

Then, finally, after an unexpectedly long walk, they reached it.

The safe zone had been established in the car park of a Tesco Express, all of it sitting beneath a soft dome of pale blue light. In the centre, where the trolley bay used to be, stood the obelisk—the source of the field.

The moment they crossed the threshold, the system responded.

[ENTERING WARDED SANCTUARY]

[Hostile entities cannot follow.]

[HP/MP regeneration is increased significantly while inside.]

[Welcome, Participant.]

Finn stopped walking.

He hadn’t meant to. He’d meant to keep going, find somewhere to sit, maybe lean against a wall and rest for a minute. But his legs didn’t listen. They simply stopped, then bent, and suddenly he was on his knees with both hands braced against the tarmac.

They’d made it.

He could finally rest.

It was the first certainty he’d had since his apartment windows exploded, and the relief of it hollowed him out.

Nyx crouched beside him and placed a hand against his back.

’Bearer — are you unwell?’

After a minute, he pushed himself upright again.

’I’m fine. Just tired.’

The safe zone spread out before him, and for the first time he got a proper look at it.

It looked like a tent city. A scrappy, improvised one, but a tent city nonetheless.

There were about a hundred people, maybe more, clustered in and around the Tesco car park beneath a loose patchwork of tarpaulins, picnic umbrellas, and one enormous pink gazebo that looked like it had been stolen from a wedding.

Someone had dragged a row of trolleys into a semicircle to form a makeshift wall along the west side. A couple of dogs wandered between the tents, confused and probably searching for food.

The obelisk stood at the centre.

Around it, six men in matching brown jackets had arranged themselves in a loose ring. They all carried starter-class weapons: a bow, a sword, a shield, and even a pair of dagger wielders among them.

They held themselves with that particular loose-shouldered, chin-up posture of people who had very recently started thinking of themselves as being in charge.

Finn overheard someone mention that they were calling themselves the Marshals.

He clocked them in one glance—not because he recognised them personally, but because he recognised the archetype. Every MMO had its first-week guild. The ones who loved attention and had played enough Dark Souls to convince themselves they were born for the apocalypse.

The leader was easy to pick out.

Tall. Mid-thirties, maybe. Broad across the shoulders.

A steel longsword hung from the sword holster at his hip, and he was currently holding court beside the obelisk with one foot propped on a crate of bottled water, explaining something loudly to a gathered knot of listeners.

Every starter class was given a weapon by the system... how come the Covenant Bearer class didn’t get anything? No, wait. Maybe Nyx is considered a weapon?

’How dare you?’ Nyx replied at once. ’To refer to such a charming girl as I as a weapon. Have you no shame, Bearer?’

’Wait—I didn’t mean it like that.’

’And how, precisely, did you mean it?’

’...Sorry.’

Nyx crossed her arms.

Finn continued his survey, because the Marshals weren’t the only thing that caught his attention.

Past them, further along the car park, were the civilians.

A cluster of maybe forty people or more, mostly families. A woman in a nurse’s uniform crouched over someone’s leg, winding a strip of torn curtain around a gash that had definitely needed stitches an hour ago.

A little girl, maybe six, stood nearby clutching a stuffed rabbit so tightly the seams were beginning to split.

All of them, without exception, watched the Marshals the way small animals watched a large dog.