Part 2: The Thing That Watches
The ridge fell quiet.
Arthur stood with the others, the night still around them. The wind had stopped. The trees didn't move. Even the air felt wrong—thick, like it had been holding its breath.
Then they heard it.
A sound like dry stone scraping against itself. Something moved just beyond the ridge, just out of view. One of the younger knights shifted nervously.
Arga raised a hand.
Silence returned.
And then it came.
The creature crested the slope without warning. It didn't charge or scream. It simply moved—too smoothly, too deliberately. Its body was a tangle of jointless black limbs and plates like fractured obsidian. No fur, no scales. No eyes, either.
But it could see them. Arthur knew that the moment it turned toward him.
It stopped just beyond their torchlight.
Then it lunged.
It hit fast—faster than any beast Arthur had seen. One knight cried out, blade half-raised, before a limb struck him in the chest and sent him crashing into a tree. Another was sliced open across the thigh and dragged backward. The others scrambled to respond.
Arthur met it head-on, sword drawn.
The limb came again. He parried, barely. The impact shuddered through his arms. His boots dug into the dirt, but it still pushed him back.
It was strong. Not wild, but precise.
The kind of strength that had killed before.
"Form on me!" Arga ordered.
The remaining knights regrouped, keeping low and tight. The creature shifted its stance, as if studying them.
Arga stepped forward. His voice was steady, but his hand tightened on the hilt.
"I will not fall while they stand behind me."
A faint shimmer passed over him, like heat off stone. Arthur felt it—the pressure of intent. **Oath Aura**.
The creature lunged again, and this time Arga met it.
Their blades clashed. The sound was not loud—it was heavy. Like iron locking into place.
Arga didn't flinch. His aura flared—controlled, subtle, but unmistakable. The knight's vow took form, not in words, but in motion.
The beast staggered back. Not wounded, but cautious.
It recognized the threat.
Arthur moved alongside another knight. Their blades danced together, trying to cut through its defenses. Every time the creature struck, Arthur felt a strange resistance—like it was reading his movement, responding a half-second ahead.
This wasn't instinct. It was knowledge.
> It's fought knights before.
Arthur adjusted. He moved low, twisting beneath a sweeping strike. His sword connected—barely—but he saw a crack form in the creature's outer shell. Not deep, but visible.
The Codex stirred in his chest.
Not violently. Not like before. But deliberately. As if marking something.
The creature turned and looked at him again.
It paused.
And then, for the first time, it spoke—though not with sound.
Arthur felt it as a presence. A recognition. A question.
> *You carry it.*
It stepped back, ignoring the others. Arga pressed forward, blade raised, but the creature's focus remained fixed on Arthur.
Then it attacked again—only him.
Arthur blocked one limb, ducked the next, and tried to counter—but it was relentless.
His breath was burning, muscles tightening. The Codex surged again, and this time his body moved faster, cleaner, almost like it knew the enemy's rhythm.
He got inside its guard.
His blade drove through the weak spot he'd seen earlier, pushing deep. The creature spasmed. Black fluid spilled out, steaming as it hit the ground.
Then Arga was beside him.
"Now!"
Both swords struck together.
The creature screamed—not in pain, but pressure. The kind that made ears ring and knees weaken.
Its body began to crack—limb by limb, joint by joint—until it collapsed into a pile of steaming black shards.
Silence followed.
Arthur stood there, chest heaving, sword trembling in his hand.
The others approached slowly.
Arga knelt beside one of the fallen knights. Dead. Another was barely breathing. Two wounded. Two more alive but shaken.
Arthur turned toward the remains.
He crouched. The black shards were cooling now, but one still pulsed with faint light. A sigil was carved into it—deep, complex, and unfamiliar. It wasn't rune work. It wasn't Imperial.
He touched it.
The Codex responded.
A flash of thought—not a vision, not a voice, but a word.
> "Remembered."
Arthur stood slowly, fist closing over the shard.
They returned to Broken Stone in silence. Arga said nothing as they rode. Neither did the men.
Whatever that thing was, it hadn't come by accident. It had been waiting.
And it knew Arthur carried something it wanted.
The Codex didn't speak. But he could feel it—like a heartbeat beneath the surface.
This wasn't the end.
It was a beginning.