I knew the trouble would come eventually. It was a mathematical certainty I had been tracking for months. I was trying to do things that normal people wouldn't dare—snatching prey directly from the mouths of wolves. In this world, those wolves were the Merchant Association, a predator that didn't take kindly to village blacksmiths disrupting their monopoly.

  They had sent an investigation team to Oakhaven disguised as a merchant caravan. On the surface, it was a very logical and sound decision—disguise your intent to capture a weak animal. But they didn't understand that I wasn't the prey. I was a monster they hadn't yet accounted for.

  They knew nothing of who I was, what I did, where I lived, or who was truly the mastermind behind Silas. They moved with a slow, calculated caution, digging for the secret technique behind our blue-tinted steel like rats looking for a grain of gold in the mud. They knew the blades were coming from Oakhaven, but they couldn't pin down the "how" or the "who."

  They began to ask around—pubs, inns, and the low-level information brokers who would sell their own mothers for a silver coin. And because of Silas’s stupidity, they found their thread. Silas didn't move with the caution I had drilled into him. He was a man blinded by his own sudden success. In the end, his lack of discipline didn't matter to me personally, but it mattered to my goals. They were here to stop my progress, and that was an error I had to correct.

  The investigation leader had sent Jacob—a high-level fighter. Jacob wasn't a common thug; he was a man of the battlefield, experienced in the art of the sword and the weight of a kill. He had entered the smithy disguised as a merchant to see if the blades were truly being forged there. It was a peaceful, logical attempt to confirm their suspicions.

  But it was futile. I was the creator; Silas was nothing more than the pawn in this deal. I used his face as a shield so the world would never look at a child. That day, Jacob and his men returned to their leader empty-handed. The leader couldn't understand how a man of Silas’s low caliber could hide a secret so well. Silas wasn't a man of that quality; he wasn't even trying to hide his new fortune. It was written in the way he walked and the way he lived. By then, they were certain Silas knew the secret, even if they couldn't see him performing the work.

  So, they made a simple decision: kidnap Silas. They would squeeze the answers from him or simply dispose of him. They watched him for two days, tracking his movements with the patience of a hunter. They found the perfect timing—the late-night walk home from the tavern when Silas was drowned in ale and his logic was discarded. To the mercenaries, snatching him was child’s play. They must have wondered if Silas was even a real threat, or just some stupid fucker who got lucky.

  The Midnight Rock

  It was late night. I was sleeping soundly, my body finally recovering from the constant drain of the Void.

  Crack.

  A rock hit my window, the sound sharp as a gunshot in the silence of the room. I sat up, my mind instantly cold and alert. I went outside, my eyes narrowing, ready to teach whoever was disturbing my slumber a lesson in pain.

  In the moonlight, I saw Leo. He was shaking, tears streaking his face.

  "It’s all because of you!" he sobbed, his voice cracking with a mixture of terror and rage. "It’s all because of you my father hasn't returned home!"

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  I looked at him, my voice deep and slow, echoing in the quiet night. "Your father is likely drunk in a ditch, Leo. He will return when the alcohol leaves his blood."

  "No!" Leo insisted, stepping closer. "It’s not true. My father always gets back home around twelve. It's way past that. He's gone!"

  I paused. I knew the trouble had come in the disguise of those merchants, but I hadn't expected them to move this boldly so soon. Oakhaven was a small village; Leo must have seen the shadows or heard the rumors of the 'merchants' watching the smithy. I didn't care for Silas as a human being—we were both just using each other—but Silas was not useless yet. I needed him to reach the Apex.

  "Let's go," I said.

  I led Leo to the smithy, the air smelling of cold iron and dead ash. I walked to the rack and grabbed a standard blade. I reached into the fist-sized core in my chest and flooded the metal with the Void. The steel turned a bruised, hungry blue, its edge becoming an absolute line.

  I turned to Leo, the blade humming in my hand. "Stay here. Do not go outside or anywhere looking for your father. You could be killed, and I don't want to be responsible for that. Stay here and let me handle this."

  The Hunt through the Mana

  I left Leo in the dark and began my search. I checked every one of Silas’s favorite drinking spots. I peered into the closed pubs and the dark alleyways where he usually slumped over. But the village was a ghost town.

  I stopped in the street, my mind racing. How was I to find a needle in a haystack of darkness? Then, a logical thought emerged: I would read the mana. The mercenaries were trained killers; they carried a mana signature that was jagged and artificial compared to the natural world.

  I returned to the spot where Silas would have walked home. I closed my eyes and reached into the Void, using it to differentiate between the soft, humming frequency of the earth and the unnatural, sharp frequency of the mercenaries. I felt it—a trail of jagged signatures moving away from the village.

  I didn't stop. I pushed harder. I increased the Void’s capacity to its maximum area, expanding my senses until my vision blurred and a sharp, metallic pain lanced through my brain. I ignored the blood trickling from my nose and followed the trace.

  They weren't just going anywhere. They were heading to the one place in Oakhaven that everyone feared. The place where nobody goes because they believe the wind carries the screams of the dead. The place where the river of blood once flowed.

  They were taking him to the Red Valley. My birthplace.

  As the realization settled, a strange sensation bubbled up from the hollow core of my chest. It wasn't fear, nor was it the sterile chill of logic. It was an ancient, predatory warmth. They were taking my pawn to the graveyard of my past, thinking the shadows of that valley would protect their crimes. They didn't realize they were marching into the only place on this earth where I truly felt at home.

  The Red Valley would not be their sanctuary; it would be their burial ground. Like the thousands who had perished there before them, they were about to become nothing more than a footnote in the history of that crimson soil. They would learn, in their final moments, the true price of obstructing the path of a being who seeks the Apex.

  I stood in the center of the dark village square, the moon catching the silver of my hair and the deep, rhythmic pulse of the Void in my eyes. And then, I laughed.

  It was a sound that didn't belong in the throat of an eight-year-old. It was a jagged, manic sound—low at first, then rising into a cold, hysterical crescendo that seemed to swallow the ambient noise of the night. I wasn't laughing because of a joke; I was laughing because the variables had finally aligned. I had been waiting for this. I had been refining my steel and hollowing my soul, waiting for a worthy moment to test the limits of my "Nothingness."

  I wasn't a child looking for a lost friend. I was a predator who had finally been given permission to stop pretending. My laughter echoed off the closed doors of the village, a warning to the world that the "Judgment" of the Red Valley was returning.

  They wanted to find the secret of the steel? I would show them. I would bury them in it.