Varun POV

  “Are you sure we are on the right track?” Rohan swept his gaze across the eerily quiet surroundings.

  Varun and Rohan rarely agreed on anything. This was one such instance, Rohan voicing the same question Varun had been circling in his head for the past several minutes.

  After a week in this place, certain things about it became familiar. The evenly spaced trees, the ever-present mist which blocked the sky, and the constant low buzz of insects which became background noise.

  That buzzing had been absent for the past hour. The silence it left behind pressed in on Varun, making each step feel louder than it should have been. The mist tasted faintly bitter at the back of his tongue, as if the air itself had gone stale.

  He suspected that absence was the source of his unease, the reason his instincts kept nudging him to stay alert, to expect something just beyond sight.

  “We haven’t come across any traps in the last hour, have we?” Sid said. He did not raise his voice, but it carried easily. Varun watched Sid’s back as he spoke, the evenness of his tone feeling intentional.

  Sid did not slow or turn. He kept moving, planting the tip of his spear ahead of him before each step. Though they called it a spear, it was functioning more like a walking stick.

  Varun tried to think of the last time they had used it to kill something and came up empty. Since they had taken the daggers from the goblins, those blades had done all the work. Metal cut cleaner. Metal felt more reliable.

  Rohan shook his head, boots scraping softly as he slowed. “That means we are no longer following the goblins’ trail back to where they came from.” His eyes flicked to Pallavi, then to Varun, measuring their reactions. “But are we on the right track back to the camp?”

  “I don’t know,” Sid said. A trace of irritation edged into his voice. Varun did not buy it. The response felt practiced, a deflection more than an admission. “It’s not like we have markers on the trees. If we had left those, it would have just led the army back to our camp.”

  Rohan’s pace dropped to nothing. He stopped, and Varun halted with him, Pallavi doing the same.

  Sid took a couple more steps before realizing no one followed. He turned fast, spear coming up slightly, eyes sharp as if he expected to catch something moving behind them.

  “Sid,” Rohan said. His posture softened, hands loose and open, shoulders lowered. He met Sid’s eyes and held them. “I’m sorry for putting you on the spot, but I’m getting a bad feeling here. Are you really sure this is the right path?”

  Sid took a deep breath and sighed. “You were right, Rohan.” His voice sounded worn. He lowered his head, eyes fixed on the ground as if searching for the right words there. “None of us had any training for this. We’re just getting by with what we have.”

  Varun watched Sid carefully. Sid lifted his head and looked at Pallavi first, then at Varun, and finally at Rohan, holding each gaze for a brief second longer than necessary. “You know about my skill, Sixth Sense, right?”

  Varun nodded. The skill had always gnawed at his curiosity. Every other ability they had encountered made sense in some way. This one did not. It was vague enough that Varun had questioned whether it was even real, or if Sid had shaped it to suit the moment.

  “There were only a few instances where it came into play,” Sid said. His eyes slid past Rohan for a moment, unfocused, before returning. “The first time was the goblin ambush. I had a bad feeling throughout that walk. I even tried to take a different route, as you all know.”

  “Yeah.” Rohan spoke before Sid could continue, his voice slow and tight. His shoulders slumped, and he avoided Sid’s eyes, staring instead at the ground. His fingers curled and uncurled once. “I should have listened to you then.”

  Sid stepped closer and tapped Rohan’s shoulder. The touch was light, almost reassuring. A gentle smile appeared on Sid’s face. “Don’t beat yourself up too much. We are all unfamiliar with this place. Maybe we should just go with our gut if we don’t have all the facts.”

  “Yeah.” Pallavi shrugged off her backpack and let it drop. The thump echoed through the clearing and then faded, swallowed by the mist.

  Varun glanced at her, unsure of what she meant by it. Was she agreeing that Rohan should stop blaming himself, or that they should trust their instincts more? He could not tell. Either way, it looked like they were going to take a break here.

  “The next time I got a sense of danger from the skill was when I saw George in the camp. I froze in place.” Sid’s gaze moved again, sweeping the clearing, pausing on the branches above before settling back on the group.

  Varun felt a flicker of surprise. Sid had never mentioned this. Varun had assumed Sid recognized George because of future knowledge. That assumption had seemed solid when Sid later asked how they might beat George, framing it as idle speculation. Those moments had fed Varun’s theory that Sid was a regressor, along with his unsettling grasp of skills.

  “The thing is, Rohan, all the other directions gave me a sense of danger, and this was the only one that didn’t.” Sid leaned forward, meeting Rohan’s gaze, the forest quiet around them.

  “You should’ve told us about using the skill.” Varun’s words came out sharper than he meant them to, his brows drawn tight. “We don’t keep secrets within the team, right?”

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  He despised keeping secrets within the team. Secrets ruined relationships. The only reason he had not approached Sid earlier with his suspicions was simple. He had no proof. And regressors, at least in the stories he had read, were careful creatures, hiding what they knew until it was too late for others to question them.

  Sid was his best friend. That fact outweighed speculation. If Sid really was a regressor and carried some future reason for wanting George dead, Varun would not turn away from it. He would stand beside him, hand steady as they drove a dagger through George’s thick bark together. He trusted Sid enough to know that he would not take such a drastic decision lightly.

  “I’m sorry. I’m still not exactly sure how my skill works,” Sid said, an embarrassed smile on his face. “We can change directions.”

  “No, let’s continue this way.” Rohan’s jaw relaxed, and the corners of his lips curled upward. “I just hope your skill is right and we get back to camp safely.”

  Rohan caught Pallavi’s gaze and tilted his head slightly. The gesture was small but familiar, a silent check-in.

  Pallavi bent and swung her backpack up onto her shoulders. The straps creaked as she adjusted them.

  With that, the conversation ended. The team fell back into motion, spacing themselves as they resumed their walk toward camp. The air felt heavier now, carrying a faint, sour note that hadn’t been there before.

  The revelation about Sid’s skill chipped away at Varun’s regressor theory. It painted Sid less as someone hiding knowledge and more as someone relying on instinct. Even so, the doubt did not fade. Something inside Varun resisted the idea. It felt as though he wanted Sid to be a regressor.

  If Sid was not, then they were just another group stumbling through a changed world. Varun refused to accept that. The world had already proven it was no longer ordinary. From everything he had read, staying ordinary in such a place was a fast way to die.

  Varun watched Sid closely as they walked. His attention stayed fixed on Sid’s movements rather than the mist-wrapped path ahead. Sid checked the ground less often now. His gaze kept drifting upward, scanning the branches overhead instead.

  Varun followed his gaze. The mist did not allow him to see far, but he noticed straight lines interspersed between the branches. If the branches were toes, what he saw above looked like webbed feet.

  “Look out!” Sid dropped his bag and leapt forward, turning one-eighty degrees midair. The scream tore out of him, sharp and high, nothing like his usual controlled tone.

  Varun did not see what had spooked Sid enough to make him scream like that. He did not need to. His body reacted first as he dashed toward Pallavi, aiming to get beside her rather than retreat.

  He had trained his skill whenever he could, testing its limits over and over. But he had never used it with a loaded backpack. The weight shifted as he moved, dragging him off balance. He slammed into Pallavi’s shoulder, their boots skidding against damp earth, and for a heartbeat it felt like they were both going down.

  Pallavi reacted instantly. Her hand shot out, fisting his collar and hauling him upright. She stepped in front of him without a word, dumping her pack and raising her spear. Varun followed the line of it and froze.

  A giant spider stood where he had been moments earlier.

  The realization hit late. If Sid had not shouted, Varun would have taken that first strike.

  Because Varun had dashed forward instead of retreating, the spider that targeted Varun had its back turned toward Pallavi and him.

  It turned using four legs on each side, its gait smooth and deliberate. The way its legs flowed over roots and uneven ground made Varun’s skin crawl.

  Rohan had jumped backward the instant Sid leapt, likely using Backstep. Now, another spider stood between Rohan and Sid.

  The spider near Rohan attacked without delay. It did not pause or reposition. A Mana Web burst from it, cutting through the air.

  Anyone who had trained and leveled a skill long enough usually learned its tells. The tiny shifts in the user and surroundings just before activation.

  Rohan either did not notice them or could not react fast enough. The web struck his legs and tightened instantly, binding him to the ground.

  Sid rushed in before the spider could exploit Rohan’s immobility, targeting its most accessible weak points. The legs. More precisely, the joints.

  Sid came up behind it and swung his spear down like a club. The impact rang out, wood against chitin. Something cracked. Varun clenched his jaw, hoping the sound belonged to the spider and not the spear.

  What followed looked chaotic and brutal, like a child swinging wildly at a pi?ata, except the blindfold was on the pi?ata.

  Sid danced his way around the spider while it tried and failed to land a strike on him. His steps were short and unhurried. He had already moved away from the spot before the spider attacked it.

  This might be easier than it looks, Varun thought as he shrugged off his backpack and let it hit the ground with a dull thud.

  The spider answered with a Mana Web. With Varun standing close to Pallavi, the two of them were an obvious target.

  Varun broke to the side at once, cutting across the spider’s flank instead of retreating. He triggered Quickstep, feeling the shift in balance and speed. Dash would have been faster, but Quickstep gave him control, and control mattered here. He curved his path, aiming to get behind the spider before it could follow him.

  Pallavi was just a fraction of a second slower on her side. The web caught her legs, sticking to the ground and tightening. She did not panic. She braced and tore through the strands as they paled, the magic draining rapidly. The webbing would fall apart in seconds.

  Varun noticed both spiders sent their webs angled toward the ground, so even if they missed, there was still a chance the splash would reach their opponents. That was exactly what had happened with both Pallavi and Rohan. There were no near misses. You either dodged or you did not.

  Varun reached the spider’s rear. He raised the spear and brought it down hard on one of its legs, putting everything he had into the strike. The snap rang out sharp and clean. His mouth twitched upward despite himself.

  He shifted left as the spider began turning right, already planning his next move.

  Then, the spider betrayed him.

  It snapped left instead, surging forward. One of its many eyes caught his movement. A leg whipped out.

  Too late.

  Varun tried to leap clear, but the timing was wrong. The leg smashed into him midair, knocking the breath out of his lungs. He flew sideways, branches and mist blurring together as a tree trunk rushed toward him.

  As the impact loomed, one thought cut through the panic.

  How the hell was Sid making it look so easy?