They ran as though the forest itself had turned against them.

  Mist clung low to the ground, coiling around their legs as they tore through the trees, the only sound behind them the maddening, ceaseless skitter of countless tiny limbs. It was a noise that burrowed straight into the spine, impossible to ignore, impossible to forget.

  Barrett’s heart hammered in his chest, each breath scraping raw as panic gnawed at the edges of his focus.

  He hated spiders.

  Somewhere between terror and sheer stubbornness, they found a narrow path—little more than a break in the undergrowth—but it was enough. They clung to it, boots pounding mud and roots as if the trail itself might vanish if they slowed.

  Barrett glanced back, and his stomach dropped.

  Granny was falling behind.

  She was tougher than any woman her age had a right to be, but toughness didn’t make legs younger. Her steps faltered. Her breath hitched.

  Barrett skidded to a stop.

  “This is as far as I go,” Granny said calmly, voice steady in a way that chilled him. “You all keep moving.”

  Pippy’s mouth opened to protest, but Barrett was already there.

  He grabbed Granny without ceremony, hoisting her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry like she weighed nothing at all.

  “I’ll die before I leave anyone behind,” he muttered, and there was no bravado in it. Only truth.

  Granny clutched tight as he surged forward again, even daring to trigger [Blood Rush], muscles screaming as the world narrowed to motion and breath.

  Grimm perched atop Barrett’s head, feathers slicked back, eyes sharp. [Predator’s Mark] flared again and again. Warning pulses snapped through Barrett’s mind as spiders closed in. None had struck yet.

  Yet.

  A shadow lunged.

  [Iron Reflex] shrieked.

  Barrett juked hard left, boots skidding, narrowly avoiding snapping fangs as the creature slammed into where he’d been a heartbeat earlier.

  Ahead, Maku ran with mana orbs circling him like anxious satellites. Every few steps one would peel away, streaking backward to intercept a spider that came too close. They slowed the creatures, but didn’t stop them.

  “Where are we even going?!” Pippy yelled, voice ragged.

  “Just—keep—on the path!” Barrett shouted back.

  Dread pooled in his gut. Were the spiders herding them? Bleeding them dry before the kill? Did this path lead anywhere at all?

  He crushed the thought.

  Standing and fighting wasn’t an option. All they could do was run and pray that whatever lay ahead was better than what chased them.

  They ran for what felt like forever.

  Barrett’s core burned. His back screamed. Sweat poured down beneath his bandana, blinding him. Even without carrying Granny, the others were flagging. With her weight, he didn’t know how much longer he could keep this pace.

  And the skittering.

  That damn skittering.

  It grew louder. Closer.

  Just as despair began to hollow him out, the trees suddenly thinned.

  They burst into a clearing.

  Water.

  A broad, dark stretch of it, and a crude wooden dock jutting out from the shore. Tied to it, bobbing gently, was a raft.

  Barrett nearly laughed.

  “Sweet mother of liberty!” he bellowed. “GET ON THAT RAFT!”

  They sprinted—

  —and Pippy went down.

  Barrett spun just in time to see her tangled in a web stretched between a lone tree and the brush. It clung to her legs like iron bands.

  “Mister Donovan!” she screamed.

  At the edge of the clearing, the forest erupted.

  Spiders poured out between the trunks, their black legs churning, bodies low and fast, a living tide.

  “Go!” Granny shouted. “Save her! Drop me. I can still move!”

  Barrett set her down and ran.

  He hit the webbing with his machete, blade biting, but it barely cut. The strands vibrated, stubborn and elastic.

  The spiders were closer now.

  One leapt, and was blasted aside by a barrage of mana.

  Maku stood further back, firing missile after missile, buying them inches and heartbeats.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Pippy sobbed, tugging uselessly at the web.

  “Let me,” a breathless voice snapped.

  Barrett looked up. Rei.

  She shoved past him, hands already glowing as she poured precise bursts of fire into the webbing. The strands began to melt. Slowly, agonizingly slowly.

  Too slow.

  Barrett met Maku’s eyes.

  “Get everyone on the raft,” he said evenly. “I’ll buy you time.”

  Maku stared at him.

  “Take care of them.”

  Barrett lifted Grimm from his head and set him gently on a nearby branch beside Maku.

  “Watch my back, little fella.”

  Chirp. Grimm replied with sadness.

  Then Barrett turned and walked straight toward the oncoming swarm.

  —2 months ago—

  The sun was sinking toward the horizon, staining the sky in bands of amber and bruised violet. The boardwalk stretched empty before them, weathered planks creaking softly beneath each step, the steady hush of the waves filling the silence between words.

  Two figures moved side by side.

  One was an older man in a faded aloha shirt and a battered Panama hat, hands loose at his sides, stride unhurried. The other wore camo pants and a sweat-darkened beater, broad shoulders hunched slightly forward, messy blond hair trapped beneath a Stars and Stripes bandana.

  “Most of the people who get warped,” Tony said, eyes on the water, “they’ll be sharp in their own way. Maybe clever. Maybe lucky. A few will even stumble into interesting powers.” He paused, smiling faintly. “But they’ll be clueless.”

  Barrett let out a low chuckle. “Perfect.”

  Tony glanced at him. “You’re gonna get your shot to play the big hero.”

  Barrett snorted. “Hell no. I’m not saving anyone.”

  Tony stopped walking.

  He turned slowly, studying Barrett with a look that was equal parts curiosity and amusement. “Oh?”

  Barrett gestured broadly, taking in the empty boardwalk, the darkening ocean, the distant lights flickering on one by one. “You’re telling me it’s gonna be the same people from this world? Same types? Same bullshit?”

  “That’s right,” Tony said simply.

  Barrett’s jaw tightened. He turned away, staring out at the water. “Nobody here saved me when I needed it.”

  For a moment, the waves were the only reply.

  Then Tony laughed. A warm, unbothered sound. “You’re a little baby.”

  He turned and started walking back the way they’d come, hands clasped behind his back. “Leaders don’t wait around to be helped before they help someone else. They set the standard. That’s leadership.”

  Barrett blinked, irritation flaring. “Where you going?” he called.

  Without stopping, Tony answered, “I’m going to meet some women.”

  He glanced back over his shoulder, grin wide beneath the brim of his hat. “You can come too. I’ll even find you a nice dark corner to stand in.”

  Bastard.

  Barrett clenched his jaw, watching the old man walk away laughing, the sound carrying easily over the water as the sun finally slipped below the horizon.

  —Present—

  The ache from the last sting still burned in Barrett’s veins, a slow, crawling heat that refused to fade. He knew that it wouldn’t be the last.

  Still, he lowered himself into a fighting stance.

  The forest pressed close, dark and suffocating, webs glistening faintly between the trunks. [Predator’s Mark] flared to life, its awareness stretching outward like a second skin. Somewhere behind him, perched on a lonely branch, Grimm watched silently and vigilantly.

  The first spider jumped forward.

  Barrett sidestepped on instinct, cutting across its path and bringing his machete down in a clean, practiced arc.

  [You have slain Red Dot Spider — Level 13]

  There was no thought. No fear. His mind emptied itself, leaving only motion.

  [Iron Reflex] screamed a warning an instant before another spider lunged from his right. He twisted away and straight into the path of a third.

  Fangs punched deep into his side.

  “AH—!” The cry tore from his throat as he hit the ground and rolled, venom flaring like liquid fire through his muscles.

  Shouts echoed somewhere behind him. Maku’s voice. Then the shriek of mana tearing through the air. Missiles slammed into the swarm around Barrett, blasting spiders apart and buying him precious space.

  It wasn’t enough.

  Barrett surged to his feet and lunged, stabbing at another spider, but it skittered back, twitching, impossibly fast. There were too many now. Far too many. His senses strained under the weight of it all, [Predator’s Mark] and [Iron Reflex] drowning beneath overlapping threats, directions, warnings.

  He felt the truth settle in his chest. A small chuckle escaped him.

  I’m done holding back.

  [Blood Rush] ignited.

  Not a careful burn or a measured surge.

  He let it flood him—raw and unchecked—like throwing open the doors of an overheated furnace and stepping inside.

  The world sharpened.

  Barrett moved with brutal precision, never still, never predictable. He attacked from strange angles, carving left, spinning right, stepping through gaps that hadn’t existed a heartbeat before.

  Steel flashed.

  [You have slain Red Dot Spider — Level 13]

  [You have slain Red Dot Spider — Level 13]

  [You have slain Red Dot Spider — Level 13]

  Bodies piled at his feet, twitching and broken, but so did the damage to his own. Venom raced through his bloodstream, warping the edges of reality. His vision blurred. One spider became two. Two became three.

  Then the forest went dark.

  Pitch black.

  Panic surged. Blindness swallowed him whole. He couldn’t see the enemy. Could barely hear them. Only the scrape of countless legs, closing in, an endless sound in an endless void.

  Sweat poured down his back. His breathing grew ragged. Maku’s missiles still whistled past, exploding somewhere nearby, but they felt distant now. Insufficient.

  This was it.

  Without sight, the fight was over.

  Chirp.

  Chirp-chirp.

  The sound cut through the darkness like a lifeline.

  Grimm.

  The world shifted.

  [Skill Upgrade Detected]

  [Predator’s Mark → Deadeye Domain]

  Vision flooded his mind. Not through his eyes, but through another’s.

  The forest reassembled itself from behind and above.

  Grimm’s sight snapped into focus with startling clarity: the webbed ground below, the spiders circling, their paths and timing laid bare. Barrett’s body followed instinctively, guided by a perspective that wasn’t his own.

  He moved like a marionette pulled by invisible strings, dodging sideways into spaces no human eyes could track, twisting through attacks that should have been unavoidable.

  Steel sang again.

  [You have slain Red Dot Spider — Level 13]

  [You have slain Red Dot Spider — Level 13]

  [You have slain Red Dot Spider — Level 13]

  [LEVEL UP!]

  [Congratulations, you are now Level 12!]

  Impossible motion became natural. Blindness no longer mattered.

  But the clock was still ticking.

  The venom had reached his core now. His limbs trembled. Hot tears burned their way from his eyes, thick with equal parts blood and poison.

  His body began to fail.

  Through the haze, voices cut through.

  “She’s free, let’s move!” Rei shouted.

  “Mister Donovan!” Pippy screamed, raw and terrified.

  “Get on the boat!” Maku shouted, the words tearing out of him, his voice cracking despite his effort to keep it steady.

  A heartbeat later, louder and more desperate, he added, “I wanna join Team Donovan!”

  Barrett caught the meaning immediately. He’ll watch over them.

  He let out a slow, shuddering breath and allowed his legs to give way beneath him. The ground rose up to meet him, cool and solid, and for the first time since the fight began, he stopped fighting it.

  A faint, tired smile found its way to his lips as the darkness closed in—not the suffocating black of the forest, but something softer. Quieter. Almost gentle.

  It was done; he had held the line.

  He had set the standard.