The silver Knight

The view sharpened, and Giro's heart raced as he finally spotted the man who had stolen the scroll. He was walking ahead, his pace steady, seemingly oblivious to Giro's presence. The scroll wasn't in his hands, which meant it was likely tucked away in the pocket of his pants.

"Where is Raze? If he were here, we could ambush him right now!" Giro thought, frustration bubbling under his calm exterior. Still, he reassured himself: I can take him down alone if I have to.

Giro moved with painstaking caution, trailing the man while keeping a safe distance. The forest around him was a labyrinth of thick underbrush and towering trees, their sharp green leaves almost slicing at his eyes. The ground was a tangled mess of roots and vegetation, making walking—or even running—an ordeal. It felt less like a forest and more like a cramped room stuffed to capacity with people. Every step was a careful calculation, every sound a potential threat.

What puzzled Giro the most wasn't the treacherous terrain, though—it was the man's movements. There was something off about them. Of course, everything in this cursed forest was strange, so it stood to reason the man would move differently here, too. But that wasn't it.

The man wasn't just walking. He was searching for something. His eyes scanned the forest floor, occasionally darting up to the dense canopy above. His hands moved as if measuring the air, brushing against the rough bark of trees, pausing to tap at the ground with his boot.

Giro narrowed his eyes, his pulse quickening. "What is he looking for? And why here, of all places?" he murmured to himself, his voice lost in the oppressive silence of the forest. The pieces of the puzzle were scattering further apart, and the answer felt like it lay just beyond his reach.

"What is he searching for? It surely wouldn't be the scroll! Would it? Did he lose it somewhere? What the hell is he doing?" Giro's thoughts raced, his tension mounting with every second.

As he squinted to observe the man more closely, something caught his eye. From the shadows of the dense forest to the left, the thin black bear he had seen earlier emerged. Its skeletal frame moved with eerie grace, its dark fur barely visible against the gloom. Giro's breath caught—it wasn't his imagination after all. The bear was real, and it was here.

The man's movements shifted, cautious now, his body language betraying that he knew something was nearby. But Giro could see the man was unaware of just how close the bear had crept—or that it was preparing to attack.

"Perfect," Giro thought, his lips curling into a grim smile. "Let the bear take him out. When it's done and leaves, I'll just grab the scroll. Better yet, if the scroll gets destroyed with him, that's even easier for me—I'll just head back the way I came."

Giro crouched further into the shadows, steadying his breath as he watched the bear's deliberate approach. It moved like a predator stalking prey, its focus singular, its hunger palpable. And the man, oblivious to his impending doom, continued his search as if his life wasn't hanging by a thread.

"Just a little more…" Giro thought, his muscles tense but his mind calculating. For now, he would let the forest decide the man's fate.

Giro decided to stay put and let the scene unfold. The bear, now within striking range of the man, suddenly began to transform. Its thin, skeletal frame swelled grotesquely, inflating like a balloon until it resembled a fully formed bear, massive and imposing. Without hesitation, it charged at the man with incredible speed.

"The man's dead meat," Giro thought, a flicker of dark satisfaction crossing his mind.

But in the blink of an eye, the man moved—faster than even the bear's vicious charge. With precision, he dodged the attack, his movements fluid and sharp. For a split second, Giro noticed the man's hand graze the bear's flank as it rushed past him. The touch was brief, almost incidental, but the bear skidded to a halt as if disoriented, then spun back toward the man.

It launched itself again, faster this time, an unstoppable force of fury. Its bloated body now looked more like a massive, menacing sheet about to envelop the man entirely. Yet the man stood his ground, unmoving, as if daring the bear to strike.

Giro's heart raced. "What's he doing? Move, damn it!"

The bear collided with the man, its body folding around him like a thick, suffocating blanket. But the man didn't falter. With sheer force, he shoved the bear to the ground, its massive form crumpling under his strength.

Giro's jaw tightened as he watched the scene, realization dawning on him: this man was no ordinary target.

Giro's thoughts raced as realization struck him like a thunderclap: the man hadn't been searching for anything random. No, he had known all along that the bear was nearby, lurking in the dense foliage. Everything he had done, every movement, was deliberate.

"What happened? The bear's unconscious… but the man didn't even attack it," Giro thought, his plans crumbling in the face of this unforeseen danger. "Wait… when he dodged it earlier—he touched it! That must have been it. He did something, something I couldn't see."

A cold sweat formed on Giro's brow. The pieces were falling into place, and none of it was in his favor. Charging at this man head-on would be suicide. He was more than dangerous; he was calculating, methodical.

From his perch in the trees, Giro watched the man calmly gather wood and start a fire. The bear, now lifeless, was dragged closer. The sight of the man butchering it, preparing it for a meal, turned Giro's stomach. The ease with which the man handled the situation was unnerving, as though a creature that had terrified Giro moments ago was nothing more than a nuisance to him.

The flames crackled in the stillness of the forest as the man cooked and ate his prize. Giro clenched his fists, his mind spinning. He had to rethink everything. This wasn't about brute force—it never had been. If he wanted that scroll, he'd need to play this smarter than ever before.

Somewhere in the world, under a sky painted in shades of ominous purple, a lone figure stood at the edge of a restless ocean. Waves pounded the rock beneath his feet, spraying cold saltwater into the air. He stood unmoving, his gaze fixed on the horizon, as if waiting for something only he could foresee. The wind howled, tugging at his kimono and hair, their wild movements blending into the chaos of the storm brewing around him.

Slowly, deliberately, he began to turn. Every movement carried the weight of inevitability, as though this moment had been preordained. A smirk played at the corner of his lips, a chilling curve of confidence that hinted at plans set in motion long before the storm arrived. The thunder roared above, its deep growl rolling through the sky like a drumbeat heralding the climax of a long-forgotten symphony.

As he turned fully, his back now to the ocean, the waves behind him surged higher, defying the storm's rhythm to rise to his head. The lightning carved jagged lines through the darkness, illuminating the torrent of water like silver pillars reaching for the heavens. The storm's fury seemed to bow to his presence, as though nature itself had become an unwitting participant in the unfolding drama.

For a fleeting moment, the wind surged, snapping through the air like a whip, and his hair, dark, lifted wildly. The strands parted, revealing a single hidden eye that gleamed with an intensity that seemed to pierce through the maelstrom. Its gaze was sharp, unyielding—a mirror of the power that coursed through him. It was a sight meant not for the storm but for the man who stood on the other side of the battlefield.

That second stretched into an eternity. The man at the other end stood tall and bold, caught in the raw magnetism of the figure before him. He could feel it—the air around him thick with the tension of what was to come. The storm was no longer just a storm; it was a harbinger of something far greater, a mere whisper of the clash that was about to ignite.

The waves crashed, the lightning flashed, and the wind howled, but none of it mattered anymore. There, in that moment, was a figure who stood as if carved from the very fabric of destiny itself. His smirk widened, his hidden eye now fully revealed, and with it, the weight of everything that was about to be unleashed.

"So, you work for the curse user?" he asked, his voice cutting through the silence like a blade.

The man opposite him tilted his head slightly, his thin lips curling into a cunning smile. His eyes, narrow and calculating, gleamed with an unsettling amusement. "Heh heh heh!" The laugh was low, almost serpentine. "You can meet him tomorrow... at the cursed city!" His words hung in the air, carrying the weight of something sinister, something inevitable.

As if on cue, the heavens opened up, and rain began to fall. The droplets hit the ground softly at first, then harder, each one adding to the rhythm of tension between them. The rainwater trickled down the man's face, merging with the streaks of dirt and blood from their earlier encounter.

Both stood still, their figures framed against the backdrop of the storm. The faint light of the sky reflected in the puddles forming at their feet, but neither seemed to notice.

For a moment, neither spoke. The rain became the only sound, a relentless cadence echoing through the wilderness. The man's cunning smile widened, and his posture remained relaxed, almost mocking, as though he held all the cards in this dangerous game.

The other figure clenched his fists, the water streaming down his arms, soaking his sleeves. "Tomorrow at the cursed city," he repeated under his breath, his voice steady, masking the storm raging inside him. He took a slow step forward, his gaze unwavering, but the man with the cunning smile didn't flinch.

The rain continued to pour, the storm growing heavier. It wasn't just water falling from the sky now—it was a warning, a prelude to something far greater.