Chapter: Blind Maps and Blue Ranks
All across the woodland region, blue-ranked Travelers were responding—each in their own way—to the sudden, brutal rules of the Ruby Game.
Some were panicking, scattering through the brush like startled deer. Others gripped their weapons tight and started scanning the roots of trees, frantically searching through stumps, logs, and shallow hollows. Some stood frozen, staring at their Guide screens in utter disbelief.
And some… tried to plan.
One such Traveler, a lanky teenage boy named Klevan, crouched under a drooping tree near a half-dried stream. His hands shook as he opened his Systematic Guide, the translucent interface lighting up his dirt-smudged face.
> [Traveler: Klevan | Rank: Blue]
Mysticoins: 60
[Open: SYSTEMATIC SHOP?]
— YES ✅
— NO ❌
He tapped YES, and the virtual shop scrolled open with a faint flicker of static.
---
🛒 Systematic Guide Quick Shop
Current Region: Zone 7-D — Ruby Game Active
🔹 Healing Capsule I – 20 Mysticoins
🔹 Noise Trap (1-time use) – 15 Mysticoins
🔹 Bait Crystal (Low-Vita) – 10 Mysticoins
🔹 Survival Rations – 5 Mysticoins
🔹 Emergency Recall Beacon (Only works outside Ruby Game) – 50 Mysticoins
🔸 Map of the Region – 5 Mysticoins
---
Klevan stared at the last item. "A map. Finally."
He tapped it. His Mysticoins dropped to 55. A folded digital scroll unraveled in the air before him. He grabbed it and unrolled it with shaky hands, hoping to find marked caverns, ruby locations, something.
Instead, the map was blank.
No trails. No trees. No rubies. Just a pale gray square with a single red message glowing at the center:
> ❗️Map Cannot Be Rendered. Region is in Ritual Lockdown.
The forest does not reveal itself during the Ruby Game.
You must find your own path.
Klevan stared in disbelief.
"What the hell…"
Nearby, another Traveler burst out of the brush in a panic, clutching a hollow log and screaming, "There's nothing inside! THEY'RE EMPTY!"
In the distant woods, screams echoed—then silence.
The Ruby Game was no test. It was a hunt, a trial, and a ritual all at once. And the forest was the board.
The Silent Stalker, Zack Erebus, did not need maps.
He was the map.
And the rest of the Travelers?
Just moving dots in his darkness.
------
Chapter: Where Silence Walks
While the Travelers stumbled through the forest—some crying, some trembling, others hopelessly slashing at tree bark in search of rubies—Zack Erebus, the Silent Stalker, was already moving.
But no one saw him.
Because no one could.
---
> [SYSTEM LOG – ENTITY PROFILE: Zack Erebus]
Class: Rogue (Advanced)
Rank: Blue+
Subclass Contract: Voidstep
Known Enhancements:
– Wavelength Distortion Cloak
– Nullsound Contract
– Dimensional Thread Binding
Threat Profile:
– Untraceable via standard detection methods
– Immune to infrared or aura scans
– No footsteps, no breath, no rustle
– Sound is absorbed, not silenced—erased
---
Zack didn't walk through the woods.
He slid, not through space, but around it.
Each step he took bent the very wavelength of light and sound in his vicinity.
The Wavelength Distortion Cloak wrapped around him like liquid shadow. It warped and inverted every photon that touched it, scattering light frequencies in the same way water scatters oil.
Where he stood—nothing.
Not even a shimmer. Not a flicker.
And paired with the Nullsound Contract, Zack became not just invisible to the eye, but undetectable to the ear. Birds kept chirping. Leaves didn't react. He moved like a ghost—but even ghosts made more noise than he did.
A fallen twig underfoot?
Silent.
A blade drawn from a sheath?
Soundless.
Breath through his nose?
Never heard.
---
Zack stood not twenty feet away from two Travelers arguing near a hollow log. They panicked and shouted, tossing bark and soil aside.
He watched in total silence, unmoving.
> [Target Assessment: Ruby Acquired – No.]
> Condition: Eligible.
Mark: Set.
One of them looked around suddenly. "Did you feel that?"
"No, what?"
"...I don't know. Like the air got heavy."
But Zack was already gone.
Not walking—phasing.
Light avoided him.
Sound never touched him.
Even when he struck, his blade made no clang.
The cut came before the pain. The silence after louder than any scream.
And by the time a Traveler's ruby dropped to the grass…
Zack Erebus had already left no trace.
Only absence.
Only stillness.
Only silence.
-----