Void System: Every Heroine Makes Me Stronger

Severin’s lead boot sank into wet grass.

Cold soil took his weight. His rear foot cleared the boundary, and the charcoal-black coat swept through after it.

The opening behind him narrowed to a dark cut in the air. Then it closed.

No stone remained. The grass showed no mark where Maerith’s domain had touched the field.

[Material World synchronization complete.]

[Archetype System interface stabilized.]

[External influence detected.]

[Classification failed.]

[Adaptive communication interface initiated.]

[Interface adaptation complete.]

A calm woman’s voice spoke inside his awareness.

[System: Direct communication is now available, my lord blessed by the Void.]

Severin glanced behind him, then along the empty rise. No one stood in the grass.

The earlier messages had never carried a voice.

The ground shifted below him.

He turned.

A black line rose through the wet field beneath the crest. It widened into two slabs of dark stone, each climbing from an edge too thin to bear its weight. Rootlike mineral seams spread across both leaves. They met at the center, twice a man’s height, then opened away from each other.

From the front, they resembled the doors of a fortress.

Severin moved down the rise for a better angle. The side view showed no wall, tower, or buried foundation behind them. Only a flat threshold standing in grass that had been ordinary a breath ago.

Leather snapped somewhere beyond the crest.

A horse screamed.

Wood struck stone, followed by men shouting over one another.

Severin reached the top of the lane-side slope.

A loaded cart had already slewed off the packed track. The verge-side wheel sank into wet ground while the horse fought the shafts. 2 workers were at the rear sacks. Another held the bridle, and the last stood beside the wheel. The driver was rising from the front board.

A dark beast hit the near harness.

The horse jerked sideways. The buried wheel held. The rest of the cart did not.

The driver jumped as the wagon rolled toward him. Its side caught him across the chest and threw him clear. Sacks burst against the ground. Grain spilled into mud.

A woman on the far side of the cart ran toward him.

"Tressa, back!"

She kept going.

More bodies came through the stone doors.

Severin counted dark plated backs as they cleared the threshold.

The cart was already falling when the full lane came into view. A faster descent would have sent him into the horse, cart, or people the crest had hidden.

The full lane lay open below him.

Wisdom’s Edge.

The sword settled into his right hand. Pale silver caught the first gray light above the fields.

The beast at the harness lowered its wedge-shaped skull toward the driver and the woman kneeling beside him.

Severin crossed the verge.

Mud compressed beneath his first step. He shortened the second, passed between the horse’s kicking range and the broken shaft, and drove Wisdom’s Edge behind the beast’s near foreleg. The point entered through the softer seam and reached the chest.

The animal collapsed before its jaws reached the woman.

A second beast bounded toward the worker at the bridle.

"Down."

The man dropped with both hands over his head.

Severin took one step across him. The beast’s jaw opened. He turned outside it and cut upward beneath the lower jaw. Blood struck the torn harness. The body slid past his coat and stopped in the lane.

The remaining 5 had fanned across the field.

Two men broke toward the village.

The movement pulled 2 beasts after them.

"Stop running."

The nearer man heard him. The other did not.

The nearer beast gathered itself behind the first runner. Severin reached its left side before its forefeet left the mud and drove the sword through the narrow gap at the base of the skull. Its legs folded under it.

The second turned toward the man who had stopped. Its front claws dug furrows as it changed direction.

Severin cut across the turn. The animal snapped at the space his coat had occupied. Wisdom’s Edge entered through the nearer eye and stopped deep inside the skull. He pulled it free before the body finished rolling.

3 remained near the threshold.

The leftmost circled wide, trying to reach the open lane beyond him. Another ran straight toward the overturned cart. The last hesitated between the blood and the horse’s noise, then followed the nearer movement.

No burst of wind drove the turn. Severin’s heel bit into the wet ground. Mud sprayed behind his boot, but his weight stayed beneath him.

He met the circling beast first. It lowered a plated shoulder to knock him aside. Severin stepped inside the line and drove the point between the neck plates into the spine. The beast struck the grass muzzle-first.

The animal running for the cart leaped over a split sack.

Severin came back along the same line. He let it rise, put the blade through its open mouth, and drove upward. Its weight carried it down the steel. He twisted free before the carcass hit him.

The last beast had turned toward the threshold.

For half a breath it looked as though it might flee inside.

A worker stumbled behind Severin. The animal wheeled toward the sound and exposed the side of its neck.

Severin crossed the distance, cut through the exposed neck behind the jaw, and stepped past before the body fell. The head struck the grass first. The rest followed.

Silence did not return. The horse still fought for breath, and grain pattered from a torn sack.

Severin looked back across the field. All 7 bodies lay still. No house had been reached. Mud freckled his boots and the lower edge of his coat.

The woman beside the driver braced a hand against his shoulder. Chestnut hair had come loose around her face. Mud marked her cheek and both knees.

"Don’t pull him," she said as a worker reached for the man’s arms. "Hold his shoulders. Keep him from rolling."

The worker froze.

"There," she said, shifting his hands herself. "Not his ribs."

Severin drew the blade through wet grass, leaving most of the blood behind. A dark line remained in the fuller when he walked to the cart. The driver was conscious, but each breath stopped short. His chest rose unevenly.

The woman looked up at Severin. Her hazel eyes moved to the horse and back to the driver. She was breathing fast. Her hands stayed steady. She had reached the injured man before anyone told her to and corrected the first worker who handled him badly. That made her useful.

"What do you need?" he asked.

"2 people who listen." She looked toward the horse, then back to the driver. "And the traces cut before it drags the cart again."

Severin pointed at the 2 workers nearest Tressa. "You heard her. Shoulders and back."

He turned to the other 2. "Cut both traces. Take the horse behind the cart, village side."

The worker stared at the bodies in the field. "What if more come out?"

"Then they reach me first. Move."

A work knife sawed through the first twisted strap. The other man tore the second loop free from the broken shaft. The horse jerked once when the leather parted, then backed between them. They led it around the overturned wagon, away from the open field.

Tressa untied her apron, folded it, and guided one worker’s hands beneath the driver’s shoulders.

"Slowly. Don’t lift him yet. Just keep him there."

The man’s mouth opened. A thin rasp entered and escaped as a cough.

Tressa caught his shoulder before he rolled.

Severin moved between the cart and the stone doors. Wisdom’s Edge stayed in his right hand.

Up close, the threshold still had no wall behind it. Darkness occupied the space between the leaves, too deep for the width of the stone. Fresh claw marks crossed the wet ground at its base. Nothing on the field showed an older track leading in or out.

The workers had seen the gate appear and the beasts die. The bodies were worth more intact until he knew what they were. Calling the Void now would erase evidence and material together.

"No one enters," Severin said. "No one touches the doors or moves the bodies."

The man with the knife glanced toward the nearest carcass. "What are they?"

"Dead. Leave the rest until someone knows more."

He faced the opening again.

A scrape sounded beyond the darkness.

The sound repeated from deeper inside. More claws struck stone behind it.

Behind him, Tressa leaned closer to the driver.

"Look at me," she said. "Small breath. Don’t force it."

His chest lifted a fraction, then stopped.

Tressa’s hand tightened on his shoulder.

"Again."

A harder scrape came through the darkness, nearer than the first.

The driver tried to inhale.

Nothing came.