CHAPTER 108: THE GREY GHOST OF BOULDER CREEK

The city of Boulder Creek was a tough place, built on the edge of the Unclaimed Territories. It was a frontier town, the last point of civilisation before the wild, monster-infested lands to the south.

Life here had always been hard. Every day was a struggle for survival.

But for the past six months, something had changed. A strange, quiet peace had settled over the city.

The people still worked hard, the hunters still sharpened their blades, but the constant, gnawing fear was gone.

The proof of this change could be found in the city’s most popular inn, the Wandering Wyvern.

Tonight, the inn was full. The large, smoky room buzzed with the sounds of laughter and loud conversation.

Mercenaries, merchants, and off-duty city guards sat at rough wooden tables, drinking cheap ale and eating roasted meat.

It was a normal, happy scene. Six months ago, a night like this would have been impossible.

Six months ago, the inn would have been half-empty, the faces grim, and the only sounds would have been the low, worried whispers of men who did not know if they would see the next sunrise.

"To the Grey Ghost!" a burly mercenary captain with a thick beard and a missing eye shouted, raising his heavy mug.

"To the Grey Ghost!" the entire room roared in reply, the sound of their mugs clashing together echoing like thunder.

The Grey Ghost. That was the name they had given him. No one knew who he was or where he came from. He was a mystery, a legend that had walked out of the wilderness and into their lives.

"I tell you, I saw him with my own two eyes," the mercenary captain, whose name was Tyren, said to the young merchant sitting across from him.

"My caravan was just a day out from the city, right near the Shadow Canyons. We were ambushed. A whole flock of them. Spine-Wing Harpies. Vicious bastards."

The young merchant shivered. He knew the stories. The harpies were fast, silent killers that would dive from the sky and carry a man away before his companions even knew he was gone.

"There were at least twenty of them," Tyren continued, his voice low and serious.

"My guards were good, but we were outnumbered. We were done for. I was preparing to die. Then, he just... appeared."

The people at the nearby tables stopped their own conversations to listen. They had all heard stories like this, but they never got tired of them.

"He came out of the shadows of the canyon wall, moving like he was a part of them," Tyren said, his one good eye wide with the memory.

"He wore a simple grey cloak, and I never saw his face. The harpies screeched and dived at him. He didn’t even draw a sword. He just raised his hand."

Tyren paused, taking a long drink of his ale.

"A black and silver fire," he said, his voice a whisper of awe.

"It shot from his palm. It didn’t make a sound. It just touched the first harpy, and the creature... it just turned to dust. No... not actually dust. It was like it had never existed at all.

The others turned to flee, but he was too fast. One by one, he touched them, and one by one, they were gone. The whole fight was over in less than a minute. Then, he just melted back into the shadows and was gone. He never said a word."

The young merchant was speechless. "So the stories are true," he finally managed to say.

"True as the scars on my face," Tyren grunted. "Since he arrived, not a single caravan has been lost to the harpies. And the Gravemaw Scrabblers that used to burrow under the roads?

They’re gone too. He’s been cleansing the lands around the city, one monster nest at a time. He’s made this place safe."

The innkeeper, a fat, balding man named Elric, came over to their table with a fresh pitcher of ale.

"Safe for now," he said, his usually cheerful face serious.

The mood in the inn shifted. The happy buzz of conversation died down. The men knew what Elric was talking about.

There was one monster, one great terror, that even the Grey Ghost had not yet faced.

"The Matriarch," a city guard at a nearby table said, the name a curse on his lips. "It’s been quiet for months. Too quiet."

A cold fear, a familiar feeling that had been buried for the past six months, began to creep back into the room.

The Matriarch of the Chitin Swarm. She was not just a monster; she was a calamity. A Stage 5 Boss, a creature of immense power that lived deep in the mountains south of the city.

She was not the true threat. The true threat was her children.

Twice a year, she would lay a million eggs, and from those eggs, a swarm of her Chitin Spawn would hatch.

They were small, insect-like creatures, each no bigger than a large dog, but they were a tide of black, clicking death.

They would pour out of the mountains and wash over the land, devouring everything in their path: trees, animals, people.

The city of Boulder Creek had strong walls and brave soldiers, but they could barely hold back the swarm.

Every time the spawn came, the city would lose dozens of good men. It was a battle of attrition they were slowly losing.

"The Grey Ghost is powerful," Tyren said, his voice low.

"I’ve seen it myself. But can he stand against a whole swarm? Against the Matriarch herself? She is a true Boss. Her power is on another level, even if no one has faced her directly yet."

No one had an answer. The silence in the inn was heavy. They had been given a brief period of peace, a small taste of a normal life, but they all knew it could end at any moment.

They were all just waiting for the day the swarm would return.

It was in that moment of heavy silence that the inn door creaked open.

Every head in the room turned. The chatter stopped completely. The room was so quiet you could hear the sound of the ale dripping from a leaky barrel behind the bar.

A figure stood in the doorway. It was a man, completely covered in a simple, worn grey cloak. The hood was pulled up, and a deep shadow hid his face.

No one could see his features. He seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. One moment the doorway was empty, the next, he was there.

He stood there for a second, his unseen eyes scanning the room. Then, he began to walk. His footsteps made no sound on the wooden floor.

He moved through the crowded inn with a silent grace, the stunned patrons leaning away from him as he passed.

He walked to an empty table in the centre of the room. It was the only empty table, a large, round one that no one ever sat at.

It was reserved for the city’s mayor, a man who had been eaten by the Chitin Swarm two years ago.

The cloaked figure reached the table. He did not sit down. He reached into a large, rough-spun sack he was carrying over his shoulder.

With a heavy, wet, and sickening thud, he placed a massive object on the table.

’Gasp.’