Chapter 40: Suspicious Outpost - Path of Death: Awakening - NovelsTime

Path of Death: Awakening

Chapter 40: Suspicious Outpost

Author: Gapralcez
updatedAt: 2025-07-14

CHAPTER 40: SUSPICIOUS OUTPOST

The countdown ticked on.

00:52...

00:39...

Fade’s eyes lingered on the glowing prompt in the air:

[Accept Directive: Y / N]

The silence behind him was thick—tighter than any command, heavier than any chain.

He reached forward.

With a simple gesture, the screen pulsed once.

[Directive Accepted]

There was no applause. No confirmation sound. Only a faint hiss as the interface vanished.

"Well," Zeyna muttered, "I guess we’re doing this."

"Did we even vote?" Arven asked, arms crossed.

"No," Kaela said, not looking up from her device. "But the moment we stepped in, we stopped being a democracy."

Nail took a step forward, tone as calm as always. "You’re scheduled for departure in ten minutes. Basic field kits have been assigned. No weapons beyond personal loadouts."

"Expected resistance?" Darin asked.

Nail gave a short shake of his head. "The objective is reconnaissance and verification. No hostile intel... for now."

That last part hung in the air longer than it should have.

Fade didn’t say a word. He simply turned and walked toward the gear station.

The team stood on a raised platform just outside the city’s inner wall. Behind them, Last Hope’s towering geometry reached for the sky; ahead, a descending path into the unknown stretched like a scar through the landscape.

"Smells different out here," Zeyna adjusted her vest.

"Smells like choice," Arven replied.

Kaela activated her scanner. The interface blinked once... then dimmed.

"No signal lock," she muttered. "The system doesn’t extend this far."

Fade stood still for a moment, his fingers grazing the red-lined ID band around his wrist. He looked over his shoulder—once.

Last Hope didn’t wave goodbye.

It just... closed its doors.

The path curved downward, carved into stone and rusted metal. A former transit line maybe—now swallowed by moss and silence.

No guards. No checkpoints. Just one reinforced door behind them... and the void ahead.

Zeyna walked ahead of the group, hands loose, eyes alert.

"It’s too quiet," she said.

"It’s supposed to be," Kaela replied. "Fringe zones aren’t patrolled. The city doesn’t waste effort where it’s already let go."

Darin kicked a loose canister lying on the ground. It rolled for several seconds before settling against a cracked concrete wall.

"Feels like the edge of something."

Fade didn’t answer, but he felt it too. The air was colder—not in temperature, but in weight. A kind of pressure, like something was watching. Not from above. From beneath.

They passed a rusted sign, half-buried in dirt and ash. Only two words were still visible under the corrosion:

PERIMETER LINE

Just past it, the world began to shift.

Broken structures clawed out of the earth like the remains of old cities. Vegetation grew in odd, mirrored patterns—as if even nature had been twisted here.

Kaela tapped her screen again. Still no connection. "No system data. No mapping. We’re blind from here."

"I like it better this way," Zeyna muttered.

"Of course you do," Arven chuckled once.

But Fade didn’t laugh.

He stopped for a moment. Just one moment.

There—under the wind—something moved.

Not a sound. Not a figure.

A... sensation.

Faint. Fading. But real.

He didn’t chase it.

Not yet.

The terrain became uneven, littered with broken tiles and collapsed supports. Once, maybe, it had been a service route or cargo track. Now it was just bones of a forgotten system.

A twisted vehicle frame lay half-buried in the dirt—its panels melted, its insides grown over with black moss. Arven stopped to glance inside.

"No signs of impact," he muttered. "Something just... caved it from the inside."

"That’s comforting," Zeyna replied, her voice flat.

"Chemical corrosion. Or biological. Maybe both," Kaela walked with one hand lightly skimming the wall of an old tunnel.

Fade kept walking.

The world was narrowing.

Every sound stretched longer than it should have. Even the wind felt like it was holding its breath.

"This place doesn’t feel abandoned. It feels... paused," Darin slowed.

Fade stopped.

There it was again. That flicker.

Like a string tugging at his ribs—not pain, not warning. Invitation.

He looked down a side path. Crumbled stairs led into a trench. But he didn’t move.

Not yet.

"Something wrong?" Kaela asked, turning.

Fade didn’t answer.

Instead, he looked ahead—toward the faint silhouette just barely visible through the rising mist.

C-12.

The outpost sat in a shallow basin, surrounded by the broken ribs of metal fences. Its structure was intact. Lights on. Doors open.

But nothing moved.

No people.

No sounds.

No birds.

Only stillness.

And a faint trail of black residue on the wall. Like fingers... or claws... had been dragged.

The gates to Outpost C-12 stood wide open, one hanging askew from a broken hinge. The metal creaked faintly in the wind, like something too tired to shut itself.

Fade stepped through first.

The perimeter was chaos frozen in place. Scorch marks striped the earth like lightning scars. The ground around the entryway was cracked and uneven, as if something heavy had slammed down—again and again.

Blackened debris cluttered the field. Crushed ammunition cases. Scattered plating from light armor suits. Twisted limbs of drones—still twitching faintly, running on dying batteries.

And blood.

Dark trails led from the gate toward the building, curving in broken arcs. Some stains were smeared, others clean-cut like surgical slices. No bodies. Just traces.

Zeyna crouched near a collapsed support beam, fingers brushing something metallic. A dog tag.

No name.

"Whatever hit this place," she muttered, "it wasn’t random."

"And they weren’t ready for it," Arven looked up at the roof.

They entered the main structure.

The interior was surprisingly intact—walls standing, lighting functional. But the silence inside was unnatural. The kind that fills a room after something has screamed too loud for too long.

Each footstep echoed twice. Once in sound. Once in memory.

Kaela moved toward the central terminal. Dust hadn’t settled—someone had used it recently. Her hands moved quickly, but the screen resisted.

[Access Denied – External Override Active]

She frowned, fingers hovering. "This isn’t a routine lockout. Someone jammed the system—hardware-side."

"Wiped their trail, maybe?" Darin scanned the control panel.

"Or wanted the trail to end here," Kaela added.

Fade’s gaze swept across the room. No photos. No personal items. Everything was standard-issue. Too clean.

Too... staged.

"Fade. In here," Zeyna called out from down the corridor.

He followed her into a narrow observation room. The light flickered overhead, stuttering like a heartbeat out of rhythm.

The walls were scratched. Not clawed—but carved.

Someone had taken time.

And on the far wall, smeared with something darker than blood, were words:

"We were never what they are."

Not painted. Not written.

Etched.

With purpose. With weight.

Fade approached, but stopped just shy of touching the surface.

The air was thick here. Like the room was holding its breath.

"What does it mean?" Zeyna looked over his shoulder.

Fade didn’t answer.

He just stared at the words.

And the space between them.

The corridor twisted inward like a throat—walls tighter, lights dimmer.

Kaela checked her scanner again.

[No Active Bio-Signatures Detected]

Still nothing.

But Fade didn’t trust the silence.

He could feel it—like something brushing the edges of thought. Not presence.

Intention.

At the end of the hall, a door stood slightly ajar. Darin stepped forward, but Fade raised a hand.

"I’ll go."

He pushed the door open slowly.

The room beyond was dimly lit, warm-toned, almost comfortable. A strange contrast to the sterile halls behind them. A chair sat in the center of the space—old, metallic, but polished. Someone was sitting in it.

Back turned.

Motionless.

And dressed like they didn’t belong here.

Sleek black coat. Tailored fit. Dark, shoulder-length hair—glossy, neatly parted. One leg crossed over the other, hand resting against a cane.

"You seeing this?" Zeyna whispered.

The figure spoke before they could step further.

"I expected boots. Instead, I get whispers."

The voice was smooth. Amused. And male.

He didn’t move, didn’t turn. But there was awareness in the room now. Heavy as breath before a storm.

"I knew the city would send something eventually," he said. "Just didn’t expect it to be... interesting."

He finally turned his head—only slightly. Enough to show a pale cheek, a sharp jawline, and an eye ringed in faint web-like lines.

Not a mark.

Not a scar.

A signature.

"Don’t move," Zeyna raised her weapon.

"Please," he said, standing up in a fluid, practiced motion. "If I wanted to kill you, you’d already be mural art."

Arven growled, stepping forward, but stopped when Fade held out a hand.

The stranger’s gaze landed on him.

And stayed there.

"You," he said, voice lower now. "You smell like memory. And I hate memory."

Fade didn’t blink.

Neither did he.

There was no tension in his posture. Only confidence.

And then—just faintly—something moved behind him. A glimmer. A shift in shadow.

The outline of legs.

Not human legs.

Arachnid.

Curled, folded, hidden under his coat like secrets waiting to breathe.

His boots made no sound as he stepped forward, crossing the room with the calm of someone who’d already seen the end of the conversation. The cane wasn’t for balance—it was for style. Every piece of him, from his pressed collar to the silver clasp on his sleeve, had been chosen. He wasn’t dressed for war.

He was dressed for the aftermath.

"I go by many names," he said casually, brushing a strand of black hair behind one ear. "But if you’re the curious type—and I suspect you are—you can call me Silken Fang. Sixth of the Spiral."

He tilted his head slightly, gaze still locked on Fade.

"No badge. No title. Just... reputation."

Then he smiled.

Not wide. Not fake.

Real.

And

Sharp.

"I’ve been bored," he said simply. "Don’t disappoint me."

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