Klaus reached the end of the burned ground long before the sun began to fall.
The blackened earth stretched farther than he expected.
He hated admitting that.
The Goblin King's fire had not merely swallowed a battlefield. It had claimed the land itself. Far beyond the screams and cries of the fallen humans and goblins alike.
Klaus stopped at the edge of it and looked back.
From here, the temporary camp was far behind him, hidden by the rise and fall of barren ridges. Only faint smoke in the distance hinted at where the army had settled.
He turned forward again.
The fortress was built into the dead land like something that had grown from cruelty itself. Its walls were dark, rough, and uneven, rising against the pale sky with watchtowers shaped like broken teeth. The structure was not beautiful. It looked heavy, stubborn, and vicious.
Klaus narrowed his eyes beneath his hood.
The land between him and the fortress offered little mercy. No trees. No brush. No ruined buildings close enough to hide behind. Only cracked stone, shallow ridges, and scattered rocks that looked too low to trust. In daylight, the approach was almost insulting. Anyone with eyes on the wall could spot movement if they were paying attention.
So Klaus did not move like a man crossing a field.
He moved like a shadow that had learned patience.
Every time the wind lifted dust, he shifted position. Every time heat shimmered between him and the wall, he advanced. Using Phantom Jump was risky, it leaves a mark.
By the time he reached a cluster of rocks a few hundred meters from the fortress wall, the sun was still high enough to make scouting inside impossible.
Klaus slipped behind the largest stone and crouched in its shadow.
The rock was warm against his back.
From there, he could see the wall clearly.
Too clearly.
That was the problem.
The open ground between him and the fortress might as well have been an open stage, and Klaus disliked stages unless someone else was about to embarrass themselves on one.
He clicked his tongue.
"Wait till night, then."
He settled lower behind the rock.
Then his hand drifted to his chest.
The curse egg pulsed.
Not hard.
Not violent.
Just constant.
Like a second heartbeat.
A slow, greedy drain, taking from his health bit by bit like a parasite too polite to bite loudly.
Klaus' mouth tightened.
"You needy little thing."
No answer came.
Of course not.
It only kept taking.
He leaned his head back against the rock and closed his eyes.
Dragon's Blood had been the correct choice. He knew that. The skill gave him enough health and mana regeneration to satisfy the egg's appetite, at least for now. Without it, every sleep would become a private argument between his body and death.
Still—
His gaze shifted toward the open plain.
Sandstorm would have been perfect here.
A moving veil of dust. Cover from above. Cover from the walls. A skill made for this exact, annoying situation.
Instead, he had chosen survival over convenience.
Reasonable.
Practical.
Infuriating.
"I could have been doing scouting right now," Klaus muttered. "But no. I chose responsibility."
The egg pulsed again.
Klaus frowned.
"Don't act as if you helped."
Echolocation.
The world answered in shapes.
Rock beneath him. Cracked ground. Small hollows. Loose stones. A lizard pressed flat under a slab of black earth. No footsteps nearby. No breathing hidden between the rocks. No watcher crouched at the edge of the cliffs.
He sent the pulse farther.
Still nothing.
No patrol near the outer ground.
No movement around the rocks.
Klaus let his hand fall.
"Quiet," he whispered.
Too quiet.
"Maybe I could bid time for a rest."
He closed his eyes and waited.
Hours passed slowly.
The heat softened first. Then the light turned gold. The fortress wall became a black shape against the dying sky. Shadows lengthened across the barren land, swallowing cracks and stones, making every hollow look deeper than it was.
Klaus did not sleep.
He rested, if it could be called that.
His body remained still. His breathing stayed low. His senses stretched outward in small intervals, testing the air, the earth, the silence.
When night finally settled over Aegulus, the world changed.
The open ground became his.
Klaus stood.
His cloak shifted around him, shadow gathering beneath his boots.
Phantom Jump.
The world folded.
He appeared fifty meters ahead, crouched behind a low ridge.
Again.
He appeared beside a broken stone marker, already turning his head toward the wall.
Again.
He landed in the shadow of the fortress itself.
The wall rose above him, massive and cold, blocking out part of the sky. Up close, the stones smelled of old smoke, damp moss, and goblin filth. There were scratch marks along the lower sections, some old, some recent. Iron hooks jutted from certain places where cages or bodies may once have hung.
Klaus placed his fingers against the stone.
Echolocation.
The fortress answered.
The wall was thick. Layered. Cracked in hidden places. There were chambers beyond it, narrow spaces, ladders, platforms above.
And goblins.
But few.
Too few.
Klaus frowned.
Dozens.
Scattered across the upper wall.
Some were sitting. Some leaned on spears. One paced between two broken crenels, but lazily, not with the discipline of a fortress expecting war. Their breathing was dull and uneven. Their positions were careless.
Klaus tilted his head.
"Where are the rest of you?"
His pulse spread deeper, but the inner fortress resisted him. Too much stone. Too much distance. Too many overlapping structures.
Some of the force could be inside.
Most, perhaps.
Or elsewhere.
He moved along the base of the wall, silent and steady.
Every few dozen steps, he touched wall and listened with his skill. The night wind moved over him. The goblins above remained unaware. Once, one of them spat from the wall and muttered something in its harsh language. The spit landed several meters away from Klaus' boot.
Klaus looked at it.
Then looked up.
"Rude."
He continued.
The western side of the wall curved toward a cliff edge where the ground dipped sharply. There, hidden behind a room covered with a stone wall, he noticed something wrong.
A hollow.
Klaus' eyes narrowed.
There was a hole on the inner side of the wall.
Klaus sent another pulse.
The hollow dropped.
His expression changed.
The hole went deep.
Too deep.
More than thirty meters at least. His reach could not touch the bottom. The passage swallowed the pulse like a throat leading into the dark.
"That's not suspicious at all."
Curiosity, unfortunately, had always been one of his worse habits.
He stood, moved a little farther from the wall, and tapped his foot against the ground.
This time, he sent the pulse downward.
The earth answered.
Klaus' eyes widened.
Then he smiled.
A network of tunnels spread beneath the fortress.
Not one passage.
Not two.
A web.
Some tunnels were too deep for his echolocation to fully read, dropping far beneath his range. Others were shallow—absurdly shallow—barely a meter beneath the ground in places. They branched outward from under the wall, twisting through the earth like veins beneath dead skin.
Klaus crouched again, pressing his palm flat against the ground.
Another pulse.
More shapes returned.
Tunnels running toward the burned field.
Side passages curving around the old campsite.
Vertical shafts.
Hidden chambers.
Collapsed sections.
Wide routes large enough for troops.
Narrow routes that would force humans to crawl but goblins to pass easily.
Klaus' smile faded into something colder.
"Clever king."
He could see the plan now.
Let the humans come.
Let them prepare a siege.
Let them spread their lines around the fortress, thinking the enemy trapped behind the walls.
Then, when their formation loosened, when tents were set, when supplies were arranged, when the army looked forward—
The goblins would rise from below.
Behind.
Beside.
Underfoot.
A siege would become a slaughter before the first ladder touched the wall.
Klaus moved.
He circled the outer fortress in pieces, using Phantom Jump only when the shadows allowed it and walking when silence served better. Every stop, he tapped the ground or touched rock.
Echolocation.
Pulse by pulse, he mapped the network.
It was massive.
Too massive to be an emergency route.
This was preparation.
A second fortress beneath the first.
Some branches reached far enough to threaten the temporary camp if the army positioned carelessly. Others curled under the ridges, perfect for ambush. Several tunnels ran parallel to the walls, allowing goblins to move unseen from one side to another.
The more he learned, the less he liked it.
By the time he completed half the circuit, his expression had gone still beneath the hood.
Samantha was right.
No movement from the fortress did not mean safety.
It meant the enemy had chosen a place humans were not looking.
He should have returned to the camp then. Reported what he learned to Eason.
That would have been the wise choice.
Unfortunately, wisdom often arrived just after he decided to do something troublesome.
He looked toward a narrow breach near the wall's lower section. It was not large, but enough for him to slip through. Beyond it, a shadowed inner path led between stone supports and a ruined side structure.
He stepped toward the breach.
The moment his boot crossed into the fortress wall—
The curse egg in his chest convulsed.
Violently.
Klaus froze.
Pain shot through his ribs, sharp enough to steal his breath. The egg pulsed again, harder, as if something inside him had awakened and started throwing itself against his chest.
Once.
Twice.
Then faster.
It had reacted to Rio's curse before.
This was worse.
Far worse.
Not recognition.
Warning.
Every instinct in Klaus' body sharpened.
He looked up.
A massive figure descended from above.
The goblin was enormous, larger than the ones on the wall, armored in dark plates and thick leather. In both hands it held a heavy axe, the weapon drawn back over its shoulder as it fell.
Not jumping.
Dropping like an execution.
Its eyes were fixed on Klaus.
The axe came down.
Klaus did not think.
Phantom Jump.
His body vanished.
The axe struck his fading phantom.
The impact shook the ground.
Stone cracked.
Dust burst outward.
The phantom split under the blow and dissolved like torn smoke.
Klaus appeared behind a broken wall several meters away, already moving.
No counterattack.
Just escape.
Another jump.
Then another.
The fortress wall blurred past him.
A goblin on the upper platform shouted, but too late. The general had already landed and was turning, its axe dragging sparks from stone.
Klaus jumped again.
The shadows folded.
He appeared beyond the first line of rocks, then behind the same cluster where he had waited through the day.
He dropped low behind the stone and killed his presence as much as he could.
His breathing was quiet, but his chest ached.
The egg still pulsed.
Not as violently now.
But unsettled.
Angry, perhaps.
Or afraid.
Klaus pressed a hand over it.
"Shut up," he whispered.
For several minutes, he waited.
No pursuit came.
No horn.
No alarm screaming across the fortress.
The goblins above the wall shifted slightly, but not enough to suggest they had fully seen him. The massive general did not appear outside. No patrol spread from the gate.
Klaus let out a slow breath.
"That was close."
His gaze turned back.
The fortress stood silent again.
Too silent.
Klaus' mouth tightened.
"The king might have a powerful curse as well."