The snake meat sizzled over the fire, its aroma far richer than the tough, Croc they'd eaten before.
Daniel sat cross-legged with his back against a mossy boulder, watching his teammates eat with barely any restraint.
Ragnar tore into a thick slab, grease dripping down his chin. He chewed thoughtfully, then let out a satisfied grunt.
"Now this," he said, pointing his makeshift skewer at Daniel, "is what I'm talking about. Forget that angry rubber we ate yesterday. This is actual food."
Bran, still pale from his shoulder wound but noticeably stronger, managed a weak smile. "It's really good. Thank you, Daniel."
Sophie ate in silence, her movements precise and economical. She hadn't said much since Daniel returned with the meat.
Her sharp eyes kept sliding back to him, hanging on him a second too long before she looked away again.
Daniel forced himself to eat slowly, acting as though he were savoring every bite. In truth, his stomach churned with the weight of his lie.
Daniel was many things, but he wasn't a liar. He felt very uncomfortable.
The power difference between him and his team was starting to widen. He was Level 1 now, his stats enhanced far beyond theirs.
The Celestial Voidpocket hidden beneath his uniform held the remaining bodies of two massive constrictors, resources he felt might be useful later.
"So," Ragnar said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Tell me again how you managed to take down that beast on your own?"
Daniel had prepared for this. "Like I said, I tracked it for a while. It had just finished feeding on something, some kind of large bird. It was sluggish, half-asleep.
I got close, waited for the right moment, and drove my knife into its eye."
He gestured with his upgraded blade, careful not to let them see how unscathed it looked despite the supposed brutal fight.
"Went straight into its brain. It threw itself around for a bit, nearly crushed me with its body, but it was already dying."
Ragnar nodded slowly, his expression thoughtful. "You got lucky, then. Real lucky."
"Yeah," Daniel replied, letting a hint of relief color his voice. "I know. If it had been fully alert, I'd be dead."
"Still," Ragnar continued, leaning forward. "That takes guts. Going after something that size alone, even if it was sleeping?"
He clapped Daniel on the shoulder, the impact hard enough to make him wince.
"You're tougher than you look, tactician. I'm glad you're on our team."
Ragnar's simple trust, his genuine respect, it was a weapon that could be turned against him the moment the truth came out.
But it was Sophie's silence that worried him most.
The next morning , she finished her share of the snake meat, leftovers from last night's dinner. She set the rough wooden plate aside and pushed herself to her feet.
"I'm going to check the perimeter," she announced. "Make sure we weren't followed."
Before anyone could respond, she looked directly at Daniel. "Daniel, come with me. You seem to have good instincts for spotting danger. Let's put them to use."
Ragnar waved them off. "Good idea. Me and Bran will clean up here and we'd be ready to leave when you get back."
Daniel rose, his heart hammering. He followed Sophie into the forest, the sounds of the camp fading behind them.
They walked in silence for several minutes, moving through strange pulsating plants.
Finally, Sophie stopped in a small clearing. She turned to face him, her expression unreadable.
"Show me," she said.
Daniel blinked. "Show you what?"
"Where you killed the constrictor," Sophie replied, as she maintained her eye contact with him.
He opened his mouth to protest, but she cut him off. "You said you tracked it, found it sleeping, killed it nearby. So show me. I want to learn from your success. Understand the terrain, see how you approached it."
Her tone was perfectly reasonable, almost friendly. But her eyes were sharp, analytical, searching for cracks in his story.
Daniel swallowed. "It's... it's pretty far from here. Maybe an hour's walk. I wandered quite a bit looking for food."
"Then, we better be on our way," Sophie replied, gesturing for him to lead.
They moved through the forest, Daniel's mind racing.
After walking for about fifty minutes, they got there. There were broken branches, disturbed earth, signs of some kind of struggle.
"Here," he said, stopping at the edge of the clearing.
Sophie stepped past him, her Tactical Eyes activating. A faint glow illuminated her irises as she surveyed the scene.
She crouched, running her fingers over the torn-up earth. Her gaze moved methodically, taking in every detail.
The broken branches. The scorch marks on the ground. The deep, parallel marks carved into the soil.
She stood, turning to face him. "You said one constrictor, right?"
"Yes," Daniel replied, as he folded his hands.
"These marks," she gestured to the ground, "suggest multiple death throes. Three distinct impact sites. Three separate sets of final convulsions."
Daniel's blood ran cold. He forced his expression to remain neutral.
"The one I killed thrashed around a lot. It was powerful. Maybe it created multiple…"
Sophie looked at him. Really looked at him.
For a second, he thought she was going to say it. She was going to accuse him. She was going to ask where the other bodies were, or how an 'Attribute Enhancement' talent let him move fast enough to cause this kind of destruction.
The silence stretched, heavy and tense. Then, the glow faded from her eyes.
"It must have been a hell of a fight," she said finally. Her tone was neutral, but the suspicion in her eyes hadn't vanished. It had just been filed away. "You're lucky to be alive, Daniel."
"I know," he said.
"Let's get back to the others," she said, turning on her heel. "We're burning daylight."
He watched her walk away, a knot of tension tightening in his stomach. She knew. She didn't have the proof, but she knew something was off about him.
The team moved out an hour later. The forest was thicker here, and the trees were so close together he could hardly see the sky.
"I'm telling you," Ragnar boomed, glancing back at them. "We're unstoppable. Bran's got the shields, I've got the skin, Sophie's got the brains, and Daniel..."
He slapped Daniel on the shoulder, a blow that would have staggered the old Daniel but barely moved the Level 1 warrior.
"Daniel is our good-luck charm!" Ragnar laughed. "The man has a nose for survival. If he says go left, we go left. No questions asked."
"I'm not a magician, Ragnar," Daniel muttered. "I just pay attention."
"Call it what you want," Ragnar grinned. "I trust your gut more than I trust my own eyes right now."
It was meant to be a compliment, but it felt like a trap. Ragnar's blind faith was almost as heavy as Sophie's suspicion.
Daniel led them, his [Omnivision] acting as a radar.
It was a drain on his mental stamina, a low-level headache that throbbed behind his eyes, but he couldn't afford to turn it off.
Suddenly, a wave of pressure hit him.
It wasn't a sound. It wasn't a smell. It was S wave of energy that slammed into his [Omnivision] sensors like a physical blow.
His head snapped up.
"Stop!" Daniel hissed, dropping into a crouch.
"What is it?" Sophie whispered, scanning the trees with her Tactical Eyes. "I don't see anything."
"Not see," Daniel breathed. "Feel."
He pointed toward a ridge line about twenty meters ahead. "Look at the ground."
They crept forward, moving inch by inch. When they reached the edge of the ridge, Ragnar let out a soft, terrified whistle.
"Whatever made that, I don't want to ever meet it," Ragnar whispered.
Gouged into the earth below was a footprint.
It was massive, easily three feet long, with three deep, clawed toes that had pressed inches deep into the hard-packed soil.
The edges of the print were still crumbling, meaning it was fresh.
Around the print, the trees hadn't just been pushed aside, they had been snapped like matchsticks.
"That's... that's not a crawler," Bran squeaked, his voice trembling.
"No," Ragnar said grimly. "That's something crazy, probably a titan."
Sophie was already moving, checking the direction of the tracks. "It's heading north. Away from us, for now. But it's close."
Daniel stared at the footprint.
The power radiating from the creature that made these marks was like nothing he'd ever felt.
"If that thing turns around, or if there are more of them... we're dead. We need a fortress," Ragnar said as looked around nervously. "A cave won't cut it. That thing would dig us out like worms."
Daniel looked at the sky.
The clouds were gathering, but they weren't their usual color. This time, they looked darker… almost wrong. The air pressure was dropping rapidly.
"Storm's coming too," Daniel noted. "A bad one."
He looked at his team. They were scared.
The confidence from that morning was gone, crushed by the Titan's footsteps below.
"We detour," Daniel commanded, taking charge. "We head for the higher peaks. We find a rock formation, a ruin, anything that puts solid stone between us and that thing."
They moved fast, climbing over the rough rocks and putting distance between themselves and the valley.