Seventy-two minutes.
I spent the time preparing the camp with the kind of methodical precision that would have seemed insane forty-eight hours ago. Now it was just efficiency.
The system had mapped the entire settlement—every tent, every water source, every potential escape route. More importantly, it had mapped the raiders. Twenty-three of them, approaching from the north in a loose formation that suggested military training. Not bandits. Something more organized. Something worse.
I woke Torvin first. The old man jerked awake with his hand on his machete, then went very still when he saw me crouched beside his sleeping mat in the pre-dawn darkness.
"They're coming," I said simply. "Twenty-three raiders, professional grade. They'll be here in an hour."
Torvin's single eye—the other was a milky scar—focused on me with surprising clarity. "You're sure?"
"The system is sure."
"Right." He didn't question what "the system" meant. Refugees didn't ask those kinds of questions. They just accepted the impossible and moved forward. "What do you need?"
"Gather the strongest six fighters we have. Quietly. Don't panic the others yet. And find me anything that can be used as a weapon. Anything."
Torvin was already moving, his age falling away as old military instincts kicked in. "You've got a plan?"
"No," I said honestly. "I've got options. The system will help me choose."
Twenty minutes later, I stood in the camp's center with six people who looked far too fragile to be called fighters.
Kren was the strongest—a former soldier from somewhere called Valdris with a scar across his jaw that made him look perpetually angry. He carried a longsword that was probably worth more than everything else in the camp combined.
The others were younger. There was Mika, a woman with quick eyes and quicker hands who'd been a scout before the world ended. Durren, who was barely eighteen but had killed his first raveling three weeks ago. Two brothers, Tarl and Kess, who moved like they shared a single nervous system. And Lydia, who was smaller than all of them but whose accuracy with a makeshift bow was legendary.
They stared at me like I was something that had crawled out of the ground.
"Can you even hold a weapon?" Kren asked, not unkindly. "You look like you'll fall over if someone breathes on you wrong."
The evolution had made me visibly stronger—the muscle definition was different now, the stance more assured—but to people trained in combat, I probably still looked like a desperate refugee playing dress-up.
"I don't need a weapon," I said.
The system highlighted tactical options. I rejected most of them.
"Listen," I continued. "The raiders are coming for supplies. Food, water, anything valuable. They'll start with the supply tent, then move to personal quarters. They probably won't burn anything—burned camps attract attention from larger groups. So they're here to ransack and leave."
"Which means they'll leave us alive," Mika said, understanding. "Unless we resist."
"Exactly. So we don't resist in the conventional way."
[ENEMY ARRIVAL: 23 minutes]
I explained my strategy, such as it was. The system suggested seventeen different approaches; I distilled them into something that wouldn't get everyone killed.
Kren looked skeptical. "You want us to appear to scatter? And you'll..."
"I'll make sure they don't pursue beyond the camp perimeter. The goal is to make them feel like the camp isn't worth the effort. They take supplies and leave."
"And if they don't?" Durren asked.
"Then I stop them. Permanently."
The young man flinched at the flatness in my voice. I couldn't blame him. I wasn't entirely sure I was joking.
The raiders came out of the northern canyon like a organized nightmare.
They moved in tight formation, horses gathered in a cluster at the center. That was interesting. Most raider groups didn't have horses—they were too valuable, too difficult to maintain. The fact that these raiders did meant they were backed by someone with resources.
The system flagged the leader immediately. Scarred woman on a dark mare, sword that looked like it had been forged for someone twice her size. She had the bearing of someone who'd killed dozens of people and found the experience tolerable.
[THREAT ASSESSMENT: High][Combat Compatibility: 78%]
The refugees scattered on cue, exactly as panicked as a group of people who'd lived through this scenario before would be. They fled toward the back of the camp, toward the caves and dense forest where the system's scanners said raiders never bothered pursuing.
The scarred woman watched them go with the clinical assessment of someone who understood the mathematics of easy prey and slightly-harder prey.
Then she saw me.
I was standing alone in the center of the camp, arms at my sides, doing absolutely nothing threatening. Just... existing. Waiting.
She rode toward me, her raiders forming a loose semicircle behind her. Twenty-three trained soldiers, moving with practiced efficiency, against one thing that used to be human.
The system ran calculations. 91% confidence in victory. 8% chance of serious injury. 1% chance of something unexpected happening.
I didn't like those odds. But they were better than the refugees had deserved.
The scarred woman reined her horse to a stop about ten paces away. "Kid," she said, and her voice was rough, weathered. "Smart move staying put. That makes this easier."
"No it doesn't," I said.
I moved.
Not in a way that could be followed. The system had optimized my musculature for speed and efficiency, and I'd spent enough time fighting the raveling to understand how to use it. I crossed the space between us in a fraction of a second that stretched into perceived eternity.
The scarred woman's sword was coming up. Fast. Professional. She'd fought people faster than normal humans before.
She hadn't fought anything like this.
I caught the sword with my bare hand. The blade bit into my palm, drawing blood—real pain, real damage—but my evolved body was already compensating. Accelerated healing. Reinforced tissue. The bleeding stopped in seconds.
Her eyes widened with the particular kind of fear that came from watching the impossible happen.
"Your camp. Your supplies," I said, keeping my voice low and even. "Leave them alone."
"You're—" she started.
I squeezed. The sword bent. Not much, just enough. Just enough to be statement and threat in equal measure.
"Raider captain," I continued, reading her insignia with system-assisted pattern recognition, "you've preyed on scattered refugees and scared merchants. You've built your reputation on predation. That works when you're the apex predator."
I released her sword and stepped back.
"You're not anymore."
The raiders were already moving—not attacking, just shifting, reassessing. The system showed me the calculations running through their heads. Seventeen of them were calculating odds. Six had already mentally retreated. None of them believed they could win.
The scarred woman controlled her horse with impressive steadiness for someone whose sword arm was shaking slightly. She looked at her soldiers, then back at me.
"What are you?" she asked.
"Convenient," I said. "For you. Because if you leave right now, you walk away with half the supplies in our storage tent. Enough to keep your group fed for three weeks. No one dies. Your reputation stays intact. You tell whoever's backing you that the camp was picked clean by scavengers."
I paused. Let the system's assessment of her flow through me. She was calculating. Still dangerous, but calculating.
"And if we don't leave?"
"Then I kill you. Then I kill your soldiers. Then I walk to whoever's paying you and ensure they understand that this camp is no longer a profitable target."
The system offered to show me exactly how that conversation would go. I declined.
The scarred woman stared at me for a long moment. She was measuring me, running her own calculations, weighing her honor against her life and the lives of her soldiers.
Honor lost. As it usually does.
"Pack the supplies," she called to her soldiers. It was a command, but the tone was different now. There was respect in it. The respect one predator gives another when the hierarchy becomes clear.
They moved efficiently. The supply tent was emptied in minutes. They took grain, preserved meat, salt, water barrels. They took blankets and rope. They took tools and empty containers. They took everything that could be easily carried or loaded onto the horses.
They didn't touch the medical supplies. They didn't burn anything. They didn't hurt anyone.
I stood in the center of the camp and watched them work. The system was running constant threat assessments, tracking every soldier's movement, calculating response patterns if anyone deviated.
The scarred woman rode over to me one last time before leaving. "What's your name, kid? The stories are going to be very different depending on whether I can give them one."
"I don't have one anymore," I said, which was true in a way she probably didn't understand. "Just tell them something strong took the camp. Something that wears humanity like a borrowed coat."
She smiled. It wasn't a kind expression, but it had something like recognition in it. "Yeah. I can work with that."
She rode north, her soldiers and their loaded horses trailing behind like remoras following a shark.
I didn't move until the system confirmed their departure. Didn't move until the thermal signatures faded beyond the valley's natural ambience. Didn't move until I was certain they weren't coming back.
Then I collapsed.
"Kael!"
Sera was there before I fully registered what was happening. She was pushing my shirt aside, examining the bleeding hand. The system had stopped the bleeding, but the wound was still visible. Deep. Serious.
"What happened?" Torvin had emerged from the trees, sword still drawn, taking in the empty camp. "Where are the raiders?"
"Gone," I managed. "They're gone."
More refugees were appearing. They'd watched from the cave entrance—probably heard the confrontation if not seen it clearly. They emerged slowly, cautiously, trying to process the fact that their tormentors had simply left.
"How did you—" Kren started, then stopped. He was a trained soldier. He understood what he'd just witnessed. "You negotiated with them."
"I threatened them," I corrected. "The negotiation was implicit."
Sera was wrapping my hand with cloth, and I let her, too exhausted to protest. The evolution had consumed a lot of energy, and the system was running continuous damage assessments.
[HEALING IN PROGRESS][ESTIMATED RECOVERY TIME: 4 hours][BIOMASS GAIN: +2 (Threat Aversion)]
That last notification was strange. I'd gained biomass from not killing someone. From using dominance instead of predation.
"The camp owes you everything," Torvin said quietly.
"The camp owes me nothing," I replied. "I did it because if the camp dies, I have no reason to stay human."
The words were true, and I hated that they were true. I was changing. Becoming something that protected these people not out of empathy, but because they served a function. They kept me anchored. They were the gravity well that prevented me from drifting into whatever the system wanted me to become.
Mira appeared suddenly, running up to grab my uninjured arm. The eight-year-old stared up at me with wide eyes. "Are you the scary man now? Are you going to stay and help us?"
I looked down at her, at the hope in her expression, and felt something break inside my chest. The system registered it as emotional instability and offered to suppress it.
I refused.
"Yeah," I said. "I'm going to stay."
[MISSION COMPLETE: Survive the First Night][MISSION REWARD: +500 EXP, +10 Biomass, System Expansion Unlock][NEW MISSION GENERATED: Find Purpose in the Valley][REWARD: Hidden]
The system was evolving. Its missions were becoming less specific, more philosophical. It was starting to care about my psychological state, not just my survival statistics.
That might have been the most frightening thing yet.