Chapter 54: The Faceless
Morning found them already moving.
Malrik walked at the center of the group, Lily drifting easy at his side, Fenrir prowling ahead, the Spider Queen and the rest of the host spread loosely around them. One day left before Ashmoor, nine slots left to fill, and nothing so far worth the mana it would cost to bind.
Something with real potential. Something worth the investment. That’s all I need today.
The forest didn’t cooperate with the mood.
It was quiet in a way that had nothing natural about it — no birdsong, no insects, no rustle of small things moving through the undergrowth. Just silence, thick enough to feel like pressure against his ears, as if the entire forest had simply emptied itself out and forgotten to tell them.
Fenrir stopped first.
He lowered his head toward the ground, drew in a long breath through his nose, and let it out as a low, steady growl that didn’t stop.
Malrik raised a hand without needing to think about it, and every soul behind him froze in place at once.
"Something’s here," Lily said quietly, eyes already narrowed on a point in the trees. "A Morveth. But its energy’s wrong. Nothing like anything I’ve felt before."
A shape stepped out from behind a tree.
Its whole body was black — glossy, hairless, unbroken by a single feature. No eyes. No nose. No mouth. Just smooth, featureless dark from head to foot, standing perfectly still, watching him with a face that had nothing to watch him with.
"...First time I’ve seen a Morveth built like that," Malrik said.
The creature didn’t answer. It didn’t need to.
Its skin started to ripple, like something underneath was pressing up against it from the inside. Bones shifted, audible even from a distance. Its shoulders widened. Hair sprouted in a dark, familiar shade. Two eyes carved themselves into a face that hadn’t had one a heartbeat earlier.
It took less than two seconds.
When it finished, Malrik was looking at himself.
Same face. Same build. A spear, identical down to the grain of the wood, already resting in its hand.
The copy smiled — his own smile, worn by something that had no right to it — and lunged.
Malrik paused, momentarily captivated by the reflection standing before him. Then, deciding to see for himself what it was capable of, he stepped forward.
Malrik caught the first strike without much effort. Close, close enough to be unsettling, but sloppy underneath the surface — a half-second too slow on the follow-through, weight planted wrong on the pivot.
It can copy the body, but not the experience that forged it.
He broke its balance with a knee to the stomach, spun the spear in one smooth arc, and took the head off in a single stroke.
He looked down at the body — his own face, staring up at nothing — and let out a short, humorless laugh.
"...So this is what it feels like to kill yourself."
Whatever this species is... the soul beneath that body has incredible potential. If I can extract it and evolve it, a creature capable of imitating its enemies this perfectly would become an invaluable weapon.
He was already reaching to start the extraction when Fenrir roared, loud enough to shake something loose in his chest.
Every head turned toward the treeline.
A second Faceless stepped out. Then a third. Then ten, all at once. Then twenty more behind them, all standing in the same dead silence, none of them moving.
Then, together, every last one of them turned toward the nearest thing worth copying.
Fenrir was closest.
Their bodies twisted and reshaped in seconds, black skin folding until ten identical wolves stood where the Faceless had been — same fangs, same stance, same murder in their eyes.
The real Fenrir didn’t wait to be surrounded. He attacked first, and the ten answered together, closing on him from every side at once.
A second cluster turned toward the Spider Queen. Their bodies split and stretched, legs multiplying, chitin darkening, until ten queens stood facing the original — same size, same shape exactly.
The Queen answered immediately, firing silk from her spinnerets. The copies fired back, mimicking the technique almost perfectly.
Almost.
Malrik could see the gap even from where he stood — her strands held tighter, struck harder, closed faster than anything wearing her shape could manage.
A third group chose Lily.
Three copies took form in front of her, wings unfolding in near-perfect mimicry.
She didn’t give them the chance to test it properly. She vanished from where she stood and reappeared behind the nearest one, claws opening its throat before it finished settling into its stance. The second died the same way, a heartbeat later.
The third was faster than the first two had been.
"They’re learning," she called out, something sharp entering her voice. "Fast. We need to end this now."
Malrik was already moving on it.
Malrik closed his eyes for the briefest moment.
The invisible bond connecting him to every contracted soul spread through his consciousness like threads of light.
Fenrir, The Spider Queen, Lilith.
Every wolf, Every spider.
Each one occupied a clear, unmistakable place within his mind, their presence as familiar as his own heartbeat.
Then he looked at the creatures surrounding them.
No connection, no presence.
They were merely empty shells wearing stolen faces.
That’s enough.
As long as the bond exists... I’ll never mistake my own for an imitation.
His gaze swept across the battlefield.
"Fenrir, the one on your right!"
Before the order had fully left his mouth, Fenrir had already changed direction, tearing into the marked copy.
"Spider Queen, seal the rear passage. Don’t let a single one escape."
Countless strands of silk shot through the trees, weaving an impenetrable web behind the retreating creatures.
"Lilith, watch the skies. If they try to surround us, burn them down."
"Understood, Master."
The orders landed and executed without a flicker of delay, no confusion, no risk of a blade finding an ally by accident. The bond turned the whole chaotic mess of the clearing into something he could actually read.
The copies, meanwhile, kept adapting.
Their movements had started clumsy — stiff joints, feints that looked memorized rather than lived. A minute in, that had already started to change. Their footing corrected itself. Feints started landing with proper timing. Dodges stopped looking rehearsed and started looking instinctive.
Malrik caught one repeating a exact sidestep he himself had used less than ten seconds earlier.
They’re not copying shape anymore. They’re copying combat data as it happens.
The longer this battle drags on, the stronger they become. Every passing second favors them... not us.
Without another moment’s hesitation, Malrik surged forward.
The brief reluctance he had felt when killing the first copy had vanished completely.
Now, anything wearing a familiar face was nothing more than another enemy to be cut down.
His spear danced relentlessly across the battlefield, refusing to give the creatures even a heartbeat to observe, adapt, or learn.
For a time...It worked.
The sharp whistle of Malrik’s spear cut through the air again and again.
Fenrir’s furious roars echoed throughout the forest as claws and fangs tore through one imitation after another.
Above them, the Spider Queen’s webs spread from tree to tree, sealing every escape route while countless spiders descended upon the copies.
At the same time, Lilith’s illusion magic distorted the battlefield, causing the Faceless to strike at phantoms while she slipped through their ranks, eliminating them one after another.
One imitation after another fell.
For several long minutes, it seemed they had finally seized control of the battlefield.
The number of Faceless continued to fall, and for the first time since the battle began, Malrik allowed himself to believe they might actually wipe them out before the creatures adapted any further.
Then, without any warning, every Faceless in the forest stopped moving.
The one attacking Fenrir froze with its claws only inches from his neck. Another remained suspended in midair, its body still twisted in the middle of a leap. Even the creatures tangled within the Spider Queen’s webs no longer struggled, as though the desire to fight had vanished from them entirely.
A heavy silence settled over the clearing.
Malrik slowly lowered his spear, his eyes moving across the motionless army. Nothing about their expressions had changed—if they could even be called expressions—but every single one of them now stood with the same unnatural stillness, as though they were waiting for someone’s arrival.
He felt it before he heard it.
A deep vibration spread beneath the ground, followed by another... and another. Each step was slow and deliberate, carrying enough weight to make the surrounding trees tremble.
Fenrir instinctively lowered his body, a low growl rumbling from his throat. The Spider Queen raised her front legs, while the emerald runes across her obsidian shell glowed brighter than before. Beside Malrik, even Lilith’s expression lost its usual composure.
"Something is coming," she said quietly.
The Faceless parted without receiving a single audible command, forming a path through the forest.
Something stepped out from the darkness.
It was taller than any Morveth Malrik had ever seen, its body an endless mass of smooth black flesh. Three pale faces rested upon its shoulders, each turned in a different direction.
The moment it entered the clearing, the air grew heavy.
Fenrir’s fur stood on end, a deep growl rumbling from his chest despite the creature making no hostile move.
Malrik tightened his grip around his spear.
The pressure radiating from the creature was unlike anything he had encountered since arriving in this world.
It wasn’t enough to stop him from moving.
But every instinct he possessed screamed the same warning.
He had never faced an Awakened Morveth like this before.
"...So."
"The one commanding all of this..."
"...has finally decided to show itself."
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