Chương 66: A falling leaf doesn’t ask the branch about the meaning of parting — it simply trusts the wind.

Lloyd swallowed one of the bitterest gulps of saliva in his life. He gripped the axe so tightly that his knuckles turned white as he watched the bushes shake. His heart pounded somewhere in his throat, its heavy rhythm echoing in his ears. Every second of that tense wait stretched into eternity. Cold beads of sweat slid down his temples, tickling his skin, while his breathing grew uneven and shallow, as if his lungs refused to draw in a full breath.

Then whatever had been hiding behind the bushes stepped into the clearing. Lloyd's eyebrows shot up. His eyes widened in utter disbelief, and he nearly dropped the axe. For a brief moment, his entire body froze, refusing to believe what it was seeing.

"You've got to be kidding me..." They were boots. A rather ordinary pair of dark brown boots with neatly tied laces. Their worn leather gleamed faintly whenever stray rays of sunlight pierced through the canopy, scattering tiny flashes across the flattened grass. Yet despite their ordinary appearance, they stood out from the nightmare surrounding them. They had no owner. The boots simply walked toward Lloyd with calm, measured steps, as though an invisible person were wearing them.

There was no silhouette, no shadow, nothing at all—only empty space above them that seemed to faintly distort the air, like heat haze rising from scorching asphalt on a summer day. Each step was accompanied by the quiet creak of leather soles against the grass. It was an ordinary sound, but in the suffocating silence of the clearing, it felt almost deafening. When they came too close, Lloyd instinctively stepped aside, icy goosebumps racing across his skin.

The boots passed him without slowing down in the slightest, as if they hadn't noticed him at all—as if he were nothing more than empty air. Lloyd watched as they continued toward the far edge of the clearing, leaving behind a faint trail of flattened grass that stretched in a perfectly straight line, without the slightest hint of hesitation or urgency.

"What the hell is that? Some mage's ability... or something like that?" Lloyd followed the eerie pair with a tense gaze as his mind desperately searched for an explanation—invisibility, telekinesis, some unknown skill—but none of them felt convincing. The forest itself seemed to hold its breath with him. Not a single leaf stirred, not a branch cracked, as though nature itself were watching the strange phenomenon with the same uneasy curiosity.

The boots disappeared behind the tree trunks, swallowed by the shadows of the forest, and only then did Lloyd allow himself to exhale—a shaky, noisy breath, as though he had been holding it in the entire time. He watched them go with troubled confusion lingering in his eyes before muttering aloud, if only to hear his own voice in the crushing silence. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

"I don't get it." For several more seconds, he stared into the forest until his eyes began to ache, searching the dark gaps between the trunks. But nothing emerged. No sound, no movement—only the occasional rustle of leaves in the weak breeze and the distant groan of an old tree somewhere deep within the woods. Lloyd glanced over the nearest corpses once more, shuddering involuntarily at the sight of them, then shrugged, trying to calm the lingering tremor running through his body in small, irritating waves.

Then his stomach let out a loud growl. The completely mistimed sound echoed across the silent clearing far louder than he would have liked. Lloyd rubbed his stomach, glaring at it with an almost offended expression, as though it had betrayed him at the worst possible moment.

"Looks like I've got a problem." A single leaf drifted lazily through the air, swaying gently from side to side on invisible currents until it finally settled upon the pristine white fabric of an obviously expensive outfit, barely brushing against a shoulder. Suddenly, a long pointed ear twitched ever so slightly toward the insignificant touch. The leaf was instantly blown away as though caught by an unseen force, spinning through the air before slowly descending into the thick grass far below.

The Elf stood atop one of the thick branches of a towering tree, balancing effortlessly, as though gravity held less power over him than it did over ordinary beings. His hands were clasped behind his back while he observed the strange young man standing alone in the clearing among the scattered, charred corpses. His calm, calculating gaze swept across the entire clearing, noting every detail—the direction of the wind, the position of the shadows, even the slightest movement of the grass.

"Who is he? Standing right out in the open like he's asking someone to kill him." The Elf's eyes drifted over the corpses scattered throughout the clearing, lingering a little longer on the most gruesome ones, as though studying the signature of whoever had left such a bloody trail behind. His face remained completely expressionless. Not a single muscle twitched, as if the sight of dozens of mutilated bodies were nothing more than another part of the landscape.

"Impressive. I should be careful." His gaze shifted directly to the young man's face, examining him with the same cold precision he had used to inspect the battlefield moments earlier. The young man looked perfectly ordinary—dark hair, bright green eyes, and an almost childishly innocent expression that made him seem like the sort of person who wouldn't hurt a fly, let alone another human being. There wasn't a trace of the predatory confidence that marked a true killer. Only confusion and poorly concealed anxiety.

"Something doesn't add up. Still, whether he did this or not doesn't really matter. I think he'll be useful to me." A faint breeze brushed across the Elf's body, lifting the tips of his long hair and causing them to shimmer briefly in a ray of sunlight that broke through the leaves. In the very next instant, the Elf vanished. He dissolved into the air without making the slightest sound, as though he had never been there at all.

Only the disturbed leaves on the branch swayed gently in his wake, and another lone leaf drifted free, slowly spinning through the now-empty air.