Incubus Living In A World Of Superpower Users - Chapter 435

Capítulo 435: Finally, A Group Project I Don’t Hate

He stepped out of the swamp and onto cracked slabs that had once been a road. Water oozed from between them in clean little lines.

The air smelled less like rot and more like dust that had learned to drink. A voice called left in the near distance, and a second answered, waiting.

He didn’t answer. He lengthened his stride to see what sat past the corner, then shortened it again because corners are where floors like to lie.

The system kept its peace. He didn’t miss it. The solo run wasn’t grading a knife alone.

It was watching what he thought when sweat hit his eyes, watching what he did with small temptations, watching whether he drank when water was easy as well as when it was hard, watching if he left a strip of safe ground for someone else instead of sprinting to own it, watching if rooms were better behind him than in front of him.

He snugged his strap and let a small smile pass without growing into anything it didn’t need to be. Being seen that way was fine.

He stepped through the next door, the exam made for him, and left the swamp without a glance back.

Light grew a shade stronger. Somewhere under a true sky, a teacher marked a private line without praise or scold.

Behind thicker walls, a tired man put a dot by a name somewhere else and didn’t say it. Ethan took one careful step after another and let the day learn him.

Counts, water, feet. Save luck for when it is earned. Carry quietly until noise is needed. When a place tried to talk him out of what he knew, he listened first, then chose.

Fog breathed once behind him like a sigh and settled, as if the swamp had decided he could go. He didn’t wave.

He walked on. The road waited, cracked and honest. The next fight would be ready. So was he.

The ground tipped up by degrees and spread into an open forest broken by old foundations and a cliff line that caught the light like a row of dull blades laid flat.

Wind moved here. Not much, but more than the swamp would allow. Pine mixed with something sweet he couldn’t name.

Bird chatter piped from a high canopy that wasn’t quite real and didn’t need to be. He paused under the reach of a leaning pillar and scanned.

The old city had spilled into this place long ago and then given up. Stone teeth jutted through loam, some with stair cuts, some with nothing left but the memory of edges.

Beyond the pillars, a ledge ran along the cliff at waist height. Below it, the drop went far enough to make falling a long argument with gravity.

A chime touched his ear, not the tease of a lure but the clean note the exam used when it wanted to change the terms.

The air in front of him thickened and slid, not like fog this time, more like the way heat above coals makes a shape in the air.

Three markers appeared on the dirt and rose as halos for half a breath. When they faded, he wasn’t alone.

Evelyn stood to his left, already steady, eyes taking in tree lines and broken wall heights before she even looked at him.

Everly settled on his right with a grin she didn’t bother to tame.

“Finally, a group project I don’t hate,” Everly said, stretching her shoulders like a cat and checking her buckles with quick hands.

“Welcome to democracy, which I define as we do what makes sens,e and I get to hit things.”

“Conserve,” Evelyn said, calm and exact. “The sim brought us together after a solo. That means it has a second rhythm to test. We scout, not sprint.”

Ethan tilted his head between them. “A radical compromise,” he said. “We don’t sprint. We don’t nap.

We move, we look, we keep our feet. If we fight, we finish. Votes when we disagree. I break ties, but only if you make me.”

“Agreed,” Evelyn said, pointing with two fingers at a short path that hugged the ledge without flirting with the edge.

Everly bumped his arm in a comfortable claim. “I vote for you breaking ties early and often,” she said, then faced the trees with a small bounce that didn’t waste energy.

“Call if you see a thrower. I hate getting rocks in the teeth.”

“Noted,” Ethan said. “And if you get a clean first hit, take it, but don’t chase for sport. We’re not running laps to impress the map.”

She made a face like the suggestion was rude, but nodded. Evelyn had already sketched a route with her hand in the air. She spoke softly, expecting them to hear, and they did.

“Foundation to foundation,” Evelyn said. “Low sight lines. If the sim wants to herd us, it’ll push during a traverse across open.

So we keep cover and use the ledge as a wall and the old steps as holds.”

“High ground is a rumor until a ladder says it’s real,” Ethan said.

“Thank you, Elira,” Everly muttered with a grin, and began to move.

They moved as a unit without talking about it. Ethan took the center, a step half behind so he could see both sisters’ feet and hands.

Everly drifted right, guarding the drop without flirting with it. Evelyn went left, eyes on cover and corners.

The trees ahead parted into a glow of open space. If the exam had been interested in softness, it would have been a meadow.

Instead, it was a courtyard stripped of anything that could hide small bodies. A long, low ridge of stone cut through the middle.

The far side dipped to a shallow bowl studded with chunked rock and the shells of old stairwells.

Beyond that, the cliff broke into stacks and shelves, perfect for something that liked to leap.

“Hold,” Evelyn breathed. They sank into stillness. She lifted her hand, counting shapes the way you count exits.

Ethan followed her hand with his eyes. He caught the shift of shadow to the right, where a wall didn’t cast what it should.

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