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The moon hung low and bloated in the ink-black sky, a pale, indifferent eye casting a silvery glow over the 103rd Cadet Corps training grounds. Its light turned the wooden titan-training poles into skeletal silhouettes that loomed like gallows. The assembled cadets, usually a bustling hub of drills and shouts, was eerily still, save for the soft creak of ODM harnesses and the occasional muffled cough or whisper that sliced through the tension like a dull knife.
Nearly Two hundred and fifty cadets; boys and girls alike; stood in rigid formation, their military uniforms crisp but their faces pale masks of barely contained dread. Hands shook as they adjusted straps, eyes darted to the treeline where the forest swallowed the light whole, and breaths came in shallow, ragged bursts. The torches stuck into the ground around the perimeter flickered erratically, casting long, wavering shadows that danced like mocking spirits, making every rustle of leaves sound like claws scraping against bark.
Up front, Instructor Ral stood on the raised platform, his face illuminated by the torchlight into harsh planes and deep shadows. Instructor Kent flanked him, clipboard in hand, his expression as blank as ever. Ral's voice boomed out, cutting through the night like a whip.
"Commence maneuvers! Squads one through four, take positions on the eastern poles. Five through eight, western flank. Maintain formation, watch your lines. Launch!"
The cadets moved, but it was mechanical, hesitant. Gasps of compressed air hissed as anchors fired, wires whining as bodies lifted into the air. Petra felt the familiar jolt as her own gear engaged, propelling her upward into the moonlit sky. The wind rushed past her face, cold and biting, but it did nothing to cool the knot of dread twisting in her gut. She swung between the poles, the wooden structures creaking under the strain of multiple cadets zipping through the air. Below, the ground blurred into a patchwork of shadows, the torches tiny pinpricks of light that seemed too far away, too fragile.
For the first few minutes, it almost felt normal. The rhythm of launch, swing, retract was muscle memory, drilled into them over years. Petra landed lightly on a high crossbeam, balancing for a moment before firing her anchors again. But the night amplified everything; the creak of wood sounded like cracking bones, the whisper of wind like a predator's breath. Every shadow below seemed to move, every flicker of torchlight a glowing eye.
"Keep it tight, squad!" someone shouted from below; Instructor Ral, his voice carrying unnaturally far in the still air. Kent stood silent beside him, scribbling on his clipboard, his pen scratching like claws on stone. What was he writing? Scores? Or something worse?
Petra swung to a lower pole, her breath coming in controlled bursts. The higher she went, the more exposed she felt; like goddamn dangling bait on a hook, waiting for something to bite. The moonlit sky was vast and empty, but it pressed down on her, heavy with unspoken threats. 'This can't be right,' she thought, her mind racing as she pivoted mid-air. 'Why now? Why at night? If the demon dog's out there... we're lit up like targets.'
She wasn't alone in her fear. Whispers carried on the wind between swings:
"This is insane,"
"I think I heard it roar last night,"
"What if it's watching us?"
The cadets maneuvered, but their movements were jerky, hesitant; eyes darting everywhere instead of focusing on their lines. One girl misfired her anchor, nearly colliding with a pole; another landed hard, rolling to absorb the impact, his face pale as he scrambled back up.
Time stretched, the minutes bleeding into what felt like hours. The initial adrenaline faded, replaced by a numb, grinding fatigue. Maybe it wasn't coming. Maybe the instructors were right; this was just training, a test of nerves after the "accident." The cadets started to relax, fractionally. Formations tightened, swings grew smoother.
On a thick branch high in one of the perimeter trees; used as an advanced anchor point; two cadets paused for a breath. Liam and Thom, the same duo who'd mocked Oulo's fears days ago. They perched side by side, legs dangling over the void, their ODM wires humming faintly.
"Bet I can last longer than you," Liam whispered, forcing a grin that didn't reach his eyes. His voice was too loud in the quiet, a desperate attempt to reclaim some normalcy. "First one to slip buys the winner a round when we graduate. Deal?"
Thom snorted softly, wiping sweat from his brow despite the chill. "You're on. But if that thing shows up, all bets are off. I'll be the first one zipping back to the barracks."
Liam punched his arm lightly. "Coward. It's probably long gone by now. Instructors wouldn't risk—"
The words died in his throat.
The air around them seemed to thicken, the temperature spiking without warning. A low, subsonic rumble vibrated through the branch, up their spines, into their bones. It wasn't a sound; it was a presence. The leaves around them began to wilt, curling inward as if scorched by an invisible flame.
"What... what is that?" Thom whispered, his voice trembling. He leaned forward, peering into the darkness below.
The space between the trees didn't just shift, it erupted.
The mutated Vulpimancer materialized with a thunderous crack, not from stealth, but from a violent discharge of pent-up energy. Its purple fur crackled with unnatural static, the V-shaped patterns along its body strobing erratically between deep blue and blinding white. Heat radiated from it in visible waves, distorting the air like a forge's breath. Its five eyes burned like molten sapphires, the sixth; regenerated into a glaring white orb; sweept the field like a searchlight. The ground beneath its paws smoldered, grass igniting in small, sputtering fires.
But worst of all was the thing writhing beneath its translucent skin; a glowing, segmented thing, coiling like a centipede of pure light around its spine and organs, pulsing with malevolent energy. It was visible now, the flesh stretched thin over the abomination, veins of white fire threading through muscle and bone.
Liam and Thom froze, their bets forgotten. The creature's head snapped up, locking onto the space they occupied. Its jaws parted, revealing rows of needle-teeth dripping with sizzling saliva that burned holes in the earth where it fell.
"Run—" Thom gasped, but it was too late.
The Vulpimancer didn't leap; it flowed, phasing partially through the trunk of the tree in a blur of distortion. The heat aura hit first: a wall of searing air that slammed into the boys like an open furnace. Liam screamed as his uniform ignited, the fabric melting against his skin in bubbling patches. His hair singed while his face blistered instantly; red, raw welts swelling across his cheeks and arms, the pain a white-hot explosion that drowned out everything else. Thom fared worse: closer to the edge, the aura cooked his exposed hands, fingers blackening at the tips, skin cracking open like overbaked clay, exposing raw, weeping flesh beneath.
They tumbled from the branch, wires snapping taut too late. Liam's ODM gear misfired in the chaos, sending him crashing to the ground with a bone-jarring thud, his burned arm crumpling beneath him. Pain lanced through him, but he rolled, scrambling toward higher ground; a cluster of boulders near the treeline; clutched his charred limb, the skin sloughing off in wet, peeling sheets that left glistening muscle exposed. The smell of his own cooked flesh filled his nostrils, a sickening roast that made bile rise in his throat.
Thom wasn't so lucky. The Vulpimancer's claw caught the space he fell through; a glancing swipe that tore through his harness and into his side. Fabric and flesh parted with a wet rip, ribs cracking audibly as the force spun him mid-air. He hit the ground hard, blood bubbling from the gash, his ODM tanks rupturing in a hiss of escaping gas. He lay there, gasping, his side a mangled ruin of exposed bone and pulsing arteries, the wound cauterized partially by the creature's heat, sealing in the agony like a branded scar.
Screams erupted across the field; raw, primal howls that shattered the night. Cadets froze mid-swing, anchors firing wildly as panic set in. Wires tangled, bodies collided in mid-air, some plummeting as their gear failed under the strain. The quad became a nightmare of flailing limbs and snapping lines, the moonlit sky a deadly web of chaos.
"IT'S HERE!" someone shrieked, their voice cracking with terror. "THE DEMON DOG!"
Oulo, mid-maneuver, felt his blood turn to ice. He swung to a pole, clinging desperately, his eyes wide as he watched Thom writhe on the ground, his side a smoking horror of charred meat and exposed innards. Bile rose in Oulo's throat, but he couldn't look away, the boy's screams were wet, gurgling now, blood foaming at his lips as internal injuries flooded his lungs.
Petra, higher up, fired her anchors toward the instructors' platform. "Sirs! It's back! We have to fall back—!"
But Ral and Kent stood unmoving, their faces impassive in the flickering torchlight. Ral's lips curled into a thin, satisfied smile. "Excellent," he muttered to Kent, his voice too low for the cadets to hear. "The beast has finally shown. My hypothesis was correct, the night exercise drew it like moths to flame."
Kent nodded once, his clipboard set aside, drawing a concealed blade from his sleeve; sleek, black, etched with ominous light that glowed subtly in the dark.
Liam, the survivor of the initial strike, had clambered onto a higher boulder, clutching his burned arm. The skin had split open like overripe fruit, blisters popping with wet bursts, exposing raw, glistening muscle that throbbed with every heartbeat. The pain was a living thing, gnawing at him, but adrenaline kept him moving. He gasped, looking down at the chaos below, his vision blurring from the agony.
A shadow fell over him. He looked up, hope flickering—rescue?
It was Instructor Ral, perched on the boulder above, his face a mask of cold detachment.
"S-Sir!" Liam stammered, his voice raw from screaming. "I-I spotted it! The demon dog—it's here! We have to—"
Ral's eyes gleamed in the moonlight, devoid of any humanity. "Yes," he mused softly, almost to himself. "The beast is here. As planned." He turned his full attention to Liam, his voice dropping to a chilling whisper.
"But who said you could rest, Cadet?"
Before Liam could process the words, Ral's boot lashed out; a precise, brutal kick to the chest. The impact cracked ribs with a sickening snap, driving the air from Liam's lungs in a whoosh. He teetered on the edge, arms windmilling desperately, but his ODM gear; damaged from the heat; failed to fire. The anchors clicked uselessly, wires slack.
Liam plummeted.
The fall was eternal and instantaneous. Wind rushed past his ears, drowning out his scream. He hit the ground with a wet, crunching thud, legs folded unnaturally beneath him while his bones shattered like brittle twigs. His spine arched in agony, a compound fracture in his thigh exposing jagged bone through torn flesh, blood pulsing in rhythmic spurts. He lay there, gasping, the world a blur of pain and distant screams, his body a broken ruin.
Horror rippled through the cadets who saw it; Petra among them, her face ashen. "He... he kicked him! Instructor Ral just—!"
Chaos erupted anew. Four cadets; two boys, two girls; who had been maneuvering nearby broke ranks, firing their anchors toward the forest edge in a desperate bid to escape. "Run! They're killing us! Get out—!"
The Silent Knight; still as Instructor Kent; moved.
It wasn't human speed. One moment he was on the platform; the next, he was airborne, his ODM gear silent as death. He intercepted the first cadet mid-swing; his blade flashing in the moonlight. The cut was precise: a slash across her harness straps. The unfortunate girl plummeted, anchors firing wildly but too late. She hit the ground with a bone-shattering crack, her legs folding at wrong angles, femurs splintering through skin in white, jagged protrusions slick with blood. She screamed, a high, keening wail that cut off in gurgling sobs as internal injuries flooded her lungs.
The second cadet; a boy; tried to veer away, but Kent was already there, phasing through the space like a ghost. A thrust to the gas tank: it ruptured in a hiss of escaping pressure, sending the boy spiraling out of control. He crashed into a pole, the impact snapping his arm backward with a wet pop, the elbow joint reversing in a spray of blood and tendon. He dangled from his remaining wire, screaming, until Kent severed it with a casual flick. The fall was short but fatal; his neck hit the ground first, twisting with a final, sickening crack.
The third and fourth didn't fare better. Kent moved like a reaper, his blade a blur. One took a slash to the thigh mid-air, artery severed in a fountain of crimson that painted the night. She clutched the wound, blood pulsing between her fingers, soaking her uniform as she plummeted, hitting the earth with a thud that silenced her forever. The last; a desperate boy firing anchors wildly; felt Kent's boot connect with his back mid-swing. The force snapped his spine with an audible crack, his body going limp as he fell, limbs flailing uselessly, crashing into the dirt in a broken heap, ribs puncturing lungs in wet bursts.
Four bodies lay still on the ground, slight steam rising from their wounds in the cold night air. The surviving cadets froze in mid-air or on poles, horror etching their faces as the reality sank in: their instructors weren't protectors. They were executioners.
Ral nodded to Kent from the platform, his voice carrying over the stunned silence. "Excellent. Let the demon dog pick them off from here. Don't let any escape."
Petra's blood ran cold. This wasn't training. This was a cull. She fired her anchors higher, shouting to the nearest cadets. "Group up! Stay high! Don't land—!"
But the Vulpimancer was already among them. It phased through a cluster of poles, materializing mid-air beside a dangling cadet. The heat aura hit first; a blistering wave that cooked the boy's face, skin bubbling and peeling like wax under flame, eyes bursting in their sockets with wet pops. He screamed, a raw, animal sound, before the creature's jaws clamped on his leg, tearing the space he occupied. Flesh ripped with a wet shred, bone crunching as the cadet was yanked free, wires snapping. He fell, trailing blood, hitting the ground with a final, lifeless thud.
Screams echoed everywhere now; high, piercing wails that blended into a cacophony of terror. Cadets fired anchors blindly, wires tangling in the panic. One girl misfired, her hook embedding in a classmate's harness instead; they collided mid-air, plummeting together in a tangle of limbs and screams, hitting the earth with bone-shattering force, spines twisting, blood pooling beneath cracked skulls.
Oulo, swinging desperately, felt the heat before he saw the beast. It phased through a pole beside him, the aura scorching his arm; skin reddening, then blistering, bubbles forming and popping in agonizing bursts, exposing raw muscle beneath. He screamed, firing his anchors wildly, he managed to swing away, but the pain was a living fire, nerves screaming as the burns deepened.
The night became a slaughterhouse. The Vulpimancer flowed through the air like smoke made solid, phasing in and out, its parasite glowing brighter with every kill. Heat waves ignited harnesses, gas tanks exploding in mid-air with deafening bangs, shrapnel tearing through flesh. A cadet's tank ruptured near his face; the blast charred half his skull, bone exposed and blackened, eye sockets empty craters as he fell, still twitching.
Ral watched from the platform, his expression one of cold satisfaction. "The beast is performing admirably," he murmured to Kent. "The purge is efficient."
But chaos reigned below. Petra, high on a pole, saw a group of cadets trying to cluster for safety; their wires crossed, forming a web. The Vulpimancer phased through it, its claws raking the space. Three fell at once: one gutted, intestines spilling in steaming loops; another burned so badly his skin sloughed off in sheets as he plummeted; the third's leg severed at the knee, bone jutting white and jagged, blood arcing like a fountain.
"Stay together!" Petra screamed, but her voice was lost in the din. Fear and desperation clawed at her—'This can't be how it ends. Not like this. Not bait for a monster while our instructors watch.'
Another knight; disguised as an auxiliary; patrolled the perimeter, cutting down any who tried to flee. A boy bolted for the training forest's exit; the knight's blade took him in the back, spine severing with a wet snap, body collapsing in a twitching heap.
The field was a nightmare of falling bodies, screams, and the Vulpimancer's guttural roars. The moon watched, cold and unmoved, as the cadets dangled like prey in a web of their own making.
Instructor Ral; better yet Valerius; watched from above, his expression one of clinical satisfaction. The escape attempt had been quashed before it could inspire others. Chaos reigned, but it was contained; funneling the cadets into desperation, making them easier prey for the beast below.
From the treeline, another Knight; clad in ODM gear; grappled up to the platform, landing silently. "My lord" he reported, his voice low and urgent. "We have intruders at the gate. Scouts. A small team; led by the scout called Hange Zoë. And... the beast-hunter, Mike Zacharias, is with them."
Valerius's calm facade cracked for the first time, a flicker of annoyance crossing his features. "Inconvenient," he said, straightening his instructor's jacket. "I'll handle this myself. Maintain the perimeter. Ensure the specimen finishes its work."
The Knight nodded and vanished back into the shadows. Valerius turned to the Silent Knight. "Stay here. Observe. If the Scouts breach, intervene."
With that, he fired his own concealed grapple; hidden beneath his uniform; and swung toward the gate, his mind already weaving the web of lies needed to buy just a little more time.
At the gate, the scene was one of barely contained fury. Hange Zoë stood at the forefront of her small squad; Moblit, Keiji, Abel, and Nifa; her face a storm of rage and determination. Mike loomed beside her, his massive frame tense with his blades half drawn, his nostrils flaring at a scent that made his stomach turn. Two of the Knights' disguised patrols lay unconscious at their feet, subdued in a swift, brutal takedown after they tried to bar the way.
The gate creaked open slightly, and "Instructor Ral" stepped through, his face a mask of calm authority. He regarded the group with polite detachment, as if they were uninvited guests at a tea party.
"I should let you know that you are trespassing, Scouts," he said, voice smooth as oil. "So… what brings you here at this ungodly hour?"
Hange's knuckles whitened around her ODM gear sword, her squad fanned out behind her, blades ready as well. She leaned forward, eyes blazing with cold, murderous fury.
"You know exactly why we're here," she replied coldly, her voice a whip-crack of accusation. "Whatever game you're playing ends now."
Valerius looked impassively at the enraged scouts, emotions heavily masked.
"…Is that so?"
Chapter 26-31 are already available on Patreon.com/Weeb Fanthom.