N.B : If you'd like to get early access to the next chapters of Universal hope (Chapter 28-31) why not consider supporting me at Patreon.com/Weeb Fanthom. Your donations will be very much appreciated. On my Patreon, supporters get the complete, uninterrupted chapters in full.
A while back…
Petra's throat was clawed with the reeked air of charred flesh and acrid smoke with every ragged breath. Her lungs burned, not just from the sprint but from the sheer wrongness of it all; the metallic tang of blood mingling with the sharp ozone of whatever hellish energy that demon dog emitted. Petra clutched Tina's arm tighter, half-dragging, half-supporting her bunkmate as they scrambled up the rocky incline toward what passed for higher ground in this godforsaken training field. The "higher ground" was little more than a jagged outcrop of boulders and splintered training poles, remnants of the ODM course that had once felt like a playground but now resembled a graveyard of twisted wood and metal.
Tina's leg dragged behind her, the wound a gruesome puncture through her calf; clean through, courtesy of a Forever Knight's blade during their desperate flight from the quad. The steel had pierced muscle and tendon in one swift thrust, leaving a ragged hole that wept blood in thick, pulsing rivulets down her boot. Each step elicited a wet, squelching sound, and Tina's face was a mask of ashen agony, her freckles stark against skin drained of color. She bit down on her lip hard enough to draw blood, stifling whimpers that threatened to escape. Petra's own arm throbbed from a fresh sprain, earned when she'd shoved Tina out of the path of a falling cadet whose ODM gear had failed mid-swing, but she pushed the pain down, burying it under layers of numb determination. They couldn't stop. Stopping meant dying.
"Just a little further," Petra gasped, her voice hoarse and cracking. "We get up there, we can see what's coming. Plan our next move."
Tina nodded weakly, but her eyes; wide and glassy; betrayed the truth. She was fading, shock setting in while it stole her strength one shallow breath at a time. Petra's mind raced, a whirlwind of fragmented thoughts: 'What the hell is happening? Why are the instructors doing this? They were supposed to protect us, train us... not slaughter us like livestock! Is this some twisted test? Or... or are they not our instructors at all?' The madness of it clawed at her sanity. Hours ago, she'd been dreaming of graduation eventually, of seeing her parents' farm again. Now? Now it was survival, raw and primal, against enemies wearing familiar faces.
They crested the outcrop, collapsing behind a cluster of boulders that offered scant cover. Petra peered over the edge, her heart seizing at the vista below. The quad was a slaughterhouse under the moon's cold gaze. Cadets; peers she'd eaten with, trained with, laughed with…dangled from tangled ODM wires like broken puppets, their bodies twisted at unnatural angles. Some still twitched, their final gasps lost in the of streams of screams. The demon dog, that hulking abomination of purple muscle and strobing blue sigils, phased in and out of reality, its heat aura turning the air into a shimmering oven. One cadet, a boy she'd sparred with just yesterday, misfired his anchors and plummeted straight into its path. The aura hit him first; his skin bubbled and peeled like wax under a flame, blisters swelling and bursting in wet pops, exposing raw, glistening muscle beneath. He screamed, a high, keening wail that cut off as the beast's claws raked through him, eviscerating him mid-fall. Guts spilled in steaming loops, hitting the ground with a wet slap, his body crumpling into a heap of charred meat and exposed bone.
But it wasn't just the beast. Petra's stomach churned as she watched the "instructors"—those bastards in their uniforms, cut down anyone who dared flee. One girl bolted for the treeline, her ODM gear firing wildly. An "instructor" intercepted her mid-swing, his blade slashing across her harness straps. She plummeted, wires snapping, hitting the earth with a bone-shattering crack. Her legs folded at wrong angles, femurs splintering through skin in white, jagged protrusions slick with blood. She screamed, but the "instructor" was already there, his boot stomping down on her throat with a wet crunch, silencing her forever.
"What... what is this?" Tina whispered, her voice a broken sob. She clutched her pierced leg, blood soaking the dirt beneath her. The wound was a ragged hole, tendon visible through the tear, pulsing with every heartbeat. "Why are they doing this? They're supposed to be—"
"They're not them," Petra cut in, her voice trembling with a mix of rage and terror. "They're impostors. They have to be. No real instructor would... would..." She couldn't finish, the words choking in her throat as another scream pierced the night; a boy's wail cut short by a blade's hiss.
The horror was relentless, one cadet tried to crawl away from the beast's path, his side a mangled ruin of exposed ribs and pulsing arteries from an earlier swipe. The wound smoked, cauterized partially by the heat and sealed in the agony like a branded scar. He gasped, blood foaming at his lips, but a Knight's boot crushed his hand with a crunch of bones, pinning him as the beast loomed closer.
Petra tore her gaze away, scanning for any sign of escape. But the Knights had blocked every path; perimeter patrols cutting down runners with cold efficiency. One boy made it halfway to the gate, only for a Knight's anchor to hook his leg, ripping tendon with a wet snap as he was yanked back. The Knight finished him with a thrust to the chest, blood bubbling from the wound like a geyser.
"We can't just hide," Petra muttered, her sprained arm throbbing as she flexed it. The injury was a dull fire, tendons stretched to near-tearing from shielding Tina earlier. "We have to do something."
Tina nodded through her pain, but her pierced leg buckled when she tried to stand, the wound weeping fresh blood. "Petra... I can't... it hurts so much..."
A rustle from the shadows below their outcrop. Petra's heart leaped into her throat. Five more cadets burst from cover; A wiry boy named Tim, and four others she vaguely recognized from the boys' dorm. Their faces were soot-streaked masks of terror, uniforms torn and singed.
"Up here!" Petra hissed, waving them over. They scrambled up the rocks, collapsing beside her and Tina.
"What... what the hell is going on?" Tim gasped, his arm blistered raw from a near-miss with the beast's heat. The skin had split like overripe fruit, blisters popping in wet bursts, exposing glistening muscle that throbbed with every breath. "The instructors—they're killing us!"
"I know," Petra said, her voice steady despite the storm inside. "We can't just hide," Petra said, her voice carrying more conviction than she felt. "They're picking us off one by one. We need to move as a unit. Break through their line."
"What line?" One of the other boys named Henning snapped, gesturing wildly. "There's the demon, and there's the instructors-turned-butchers, and they're working together! How do we fight that?"
"We don't fight the demon," Petra said, her mind racing. "We use what we know. Their perimeter is tight, but it's thin in places. They're relying on our panic. On us scattering."
She pointed to a cluster of knights blocking the path to the eastern woods; three of them, positioned between two storage buildings. "Remember Drill Seven? The diversionary feint?"
Tina blinked. "The one Instructor Ral failed us on last week because Tim messed up the timing?"
"Hey!" Tim protested, clutching his burned arm.
"Exactly," Petra said, a grim smile touching her lips. "Because it relies on perfect timing. And they won't expect us to be coordinated. We're just scared kids, right?"
It was madness. But it was a plan. And in the absence of any sane authority, a mad plan was better than none. They nodded, fear hardening into resolve. Petra led the way, helping Tina down the outcrop. They moved low, using the boulders for cover, creeping toward a cluster of five cadets huddled behind an overturned supply cart. Petra signaled; they joined, wide-eyed and whispering frantic thanks.
"Listen up," Petra said, her voice low and commanding. "We're getting out. Follow my lead."
The group; now twelve; slipped into the fray. Petra, with her sprained wrist wrapped hastily in a torn strip of uniform, directed. Petra's plan was simple but bold: use the ODM confusion drill. Split into pairs, fire anchors in erratic patterns to create visual chaos, feint attacks on one Knight while the real escape vectored the opposite way.
They targeted the patrol of three Knights blocking their intended path. Petra fired first, her anchor whizzing past a Knight's head; close enough to draw attention but not hit. "Now!" she hissed.
The ODM team; consisting of Henning and two others; swung out, shouting, drawing the knights' attention. Blades flashed. Henning took a shallow cut to the leg but kept moving. It worked, the knights, disciplined but predictable, shifted to contain the apparent threat.
As the knights moved to intercept, the main group; the nine others mostly on foot; would rush the now-weakened eastern point.
The ground team surged forward. They were almost to the tree line. Almost.
Then Tim, eager to prove himself from the previous slander, broke formation. Instead of following Petra through the designated gap, he veered left, aiming for a knight who seemed isolated. "I've got this one!" he yelled, overconfident, his burned arm making his grapple shot clumsy.
The knight wasn't isolated. He was bait.
Two more emerged from the shadows of the trees. Tim's eyes widened in realization a half-second before a blade took him in the chest. He made a wet, choking sound, stumbling backward into one of the escaping cadets, who screamed as his blood splashed across her face.
"Tim!" Petra screamed, turning back.
Panic, that old enemy, returned to bite them hard in the ass.
The formation shattered. Cadets tripped over each other. A knight's blade found the neck of a girl named Lise, and she fell without a sound. The ODM team, seeing the ground assault collapse, tried to retreat, but their retreat became a rout.
"Fall back! Fall back!" Petra screamed, grabbing Tina's arm and pulling her toward the boulders they'd just left.
A knight landed in front of them, ODM gear hissing. His sword was already raised for a downward cleaving strike aimed at Tina's head. Petra reacted on pure instinct. She shoved Tina aside hard whilst throwing her own body into the path of the blade, her sprained arm exploding in fresh agony as she raised it to block; futile, but instinctive.
The blade descended, but it never met its target.
There was a sharp, crystalline whisssht sound, like the air itself being sliced. A shard of pure, glittering emerald diamond, longer than a man's forearm and sharpened to a point that seemed to distort the light around it, shot from the darkness between the trees. It embedded in the Knight's chest with a wet thunk, piercing armor and flesh in one clean thrust. The Knight's eyes widened behind his visor, blood bubbling from his lips as he toppled backward, dead before he hit the ground.
More shards followed; erupting from the earth, the trees, the air itself. They didn't just kill; they trapped. One Knight was impaled through the thigh, pinning him to a tree with a scream as bone splintered. Another who was aiming a crossbow at Petra's clustered group, had his weapon encased in a solid diamond block that fused to his hands. A third tried to flee; a wall of jagged spikes bloomed before him, herding him back until a final shard pierced his shoulder, dropping him to his knees.
The remaining assailants; five now; backed up, blades wavering. "What sorcery is this?!" one snarled.
The answer landed with earth-shaking force. A massive figure dropped from the night sky, hitting the ground between the cadets and the Knights with a thud that cracked stone. Petra stumbled, catching Tina as the dust settled. The figure slowly rose. It was tall, imposing, its body a living sculpture of interlocking green crystal facets that gleamed with an inner light. Broad shoulders, arms crossed over a powerful chest, two crystalline spikes protruding from his back. Where a face should be was a smooth plane of emerald diamond, with two glowing green eyes that surveyed the scene with an unnerving calm.
Petra's breath caught. The Crystal Titan. Real. Here. Standing between them and death.
The name, a myth from Shiganshina, a rumor of a crystal titan, whispered in awe and terror, now stood before them in impossible reality.
The Knights stared, their facades of ruthless efficiency cracking into bewilderment and fear. One whispered, "It's... it's the abomination..."
Obsidian; for that's what it was; tilted his helmeted head slightly. His voice boomed, deep and resonant, echoing like struck crystal. "Drop your weapons." A pause, the green eyes sweeping over the pinned, struggling forms of their comrades…and the still bodies of the 'unfortunate' dead one. "If you don't want to end up like them."
The Knights exchanged glances. One knight, younger, fueled by fanaticism over sense, let out a ragged cry and charged, sword held high in a two-handed grip.
Obsidian didn't flinch. He simply shifted his weight and backhanded the Knight mid-leap. The impact was catastrophic; a wet smack of flesh meeting unyielding diamond. The Knight flew meters through the air, crashing into a burning shed with a splintering crunch, his body folding unnaturally as bones shattered. He didn't get up.
Obsidian turned his gaze back to the remaining four. "You bastards. You enjoy this, don't you? Hunting children. You won't find any mercy here."
The remaining four hesitated, then surged in desperate unison. Two tried to coordinate an ambush, firing ODM anchors to come at him from both sides. Obsidian moved with a speed that belied his crystalline bulk. His hands shot out, not with claws or blades, but with open palms. He caught both knights by their harnesses mid-swing, and with a contemptuous flex of impossible strength, he slammed them together. They dropped, limp and bleeding from ears and noses, brains rattled into unconsciousness.
Another two tried to flee. Obsidian stomped a crystalline foot. The ground erupted in a circle around them, not with spikes, but with bands of crystal that wove around their legs, torsos, and arms, fusing together into a collective, squirming prison of glittering green. They struggled, futily, like insects in amber.
"Let's see how you enjoy being the ones trapped." Obsidian sneered, his voice a low rumble of disdain and contempt.
The last knight, perhaps the smartest or most cowardly, had tried to circle behind during the chaos. He lunged now, blamed aimed for the joint at the back of Obsidian's knee. The crystal titan didn't even turn. One crystalline hand came up in a dismissive gesture, index finger extended. He tapped the knight's forehead.
Thock.
A small, perfectly formed diamond encased the man's head instantly, like a grotesque, glittering helmet. The knight stumbled, his body unable to compensate for the sudden, immense weight on his skull. The man toppled backward, clawing at the crystal, his muffled screams echoing dully as he writhed on the ground, the weight too much for his neck to bear.
Silence, thick and stunned, fell over the ruined corner of the quad. The only sounds were the crackle of distant fires, the moans of the wounded, and the ragged breathing of the surviving cadets.
Obsidian turned, the smooth plane of his face regarding Petra and her group. The terrifying green glow of his eyes seemed to soften, just a fraction. "Are you alright?"
Petra nodded shakily, adrenaline still surging. "We'll... we'll manage." Her sprained arm hung limp, swollen and throbbing, but she ignored it.
Obsidian's gaze swept over them, pausing on Tina, who was leaning heavily against Petra, her leg pierced through by a stray piece of shrapnel, blood soaking her uniform. A low hum emanated from the crystal being. He raised a hand, and from the ground at his feet, a shaft of crystal grew, shaping itself; smoothing, forming a grip, a length. He snapped it off and held it out. A perfectly crafted crystalline staff, light but sturdy.
"Here. For support." He offered it to Tina.
Tina, wide-eyed, took it hesitantly with trembling hands, her fingers brushing the cool surface. "Th-thank you..."
"Go," Obsidian urged. "Get out of here while you still can."
"Wh-what about you?" Petra asked.
"There are more to save." He said it simply, as if stating a fact of nature. He turned, leaping back into the fray to save those he could; shards blooming to catch falling cadets far away, walls rising to block Knights.
Petra led her group away, hearts pounding, weaving through the smoke-choked paths to a safer distance. They collapsed behind a low wall, gasping. Tina leaned on the staff, her pierced leg elevated slightly, the wound a pulsing agony that made her vision blur.
"That's... the Crystal Titan," one cadet whispered, awe and fear mingling. "It's real. And it's... helping us?"
"…Yeah. I guess so." Was all Petra could say.
Chapter 28-31 are already available on Patreon.com/Weeb Fanthom.