Night had fallen over the camp, but no one truly rested.
The tents were up, the fires burned low, and the students were meant to sleep under the protective barrier Irene had raised. But the memory of black-eyed beasts, their blood oozing like tar, lingered too vividly. Every snap of a twig outside the barrier made the students flinch. Every gust of wind sounded like claws dragging against fabric.
Inside their tents, the first-years tossed and turned. Lucas lay staring at the canvas roof, fists clenched, replaying the horde in his head. Ruby lay on her side with her rapier still unsheathed by her pillow, eyes wide open. Aria clutched her staff across her chest like it was the only thing anchoring her. Even Kaelith, who usually radiated an unshakable calm, sat awake cross-legged, fingers drumming against his knees in a rare show of unease.
Sylphie murmured faint healing chants for the wounded who whimpered in their sleep. Ryan mumbled restlessly, his voice bright one moment, trembling the next, while Eren stayed close by him, keeping quiet watch. Marcus sat apart from the others, his darkness affinity flickering faintly in his palm, his jaw tight as if he could still taste the corruption in the beasts' blood.
The air inside the camp was heavy, suffocating. Sleep simply wouldn't come.
Irene stood at the edge of the barrier, her gaze locked on the forest where the shadows thickened unnaturally. Her mana spread outward, threading like invisible veins through the trees. The further she pushed, the more she felt it—something pressing back.
It wasn't the beasts. No, this was different. It was a net, woven of corrupted mana, sealing them in. She reached deeper, then tried again to open a link to the Vice Principal. The communication crystal in her hand flared—then hissed into static.
A frown tightened her face. Someone—something—had cut this place off from the world. Not even her voice could escape.
That meant only one thing: they weren't dealing with a random mutation of beasts. There was a culprit. A will guiding this corruption. And unless they found it… the barrier would keep closing in, smothering them.
Her eyes flicked back toward the students. Dozens of them, restless, uneasy, still bleeding from shallow wounds. Their fear thickened the air. She couldn't leave them—not for a heartbeat.
Yet her thoughts snagged on one absence. Nex.
He had not returned from his mission. By now, he should have been here, recounting his findings like the others, or sleeping somewhere in camp with that cool detachment of his. Instead, there was nothing.
Her heart, though trained to be steel, wavered for just a second. She had seen how Nex fought, how recklessly he threw himself forward, how he endured. But this forest was not normal anymore. It was wrong. And if the net of mana reached where he was…
Her lips pressed thin. She could not go after him. Not while so many young lives depended on her here.
So she stood sentinel, her smile gone, her aura restrained but coiled, eyes fixed on the dark trees.
The students tried to sleep, but unease gnawed at them. Somewhere in the silence, a beast howled—a deep, broken cry that didn't sound alive anymore.
The night dragged on, heavy and tense.
And in the back of every mind was the same thought:
If this was only the beginning… what would the end look like?
____________________________________
(Nex's pov)
The drip of blood was the only sound in the wrecked lab.
Nex followed the faint trail, eyes narrowed, every muscle taut. His senses screamed at him to leave, but something was moving above—skittering along the ceiling. The dim, flickering lights revealed just enough to set his nerves on edge: a shifting shadow that didn't move like any beast he had fought before.
Then, in one brief flash of light, it revealed itself.
The thing dropped down in front of him.
It was wrong. Not alive, not dead, not even beast nor man. Its body was stitched together crudely, like a butcher had forced human and monster flesh into a shape that barely resembled life. Its arms were too long—four of them, jagged, with stitches bursting at the seams. Blood oozed down its skin, thick and black. The torso was bloated, scarred, with cuts still open, and its head—gods—the head was nothing but a burned skull wrapped in stretched, charred skin. No lips, no nose. Just two black eyes with a faint tint of red glowing from within the sockets.
The stench of rot hit Nex like a wave.
He froze. For a moment, his chest constricted. Then the thing moved.
It lunged at him with inhuman speed, shrieking like tearing metal. Nex snapped back to life, vectors shooting out from his body in sharp bursts, slamming the creature away. It hit the wall with a crunch, bones snapping—but it staggered back up, twitching unnaturally, skin ripping where stitches tore apart.
Nex gritted his teeth, blood pounding in his ears. He drew on his vectors again, flinging a shard of broken glass with pinpoint force. It embedded deep in the thing's neck, spraying black blood across the floor—but it didn't fall.
Instead, it laughed. A hollow, gurgling laugh that crawled under his skin.
The lights flickered again. Nex's stomach turned cold. Because now he saw them.
Six more. Crawling from the shadows, dragging themselves across the ruined floor, limbs broken and twisted yet moving. Their voices overlapped, a choir of agony:
"Save me—"
"Save me—I'm huma—"
"Save me—I'm huma—"
Over and over, distorted, like their throats were filled with blood.
Nex's heart hammered against his ribs. He flung himself sideways as one of them lunged, its claws swiping where his head had been. Vectors burst beneath his feet, propelling him across the room. He whipped them outward, snapping steel pipes from the walls and driving them like spears through one monster's chest. The body writhed, blood gushing, before collapsing—but still whispering save me even as it twitched on the ground.
Another came at him from the ceiling. Nex twisted vectors behind his back, slamming himself forward as if pulled by invisible strings, while shards of debris spun around him like blades. He sent them flying into the creature's limbs, severing them mid-lunge. The arms hit the floor with wet smacks, but the torso kept crawling toward him, black blood smearing across the tiles.
His breath grew ragged. His arms trembled. The scent of blood and burning flesh filled his lungs until it made him gag.
Yet the monsters only closed in, six voices now one, crying like a broken prayer:
"Save me—I'm huma—save me—I'm huma—"
The sound rattled his skull, like guilt itself was clawing at him. He wanted to cover his ears, but if he slowed for even a second, he would die.
Vectors screamed outward, cutting, tearing, smashing. He fought like a cornered animal, blood spraying, bones crunching under invisible force. Every strike left gore on the walls, every kill was too close, every dodge barely a hair's width from death.
But for every monster that fell, another dragged itself closer, their stitched forms twitching and shuddering, eyes glowing faint red in the dark.
Nex's chest heaved. His arms ached. His mind screamed at him to keep moving, keep cutting, keep tearing—yet the stitched horrors just kept crawling, whispering their wretched plea:
"Save me—I'm huma—save me—"
One leapt, its jaws snapping inches from his throat. He barely shoved it back with a desperate burst of vectors, stumbling, his back hitting the wall. His vision blurred. His body was slowing.
Then—
[Void Trance: Activated]
The words burned in his mind, cold and sharp.
And everything stopped.
The air went black around him, like ink flooding the room. His heartbeat vanished. Even the screams of the stitched creatures cut off. The world became silent—still.
Nex's eyes widened as his body moved without hesitation, without doubt, without mercy. His veins burned with shadow, vectors stretching out like threads of the abyss itself.
The first creature lunged. Nex didn't dodge. He simply willed, and the monster exploded into a spray of gore, its body crushed into paste by invisible force. Bones snapped like twigs, flesh splattering the walls.
Another reached from the ceiling. Vectors snaked upward, slicing through it with surgical precision, limb by limb, until nothing but a twitching torso fell, spilling black blood. Nex didn't blink. He tore it apart mid-air, scattering chunks across the floor.
The others shrieked—human cries twisted into monstrous sound. Nex raised a hand.
Snap.
The six bodies convulsed. Pressure crushed their spines, ribs bursting outward as blood painted the ceiling. They writhed for a moment, then were ripped into shreds—organs, skin, bone—suspended in the air like a grotesque rain before dropping lifeless to the ground.
Not one of them had a chance to fight back.
It was no battle. It was execution.
Nex stood in the middle of the carnage, his shadow stretching unnaturally, vectors swirling like a crown of blades around him. His face was calm—empty—eyes void of fear, void of doubt.
And then, as suddenly as it came—
[Void Trance: Deactivated]
The blackness drained away.
Nex staggered, gasping, clutching his chest. His hands shook as he looked around. The lab floor was drenched in blood, smeared with flesh. The whispers were gone. The stitched horrors—gone.
Only silence remained.
And yet his own thoughts screamed louder than ever.