"You know, it's so crazy I'm still getting used to this whole magic thing," she said, a playful grin on her face as we walked through the forest. "But I've been training diligently. I finally managed to cast my first spell! Just a basic speed enhancement, but hey, it was enough to catch you off guard." She nudged me gently with her elbow, clearly proud of herself.
"Oh, wait!" She suddenly stopped. "I didn't even introduce myself. I'm Lan but people close to me call me London."
She said it like it was a secret nickname, a name reserved for people who mattered.
She continued leading me through the woods, toward the red team's jail. It wasn't exactly a long walk, but it felt longer with the way she kept chatting, her voice light, but not without depth.
"You're lucky, you know," she said. "Finding friends like that, in a time like this... I've heard a little about you. I mean, everyone's talking."
She looked at me then really looked at me. Her expression softened, eyes dimming with something I couldn't quite place.
"And... I know how hard it is to be alone," she added, her voice quieter now. "So I hope you can find comfort in the people you've met here. I hope you truly feel connected."
The way she said it made something flicker inside me.
Did I feel connected?
I thought about Aqua's teasing. Olsen's determination. Vayne's calm strength. Flora's grumbling loyalty. They weren't just teammates. But still… did I belong?
I didn't feel alone. But I didn't feel fully grounded yet either. Not quite.
"We're here!" Lan said brightly, stopping in front of the makeshift red team jail just a roped-off clearing with glowing boundary markers. "Once your five minutes is up, head back to your base. Try not to get caught again on the way, though you probably will."
She smirked, tossing me a playful wink. "By me, of course."
It's colder than it was an hour ago… and darker, too.
I glanced around the forest, shivering slightly. What time is it around 6 p.m.? Is that why it's already so dark?
There was no way to tell. The trees made everything feel earlier and later than it really was. The GPS tracker buzzed faintly on my belt, but even that didn't help much when you were stuck standing alone in the middle of nowhere with no timer. Just waiting.
Five minutes of jail time felt more like five hours.
I kicked a small pebble, watching it bounce off a tree root. "This is kinda getting creepy," I muttered. The forest had grown still. Not peaceful-still unnatural. Like it was holding its breath.
I shook it off, refusing to be spooked. Not when I was already trying so hard to blend in.
"Hey!"
My head jerked up, startled. A figure approached, stepping lightly over the roots. Faye.
Only… she looked surprised to see me.
"Oh," she said, blinking. "You're not who I expected." Then her gaze narrowed slightly, searching my face. There was something intense about the way she looked at people, like she saw more than she was supposed to.
She relaxed, a soft smile forming. "Doesn't matter. I'm not in a rush. Besides... she'll come to me."
I wasn't sure what that meant, but she didn't explain. She crouched next to me casually, eyes drifting toward the treetops.
"You know," she continued, her voice gentler now, "I'm still surprised you're standing here. I mean, you barely knew magic even existed a few days ago… and yet, here you are. You accepted your reality faster than most. You didn't crumble."
She glanced sideways at me. "Use every resource you've got. That's what I believe."
Then, just like that, she stood to leave.
But something stopped her.
Grrrrrr...
A deep growl echoed from the trees behind us. My blood ran cold.
"What was that?" I whispered, frozen in place. "Is this forest known for bears or… something worse?"
Her body stiffened, her expression darkening as the growl came again closer this time. Leaves rustled, and a foul, inky scent filled the air.
"No," she said, her voice suddenly hard. "We'll know soon enough."
The underbrush trembled violently.
"For my principles of justice," Faye said quietly, drawing a wooden sword from her back, "the first one is to protect those who can't protect themselves. Don't worry. You're safe with me."
With one smooth motion, she popped the top off a flash vial filled with water and poured it over her palm. As it ran across her fingers, her magic lit up in a soft, pale glow. Water magic, refined and focused.
The liquid surged down the blade of her sword, coating it in a rippling, fluid shine.
"This is all I know for now," she said, planting her feet.
We braced ourselves.
Branches snapped, leaves burst outward and then we saw it.
Towering. Twisted. A beast made of darkness and bone. Its limbs were disproportionate, and its fur looked more like smoke than flesh. Its fangs dripped with black ichor. This wasn't just a mutated animal.
It was a spirit beast.
The same kind I'd seen before… but bigger. And angrier.
"ELI! FAYE! Are you okay? Retreat, retreat!" Instructor Renya's voice shouted through the comms.
Too late.
The beast lunged.
Faye met it head-on, parrying its first slash with her glowing blade. She staggered slightly under the weight of the impact but held strong, teeth clenched in focus. The monster growled again, swiping faster, but she moved like water slipping just out of reach, retaliating where she could.
She couldn't keep it up forever.
I have to help.
"I'll distract it!" I yelled, circling behind the monster.
"What?! No, wait!"
But I was already moving.
It worked sort of. The beast turned toward me, howling with fury. Now I was its target.
I ran. Hard.
"Shit, shit, shit!" I gasped, barely dodging a claw that tore a tree trunk in half beside me. I shouldn't have done this. I'm going to die.
It lunged again I stopped cold, caught in its shadow, breath frozen in my throat.
Then...
"DUCK!"
Faye's voice cut through the chaos. I dropped instinctively.
A streak of blue light flashed over me. Her blade arced through the air, glowing with condensed water magic. With a sharp shlick, it sliced through the beast's neck. Its body crumpled like mist, melting into dark vapor.
Silence.
Faye stood above me, chest heaving, eyes still locked where the monster had been.
"I'm glad you listened," she panted. "But next time, maybe give me a little warning before you charge off and almost die."
I collapsed beside her in the dirt, heart pounding out of my chest. "Yeah," I muttered, letting out a breathless laugh. "I'm... glad I listened too."
We sat in silence for a while me, Faye, and the lingering scent of evaporated monster smoke.
The forest, oddly, had gone quiet again. The eerie kind of quiet, like the world itself was trying to understand what had just happened. The adrenaline still buzzed in my limbs, but my chest was starting to ache from all the running. And the fear. And maybe the sheer weight of realizing that I'd almost died.
Instructor Renya's voice returned in a sharp burst through the comms.
"Eli. Faye. Report now. Is it down?"
Faye stood slowly, still catching her breath. "Yeah. It's gone," she said into the mic. "But it wasn't normal. This wasn't part of the game."
"No kidding," I muttered under my breath. I wiped my brow and realized my hands were shaking.
"Return to the edge of the forest. That's an order," Renya commanded. Her voice didn't carry its usual teasing tone. She sounded… tense. Even worried.
We began making our way back, the two of us limping slightly. My mind wandered to what Faye had said before the fight.
You accepted your reality faster than most.
Was that what I was doing? Accepting? I wasn't sure anymore. What part of this felt normal? Spirit beasts. Magical swords. Water glowing from someone's palm.
I looked over at her, and for the first time, really noticed how young she still looked, even after what she just did. Strong, yes, but not invincible. Not untouched.
"You okay?" I asked.
She glanced over, offered a small nod. "Yeah. You?"
"I think so." I forced a small grin. "Still processing."
Back at the forest's edge, Instructor Renya was already waiting, arms crossed. Her usual laid-back expression was gone, replaced with stern eyes that scanned both of us from head to toe. Her gaze lingered on the black marks left by the beast's presence.
"You should've run sooner," she said flatly.
"We tried," Faye replied. "But it was already too close."
Renya sighed, then rubbed her temples. "So the reports were true? Didn't think we'd one so soon. We'll have to tighten the border."
I blinked. "So… that thing really wasn't part of the training?"
She shook her head. "No. That was real. And dangerous."
A few other students were gathering nearby now, murmuring in hushed voices, casting us glances like we'd just walked back from a battlefield which, I guess, we had.
"Don't repeat what happened here to everyone," Renya added. "Not yet. We don't want panic." Then her voice softened. "But… good job. Both of you."
Faye gave a tired salute. I just nodded, still replaying the way that thing moved. How its growl made my bones rattle.
Eventually, we were dismissed. The rest of the game was called off. Too risky.
I found Aqua and Flora sitting on a bench near the dorms, whispering about what had happened. They looked up when I approached.
"You okay?" Aqua asked, her voice unusually serious.
"Yeah… more or less."
"Did you really see a spirit beast?" Flora whispered.
"I wish I didn't."
Olsen jogged over from across the field, red in the face from what looked like a heated conversation with Faye's team. "What happened out there? I heard you guys fought a..."
"Later," Aqua cut in. "Let him sit down first."
I sank onto the bench with a grateful sigh. My legs felt like jelly. Aqua passed me a bottle of cold water without saying a word.
We all sat in silence for a bit, watching the evening sky dim to violet. A gentle breeze swept through the trees, but it didn't feel calming. Not after today.
Something was shifting at Abarice. The forest wasn't safe. And neither were we.
*****
Later that night, when the campus had quieted and the students had retired to their dorms, Instructor Renya moved silently through the perimeter woods. The moonlight filtered down through the tangled branches, casting long shadows that danced with every step she took. Her face was unreadable, her mind racing.
She stopped near the place where Faye and Eli had encountered the beast.
The ground still bore the signs of a struggle clawed bark, crushed leaves, scorched patches where magic had met darkness. But what Renya focused on wasn't the battle. It was the ward stone embedded in the trunk of an old pine. Or rather… what used to be a ward stone.
She knelt, brushing her fingers over it.
Cracked.
Drained.
Sabotaged.
Her brows furrowed.
The protective magic that surrounded Abarice had been slowly weakening over the past few days, according to a few scouts. A coincidence, some thought. Natural wear. But Renya had felt it in her gut this wasn't decay. It was intent.
She stood and moved deeper along the forest's edge, stopping at three more ward points. Each one was the same. The glyphs had been carefully unspooled tampered with, not destroyed, as if someone wanted to hide the evidence for as long as possible.
"This wasn't a beast slipping through a crack," she whispered under her breath. "Someone made the crack."
She reached into her coat, pulling out a small, smooth crystal. Whispering a short incantation, the surface glowed and revealed a shifting map of the surrounding wards. Four of the eight outer markers had failed.
Four.
Too many for coincidence.
Renya's stomach twisted. A barrier that had held strong for years was now riddled with breaks and beasts were already getting in.
If this keeps up, the students won't just be fighting during training… they'll be fighting to survive.
She had no choice.
"We need a new spell," she said aloud, "and a better one at that. These glyphs are too old, too easy to unweave."
She turned sharply, already retreating from the forest. Her footsteps were quick now, focused. She needed to return to the clan house. She needed to speak to the leader.
But as she moved, the wind shifted unnaturally.
A breeze that felt too cold. Too deliberate.
She froze.
Then, faintly… a sound. A whisper in a language she hadn't heard in over a decade.
She spun, but the forest was empty.
Almost.
Far off, just at the edge of sight, stood a figure. Hooded. Silent. Watching.
When she blinked, it was gone.
Renya narrowed her eyes, the tension in her body coiling tighter than a drawn bowstring.
She didn't speak. She just turned and moved faster, almost running now.
The clan needed to know.
But something… or someone… already knew she knew.