The memory of a father and son vanished and left Leon with a hollow space in his heart.
Leon looked at his shaking arms, steadying his breath. He slowly shifted his eyes to Zoe.
Zoe looked back at him with a smile, then whispered. "Thank you."
Her expression shifted as she pushed herself up. She exhaled sharply, then turned to Leon again. "You shouldn't have saved me."
The words stayed in Leon's ears longer than they should.
As Zoe whirled around, carrying the stare of someone searching for something, the lead wolf-monster shook its body.
It growled low as it pushed itself up. It looked at Leon for a while before setting out to run.
Zoe watched the direction it headed to, then smiled. She brushed the dust off herself, then turned toward Leon.
"Are you coming?" she asked in a calm voice, then shifted her gaze back to the path she had locked in her head.
Leon's focus lingered on the ground for a second. He pulled a rusted rod from a weakened concrete slab, then pushed himself off the floor.
A series of bone-crackling sounds echoed around him as he straightened his waist.
Zoe inhaled deeply, then stretched her shoulders. "The extraction point is that way," she pointed at the north, where the monster had gone.
"That place?" Leon asked in a confused voice. "But that's –"
"There is a canyon in between that path, I know." She interrupted with an unemotional expression. "The only safe path is through the valley everyone is avoiding."
"A valley everyone is avoiding?" Leon asked, taking a step forward.
"Yes. Those that tried taking that path say something powerful nests there." Zoe said without hesitating.
'A valley everyone is avoiding?' Leon thought, following the direction Zoe pointed. He focused on the path, then looked back at her with an expression mixed with fear and confusion.
"If everyone is avoiding that path, then why are we taking it?"
Zoe didn't answer; she simply threw an angry glance at Leon, then turned and began walking.
"Fine, stay here if you want. I didn't even ask for an alliance."
'An alliance?' Leon thought, looking at the rod in his hands. 'Nah. I don't think I will survive alone.'
He watched Zoe walk for a while, then doubled his steps as he chased after her. "Wait."
…
The two walked side by side without saying a single word.
But when they walked past a dead tree, Leon cleared his throat. "We'll have a better chance together."
Zoe looked at him from the corner of her eyes, and still didn't say a word.
Leon caught the stare before Zoe's giggle took off. "Better chance together?" She laughed it off, shaking her head.
The alliance was not built on friendship like other students had. It was built solely on survival.
Before closing in on the valley, two bat beasts rushed at them like bees. But Zoe neutralized them with one swing even before Leon could catch them coming.
Leon's eyes widened with awe when he saw her wiping her hands clean. 'Damn, she's fast. It's a good thing I chose to move with her. I'd be dead if I were alone.'
Just as they stopped at the front of the valley's entrance, they paused. A thick, poisonous air rolled over them, forcing them to cover their mouths and noses.
'I see why others avoided this place.' Leon said low in his head as he covered his mouth and nose.
The deeper they went, the heavier and more humid and toxic the air became.
Everything around them was draped in thick, sticky webbing that caught the faint purple light.
Zoe lowered her arms from her mouth when they moved past the first three trees. She took in a deep breath, then began tilting her head, scanning the trees in the distance.
'Does she want to die? Why is she walking as if we're in a safe place?' Leon screamed in his head, swallowing hard.
Leon whipped around after he began to hear bone-cracking sounds beneath his boots.
He calculated each step and placed them carefully. Just as the crackling sound stopped, chills ran down Leon's spine.
'What the –' sweat began beading on his face when he noticed he had been walking on human skeletons.
Some were twisted beyond recognition. Others were of a different nature and color.
"What being possesses gold-colored bones?" he murmured when he spotted a fully intact golden skeleton that had been pierced on a dead tree branch.
Zoe turned and placed a finger on her lips. "Shhh…"
She kept her gaze locked on Leon for a long moment before she crouched down and crawled beneath a raised tree root.
Leon crawled through the raised root and followed Zoe. Just as Leon stood up, clearing the ash-dust from his palms, his blood went cold.
Far from them was a colossal beast.
"This is a bad idea," he said, shifting his gaze between the beast and Zoe. He stumbled back until his body pressed hard against the raised root.
Zoe's shoulders lowered while her face remained still. "It's the only way to leave before it awakens."
"Before it what?" Leon said in a loud voice that drifted to the beast and made it shift one of its legs.
"Keep your voice down!" Zoe scolded in a quiet but fierce voice.
To Leon, Zoe's voice and menace were far too calm to contain compared to what was in front of them.
'Is she crazy?' he thought, shaking his head. 'That's a death sentence over there.' He swallowed hard, gave the beast a last look, then focused on Zoe.
Before he could say a word, Zoe began moving toward the beast. His head snapped forward as he watched Zoe sneak past the beast.
'Let me try.' He tried following, but when the beast raised one of its many legs, Leon stopped. As soon as the leg touched the ground, he turned to run.
Zoe screamed in a muffled voice and warned.
Leon turned and began moving forward without knowing if he was the one controlling his body or something else.
After reaching Zoe's side, he crouched down, sweating and panting.
…
They moved as quietly as they could, but the crunching ground began and made them double their steps.
As they neared a massive structure of webbing and salvaged metal built into the side of a cavern, they stopped.
'I'm sure that's the beast's nest.' Leon thought, then shifted his gaze from it. But ended up seeing Zoe's cheeks reddening as she focused more on it.
'What's wrong with her?' Leon screamed inward, then followed Zoe's gaze.
There, inside the nest, was a small crystal that pulsed with a soft blue glow. Looking at it was like staring at the news he saw years back about the rare energy source.
Leon remembered the words some of the people stated in the news:
"With something like that, even a low-level awakened student could rise to the highest rank in a blink."
Zoe cleared her throat and brought Leon's mind back to where they stood. "We are going for that crystal."
She turned to Leon with a look that didn't seek peace. "Without that, we aren't leaving."
Leon's mind buzzed with illusions of what could happen to them if the beast awoke after they grabbed the crystal from its nest.
And among all those countless illusions, he saw them succeeding in only one. Even with that, he had an arm torn.
The crystal's glow was so enticing that it made Leon settle on that single winning illusion.
"What's your plan then?"