The sky over Aethelgard was the color of a fresh bruise.
Dante leaned against the cold stone of the rampart, his lungs burning with every breath. In his hand, he held a standard-issue iron spear—blunt, rusted, and utterly useless against what was coming. Beside him, thirty other boys, none older than nineteen, trembled in their oversized armor.
"Steady," whispered Leo, the boy to his left. Leo was the only friend Dante had in the Academy. "The Mist-Bell hasn't rung yet. Maybe they won't come tonight."
Dante didn't answer. He looked at his own reflection in a puddle of muddy water. His skin was unnaturally pale, his hair white as bone. The Pale-Blood. A curse, they called it. A sign of a soul born empty.
CLANG.
The bell didn't ring; it shrieked.
From the wall of red mist three hundred yards away, the first shadow emerged. It was tall—four meters at least—with limbs that looked like twisted tree branches and a face that was just a jagged hole where a mouth should be. A Stalker.
"Archers, fire!" a voice commanded from the safety of the secondary wall.
A rain of arrows whistled overhead, but they did nothing. The Stalker didn't even flinch. It began to run. Then another emerged. And another. A tide of red skin and white teeth.
"Wait, why are the gates closing behind us?" Leo's voice rose to a scream.
Dante spun around. The massive iron portcullis of the inner city was grinding shut. Their commander, General Varrick, stood on the upper balcony, his golden armor gleaming. He wasn't looking at the enemy; he was looking at the recruits with the cold eyes of a man discarding trash.
"You are the shield of Aethelgard!" Varrick shouted. "Die with honor!"
"He's locking us out," Dante whispered, the reality freezing his marrow. "We aren't the defense. We're the distraction."
The first Stalker reached the line. It didn't use a weapon. It simply swung its massive hand, decapitating two boys in a single motion. The air filled with the metallic scent of blood.
Leo tried to run, but a second monster caught him. Dante watched in horror as the Stalker pressed its palm against Leo's chest. The boy didn't bleed out; his very essence seemed to be sucked into the monster's skin. Leo withered like a dried grape in seconds, and the monster's wounds began to heal.
Dante was the last one standing. Three Stalkers circled him, their hollow mouths hissing.
"Is this it?" Dante asked the red sky. "I was born with nothing, lived for nothing, and now I die for nothing?"
One of the Stalkers lunged, its claws piercing Dante's shoulder, pinning him to the stone. The pain was white-hot, blinding. He felt his "Pale Blood" leaking out.
The monster leaned in to feast, its hollow face inches from his.
But as the creature began to drain him, something went wrong. Dante's blood didn't flow into the monster; it felt like the monster was being pulled into Dante.
A searing, hungry heat erupted from Dante's heart. It wasn't the warmth of life; it was the roar of a furnace.
"You want my blood?" Dante growled, his vision turning pitch black. "THEN TAKE IT ALL!"
He grabbed the monster's neck with his bare hands. To his shock, his fingers sank into the creature's tough hide like hot knives through wax. He didn't push; he pulled.
A gout of glowing red energy was ripped out of the Stalker's chest and absorbed into Dante's palms. The monster let out a sound it shouldn't have been able to make—a scream of pure, existential terror. It shriveled into dust before it even hit the ground.
Dante stood up. His shoulder had healed instantly. His "Pale Blood" was now pulsing with a violent, crimson light.
[Status: Satiated.]
[Essence Absorbed: Rank 1 Stalker.]
[New Skill: Blood-Blade unlocked.]
From the palm of his hand, a blade of solidified, crystalline blood slowly emerged. It was beautiful. It was terrifying.
Dante looked up at General Varrick, who was staring down from the high wall, his face pale with shock.
"General!" Dante shouted, his voice echoing with a power that made the stone beneath him vibrate. "The gate is closed. But don't worry..."
He pointed his new blade at the army of monsters, then at the man who had betrayed him.
"...I'll carve a new one."