The walk to the morning training grounds was a journey through enemy territory. Zero moved through the familiar, sun-dappled pathways of the academy, but the world felt different, hostile. The cheerful chatter of his fellow students was a grating, alien noise. The gentle breeze carried scents that his newly awakened predatory senses amplified into a dizzying assault—the sweat of a hundred exercising bodies, the distant aroma of baking bread from the kitchens, the faint, metallic tang of blood from a sparring match that had drawn a careless cut.
He felt raw, exposed, a nerve ending scraped against the rough stone of the world. He had not yet acquired [Callous]. That grim, emotional armor had not yet been forged. All he had was the hollowed-out trauma of the previous night and the gnawing, parasitic hunger in his gut, a hunger that made every living, breathing person he passed look less like a fellow student and more like… a potential meal. The thought was so vile, so intrusive, that it made his stomach churn with a fresh wave of self-loathing.
He was in a state of hyper-vigilance, his internal monologue a frantic, running cycle of threat assessment. Every student who glanced his way was a potential witness, a potential threat. The stern-faced professor striding past was an agent of an order that would see him executed for his very existence. He was a wolf forced to walk among a flock of sheep, terrified that they would see the fangs he was so desperately trying to hide.
He found a secluded corner of the training grounds, far from the main sparring rings where the knights and warriors practiced their flashy, honor-bound forms. This was a place for porters and other F-Rankers to practice the mundane, carrying weighted packs up and down a set of steep, stone steps. It was grueling, unglamorous work, and no one of importance ever came here. It was the perfect, anonymous place to lose himself in the familiar, mind-numbing burn of physical exertion.
He shouldered a pack loaded with heavy sandbags and began to climb. Step after grueling step. The pain in his muscles was a welcome distraction, a clean, honest agony that temporarily drowned out the gnawing hunger and the screaming of Ashe's ghost. He focused on the rhythm of his breathing, the burn in his thighs, the simple, physical reality of the task. Up. Down. Up. Down. A mindless, Sisyphean punishment that felt strangely like penance.
It was on his tenth ascent that he saw him.
Across the sprawling expanse of the training grounds, near the main arena, was a cluster of elite students. And at their center, holding court, was Marcus Vance. He wasn't training. He was leaning on a pair of ornate, magically supported crutches, his left foot encased in a bulky, rune-scribed healing cast. He wasn't dressed in training gear, but in a fine, silk tunic, as if he were here merely to observe, to remind everyone of his status despite his injury.
As if sensing Zero's gaze, Marcus looked up. Their eyes met across the hundred yards of open space.
The world seemed to fall away. The noise of the training grounds, the shouts of the instructors, the clang of steel on steel—it all faded into a dull, distant hum. There was only the look in Marcus's eyes.
It was not the look of an arrogant bully who had been humiliated. It was not the look of a petulant child planning a petty revenge.
It was the cold, flat, and utterly committed gaze of a hunter who has spotted his prey. The public humiliation, the broken foot—those were no longer the point. Zero had done more than injure him; he had challenged his place in the world, his very identity. This was no longer about status. It was about eradication. The look in Marcus's eyes was a silent, unambiguous promise of murder.
A jolt of pure, primal fear, cold and sharp as a shard of ice, shot through Zero. This was not a fight he could win with a clever trick or a desperate, back-alley brawl. This was a war. A war he was not equipped to fight. Marcus had money, status, and connections. He had an F-Rank and a monstrous, soul-eating secret.
The hunger in his gut, which had been a dull ache, suddenly sharpened into a vicious, biting cramp, as if sensing his fear, his weakness.
You are prey, it seemed to whisper. Weak. Helpless. You will be hunted. You will be torn apart.
He broke eye contact first, his gaze dropping to the stone steps, his heart hammering against his ribs. He turned and continued his climb, his movements suddenly stiff, his breath catching in his throat. He could feel Marcus's gaze on his back, a physical weight, a brand of ownership.
The rest of the morning passed in a blur of paranoid tension. He finished his training, his muscles screaming, but the physical pain was nothing compared to the psychological vise that was tightening around him. He felt hunted. Every shadow seemed to hold a threat. Every corner he turned was a potential ambush.
He saw Gregor's face in the crowd, the final, terrified look in his eyes. He heard the sickening crunch of the brick. He felt the phantom stain of blood on his hands. He had killed to survive, but the act had not made him safer. It had only painted a larger, more dangerous target on his back.
He skipped the midday meal, the thought of the crowded, noisy refectory unbearable. He retreated to the one place on campus he had always found solace: the library. He hid himself in a dusty, forgotten corner of the history section, surrounded by the silent, comforting presence of old books.
He tried to lose himself in his studies, to formulate a plan, to think his way out of the corner he was in. But his mind was a frantic, chaotic mess. The fear, the hunger, and the guilt were a three-headed beast, devouring his thoughts, leaving no room for the cold, analytical logic he so desperately needed.
He was a ghost, haunted by the past he had lived and the future he was trying to unmake. He was an anomaly, a glitch in a system that was actively trying to correct the error. And he was a boy, a terrified, sixteen-year-old boy who was in far, far over his head.
He leaned his forehead against the cool, leather-bound spine of a heavy tome, his eyes squeezed shut. The silence of the library was no longer a comfort. It was a vacuum, amplifying the sound of his own ragged, terrified breathing. He was alone. Utterly, completely alone. And the hunters were closing in.