The hallway was a frozen tableau, a silent, three-part story. At one end, Mina, her knuckles white on the books she clutched to her chest. In the middle, Devis, gasping and clutching his chest, his face a mask of shocked, humiliated pain. And at the other end, Dev.
The cold, silent stare between Dev and Mina stretched for one, two, three seconds. In her eyes, he saw a dawning, frantic terror. In his, she saw nothing. An absolute, inhuman void.
Dev broke the stare first.
He didn't care. She was an 'unknown variable,' a 'non-hostile.' Devis was a 'neutralized threat.' His objective was 'class.'
He turned, his back to her, and began to walk. He didn't hurry. He didn't look back. As he reached the gasping, whimpering bully, he didn't kick him. He didn't speak. He simply, casually, stepped around Devis's legs, as if he were a discarded piece of trash, a log, an inconvenient object in his path.
This single act of complete, profound indifference was more terrifying to Mina than the catch, more brutal than the shove. It was the act of a creature that didn't even register them as being on the same level of existence.
Dev turned the corner and was gone.
Mina's hands were shaking. She stared at the spot where he had been, her mind a screaming siren of impossible contradictions. She didn't help Devis. She didn't go to class. She turned and ran, her footsteps echoing, not toward the nurse's office, but toward the school library.
Her mind was logical. Analytical. And what she had just seen was a logical impossibility. She needed data. She needed proof of what she knew to be true, so she could understand the lie she had just witnessed.
She sat at a computer terminal, her fingers flying across the keyboard, logging into the school's administrative portal with her class president credentials. She wasn't looking for gossip. She was looking for facts.
She pulled up the student records. First, Devis. 'Status: Active. Physicals: Height 180cm, Weight 82kg. Disciplinary: 12 infractions.'
Then, she pulled up Dev's. 'Status: Active.'
She clicked into his archived file, her heart hammering. She found the previous semester's physical education assessments.
[STUDENT: Dev]
[P.E. ASSESSMENT (LAST SEMESTER):]
[1.6km Run: 12:45 (Rank: 78/78)]
[Pull-ups: 0 (Failed attempt to grip bar)]
[Grip Strength (Dynamometer): 22kg (Lowest percentile)]
[Teacher's Note: Lacks physical confidence and core strength. Recommended for remedial P.E.]
[ATTENDANCE LOG: Noted 2-day absence following 'off-campus incident.']
Mina printed the page.
She stared at the objective, clinical, undeniable data. A boy who couldn't even hang from a bar. A boy whose grip strength was less than a child's. A boy who was, measurably, the weakest male student in the entire school.
She held this piece of paper in one hand. And in her mind's eye, she replayed the scene from the hallway.
The thwack of a full-force punch hitting an unmoving palm.
The ease of the catch.
The contemptuous, single-handed shove that had sent 82 kilograms of muscle and rage flying backward.
The boy on the paper could not do what the boy in the hallway had done. They were not the same person. A+B could not equal C.
Her logical mind, unable to reconcile the two realities, didn't break. It found a new, terrifying variable. The 'A' on this paper was the real Dev. The 'A' in that hallway... was something else.
Her blood ran cold. The boy she had pitied, the boy she had tried to protect, was gone. He hadn't just changed. He had been replaced. The thing that was walking the halls, the thing that was sitting in his classes, the cold, powerful, inhuman thing that looked like him... it was an impostor.
Her new purpose, cold and clear, settled over her. She wasn't here to save a victim. She was here to expose the monster that was wearing her classmate's face.
The rest of the school day was a silent, cold war. Dev sat in class, his mind already in the Weeping Woods, simply waiting for the clock to run out. He was an alien, a predator forced to sit still and pretend to be a part of the herd.
And across the room, at all times, he could feel her. Mina. She was staring at him.
It wasn't the look of pity he'd known his whole life. It wasn't the suspicion from yesterday. It was a new, cold, terrified focus. The look of a scientist observing a specimen that had just broken out of its cage. He was an 'unknown hostile,' and she was the 'watcher.'
He ignored her. She was irrelevant.
The moment the final bell rang, he was gone. He walked home, his (AGI: 9) carrying him in a fluid, ground-eating stride, his (SPI: 25) [Spatial Awareness] a 360-degree map of the world around him. He locked his door, lay on his bed, and plunged his consciousness into the void.
He awoke in the Weeping Woods, the black, sticky sap of the trees a familiar, welcoming sight. He drew his new [Ebonguard Initiate's Sword]. Its matte-black, leaf-shaped blade felt perfect in his hand, a solid, lethal extension of his will.
He was Level 4. He was armed. And he was hungry.
At (SPI: 25), the forest was no longer a terrifying, confusing maze. It was a map, loud and vibrant with the thrum of life. His [Spatial Awareness] was a high-fidelity radar, picking up every Level 0 Blood-Sapper and Level 1 Gloom Stalker in a massive radius. The woods weren't scary. They were a buffet.
He began to move. He didn't run. He flowed. His (AGI: 9) carried him in a silent, predatory blur, his feet making no sound on the damp earth.
He sensed it before he saw it—a Level 1 Gloom Stalker, the monster that had nearly ended his existence twice, gathering itself in the shadows for a lunge.
The Stalker burst from the gloom, its shadowy claws extended.
To Dev, it was moving in slow motion.
He didn't dodge. He didn't brace. He simply moved, a precise, economical side-step that let the Stalker's lunge pass him by, its claws tearing through empty air. He was already in motion, his (STR: 9) body pivoting, his new sword singing in a clean, horizontal arc.
SHING.
There was no resistance. The Faction-grade blade, backed by his new strength, cut through the Stalker's shadowy form as if it were smoke. The monster's upper half separated from its lower, and its red, pinprick eyes widened in shock before it dissolved completely, its momentum carrying its two halves tumbling to the ground.
[+5 Lesser Soul-Essence]
Dev didn't pause. He was already moving. His [Spatial Awareness] map lit up with another target.
The hunt had begun. But this time, he was the hunter.
The next hour was a slaughter. He was a black-clad, blue-misted blur of death, a silent reaper in the cursed woods. The Level 0 Sappers, he killed without breaking stride, his sword lancing out to pop them like fruit. [+1]... [+1]... [+1]
The Level 1 Gloom Stalkers, he treated with a cold, efficient contempt. He was too fast for them, too strong. His (CON: 8) meant their desperate, clumsy blows—if they even landed—felt like nothing. He was a whirlwind of precise, one-hit kills. [+5]... [+5]... [+5]
He was no longer a survivor. He was the monster of the Weeping Woods. He was the apex predator.
He finally stopped, the silence in this section of the woods deafening. He had killed everything. He stood in a clearing, the ground thick with the dissipating black mist of his victims, and checked his status.
[Lesser Soul-Essence: 380/400]
Agonizingly close. Twenty more. Just one more Gloom Stalker...
And then, his [Spatial Awareness] didn't just light up. It screamed.
It was a heavy, suffocating, crushing pulse. The same pulse from Chapter 10. The one that had sent him fleeing in terror.
He turned, his sword held ready.
From the deeper, darker part of the woods, the Level 3 Weeping Shadow emerged. It flowed between the trees, a tall, impossibly thin figure of dripping black ooze, its single, burning crimson eye fixed directly on him. It had been drawn by the sheer, concentrated death he had unleashed.
Last time, Dev was Level 2, and he had hidden behind a log, a terrified rat.
This time, he was Level 4. He was armed. And he was 20 Essence away from his goal.
The prey looked at the predator. The old one looked at the new.
Dev's eyes went cold. He raised his [Ebonguard Initiate's Sword], its black metal seeming to drink the dim light. He wasn't going to run.