"Agh… where am I?" Pip groaned, the dull, throbbing ache behind his temples forcing his eyes shut. He blinked, fighting to regain his focus in the sterile, alien surroundings.
Click. Clack.
Steady footsteps echoed through the hollow room. Pip turned to find Ellarish standing by the bed, her expression an impenetrable, chilling mask of calm.
"Finally awake?" Her voice was flat, devoid of warmth.
Pip stiffened as the harrowing memories of the arena surged back. He heaved himself upright, his voice raw with suspicion: "It was you… you were the one who struck me down in the exam, weren't you?"
The silence that followed was suffocating. Ellarish said nothing, her pupils dilating into bottomless pits of obsidian. Without a word, she spun on her heel, her shadow casting a long, jagged silhouette against the cold floor. "Don't dawdle. The second round is about to begin."
She vanished, leaving Pip stranded in the silence. "Wait!! Hey, wait for me!" Pip lunged out of bed, his bandaged feet hitting the frozen iron floor. He winced, sweat beading on his brow, yet the burning need for answers drove him forward. Why would she save him—a rival—after nearly killing him? Deep within those hollow, dark eyes of hers, Pip had caught a glimpse of a sorrow so profound it chilled him to the bone.
He scrambled into the hallway, clutching the jacket Lilit had given him like a talisman against the encroaching chaos. Focus, he commanded himself, crushing the doubt in his mind. Focus on the trial.
He burst into the main hall just as the signal horn cut through the air. The second exam had begun.
Kael was waiting, leaning against a weathered stone wall, his gaze frayed with exhaustion. Seeing Pip, he flinched, then hurried over, slinging Pip's arm over his shoulders. "You absolute moron, you're falling apart—how are you still standing?"
"Tch. Fail the exam? Not on my watch," Pip quipped with a weak, forced smile. They dove into the entrance of the test zone, bolting like arrows released from a taut string.
The forest swallowed them whole. It was not merely a woodland; it was a living, breathing labyrinth. Ancient, gnarled trees twisted upward like clawed fingers, strangling the sky and casting long, grotesque shadows. The air was thick, suffocating with the scent of decaying mulch, adrenaline, and the faint, metallic tang of copper—the smell of blood. A deathly silence clung to the trees, broken only by the rhythmic thud of their footsteps, an intrusive sound in this tomb-like wilderness.
The wind hissed through the canopy, sounding like whispered warnings. Pip broke the silence, his voice barely audible: "What's the objective?"
Kael's face turned to stone. "Survival. Seven days. But the proctors have twisted it into a bloodsport. One point for a beast, five for a contestant. By the time this is over, at least two hundred souls will be fertilizing this forest."
Pip froze, a sudden, icy shiver tracing his spine. Kael caught the flash of terror in Pip's eyes—he knew Pip had never stained his hands with human life. He sighed, his gaze softening just a fraction. "It's fine. Keep your hands clean. Leave the slaughter to me."
"W-who says! I-I can handle myself!" Pip barked, though his voice cracked under the weight of his own lie. Kael just clicked his tongue in disbelief and vanished into the gloom like a bolt of jagged lightning.
Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!
Kael moved with the fluidity of a phantom. He was already calculating the safest route for Pip when a rope whipped out of the canopy, binding his ankle. A contestant dropped from the branches, cackling with unhinged glee: "Caught a little lamb for the slaughter!"
Kael's eyes went pitch-black. The predator—the alpha—had awakened. In a blink, the rope was shredded into fibers, and the man's head was wrenched from his neck, landing in Kael's grip. A spray of crimson painted the forest floor. The metallic tang of iron choked the air, far stronger than the scent of the forest. Kael stood amidst the carnage—the corpses stripped of their eyes—his features chillingly, perfectly blank.
Sensing eyes in the shadows, Kael's lips curled into a predatory grin. "Stop hiding like rats. Come out and die!"
The leader of the ambush was trembling in the undergrowth, his breath hitching in his throat. He saw Kael dissolve into nothingness, only to feel a phantom coldness at his ear. Kael whispered something unrecognizable before ending him with a casual flick of his wrist. He kicked the severed head aside like a discarded ball, then reached for a cigarette.
Click. Click.
"Aizz… faulty lighter. What a nuisance."
Kael strode away, leaving behind a crimson clearing and thirteen hushed, sightless bodies.
Meanwhile, Pip trudged through the woods, his fake smile beginning to fracture under the weight of his mounting dread. As he bent to retrieve a heart-shaped stone from the loam, the earth screamed. A titan of a man, nearly two meters tall, dropped from the canopy with the force of a falling star. The shockwave pulverized the surrounding brush. Pip, moving by instinct alone, had vanished. He stood behind the titan, his eyes cold and unnervingly sharp.
"You threw the first punch. I'm just returning the favor, legally speaking."
Pip channeled everything into his arm. CRACK! The heart-shaped stone whistled through the air at supersonic speed, burying itself into the giant's temple. He crumpled like a broken doll. Pip's composure shattered instantly. He scrambled to the titan, shaking him frantically. "Hey! Don't you dare die! Oh no... did I just kill someone? I'm going to prison, aren't I?!"
Terror seized him. Pip bolted, sprinting as if the shadows themselves were chasing him. Every snapping twig sounded like a gunshot, every rustle of leaves like a whisper of the dead. He ran blindly, drenched in cold sweat, his heart hammering against his ribs, haunted by the crimson stain on that small, heart-shaped stone.
Pip's legs burned, his lungs screaming for air until he finally collapsed into a halt. "Far enough... I should be safe here," he wheezed, wiping the sweat from his brow.
Then, a piercing, agonizing "AAAAAA!" ripped through the forest's stifling silence. Pip spun around, his heart hammering against his ribs.
Before him stood Ellarish, flanked by a massive, jagged monolith of ice she had conjured from thin air. Her expression was a mask of glacial indifference, her eyes fixed on the man trapped within the frozen prison. Clouds of frost billowed from her lips with every breath. The victim, encased in ice from the neck down, pleaded with teeth chattering in terror: "P-please... I beg you, spare me... I still have..."
Shatter.
It was a dry, hollow sound, quicker than a heartbeat. Blood erupted, painting the crystalline surface of the ice in a gruesome, crimson streak. Ellarish retracted her blade, the gore sliding off the cold metal before dripping onto the frozen earth. She turned away, a heavy, weary sigh escaping her chest. As she did, the icy mask of her face flickered and fell, revealing eyes laden with a profound, aching sorrow—a weariness that belonged only to someone forced to commit atrocities they loathed.
Pip held his breath, his eyes wide with paralyzing horror as he witnessed the cold-blooded execution. Panic clouded his judgment; he stumbled backward, a dry snap of a twig under his boot echoing like a gunshot in the silent woods.
In a heartbeat, the atmosphere turned lethal. With the razor-sharp instincts of a killer, Ellarish sensed the intruder instantly. A wave of murderous intent surged through the forest.
Whoosh!
She vanished, her form a blurred streak through the undergrowth. Before Pip's mind could even register the movement, a jagged blade of ice was pressed hard against his throat. The biting cold of the weapon sent shivers dancing across his skin.
"Who's there?" she hissed, her voice sharp as the steel at his neck.
But the moment her eyes met Pip's, her momentum shattered. The deadly glare in her obsidian eyes faltered, replaced by a flicker of disbelief.
"Pip?" she breathed, lowering the blade. The hostility drained from her stance, yet the weight of the forest—and the blood on her hands—remained etched onto her features. "What in the hell are you doing here?"