Paralyzed by visceral terror, Lucas remained frozen.
His mind, clouded by panic, refused to process the reality: the infected corpse of Ben, his companion in misfortune, was heavy-footing its way toward him.
Capitalizing on the sudden burst of energy provided by his short sleep, Lucas attempted to push himself up, but the excruciating pain in his burned back shattered his momentum.
With a hideous hiss, the snakes nestled inside Ben’s empty sockets coiled back like springs, lunging to bite his face.
Lucas dodged the first attack by a hair, rolling onto his side, gasping for air.
But the infected recruit moved with supernatural speed.
Before Lucas could recover his footing, Ben tackled him full force, pinning him heavily against the frozen humus.
Lucas thrashed frantically, but the creature possessed a monstrous, almost mechanical strength.
Inches from his eyes, the greenish reptiles squirmed, revealing fangs dripping with venom, ready to pierce him through.
“Agh…
let…
let go of me…
nghhh…”
Ben’s ice-cold hands clamped around Lucas’s neck, crushing his windpipe.
Oxygen began to run out.
Overwhelmed by the agony in his back and the suffocating pressure on his throat, Lucas felt his strength draining away.
It was a matter of seconds before the fangs sank into his flesh.
In a final burst of desperate clarity, he resigned himself.
He was not built for Eresboros.
He was going to die right here, abandoned by everyone in the depths of this cursed forest.
Nobody was coming.
(Lucas…)
(Lucas…
get up.)
At the edge of unconsciousness, a familiar voice cut through the fog of his mind.
A soft, protective voice.
His mother’s.
Closing his eyes, he let himself be swept away by the echo of that memory, pulling himself out of the present nightmare.
Zodos, Kingdom of Sofia.
In that peaceful haven, the young boy grew up surrounded by his parents and three brothers.
The modest family survived honorably by crafting and selling shoes, every member pouring their heart into the trade.
Back then, Lucas had clear blue eyes, bright hair, and a face radiating pure innocence and joy.
“Lucas…
you are the kindest boy in the world…
so get up, my love.”
Daken.
A name that meant hope.
A word that seemed to have no place in the cruelty of this world—a concept the wretched souls of Malbour’s slums had buried long ago.
Yet that single word defined this boy, who stood in stark, agonizing contrast to the surrounding darkness.
“Lucas, you are my friend…
so become stronger.”
Lucas’s eyes snapped open.
Against his ribs, the Daken Pentacle blazed with a violent pulse.
A surge of mystical heat flooded his veins, incinerating his exhaustion.
Unleashing a raw power he had never known, Lucas grabbed Ben’s wrists and, inch by inch, tore the strangling hands from his throat.
The boy sat up in one swift motion.
Tears streaming down his face, driven by pure survival instinct, he thrust his hand forward.
His fingers shattered Ben’s ribcage with a sickening crunch.
With a sharp, savage rip, he tore the heart from his chest.
“Mom…
Dad…
Drey…
thank you…
thank you…”
Ben’s body collapsed like a dead weight onto the ground.
Deprived of their host, the snakes squirming in his sockets twitched violently before dying alongside him.
The dead silence of the forest fell once more.
Lucas’s pentacle ceased its thumping, and a crushing wave of lethargy washed over him.
Standing there, hands soaked in thick, black blood, he stared down at Ben’s remains.
His heart shattered into pieces.
He had just committed his first murder.
Acid burned in his stomach as his pulse hammered violently against his temples.
Overcome with dizziness, Lucas dropped to his knees and burst into tears, weeping in the middle of the pitch-black woods.
Deeper inside the forest, Chogo faced a pack of goblin-like creatures.
True to form, he wore that sly, provocative smirk he used as armor.
There were six of them.
Three lunged first, brandishing crude spears tipped with carved stone.
Strikes rained down from the left and right.
Despite his massive frame, the Grod displayed surprising agility, though the sheer number of attackers made dodging every blow impossible.
The other three monsters quickly encircled the giant to strike from behind.
Used to desert ambushes, Chogo employed a brutal tactic: he willingly took a spear strike from one of them, clamped an iron grip around the weapon’s shaft, and hurled the goblin with all his strength against a tree trunk, shattering its bones with a dull crack.
The attacks came without respite.
To break the encirclement, Chogo slammed his heavy fist onto the ground, throwing up a shockwave of dirt and debris that forced the pack back.
Taking advantage of their disorientation, he pounced on the nearest goblin and delivered a devastating punch that literally crushed its skull.
Without wasting a second, he yanked the spear from the corpse’s hands and hurled it with terrifying violence at another fleeing monster.
The pointed weapon impaled the target cleanly through the head.
Only three remained.
Chogo straightened up, wiping a streak of blood from his arm.
His wounds were merely superficial.
He locked his fierce gaze on the survivors.
“Alright…
whose turn is it, you short-legged bastards?”
Faced with the Grod’s raw power, the three remaining goblins realized the battle was lost.
Panicked, they turned tail and vanished into the darkness of the forest.
“…I have a feeling I’m gonna have a blast out here,” Chogo quipped, adjusting his pack.
Meanwhile, Narissa moved cautiously through the gloom.
Crossing a clearing, she discovered to her horror the bodies of several recruits scattered across the ground.
Assuming they were merely dead, she quickened her pace.
Suddenly, the corpses twitched.
Their limbs uncoiled unnaturally as they stood up one by one.
Narissa froze, her stomach churning: their faces were contorted, and their eye sockets writhed with those wretched green snakes bearing skull markings.
Without warning, the walking dead rushed her.
Exhausted and terrified by this biological abomination, the Neid refused to fight.
She spun around and sprinted forward, using her agility to zigzag between the colossal trunks.
In her desperate flight, she nearly tripped over another infected body—this one presenting a striking detail: a gaping, bloody hole right in the center of its chest.
Without stopping to process what could have caused such a wound, she pressed on in her frantic run.
At the tip of the vanguard, Commander Melo reached the edge of a massive chasm.
On the other side, the trail resumed, but the gap between the two cliff faces was abyssal.
“Should I just leap across and keep moving?” the Sprigan whispered to herself.
“No…
I need to set them up inside…”
Without a moment’s hesitation, Melo stepped off the ledge into the empty ravine, vanishing into the bottomless depths of the fault line.
Chogo, meanwhile, resumed his slow, calculated march.
A suspicious rustle in the high canopy instantly put him on guard.
He expected a vengeful return from the goblins, but what descended from the trees was no forest dwarf.
A man whose features were veiled by shadows stepped out of the gloom.
Just laying eyes on him sent a shot of pure adrenaline through Chogo’s veins, giving him goosebumps.
His survival instincts screamed: This guy isn’t normal.
Not by a long shot.
The stranger turned his face toward the Grod and stretched his lips into a spectral smile, revealing blindingly white, razor-sharp teeth.
“Are you…
looking for…
your friends…?” the man hissed in a grating voice.
Chogo stood perplexed, his body taut.
With a theatrical gesture, the mysterious figure snapped his fingers.
Instantly, clusters of recruits emerged from the shadows of the trees, looking completely dazed and disoriented, wondering where they were.
Strangely, these newcomers did not immediately notice the terrifying silhouette looming above them.
Suddenly, one of the recruits snapped out of his trance, locked eyes with the white-toothed man, and let out a bloodcurdling scream:
“It’s…
it’s the monster!
He’s the one who locked me up!”
Panic spread like wildfire through the captives, who began screaming in unison.
Chogo, unmoving, never took his eyes off the “monster,” who continued to smile with sadistic glee.
Then, without a word, the entity lurking in the shadows took a step backward.
Two massive, leathery wings unfurled from his back with the sound of tearing leather.
With a powerful beat, the monster launched into the air and vanished above the canopy.
Chogo swallowed hard. Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
The fear he had just felt was genuine.
Eresboros had thrown them into a nest of unspeakable monsters.
But after a few seconds of hesitation, the Grod shook his head and regained his composure.
“No time for philosophy.
The commander must be way ahead.
Gotta move.”
Beside him, a surviving recruit stared at him, deeply shocked by his recklessness:
“Are you insane?
You want to keep following that lunatic after this?”
Chogo burst into a boisterous, thunderous laugh:
“Ahahaha!
Listen up, you virgin virgins…
I’m here to make serious coin.
If I have to follow the commander through this island of psychos to do it, then that’s what I’ll do.
After all, we signed up with Eresboros because they hold the power, right?
Once I become an executive in the syndicate, I’ll have all the women I want…
Even that little blue-scaled Neid.”
Chogo’s sheer nerve and cynicism left the group stunned, but against all odds, his speech struck a chord.
The spark of greed and ambition reignited the courage in these men broken by fear.
An older recruit, covered in scars, stepped forward and slapped the Grod’s shoulder.
“I’m with you, kid…
Come on, let me move our asses before we lose track of our dear commander.”
Flashing his eternal arrogant smirk once more, Chogo took the lead of the small group, venturing deeper into the pitch-black night of the forest.
Meanwhile, Lucas dragged his feet, crushed by exhaustion.
The pain in his back had dulled to a throb with every step.
He allowed himself a brief pause against a mossy trunk to catch his breath.
A question tormented him: was this the true training of Eresboros?
Were they simply expected to survive forced marches on this island for eight months?
Knowing the syndicate’s cruelty, that explanation felt far too mild.
After all, Melo had been crystal clear: the majority of them would never see the end of the journey.
Lucas’s mind drifted back to Drey.
His pentacle had allowed him to defeat Ben, but the magical backlash left him completely drained.
More than the fatigue, it was the crushing weight of murder that suffocated his soul.
He had just taken a life—a red line he had sworn never to cross.
His thoughts traveled back in time to their entrance exam in Malbour.
Deva Callis had ordered him to keep an eye on Drey, and he had complied.
He vividly recalled the painful details of the Crossfield shop incident.
That day, Drey had cold-bloodedly executed the hybrid shopkeeper just to take the register cash.
After his friend left, Lucas had slipped inside the shop.
The sight of the corpse lying in a pool of blood had made him violently sick.
Today, in the heart of this hostile forest, Lucas wondered how Drey had ever endured that horror.
How had he managed to kill that man in cold blood without flinching?
Looking deeper into it, Lucas realized that apparent indifference was merely a mask.
It couldn’t have been easy for Drey to steel himself with such coldness.
He remembered their first official mission—that terrible moment when, cornered by attackers, Drey had unhesitatingly used little Marie’s body as a human shield.
And yet, despite all those horrors committed in the dark, Drey continued to treat him with warmth and kindness, hiding his own fractures so as not to show weakness.
A wave of guilt washed over Lucas.
His friend was inflicting this dehumanization upon himself solely because he had understood the golden rule of this world: you have to become a monster to protect those you love and survive.
A second wind, forged from determination, coursed through Lucas’s chest.
He clenched his fists.
He had to keep going.
He had to grow strong—not for the syndicate, but to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with his friend and stop being an empathetic liability that constantly needed saving.
He would never forget Ben’s blood on his hands, but he would wear it as armor.
Lucas took a deep breath to start moving again.
Suddenly, a sharp hiss sliced through the air behind him.
Before he could react, a massive silhouette lunged onto him, tackling him full force.
Lucas was thrown violently to the ground, the air knocked out of his lungs.
In the next instant, the weight of a heavy body pinned him down, and the freezing blade of a knife pressed firmly against his throat.
Panic threatened to overwhelm him again, but Drey’s voice echoed in his mind: Stay calm.
Analyze.
Fixing his eyes on his attacker’s face in the dark, Lucas held his breath, ready to gamble his life on his next move.