No answer came.
Growing frantic, he dashed toward where Farnz had fallen, but the moment he landed, a searing heat erupted in his gut.
Aubrey’s gaze locked onto Farnz for a split second before drifting down to his own blood-soaked abdomen.
His breath hitched as he touched the hot, thick liquid pouring from his midsection, eyes wide with sheer, unadulterated horror.
He’d been opened up mid-stride.
“Fa…
lles…?” The words barely carried as he collapsed, hitting the dirt with a wet, sickening thud.
The remaining three froze.
Rasnes and Delvey backed away slowly, boots scraping against the dirt—the sound suddenly too loud.
Kisatsu didn’t even try to move.
His breath twisted in a jagged knot, cold dread coiling in his stomach like lead.
Rasnes’s earlier bravado had vanished, replaced by a raw, mindless terror.
Without a word, he bolted, movement a frantic blur.
A second later, his face was parallel to the ground.
He didn’t even feel himself hit the floor—his torso had been cleanly severed.
The puppet loomed behind Delvey and Kisatsu.
The two stood motionless, stilled by dread and the chilly thickness of the air, but the machine didn’t turn their way.
Delvey’s eyes stretched with a primal alarm, yet he didn’t dare move a single millimeter.
Mask your Rage.
Kill your presence.
The bloody thing only hunts what moves.
The second he was certain his signature was buried, he bolted for the surface without turning back.
His vision shook with each step, heart hammering a frenetic beat loud enough it was the only sound he could hear.
He waited for the blackout, the feel of a pointed claw slicing through him, but the manikin didn’t pursue.
Its focus—if it could be called that—fixed on the flickering remains of Rasnes’s dying Rage, categorizing it as a fading threat.
Kisatsu turned, the motion agonizingly slow.
His frame shuddered from a cold that had nothing to do the with the damp air of the abandoned chamber.
He slid his body against the floor, inch by painful inch.
He’d lost his tactical focus.
At that moment, he only wanted to survive.
Yet, even with the grit grinding audibly beneath him, the manikin didn’t turn.
Kisatsu was empty.
His Rage had run dry, and the puppet treated him as nothing more than a discarded prop.
It stalked past him with those same silent, human steps, drawn toward the stairs—toward the massive, pulsing Rage from the surface.
The moment Delvey reached the top—where the sunlight finally hit him—he scrambled toward the nearest group.
“Get back!
Everyone!” he bellowed, voice a frantic rasp.
He gripping a girl’s shoulders hysterically, hands shaking, eyes bloodshot, glassy with a startling panic.
“This place…
it’s not safe anymore, please!
Call a teacher, a guard—a-a-a knight, anyone!”
The girl shoved him away, face contorted with recoil, repulsed by his expression more than his warning.
“Wh-What’s your problem?
Get off!”
“Please!
Just…
get help!
I’m begging you!” His voice broke with a desperate plea.
How did it all go so sideways?
It was just for practice—that’s it.
That’s what they told us these things were for.
***
A Few Days Earlier
It was midnight.
Rasnes, Farnz, Aubrey, and Delvey were lugging the puppet they had nicked from the town hall the other day into the training chamber.
The torches flickered against the damp, pockmarked wall with a faint rasp—the only sound in the dim hall.
“So the old boys actually used this lot for their drills?” Rasnes said, voice echoing.
“Blimey, Delvey—you really do know your stuff.”
“Oh, pack it in.” Delvey straightened, wiping sweat from his forehead before turning with a wry smile.
“Don’t look at me like I’m some career burglar who’s done this a thousand times.”
“Why not?” Farnz retorted from behind, crossing his arms in teasing amusement.
“You’re the one who reckoned we should pinch this thing for a bit of extra practice, after all.
We’re not hurting anyone, are we?
We’re hardly the villains of the peace.”
He glanced toward Aubrey.
The boy stood sentinel by the staircase outside the chamber, silhouette leaning against the cold stone wall.
“So, what’s the move if you get nabbed, then?”
“I’m grassing on you lot without a second thought,” Delvey replied, voice clipped.
Rasnes pressed a teasing nudge to his shoulder, raising a brow.
“Ohh, so we’re just your insurance, are we?” He ruffled Delvey’s magenta hair, fingers bunching into a compact mass.
“You cheeky, ginger-headed gremlin.”
“Someone’s opened the door topside!” Aubrey’s shout was a harsh rasp as he pushed himself away from the wall.
The others scrambled, the metallic clatter of their kit echoing too loudly as they dove into the shadows.
“Right!
Plan’s afoot.
Go on!” Farnz signaled with a sharp jerk of his chin.
Aubrey nodded and scurried up the staircase.
The ruse was simple: Aubrey would find the patrolling porter and spin a yarn about hiding downstairs because he’d been bullied and didn’t want to go home.
He’d pretend he was only just woken up and ask the porter to walk him to the main gate.
While the porter was distracted, the other three could sneak up the stairs and flee the university unnoticed.
***
Delvey’s high-pitched wails snapped everyone’s attention.
Some students began to recognize him as the boy the knights were hunting, wary concern creeping onto their faces.
Only when their expressions were replaced by startled fright did Delvey look back, eyes still gaping.
The puppet emerged from the corner where he’d been.
This isn’t just punishment for my cock-ups—it’s a literal damnation!
He turned just after the confirmation and bolted, a desperate, frantic run.
I’ve done this.
Even if I didn’t reckon it could go this far south…
I’m the one who made it happen!
He let out a dry, jagged snort under his breath.
But look at me…
still legging it for my life, aren’t I?
The sound of limbs tearing and piercing screams shredded the air, carrying the sharp, metallic scent of blood.
Some professors stepped in to intervene, reaching out to protect the students only to be put down brutally in seconds.
“Ruvenne!
The cloister!
Now!” Ichett screamed into the handheld radio, darting down the hallway where students scrambled in the opposite direction, jostling against each other with frantic, ruffled movements.
He felt a sudden bump against his elbow and reached instinctively for the boy dashing past him.
Ichett didn’t need to see his face—the shock of magenta hair gave him away.
“Oi!
You—!” Ichett lunged for the boy’s sleeve, but Delvey blanked him entirely.
With a frustrated clench of his teeth, Ichett snapped his gaze back to to manikin.
“Sod it!”
As the alarm began to wail, Ichett and Ruvenne sprinted toward the carnage.
The siren signaled a full evacuation of the campus.
Just as Ichett arrived, he spotted the puppet in the middle of dismembering a student—a butcher slaughtering a pig.
It didn’t even turn to face him.
Damn it!
I’m too late!
With a raise of his hand, an invisible wave shot from his palm, a blunt shove of air that hurled the manikin back.
His gaze fell to the mauled student, half of his body soaked in red, anatomy rendered unrecognizable by his injuries.
The boy was past saving.
The light had been stripped from his eyes, leaving only a mask of raw, unforgettable terror.
Ichett turned back to the effigy, vision tunneling with a cold, sharp fury.
He didn’t know where to lay the blame—whether on the machine itself or the fools who had nicked it.
Regardless, the weight of the failure already sat heavy on his shoulders.
He couldn’t stop anything.
No more excuses.
It’s already taken lives—I’ll have to tear it apart, and to hell with what the Council says.
He slammed his palms together, pointing the tip of his fingers at the manikin.
“Hollow Gale of the Shadow Walker!”
A low growl, like some invisible beast, vibrated through the air, and a violent, unseen hail thrashed the puppet.
The manikin leaped back, the casing of its limbs splintering, leaving the stone floor where it had stood pulverized.
Ichett didn’t give it a moment’s peace.
He lunged, driving his palm hard into the manikin’s core.
“Spurn!”
The puppet zoomed away and crashed through the window of an empty classroom, hitting the floor with a mechanical squeak.
Ichett leaped after it, closing the distance in a single stride.
Right—the battery!
His eyes flicked toward the wooden casing, a faint, violet glow seeping through the slits.
Before he could lift a finger to cast, the manikin lunged.
Its pointed claws lashed toward his face, the motion nothing but a flicker of tarnished wood.
Ichett leaned back, sweeping its footing with a crescent kick. The source of this chapter is novelping.com.
The puppet banged onto the ground with a harsh, jarring clack.
With a fierce gleam of its eyes, it jolted a foot toward him again, claws nearly grazing his cheek as he dodged with a precarious jerk of his head.
Screw it!
Its attacks are too hard to read because of its absurd flexibility!
He reached out again, palm flat.
“Spurn!”
This time, the manikin was hauled toward him as if some invisible weight were crushing it against his hand.
He fought to keep the collateral damage to a minimum, though the restraint made the task of pinning the puppet twice as hard.
He pivoted, dragging the effigy with him, and flung it clean through the window toward the center of the quad.
The manikin bounced off the flagstones several times before springing back up.
Its surface was mired in grit but, as far as Ichett could see, it was otherwise unscathed.
He didn’t stop.
An instant later, he was hovering in the air, palm levelled at the puppet as he gathered another surge of Rage.
The restraint he’d been nursing snapped.
I’m going to make a crater that looks like a goddamn meteor strike.
Before he could release, a voice cracked through the chaos.
“Wait!
Ichett!
Hold it!”
His gaze snapped toward the source, poised to strike.
Ruvenne skidded to a halt in the distance and lashed his hand out in a sharp, circular blur.
A white, glowing lasso surged from the earth and cinched tight around the manikin, pinning it to the stones.
Ichett landed heavily beside him.
“Steady on, Ichett.” Ruvenne turned, voice low, breathy, though his hand stayed anchored at the puppet.
“What on earth are you planning back there?”
“The thing’s already taken lives—it needs to be put down, and fast,” Ichett replied firmly, a sharp gesture cutting the air between the corpses and the machine.
“You looked like you were about to level the entire courtyard.”
“I’ve been doing my level best to keep the damage to a minimum.
But surely a few broken flagstones are a fair price for saving lives, are they not?” he snapped, taking a deliberate step closer, voice ragged with a mix of indignation and finality.
Ruvenne looked away, brows creasing.
“…I’m sorry I wasn’t quicker.
I lost sight of you when I reached the cloister.”
“Don’t go dodging the question.” Ichett’s tone didn’t soften, but the fire had gone out of it.
Ruvenne let out a dry, weary sigh before turning back.
“Alright.
Just try not to wreck the place entirely—the school’s got festivals lined up for the coming weeks.”
Ichett turned his gaze back to the struggling, restrained puppet, a glint of vindication in his eyes.
“Well.
You’ve just made the job a whole lot simpler, haven’t you?” He marched toward the puppet, motion slow, guarded.
“This thing runs on a Rage-imbued cell, if I remember rightly.”
He pressed his palm firmly against the casing, feeling the unnerving cold seep through his skin.
“Which means—if I can just nick it out cleanly—I won’t have to scrap with the thing anymore.”
He ripped the shell away violently with another Spurn that didn’t need chanting.
The manikin lost the glow in its eyes, freezing mid-motion.
He examined the foot-sized battery in his hand as it pulsed a dim, violet hue.
The Rage felt strangely familiar.
This is…
He looked over at Ruvenne, who remained a fair distance away, maintaining the tension on the lasso.
“Spot anything unusual, then?” Ruvenne’s voice was little more than a distant mumble against the wind.
“You’d better hold onto this for a bit.” Ichett tossed the casing casually toward him.
Ruvenne caught it with one hand, arm outstretched.
The moment the Rage in the cell connected with his own, a familiar heat flared beneath his skin.
What on earth…
is this…?
A violet-haired silhouette flickered in his mind, leaving him momentarily lightheaded.
The white lasso retreated, unspooling from the puppet’s wooden frame.
The manikin remained rigid, lifeless.
Ichett walked back toward him, his back to the effigy.
“What’s up with you?
The core’s brimming with Rage, you know?
It ought to be running low by now.” He glanced at the battery, then back to Ruvenne, face tinged with confusion.
“I know… it’s just, it’s made me go all dizzy all of a sudden.” Ruvenne’s voice shook slightly, grip on the battery wavering.
Ichett frowned, puzzled.
Hm.
Strange—is the effect hitting him harder, then?
Ruvenne rubbed his temple, brows knit tight, gaze hardening on the core as it thrummed with a subtle, unpleasant noise.
Xavior?
What the hell is his Rage doing inside this thing?