CHAPTER 50: CHAPTER 50 — THE WEIGHT OF WHAT REMAINS

Bright Morgan sat alone on the broken step behind the ruined watch-hut, the cold northern wind cutting across the yard like a serrated blade. Night had fallen fully now, yet the air still smelled faintly of blood, burnt resin, and the sweet, metallic tang of ruptured crystal cores.

He stared at his hands.

Not because of the dried blood caked beneath the fingernails.

Not because they were trembling.

But because of what they held—what he had taken.

Two crystal cores from Larkin’s corpse lay in his palm, one a dull amethyst flecked with silver (the mind muffle core), the other a shimmering white moted with fractured strands of gold (the body enhancement core that had partly fused with Larkin over years). Both pulsed faintly, as if breathing.

They should not be here.

No core should survive a human host without undergoing immediate ethereal dissipation. They were supposed to liquefy into astral vapor the moment the host died, drifting into the night like evaporating dew.

And yet... the cores remained.

He closed his fingers around the cores and exhaled—slowly. One breath, then another, letting the cold air scrape down his lungs and anchor him. The Shroud, the battle, Larkin’s face when death finally took him—everything seemed too close, too vivid.

The weight of killing a human affected him more than he could tell as he only signed up for fear inducing, skull crushing and bone eating monsters.

Maybe I am the monster after all, he thought.

Because the truth was simple:

He hadn’t hesitated.

Not for a heartbeat.

He had felt Larkin’s life fading and had reached down, not with mercy... but with purpose.

He realized that the weight came from the life he’d ended, not the face behind it.

Behind him, footsteps approached—two sets. Bright didn’t look up immediately. He didn’t have the strength. He could tell who they were from the passive ability of his core.

Silas and Adam, an odd pair.

But there was something strange about Silas, the burden he placed on the space around him felt heavier. No sooner than the thought came to him, bright realized that he had advanced to an initiate.

They stood silently behind him for a long moment. No one spoke. No one knew how to break the tension of the aftermath.

Finally, Adam lowered himself beside Bright, groaning as if his bones were made of cracked glass.

"You look like you saw a ghost," Adam muttered.

Bright didn’t answer.

Silas spoke next—quiet, controlled, his voice carrying that subtle hollow undertone he always had when his soul talent touched the edge of activation. Illusion wasn’t light or mirror; in his case, it was perception shifting . Silas could warp what others saw, felt, or understood, but he was still a front-line fighter. He wasn’t meant to be one but most army recruits were, not out of choice but of necessity.

"Ah. You again. How... unexpected." Silas said clearly pushing his power outward.

He couldn’t have a conversation with Morgan without gloating for a bit. Immature or not, it needed to be done.

Bright finally raised his head. The two boys stared at him, their faces still bruised, exhausted, and smeared with streaks of dirt and sweat.

"How’s Duncan?" Bright asked.

"Heard on our way here that he was with Bessia in the attack. They are doing alright."

"So where’s your squad Morgan ," Silas said flatly. "

They’re all alive, but..." He did not finish.

Bright felt his stomach twist.

He felt undecided on how he wanted to run his team, Most times he felt a bit camaraderie

With squad, other times he tried alienating himself to focus on his goal on getting stronger.

Hailen had taken the worst of it in battle.

Fen and Juno were shaken, their confidence cracked from how badly they had performed during the Larkin ambush.

Maybe giving them one of the cores would help...

Maybe it would strengthen them...

Maybe it would—

Make them targets, Bright realized. Make them unstable. Change the entire squad dynamic.

He didn’t know. Nothing about this felt safe. Every choice felt like a tussle.

He rose slowly. "Let’s regroup," he said, voice quiet but steady. "Check my instructor again . Then we figure out what happens next."

Adam nodded but Silas shrugged, still together they followed Bright across the training yard.

THEINFIRMARY

The small medical ward on the north side of Grim Hollow was overcrowded. Wounded trainees lay on makeshift cots, instructors moved between them with tightening expressions, and the air stank of disinfectant mixed with pain.

Bright’s squad occupied a corner segregated by hanging cloth strips.

Mara sat on a stool near the wall, elbows on her knees, staring at the ground. Her jaw was clenched tight enough to crack a stone.

Fen lay resting but conscious, glaring at nothing. He looked deeply ashamed as the older of the two.

Juno was awake too, rubbing his temples with trembling fingers—his talentless status weighing heavily on him.

And then Hailen.

Pale.

Barely breathing.

Wrapped in bandages soaked through with dark, rusty red.

Bright felt his heartbeat thud painfully. As he remembered Tobin and link, connections he made in the outpost washed away aptly.

A medic—a stern woman with crow-black hair—stepped beside him.

"He’s stable," she said. "Barely. The umbral corrosion was handled; stabilized so to speak , but his internal injuries..."

She shook her head. "He needs rest. And luck."

Bright crouched beside Hailen, placing a hand on the cool metal frame of the cot.

"He’ll make it," Bright said. He forced confidence into his voice, shaping it into something they could believe in.

Because they needed hope more than truth right now.

Fen cleared his throat. "Private... about earlier. I’m sorry we couldn’t aid you in your battle. It was a poor showing of our abilities"

Bright raised a hand, stopping him.

"We’ll talk about performance later," Bright said.

Adam stepped closer, lowering his voice.

"The food storage’s been destroyed. Not us. Not the outpost troops. The supplies.Most of it’s gone and I don’t think anyone here is craving crawler meet and a glass of the healing serum for good measure. They are probably trying to delay the republic’s northern campaign, for a reason I’m not aware of."

Silas cursed quietly. "Their goal sounds so stupid. How do they even get believers to join their cause"

Bright didn’t move, didn’t speak for several seconds.

The world back home was all sunshine and rainbows with a pinch of dog shit added to the mix... the stories... the propaganda about an unbreakable Republic, about a noble cause to push the northern deadlands back... it all felt childish now. Laughable.

He had never even heard of the Umbral Covenant until arriving here.

A cult working in the shadows.

Murderers.

Fanatics.

People like Larkin.

The thought made Bright’s jaw clench.

"We will be meeting them again, soon." he said softly.

Adam arched his brow. "You sure?"

"No. Not like this," Bright replied. "Not with most of us half-dead. But soon."

He turned his gaze to the window, where the night remained enduring.

"They think death is liberation," Bright said. "They think suffering is a path.

He looked at his squad.

"They picked the wrong outpost and we will make they realize that."

THE PRIVATE ROOM

Later, after ensuring his squad was settled, Bright slipped into an unused storage alcove near the far end of the hall. He closed the door behind him, leaned against the wall, and finally—finally—opened his hand.

The two cores glowed faintly in the dimness.

He thought of using the body enhancement core for his second soul pocket, but he hadn’t really spread his wings as an initiate to stick to it.

Not now.

One step at a time.

He tucked the cores into a cloth pouch and hid them beneath the loose floor paneling behind the supply crates. No one but him would stumble upon them.

But even hidden, they pulsed—like a secret begging to be discovered.

THE NIGHT WATCH

Hours later, the outpost grew quiet. Patrol torches flickered along the walls, and the cold deepened. Grim Hollow seemed to breathe in sleep—uneasy, wounded, waiting for dawn.

Bright stood alone on the western parapet, looking out over the dark forest, the moonlight reflecting off the frozen canopy.

His thoughts spiraled, coiling around various concerns.

He thought of offering the body enhancement core to Fen at a discount for some merit points and selling mind muffle at the shop because there could only be one mind ability users in the team.

But the biggest thought was the darkest:

If Larkin wasn’t unique... if others like him existed... then the Covenant was playing in their faces as Larkin in all his bravado was just a spy who happened to be adept.

Wind whipped past him.

Bright narrowed his eyes.

Let them come.

He wasn’t the boy who first entered the Shroud.

He wasn’t the trainee who had struggled in the yard.

He was an Initiate.

A survivor.

A leader.

And whatever the Covenant planned—

He would break it.

He would protect his squad and serve his duty.

Even if he had to become a monster to do it.

Bright Morgan breathed in the cold air, letting it fill him fully, and whispered to the night:

"Round two... I would be ready."