Arlok, perhaps sensing the air growing too heavy for comfort, tried to slice it open with a crooked grin.

“Personally, I like to think this island is just where the Ancient Gods came to take a dump. Explains why it’s always dark here every night.”

The words landed with all the grace of a stone tossed into a still pond. Everyone’s face stiffened, not in amusement but in the awkward disbelief that they wondered if he was joking or simply unhinged.

“What?” Arlok asked, looking from one blank stare to another, as though the lack of laughter was the strangest part of the night. He opened his mouth again, ready to defend his logic—

—but Yerin moved first, her hand shooting up to clamp his jaw shut without a word. Ruvian followed, stepping over to the fire and snuffing the shallow ember until only the ghost of its warmth remained.

The two of them didn’t speak. They moved as if they had learned to trust their instincts over explanations.

It wasn’t the air that had shifted. There was less mana to feel anyway in this thick darkness. The night here dulled those senses almost to nothing. And yet, under that unnatural stillness, there was something else.

A sound.

'There's something outside.’

At first, it was so faint that only Yerin and Ruvian caught it, but as the others stilled and strained their ears, it became undeniable. A distant, wet, and drawn-out cry that could only come from something alive yet far past the point of being whole.

It rose and fell in the dark, somewhere between a beast’s mourning and a man’s last breath, threading through the dark like it was searching for something to answer it.

Yerin lifted a finger to her lips.

Ruvian did the same as well.

They didn’t see what was outside of their shelter, yet in that moment, all five of them felt the same dreadful pressure pressing down on their chests—that whatever moved out there was not a prey, not an equal, and definitely not even a foe to be fought at tenebrous hour.

Words suddenly felt like dangerous things to let out, worried that they might draw attention. So they stayed still, as still as their bodies allowed.

And in the tightening silence, their minds began to betray them with stray thoughts about how easily such a thing could devour them now if they wanted to.

Ruvian let his gaze drift; his eyes caught on Horren’s knuckles, bone-white where they gripped his bow. Then, on Shima’s shoulders, tight and trembling, as though her body was bracing for a blow.

Arlok’s jaw worked soundlessly in the slow grind of swallowing back the urge to speak. Meanwhile, Yerin’s eyes, usually steady as stones, were now locked on the floor with an unfocused gaze.

His mind, traitorous and quick, began clawing at questions.

What in all the scattered hells was out there?

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How could something simply exist and make them feel so small?

Why hadn’t the wind carried its sound, its smell, its shadow… had it always been here? Since when? If the thing decided to attack them, then there were no other choices than to fight as well.

Arlok’s body refused to move at first, every muscle locked in place. But through sheer stubbornness or perhaps the primitive refusal to die cowering… he forced one arm to pick up his poleaxe. And one by one, they followed his lead, clumsy and late but unwilling to be the only ones standing empty-handed. Somewhere beyond the fragile shelter of their walls, Ruvian caught the faintest shift of sound—nothing more than the suggestion of a movement of a large creature.

Without pausing to think about the absurdity of it, without waiting for the certainty that usually governed his choices, his body moved before his mind caught up; his buried instinct had whispered: Do this now!

He raised a wind shield, not broad enough to protect the whole camp but just wide enough to cover the wall in front of him. The air thickened and spiralled into a translucent barrier, and it was only when it solidified into shape—

‘Fuckk!!’

BOOM!

—The earthen barricade shattered a heartbeat later, ripped apart by something massive that crashed through. The impact was a huge blow, a force that treated stone and bodies alike as equally disposable, hurling all five of them into the lightless open beyond.

And then the darkness swallowed them whole.

****

Ruvian came with the dull, throbbing headache. He had no idea how long he had been out, but the taste of dirt and copper lingered in his mouth. The memory of that crushing impact still clung to his bones. He remembered being the first to take the hit. The wind shield bloomed in front of him in the final heartbeat before the earth barrier tore itself apart, and he supposed that was the only reason he was still breathing at all.

When his mind finally clawed its way back into clarity, panic arrived with it.

‘What happened while I was out?’

He blinked into the black, but it was like staring into the inside of his own eyelids.

No sign of what had attacked them.

And no sign of his teammates.

‘Shit…’

He kept low, lowering his profile further until his stomach brushed the damp grass, moving on hands and knees in slow, careful inches. The ground beneath him was still grass, not soil or stone, which meant he hadn’t been thrown far. Whether that was good news or bad, he couldn’t yet decide—close to where they’d been meant close to whatever had torn through their shelter.

The darkness was complete, the kind that swallowed light and smothered sound until even the beat of his own heart felt muted. It was then, he realized that darkness was the thing that kept him alive right now.

Thrown into the open, their positions scattered, the thing outside would have to search for them…

And if the author’s notes were to be trusted, even Voidspawn struggled to see on this island, unless they carried the kind of power that turned darkness into their ally. Ruvian’s stomach tightened at the thought. If this one was among those few, their chances to survive would turn to dust.

The academy had been clear before sending them here: if something happened during the night, the instructors wouldn’t come. They wouldn’t risk themselves for anyone who wasn’t worth the trouble. The prized scions of the first years—those golden names the academy had staked its pride upon—would never be allowed to vanish quietly into the dark.

If the jaws of hell itself yawned open, the faculty would drag them back before the bite could land. The rest, however—the nameless and unremarkable—would not be spared such certainty. They would be left to the mercy of whatever waited beyond the firelight.

If fortune favored them, their bodies might be recovered at dawn, stiff and pale under the frost. If not, the dark would keep them, and the world would carry on as if they had never been here at all.

And standing there beneath that oppressive, starless vault of sky, Ruvian saw the truth settle into place with a weight he could neither deny nor set down. On this night, in this cold, in this place where the walls of the academy meant nothing, there would be no rescue or timely intervention to pull them from the brink.

If they were to see the morning, it would be by their own steps, their own will, and their own refusal to die quietly in the dark.

And for Ruvian, that choice was absolute.

For there was no part of him willing to let the night take him without a fight.

‘What a worst thing to happen now.’

(+100PP)

PP= 4400

ME= 510