The jungle had gone quiet.
Even the cicadas seemed to know that violence was imminent.
They were completely surrounded.
Twenty-four students—a mix of heavy knights in black and mages in blue—formed a tightening noose around the small trio. The circle was perfect, disciplined, and terrifyingly silent.
Every single one of them wore a mask.
Kael stood with his back pressed against Rylen's, who was practically vibrating with tension.
Seraphina stood in front of them, her sword held low, her breathing shallow but steady.
"Twenty-four," Rylen whispered, his voice cracking. "That's... that's a lot."
"I count eight mages," Seraphina noted, her eyes darting between the trees. "If they attack simultaneously, we become ash."
One of the students from the base stepped forward.
He didn't draw a weapon. instead, he calmly reached into his coat and produced the dreaded chalkboard.
He wrote slowly, the scratch of chalk echoing in the clearing. He turned the board to face them.
[HAND OVER THE FLAG. WE WILL GIVE YOU A QUICK ENDING.]
Kael read the words slowly.
'Polite,' he thought hysterically.
At least they're offering a quick death.
That's customer service.
Seraphina straightened her spine. despite the mud, the blood, and the exhaustion, she looked every inch the noble commander.
"I would rather die than surrender the Flag to cowards who hide behind masks," she said, her voice cold steel.
The leader tilted his head. He didn't seem angry. He just nodded, wiped the board with his sleeve, and wrote again.
[VERY WELL THEN. KILL THEM ALL.]
"Wait!" a voice squeaked from the side.
The healer was trembling, hugging her bag to her chest. She looked at the leader, then at the dark canopy above.
"Please," she whispered, her eyes wide with terror. "We can't do this now. It might come back. We have to remain quiet!"
The leader ignored her completely.
He raised a hand.
The circle began to close.
Twenty-four weapons were drawn.
Mana began to gather in the palms of the mages, glowing ominous shades of red and orange.
Kael felt the heat rising.
He tightened his grip on his sword, though his hands were slippery with sweat.
'This is it. This is the bad ending.'
Suddenly, he felt a hand brush against his lower back.
It wasn't an accident.
Seraphina's hand slipped into his back pocket. He felt the rough texture of heavy fabric being shoved deep inside.
The Flag.
"I will distract them," Seraphina whispered. Her voice was so low only he could hear it. "You run. Our hopes now lie in your hands."
"Wait what? I can't—" Kael started.
She didn't wait.
With a scream that tore through the silence, Seraphina launched herself forward.
It was suicide. It was madness. And it was magnificent.
She didn't attack the leader.
She attacked the mages.
She moved like a silver blur, her exhaustion seemingly vanished for one final burst of adrenaline.
Her rapier flickered—one, two, three, four strikes.
Four students collapsed before they could even finish casting their spells, their barriers shattered by precision strikes to their mana cores.
For a second, the enemy froze.
They were shocked.
They looked at the girl who looked like she had been dying a few seconds ago, standing over four of their fallen comrades.
The leader pointed a finger at her. No chalkboard was needed. The command was clear.
GET HER.
The circle broke.
They roared—a silent, collective surge of movement—and swarmed her.
Rylen screamed a war cry and charged into the fray to cover her back, his small dagger clashing against three enemies at once.
Chaos erupted.
Kael saw the opening.
The line had broken to the west.
'Run,' his brain screamed.
Kael turned and sprinted.
He pushed his legs harder than he ever had in his life.
He scrambled over a root, ducking under a sword swing, his eyes fixed on the darkness of the trees.
'I can make it. I can make it.'
When suddenly—
BOOM.
The world exploded in front of him.
A ball of concentrated fire, the size of a pumpkin, slammed directly into his chest.
There was no time to dodge, he didn't even see it coming.
The impact lifted him off his feet and threw him backward like a ragdoll.
He hit the ground with a sickening thud, skidding through the mud until he slammed into a tree trunk.
"Gah—!"
Air left his lungs. Kael curled into a ball, clutching his chest.
His uniform was smoking.
The pain was blinding, a searing heat that felt like his ribs had been replaced with molten iron.
He gasped, trying to inhale, but his diaphragm was paralyzed.
Through the haze of pain, he tried to look up.
"Rylen! Sera!" he wheezed.
The fight was over. It had lasted less than thirty seconds.
Seraphina was on her knees, two swords crossed at her throat. Rylen was face-down in the mud, a heavy boot pressing his head into the dirt.
They had been captured.
A member of the base approached Kael. He didn't look like he was in a hurry. He looked at the smoking boy on the ground and kicked him in the stomach.
Kael retched, bile rising in his throat.
He knelt and began patting him down. He checked the pockets. He checked the belt.
He found the lump in the back pocket.
He pulled out the blue cloth. He unfurled it. The Flag.
He held it up for the leader to see. The leader nodded.
Kael watched through blurry eyes. He tried to reach out. He tried to grab the his leg.
"No..." Kael croaked.
The student looked down at him with disdain.
He kicked Kael again, harder, in the ribs.
Kael rolled onto his back, staring up at the canopy
The pain was overwhelming, but beneath the physical agony, something else was rising.
A cold, dark sludge in the pit of his stomach.
'Why?' Kael thought in pain.
He watched Seraphina's face as they tied her hands.
Her eyes were filled with disappointment.
'Why did I have to be this weak as always?' he thought.
Thoughts began to pour in one after the other.
'If only i had been faster.'
'If only i had been a little stronger.'
'A little less useless...'
It had been a very long time since he felt this feeling...Guilt.
A feeling he got when his lack of awareness or ability caused people to suffer.
He had learned to shut out the feeling and isolate himself since everywhere he went people always expected something from him.
And he wasn't one to fulfil expectations, so he kept to himself and lived his life alone and died alone.
But now for some reason he couldn't suppress it this time.
It was consuming him.
The feeling boiled over. It wasn't just frustration or guilt anymore.
It was Anger.
Pure, unadulterated rage at his own incompetence.
"Is this what anger feels like?" he whispered to the uncaring sky.
Suddenly, the world felt twisted.
A screeching noise, like a modem dial-up tone amplified to a deafening volume, erupted in his skull.
[Warning! Warning!]
[System Anomaly Detected.]
[External Interference Detected.]
[Changes are being forced upon you by an unknown force.]
The golden text boxes didn't float gently.
They slammed into his vision, cracking and glitching.
[Sword Mastery +1]
A jolt of electricity shot through his brain.
A memory—not his—flashed through his mind.
He could see a blurry individual—a kid—practicing with a sword over and over again.
"AHHH!" Kael screamed, clutching his head.
[Sword Mastery +1]
Another jolt.
He could see them again, swinging their weapon, but this time they moved with more grace and refinement.
[Sword Mastery +1]
Swish
Swish
Swish
Their sword curved into beautiful arcs, leaving wave-like traces.
[Sword Mastery +1]
[Sword Mastery +1]
[Sword Mastery +1]
It didn't feel like learning.
More of data injection.
It felt like someone was shoving a red-hot poker into his frontal lobe and stirring.
Kael writhed on the ground, his back arching, his heels digging furrows into the mud.
He screamed, a raw, animalistic sound that stopped the everyone in their tracks.
[Sword Mastery +1]
[Sword Mastery +1]
[Sword Mastery +1]
"Kael!" Rylen yelled from where he was pinned. "What are you doing to him?!"
The boy standing over Kael backed away, looking confused.
This wasn't a normal reaction to a beating.
The boy on the ground was moving like he was possessed.
[Sword Mastery +1]
[Sword Mastery +1]
[Sword Mastery +1]
Twelve times.
Twelve distinct spikes of agony.
Twelve lifetimes of knowledge compressed into ten seconds.
Kael's body went rigid.
He convulsed one last time, and then... he stopped.
He lay perfectly still.
His chest heaved.
The smoke from his burnt uniform curled into the night air.
The jungle fell silent again.
The leader of the base frowned.
He jerked his chin at the boy standing over Kael.
Check him.
The boy nodded.
He drew an axe and stepped closer.
He bent down, reaching for Kael's neck to check for a pulse or perhaps to finish the job.
He leaned in slowly.
Kael's eyes snapped open.
In one blurred motion, Kael's right hand snatched the hilt of his discarded sword from the mud.
He didn't swing it.
He didn't slash.
He thrust it upward with zero hesitation and perfect mechanical precision.
Thwip.
The blade entered the boy's face, right through the eye slit of the mask.
The boy didn't even have time to scream.
He stiffened, twitched once, and then dissolved into a shower of golden particles, eliminated instantly.
"..."