The air in the room grew heavy as it waved through the silence that seemed to pull the ceiling down on them.
Leon hesitated, then whispered in a low voice, "I will."
Mr. Lee grinned and walked out without saying a word or even looking back at Leon. But his reaction was caught in Leon's eyes.
He knew what Mr. Lee had in mind just by staring at his movements. As the moon rose, the academy buzzed like a beehive.
Gossip, bets, and whispers of predictions flooded the hallways like water. Each room buzzed with rumours about the tournament's brutal history; the deaths, the madness, and the shattered bodies left unburied.
Leon could feel the noise bushing against his door. It was so loud, the door kept vibrating, causing Leon's wish of sleeping impossible even with a cleared mind and closed eyes.
As he lurched his body from the bed, he brushed his hands at his neck as he felt pains surging in it.
Then, as he stood straight, his knees throbbed, not from fatigue but from the torment he had faced in the Shattered Lands.
With a frustrated sigh, he walked toward his wardrobe, pulled out an outfit, and wore it, letting it cover his nakedness.
After that, he closed the wardrobe and walked out of the room with only one mindset: 'I need a quiet place.'
As he stepped in the hallway, it was more than what he was even suffering from in his room. The quiet hallway now turned into a river of excited students.
Slowly, he moved through them, trying to be unseen. But since they were plenty there, it was hard to be like the ghost he wished for.
Pulled by a need to escape the noise, he walked without direction. He just trod toward the place he thought would give him what he wanted.
Just as he turned toward the great hall, he stumbled and collided with a soft, slightly raised, boneless form.
In slow motion, he raised his head. But as he saw it was a lady, he apologized and continued walking toward the old study hall.
As he approached the study hall's large transparent window, he saw movement inside. The moment he leaned in for a closer look, he saw two students entangled with each other, kissing on one of the couches.
The scene before him crushed him so hard it felt like a glimpse into a world at which he was permanently exiled.
A fresh wave of isolation washed over him instantly, causing him to turn and walk away. Then, as he navigated back to his room, he noticed that everyone standing in the hallway had a pair—both genders.
And in the windows of every room he passed, he saw either a lady and a guy, or two people of the same gender entangled with each other.
Unluckily, the partner he found in the Shattered Land wasn't someone he could even call a friend, so he was just left alone.
The moment he entered his room and slammed the door, he collapsed onto his bed. 'What a waste of life.' The thought was quiet but sounded like a despairing echo.
When he finally fell into sleep, the horrors of the Shattered Lands replayed in his mind: the chittering creatures, the poisonous air, the moving shadow he couldn't see but hear, the wolf-like beast, and the Leviathan. His body twitched on the bed as they reeled.
The air in the room grew thick and cold like rusted metal. The feeble light from the moon vanished as it passed behind a cloud, plunging Leon's room into an unqualified darkness.
Even the wall groaned as the light vanished for a split second, as if something was screeching against it.
His legs twitched violently, kicking the thin, patched blanket off even as he gurgled in his sleep.
The blanket landed on the chilled floor in a heap. Golden light flickered under his skin, not as a weapon, but as a nervous pulse as his mind replayed the pulsing sword moment.
Tiny sparks crackled across his knuckles and danced over the bedsheets, casting fleeting, frantic shadows on the walls.
The wild noise of the academy began to die as if it was responding to Leon's unconscious display.
Outside, as if in response to this unconscious display, the raucous noise of the academy began to die.
After every conversation halted mid-sentence, an unnatural silence fell over the grounds, as deep and heavy as a tomb.
The only sounds were the distant, lonely cries of crows circling high above in the blackness, witnesses to the storm quietly building in the boy from Dusthollow's room.
Inside Leon's room, the sparking energy that had danced over his skin suddenly retracted, pulling itself inward as his dream-state deepened.
As his eyes cracked open in the dream, he saw himself standing on a vast, endless expanse of green water.
It was thick, viscous, holding his weight like solid glass. There were no trees, no animals, and no land—only the unsettling, placid green.
It felt more real than the waking world; every shift of his weight on the strange surface sent a corresponding tremor through his sleeping physical form. Awe warred with dread.
Always hearing of prophetic visions, but never experiencing one himself, not even under his father's most intense training. Now here he was, standing on a primordial ocean.
Tentatively, he took a step. Where his foot met the water, the green solidified, erupting not with a splash, but with the form of a mighty, ancient tree.
He paused, stunned. The growth halted instantly. He took another step, and another, each movement crafting a new world, a forest springing from his will. He was the creator here.
But on his third pause, the sea before him parted, causing the green water to roil back. The parted sea revealed a path of dark, rich soil that spread into a shoreline packed with vegetation so lush it felt forbidden.
The trees were huge; their branches looked like the bones of a long-dead leviathan.
'I am not stepping on that,' he thought, shaking his head. "It's a trap. It has to be."
The moment the decision formed, the supportive water beneath him vanished. The heavy liquid pressed down on him as he sank deeper. It dragged and squeezed the air from his lungs, causing him to suffocate.