The trees whispered again.
Not wind. Not life.
Something else.
Nclai stood still in the aftermath of Lyra's extraction. Her blood scent still lingered faintly on the air, sharper than smoke, more bitter than pain.
He didn't move for a full minute.
His blood stirred without permission, coiling under the skin. The serpent's corpse behind him crumbled to ash. His control was growing faster than it should.
Too fast.
And the ambush, clean uniforms, unmarked blades, aura suppression...
These weren't students.
They were trained to kill!
......
He turned toward the half-conscious attacker pinned under a blood bind to the trunk of a twisted oak. The man's face was still hidden under the gray mask. His breathing shallow, one leg broken.
Nclai didn't ask.
He simply raised a hand.
Blood Control – Precision Thread Active
A thin ribbon of blood slithered up the man's mask and peeled it back with surgical patience.
A pale, slightly scaled face stared back at him. Not human.
Not vampire.
Reptilian veins under the skin. Eyes like coals doused in oil.
"Who sent you?" Nclai asked.
The man chuckled, weak, cracked-lipped.
"You weren't… supposed to be this strong…"
His jaw cracked as he bit down on something.
Snap.
Nclai's eyes widened.
Warning: Poison Capsule Detected
Too late.
The man convulsed and went limp. Foam around his mouth already black.
Another death without answers.
......
Nclai straightened, blood threads returning to his side like disciplined hounds.
Who had the power or gall to send assassins into a school-sanctioned exam?
And more importantly, why now?
He looked at the trees. The shadows. The cracked checkpoint stone still glowing at the base of the ruined observatory.
This wasn't just about the test anymore.
Someone wants to assassinate him!
...........
System Update
Notice: Emergency Recall Crystal – User Status: Compromised
Malfunction Detected. Functionality Disabled
.........
He checked his own escape crystal.
It's broken, they tampered it
They didn't just want to hurt him.
They wanted him trapped like a rat.
......
Nclai's blood surged, but it wasn't anger that made his veins pulse. It was a quiet, familiar presence. Shadow Veil activated instinctively, cloaking his form from view.
His world became unclear. Colder, darker the world grew. In the glimmer of the veil he was turned into a unity with the shadows themselves.
A whisper of movement, and Nclai moved through the woods, silent as death.
......
He stalked back toward the ruins. Students were gone now, cleared out after sensing the disturbance. No doubt the staff would write it off as a mana surge or a summoning backlash.
He knelt beside the remaining ashes of one of the assassins. Within the debris, he found something.
A coin.
Wrought from obsidian, etched with a blood fang sigil.
He recognized it.
Not from personal memory, but from the Crimson Sovereign Codex.
Faction Tag Identified: Bleeding Fang Clan – Shadow Operatives of the Vampire Realm
Status: Outlawed by three royal families. Active only in underground networks.
Why would someone in the Academy or outside hire them?
Unless,
Unless they couldn't touch him directly.
Unless someone was scared.
......
He pocketed the token.
Then turned.
Far off, at the edge of the woods, a pair of students watched him from behind a checkpoint node.
He locked eyes with one.
They ran.
Nclai didn't give chase.
Instead, he looked at his hand again, at the faint shimmer of red that now wrapped his fingertips.
He had been trying to live quietly.
Blending in and enduring the hardships.
But they brought blood to his doorstep.
......
He whispered something under his breath.
It wasn't a spell.
It wasn't a curse.
It was a promise.
"I won't be hunted."
He stepped forward.
And the forest shifted.
As if it, too, had chosen a side.
......
Nclai wasn't just a student anymore. He wasn't just someone caught in the crossfire of fate.
He was the one they feared now.
And with Shadow Veil cloaking him, the enemies of his bloodline would learn that the hunter had become the hunted.
Let the night come!
Darkness is my home.
......