Grey didn't know how much he had change, he really hadn't looked at a mirror ever since. After months of surviving or rather struggling through the deadly, dreadful and fear-ridden grounds of the system, Grey was no longer the same- both body and mind had hardened, body becoming more outlined and serene. Mind and senses had become more sharpened into something almost inhuman even without using zone, he was able to read danger before it arrived, as if the very world now spoke to him in warning signs only he could understand, depending on the type of person he was dealing with.
But what was his other worldly senses telling him now? Now that he had run into something unexpected.
"I think it's probably an older photograph," Grey said carefully. Cautious of what might happen next.
"Are you sure this belongs to you?"
Grey opened his mouth.
"Let him in, Milo."
The voice came from the front of the bus — unhurried, uninflected, the tone of a man who had already decided. Grey could just see him past the driver's seat: dark gray hair fallen loose over golden pupils, forearms resting across his knees, he wore a serene black brown coat, leather like, covering most of his visible armor, he stared straight watching nothing in particular. A B-rank hunter, he looked a bit younger than Milo but that was just for his looks, give or take they could be in the same age group, though his stillness suggested a rank that numbers alone failed to capture. He did not look back.
Milo exhaled through his nose. The cigarette shifted in his mouth, and something in his expression folded into mild resignation.
"Yeah, yeah." He held the card back out. "I was just having a go with you, kid." He stepped aside with a gesture that was almost gracious. "You're the last one. Get on."
Grey smiled, receiving his boarding pass back and climbed into the bus carrying fifty cadets his own age group, the doors hissed shut behind him the moment his foot cleared the step.
Every head turned.
He felt the weight of their stares the way one feels afternoon heat through glass- present, unavoidable, and ultimately meaningless. The bus was packed with students from both tiers, nobles occupying the window seats with the quiet entitlement of people who had never once considered whether they deserved them, commoners filling the gap between, their laughter a little too eager, their postures a little too careful.
Grey read the social geometry of it in a single sweep and kept walking.
He had almost reached the middle aisle when a voice cut across the noise.
"Hey." The word landed with the particular laziness of someone who had never needed to raise their voice to be heard. "Who's this guy walking like he's got somewhere important to be?"
Darrin lounged in his seat with the ease of someone born to take up space. His green hair caught the light in a way that seemed almost deliberate, and his dark skin and sharp green eyes carried the same energy- curate, conscious, designed to be noticed. He glanced at the boy seated to his left, then the one to his right, and a slow grin spread across his face.
"Comes in late and still manages to move slower than everyone else. Remarkable, honestly." Grey heard all sorts of complaints coming from places he didn't care about. "Yeah… we've got somewhere to be." "How can someone young, still move like a Grandma?"
They laughed, but Grey didn't care, rather he just stood silently; he knew they were nothing but attention seekers.
The two boys with Darrin flanked him obliged with laughter, and Darrin made a small gesture toward the back of the bus- not quite a point, more of a suggestion, the kind that left no room for a different interpretation.
Grey kept walking towards his already well thought location. 'All that for somewhere, I was already headed, I wouldn't want it any other way.'
He found the rear seat empty, as rear seats tended to be, dropped his bag onto the floor beside his feet, and was still in the process of sitting when the bus lurched forward without warning. His hand caught the overhead pole on instinct but not in time- his temple connected with the metal with a sound like a bat striking a hallow log, and the momentum folded him down into the seat.
The laughter that followed was immediate and complete, rolling through the bus in a wave that had nowhere to go but louder.
Grey straightened in his seat. "Ha what a clown," his hearing caught onto Derin's signing voice.
'Well isn't this a fine crowd' Grey thought in sarcasm.
He did not reach up to touch his head. He did not close his eyes or draw a slow breath or do any of the small, involuntary things a person does when pain has reminded them it exists. He simply sat, his bag between his feet, his gaze setting on the grey road unspooling behind the glass.
His expression had not moved.
Not flinch, not a tightening around the eyes, not the briefest flicker of something suppressed. The blow had produced a sound that made several cadets winced before they laughed- and yet the face of the boy it had happened to offered them nothing. No performance of toughness, no swallowed grimace, no careful arrangement of features into composure.
Just absence.
The bus moved swiftly going through the city of Logshof, leaving Grey's hometown, all the way to the Alestria hunter headquarters, it was a two hour drive but they finally got there.The hunter headquarter, it was a majestic building reaching for the skies.
It had the crest of house Runefall- a shield like symbol with fire and rune marks on it, they were the noble household currently governing the kingdom of Alestria, along with other noble families affiliated with them. Hunters of different backgrounds and races, hurried in for their missions and to quickly make deals about labyrinths and quality items. Although the headquarters looked like the place to be, unfortunately it wasn't their destination today. Noah got down- he walked gracefully towards a small compound near the headquarter, two guard stood there, in armor,displaying their weapons,threatening any wise idea of attacking the gate house was the notion; one held a gun like projectile, the other a spear.
He pointed his thumb backwards, revealing the bus behind him from a distance. "We've brought the new Cadets and we are taking them to the academy." Later on, he made a strange hand sign to Milo, signaling that it was clear, "Okay, all of you come on down," Milo yelled so his voice could be heard even in the back. All the cadets stood up.
Then they followed Milo into the compound, as two men let them. With in the compound grounds, a facility stood tall and blindingly in the center, like a core connected to every other building there, they mainly use it for maintaining the link to the burst realm, and keeping the gate safe or perhaps providing themselves safety. They walked in all fifty two of them. They went passed the desk of operators straight to the gate, the two hunters great the seated personnel, in charge of setting and making sure the coordinates accurately signaled that they could go in. But before that, Milo and Noah had to put on communicators so they could keep contact with them.
They walked back to the realm gate, already gathered by excited new cadets, they really couldn't hold back the joy they had- saying something and whispering another.
Going to a normal academy on earth wasn't really hard for most of them, but the hunter academy in the burst realm, was a whole other debate.
The parents of cadets had already filled out forms that stated in most columns that they might never see their children again, although the academy made up for the inconveniences with its infrastructures and facilities, it was one of greatness, that had birthed more legends than any other.
Grey moved along the crowd as Milo and Noah led, his mind was preoccupiedabout not saying good bye to his mother... 'Oh well… I am coming back though, and she knows that, but… see you later mom.' A few seconds Grey and the others disappeared, as the cadets appeared on the other end of the gate, what they saw drove excitementfar from them- A dark space with towering pillars lined in a pattern leading towards an abyss, the depths of which they could not fully discern.
Their faces faltered, it curled into dark grimaces as fear surged through them in dangerous silence, "It's a labyrinth" Milo voice broke out, Noah glance back at the group of cadets, most trembling from the lack of labyrinth experience, Grey would have fallen into this category too, if not for his endeavors in the system realm.
A girl with chestnut-coloured hair resting down her back, the cat like ears perched atop her head twitched restlessly as a sign of sensing danger. She was striking attractive, her face delicately balanced between soft roundness and refined, captivating to say the least. Behind her, a tail trailed down naturally, swaying left and right, shefell on the stoned texture ground filled with cracked patterns of gray on the black pavement in shock. They all stared at Natasha inreflex; Noah looked seriously and then turned his gaze almost instantly, quickly trying to locate what the girl had seen. An eerie sound revealed its location- a gray hound-like creature.
Dark eerie flames licked across its bare ashen hide as if its skin itself had been set alight. Where fur should have mostly been, there was only scorched skin like burned rocks and exposed muscle, making it appear almost pitiful. At first glance its lack of cover made it seem almost laughable… but there was nothing amusing about its maw dripping with hunger, strings of saliva hanging between jagged teeth, as it exhaled a low guttural snarl. Massive claws scraped against the ground with each step, cracking the pavement beneath them, and leaving behind an unsettling broken trail.
Its eyes burned with pure malice- two bright blood-red glows like smoldering crimson fire, staring out from the dark.
A / N: Thank you for reading, make sure to follow up daily. And give power stones if you like my book and a review to keep me motivated, Thank you once more.