Abigail couldn't see the features properly, but she saw the abyssal black eyes, saw the hair, saw the way the phantom stared at her with silent anger and perhaps even hate. There was no mistaking this phantom's identity. It was Kai.
He came back from the dead and is now coming for her.
As much as she wanted to blame Erinyes, the Goddess of Retribution, for showing her this illusion, her eyes didn't see wrong.
Just a few dozen yards away, Kai was devouring the unconscious student.
It was he who caused all of this.
And as she feared most, the other groups might've already been taken out by him, too.
"K-Kai…"
She couldn't help but call out his name through a burning tongue.
Abigail didn't even know what her intention was by calling out his name. Perhaps subconsciously, she wanted to remind him that she was with him not too long ago. Or perhaps she was asking for forgiveness.
But the Kai that she knew was no longer there.
He devoured the student completely and stood up to face her.
For a moment, Abigail thought he was going to attack. He didn't. Instead, he simply tilted his head as if he was asking whether she believed what she did was right, and then—he stepped back into the darkness and disappeared once again.
"Kai!"
Abigail ran into that darkness, but she couldn't find him anywhere.
He simply vanished as the night devoured him.
"I'm sorry!" She shouted, eyes darting around to find a glimpse of him to no avail. Everything was spinning, and tears drizzled down her face as she grabbed a handful of her hair. "Please! I didn't want to do this! I'm…" She bit her lower lip hard. "I'm scared."
On the other side.
Bam—!
Matilda slammed her shield against the Awakened Monster, knocking its body.
She was searching for Wolf, but got the attention of the Awakened Monster instead. As they expected, it was a massive king cobra with rock-hard skin and sharp bones protruding out of its wide hood.
Even with Matilda's strength, it barely got knocked over.
Its red eyes glared at her, and its tail snapped like a whip.
Matilda blocked it with her shield, but the impact resounded loudly and pushed her back until she slammed into a tree. At the same time, Rosaline leaped over the Awakened Monster. Her arms had now grown with steel feathers.
She opened her arms with intent and fired the feathers.
The sound of her steel feather slamming into the monster's hard skin was akin to bullets.
Despite not being hurt that much, the Awakened Monster thrashed and slithered away.
Both of them were confused by the reaction, but noticed the egg in its mouth.
It was protecting the egg.
"Let's chase after it!" Rosaline roared, wanting to enact vengeance for what the monster did to their base. Many students died because of it without a doubt.
"No," Matilda held her back. "It's protecting its egg, and we can't even harm it. If we attacked it and it accidentally breaks the egg from the fight, it wouldn't hold back anymore. We should regroup first."
Rosaline clicked her tongue, but decided not to pursue the Awakened Monster.
Both of them scoured the area, searching for the survivors.
Matilda found one. Not a survivor, but a corpse.
Seeing the change in her face, Rosaline came over and followed Matilda's gaze. She looked up and, almost instantly, her breath was taken away from her lungs at what she saw. Pinned on the tree like a broken doll was Wolf.
A big tree splinter impaled through his neck, pinning him there like a dangling doll.
On his chest, carved into his skin like a brand, was the symbol of an inverted torch.
Its fire is pointing down.
And there, right beneath the corpse, lay the three heads of Wolf's black dogs arranged like an offering. Above the corpse, smeared across the tree in dripping crimson was a name: 'Lion'.
Each letter trailed fresh gore, the bark beneath it soaked and glistening.
A blood vendetta.
"What the fuck…?" Rosaline was at a loss for words.
Wolf was a High Angel, and he almost certainly had already opened his Second Divine Lock. And yet someone had reduced him to this. It should not be possible. There was no one who could do this. No one.
Being able to make a statement using Wolf meant the one responsible beat him soundly.
Had that not been the case, the perpetrator wouldn't have had the strength to make this.
It takes effort to make this gory statement.
Layra was the first one to appear in her mind, but the wound doesn't reflect Layra's design.
Most of the time, she liked to aim an arrow straight at the head. It wasn't her.
"Shit… Shit… Shit!" Rosaline scratched her head in a panic. She realized that now Wolf and a big chunk of them were killed in this, and there are only a handful of students remaining in Team Coeus. "We can't beat Team Hyperion after this! Lion is our only hope!"
Matilda stared at the gory spectacle and allowed herself to frown.
'It's him, alright,' She thought, staring at the inverted torch symbol. 'But what is that symbol?'
Not too far away, a shadow was moving through the forest.
Kai was dashing away from the crime scene.
He heard Abigail's scream earlier, but he didn't stay for long.
No matter what she said, it was already too late. Her words didn't move him at all.
You're afraid? Do you think I'm not? Do you think Dorian and the other students aren't the same?
Kai recalled the faces that he saw on Dorian, Rakha, and Mathias right before they raided the crate. Despite their differences, at that very moment, all of them reflected the same exact fear of death.
Everyone was afraid.
But even so, those three didn't resort to backstabbing.
Instead, they remained strong on their principles and made use of other things.
Recalling their convictions made him sneer at what Abigail said.
Kai recalled what that student from Team Hyperion had told him, that the Awakened Monster was at the bottom of a sizeable lake. If he could find it. Kill it. And claim the Blue Gem—then time became his best ally.
The other teams wouldn't be able to win without it.
And he would have all the time in the world to figure out his next steps.
He could easily hide from them and leave them clueless.
However, along the way, he stumbled across Wolf's group and decided to change his plan.
It was the night that guided him to stumble across them.
Just a few hours earlier, he had made his move.
…
Kai followed through with his plan—heading straight for the Awakened Monster with the Night-Phantom imprint humming active on his skin. He found it without issue, which was a good thing.
Defeating Wolf and the students he'd brought, which includes Matilda and Abigail, would be hard for him to do, even with his increased strength. After all, he's still one person.
His only way to proceed was to use the Awakened Monster.
And that was how he stumbled across its egg. He stole it, sneaked into where Wolf was waiting, and buried the egg near it. After that, he contemplated letting Team Coeus wake up the Awakened Monster, but decided to do it himself.
Realizing that its egg was missing, as expected, the Awakened Monster went on a rampage.
Kai led it straight towards Wolf, and everything else is easy picking from there.
He used the Awakened Monster as a main distraction and slit the throats of every student who was tied to Team Coeus. Each one that was separated, and also those who remained behind with Wolf, was taken out.
A silent slaughter.
In a situation like this, his Nigh-Phantom Imprint shone as a terrifying imprint.
Nobody could sense his presence, and he killed them all with one strike from behind.
But the satisfying part came in the end.
"Wolf! Save me!!"
A student with a broken leg reached out his hand towards Wolf, eyes glistening with tears.
He was struck by the Awakened Monster's trail, and the impact broke his leg.
'What happened? Why did the Awakened Monster suddenly attack us?' Wolf frowned; he was already blaming the others inside. 'Those damn guys can't even deal with such a simple task of search and mark?'
Knowing that Team Coeus is now in a shortage of manpower, Wolf couldn't simply let the student be. He summoned his dogs and sent them to save the student. Two drew the attention of the Awakened Monster, while the other one pulled the student away.
Wolf also participated, dealing with the Awakened Monster to buy time for the others.
But in the midst of battle, he sensed something that made his head turn.
'My dog… died?'
Wolf spun, eyes wide in shock. The black dog, the one he had assigned to bring that wounded student away—he suddenly couldn't feel its presence anymore. He separated from the other dogs to check, only to find nothing other than a small stain of blood.
No carcass.
And the student? Nowhere. He also vanished like his dog.
Other than the small blood stain, there's nothing that could tell him about what happened.
Almost like the world was playing a trick on him, he also lost his other dogs.
No. Not dead. Just fading. Their presence in his senses had dimmed to almost nothing. Wolf's teeth ground together as he sprinted toward where his other dogs should be. He went even faster and faster, pushing his limit.
But somehow, they were moving away from him.
Almost like there was something bringing them away, and he couldn't close the distance.
And before he could find them, their presence disappeared completely, too.
"Fuck!" He cursed and glared around in utter frustration. "Who the fuck is it?! Come out, you bastard!!"
Initially, Wolf thought the others had screwed up and woke up the Awakened Monster.
Now, his guts are telling him that someone was behind this.
"Face me if you dare!" He bellowed in frustration and rage at losing his dogs. "Face me!"
"I'm here."
A chill ran down his spine when a voice seeped into his ear.
Almost instantly, Wolf swiped his clawed hand backward, aiming to kill whoever this person was who dared to do this to him. But his hand was blocked easily, and the eyes that met his belonged to someone he wasn't expecting.
Before the surprise could leave his face, something cold and sharp punched into his neck.
His hands instinctively shot up to grab his neck, and then he choked.
Wolf looked down at Kai's hand, and there was a bloodied knife in it, fresh with his blood.
"I… I knew it," He said through a choked throat as he gargled on his own blood, dropping to his knees. Despite losing strength rapidly and blood already drenched his chest, he was still smiling and even laughing. "Matilda didn't kill you."
Kai bent down and placed the bloodied knife right in front of Wolf's eyes.
"This is for Rakha, Mathias, and all the other students you killed," He leaned in menacingly. "For your sin of barbarity, I give you death."