Vale looked down just in time to see the body hit the ground.

  The sound was wrong, something he hadn't heard before yet was unmistakable.

  Blood burst upward on impact, splattering across his face while it was still warm. He froze, breath caught in his throat, eyes locked on the corpse beside him.

  The boy’s heart was gone.

  Not torn open. Not crushed.

  Removed entirely.

  Where his heart should have been, there was only a vast, cauterized cavity, edges blackened as if reality itself had burned the organ away in an instant.

  Vale’s body trembled.

  His hands shook uncontrollably as the lifeless form finally went still, the last traces of motion fading into absolute silence.

  Above them, still hovering calmly in the air, the man responsible smiled.

  It was not wide.

  Not exaggerated.

  It was the smile of someone satisfied with his work.

  A second later, the chamber erupted.

  Students screamed. Some cried out names in panic. Others turned and ran, desperate, blind with fear, slamming into one another as they fled toward the edges of the room.

  They didn’t get far.

  The invisible barrier flared, stopping them cold.

  No exits and no escape.

  They were fish trapped in a small, shrinking pond.

  And in that same pond swam a shark, one that could swallow them all in a heartbeat if it chose to.

  Vale felt a cold ripple crawl up his spine when a whisper slipped into his mind.

  “Master… we can still save him.”

  His eyes widened.

  He knew that voice.

  “M-Mirage?” Vale whispered, confusion and fear twisting together in his chest.

  “Yes,” the voice replied urgently. “There is still time. Lay your hand on the boy’s body, now. Hurry!”

  Vale didn’t hesitate.

  He dropped to his knees and pressed his hand against the boy’s ruined chest.

  The moment his skin made contact, his vision ignited.

  Icy blue light flooded his eyes, the same glow Mirage carried, and his hand shimmered faintly as his consciousness was pulled forward, dragged into memory.

  He saw the moment of death.

  The hovering man.

  The strange, alien energy gathering in his palm.

  The beam firing.

  The boy’s eyes widening in shock,

  Vale recoiled.

  He saw himself in the memory, standing frozen, helpless.

  “Can I… see before that?” Vale asked instinctively, unsure if Mirage could even hear him.

  Then the memory shattered.

  He was thrown back into reality.

  Flesh was reforming beneath his palm.

  Bone knitted together.

  Muscle surged back into place.

  Skin closed over the wound as if time itself were being forced to reverse.

  The boy gasped.

  His eyes snapped open in panic, lungs drawing in air violently as if he had been drowning. He stared up at Vale, relief flooding his expression.

  “Th-thank-”

  He stopped.

  His eyes locked onto something behind Vale.

  Terror replaced relief in a instant.

  Vale felt it aswell.

  A presence, cold, heavy and suffocating.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  Slowly, Vale raised his head.

  The man was standing directly behind him.

  The boy’s body went rigid, fear rooting him in place.

  Vale turned,

  and a hand closed around his throat.

  Effortlessly.

  “Well, well,” the man said softly, his voice smooth and cruel. “Such a strange ability you have.”

  Vale clawed at the grip around his neck, gasping as instinct kicked in. He reached out with his senses, feeling for the man’s energy,

  And froze.

  His eyes widened so far they burned.

  “…Yuki?” Vale whispered in horror.

  The energy was identical.

  Cold.

  Sharp.

  Unmistakably the same.

  That should have been impossible.

  The man’s expression twisted violently.

  Rage flashed across his face as he hurled Vale away, throwing him into the barrier with bone-rattling force.

  “You dare,” he snarled, stalking forward, “compare me to that bitch?!”

  He stopped just short of Vale.

  Raised his hand.

  Smiled.

  “I’ll kill you for that.”

  Five jagged spikes of ice formed in the air around him, not massive, not dramatic, but precise and lethal.

  With a flick of his wrist, they launched.

  Before they could reach Vale,

  A shadow stretched across the floor.

  Not human in form.

  It was bestial.

  It surged upward violently, swelling and solidifying into a massive onyx-black wolf. Its body twisted mid-motion as its jaws snapped shut, shattering the ice spikes into frozen dust.

  The wolf turned, growling low and thunderous.

  Mirage.

  Vale stared, stunned by his appearance.

  Mirage glanced back at him for a brief moment, his expression gentle and reassuring,

  Then he roared and he charged at the man.

  The man laughed, clearly amused,

  but something was wrong.

  Mirage felt different.

  Stronger, sharper, more complete.

  Then white fire erupted behind the man.

  A blazing flame slammed into him as Ember descended, wings flaring wide, his roar shaking the chamber as he barreled forward.

  The man staggered.

  And in that instant, Vale saw it.

  Mirage split.

  One wolf became two.

  Two became five.

  Five identical onyx wolves burst outward, moving in perfect synchronization as they circled the man, cutting off every escape route.

  The man’s amusement vanished.

  He shot upward, hovering once more, fury twisting his features.

  “You DARE?!”

  His body split open.

  Flesh peeled away like burning paper, revealing a glowing mechanical core beneath, brilliant, unnatural and inhuman. The remaining scraps of flesh were swallowed by light as the core pulsed violently.

  Five beams of searing energy erupted outward,

  Each one aimed directly at a Mirage.

  However, the wolves did not relent.

  Each remaining Mirage snarled in unison, and instead of charging across the ground, they leapt upward.

  Their paws struck nothing.

  Yet they did not fall.

  They stood upon the air itself as if it were solid stone, claws digging into invisible ground before launching forward again. They zigzagged through the sky, their movements sharp and erratic, narrowly weaving between the searing beams of energy that tore through the chamber.

  Still, the man adapted.

  Three beams struck three wolves.

  Three Mirages were erased mid-motion, no explosion came, no scream either, they were simply gone, their forms unraveling into nothingness as the energy consumed them completely.

  Only two remained now.

  The man began gathering power for another attack,

  But then,

  White fire struck him.

  Not once.

  But seven times.

  Beams of intensely concentrated white flame slammed into him from seven different directions, forcing his body to twist violently in midair.

  Seven Embers streaked through the sky.

  The real one, and six perfect copies.

  Illu had done this.

  The raven hovered at a distance, wings spread wide, eyes glowing as the illusions held firm. At the same time, the air itself turned hostile. A roaring wind erupted around the man, pressure collapsing inward, spinning violently, strong enough to make a hurricane seem like a mild inconvenience.

  Then something tore through the storm.

  A glowing sphere, blazing orange and moving at rocket speed, ripped through the compressed wind and slammed directly into the man’s side.

  Metal screamed as it tore through the man.

  The impact shredded flesh and armor alike, ripping open his torso and exposing metallic organs, glowing conduits, and churning mechanical structures beneath what little human exterior remained.

  The man snarled, teeth grinding together as pain finally reached him.

  He was wounded now.

  With a furious motion, he gathered power and released it outward.

  A shockwave of ice detonated from his body aimed at the flying creatures.

  The frozen force slammed into everything.

  Ember was hurled backward, flames sputtering as ice devoured his wings. The remaining Mirages were blasted from the air, crashing hard into the ground. Illu’s illusions shattered instantly, while even the real raven was sent spiraling away, feathers freezing mid-flight.

  Silence followed.

  The man lowered himself slightly, breathing heavy, his glowing core pulsing as he looked down.

  His gaze locked onto Ember first.

  The wyvern lay half-buried in ice, struggling weakly, flames flickering and unstable.

  The man’s expression twisted with frustration.

  He raised his hand.

  Three massive spikes of ice formed above him.

  Vale’s eyes widened in pure terror.

  “No!”

  He ran without hesitation.

  He just ran, faster than he ever had in his life, toward Ember’s broken form.

  The man released the spikes.

  For a brief, unbearable moment, time itself seemed to slow.

  Vale knew.

  He wouldn’t make it.

  The distance was too great. His legs burned. His lungs screamed. Ember would die.

  There was nothing he could do.

  'My friend… my first companion…'

  The spikes tore through the air, shrieking as they descended.

  'Will Ember… really die?' Vale thought desperately as his foot caught on uneven ground.

  He fell and closed his eyes as his body made impact with the hard floor.

  Vale’s breath hitched as tears welled up, and slowly, dreadfully, he opened his eyes.

  Ember was unharmed.

  Instead,

  Three enormous ice spikes were buried deep within a massive body.

  A large boy with brunette hair stood between Vale and the wyvern, his muscles bulging grotesquely as they stopped the spikes by sheer force. Blood poured from his mouth in a violent torrent, splashing onto the frozen ground.

  “K-Korin…?” Vale whispered.

  The boy looked down at him.

  And smiled.

  It was small. Weak. Dying.

  “I will protect…” Korin whispered, blood dripping from his lips, “…my friends.”

  Something changed.

  An aura ignited around Korin’s body, dense, heavy and suffocating. The ice spikes cracked, fractures spreading rapidly before they shattered apart, fragments still embedded within his flesh.

  Then,

  His wounds began to close.

  Muscle knit together. Skin sealed over shattered ice. His breathing steadied as his body forced itself to adapt.

  Vale’s breath caught.

  He knew this power.

  Korin had told him about it, he had feared it and sealed it away after he first used it, the first time it activated it was catastrophic no other words could comprehend it,

  and yet in this desperate situation,

  Korin had unleashed it.