Just like it came, it left.

  The pressure in the air and the tension in their muscles, it all vanished and the Like a colony of ants that suddenly scattered into cracks in the ground, the moment they saw a threat approaching.

  Except, their hidden assailants didn't vanish because of fear. Why did they then? Levi and his friends didn't know.

  Levi slowly lowered his shoulders. “They’re gone,” he muttered.

  “They left?” Kyle asked, as they all turned round in a circular pattern slowly. “Weren’t they just—”

  “There were only three,” Violet cut in, still watching the treeline with narrowed eyes. “They kept circling fast, changing position constantly. Their energy signatures overlapped and that made it feel like more.”

  They all eased up, dropping their stances and standing properly. The forest around them had gone quiet again. No birds or rustles. Just a still tension lingering in the silence.

  “So…” Levi turned, brushing a leaf off his shoulder. “Anyone got any idea where we are now? Or if we’re even still on the island?”

  He sighed, dragging a hand down his face. “What a drag…”

  “I think what we should be worried about more right now,” Kyle said, stretching his neck to the side with a faint pop, “is those guys who just vanished like ghosts.”

  “And whether or not this place has any mana beasts,” Levi added.

  “Exactly... Cause I’ll tell you this right now,” Kyle said, starting to walk forward. “If I run into another Gorgonix, I’m not smiling and waving hello.”

  “Please no,” Violet groaned, following behind. “Don’t jinx us. A grade 1 C-ranked beast is not something we need right now.”

  “Wait, grade 1?” Levi asked, frowning as he stepped over a crooked log. “C-ranked? That thing was that strong?”

  “Well,” Kyle shrugged, “maybe just to weakasses like us.”

  “But like you saw,” Violet said, hands behind her head, “Mr. Reinhart had no trouble with it. He’s probably a 1B or something.”

  “Would’ve been better if we had the other Reinhart,” Kyle muttered under his breath.

  “Other Reinhart?” Levi asked, confused, hopping over a rock.

  “Yup, other Reinhart. There’s someone else, a Sentinel,” Kyle said, brushing a branch out of the way. “He was named Reinhart. He was crazy strong. People used to say he was on par with some squad captains. But then he just… retired. Outta nowhere. And disappeared.”

  “Do we even have any idea where we’re going right now?” Violet asked, sidestepping a slope as she followed behind.

  Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

  “No freakin’ clue,” Kyle replied, hopping down onto the path. “But hey, at least we're moving. It's way better than sitting around for those guys, like a dog waiting for its owner.”

  "You have a point..." Violet exhaled heavily and they kept walking.

  While they conversed, Levi's mind traveled far again. His thoughts kept drifting back to those three shadows—those attackers—who’d vanished. The way they moved and the way their presence disappeared without warning. It was too familiar.

  His brows tightened as he strained his brain like a detective struggling to remember a major clue he was missing.

  It was just like before—before Reinhart saved him. That ambush and the person. They had vanished totally this exact same way. Like they sank into thin air, only to pop up again to strike.

  Suddenly he paused mid-way.

  “Wait…” he muttered, almost to himself.

  Kyle noticed the sudden stop and turned. “What’s up? You figure out how to teleport us off this island or something?”

  Levi didn’t respond. He wasn’t even paying attention to him and Violet.

  His gaze was fixated on a round shaped shadow cast just a few feet in front of him. At first, it looked normal, like something made by a tree canopy above.

  But then something at that moment, something clicked in his head like a light switch of realization being flipped.

  His breath hitched and his eyes widened. Whatever he realized at that point wasn't a positive awareness.

  Back then, during the attack at the school, he barely caught a glimpse of it, but he saw it, the leg of his assailant, pushing out from a round shadow just like this one.

  That was when he noticed the others. He wasn't the only one with such close to him. There were three circular shadows in total. One behind Kyle and another creeping beside Violet.

  The same number of attackers Violet counted earlier. The more information he processed, the more he felt like everything in his stomach were being disoriented.

  "No fucking way..."

  “Violet! Kyle—”

  He immediately attempted to warn his friends but he was too late.

  Their attackers were already on the move. Predators proceeding to pounce on their preys.

  Three entities emerged from the shadows like phantoms dressed in black jumpsuits. Their faces were hidden behind masks revealing only their eyes.

  The first stepped out behind Kyle, gripping his collar before he even realized it. With a sharp movement of his hand, the masked figure yanked him off the ground and flung him like a ragdoll into far into the bushes. The sound of crashing branches echoing through the clearing as Kyle vanished.

  Levi barely had time to process it before a second figure materialized in front of him. A side kick slammed into his ribs with forcing him off his feet and launching him through the trees until he vanished from sight.

  “Levi!” Violet shouted.

  But her focus shifted too late. The third assailant burst from the shadow to her right, spear in hand. She leapt back on instinct but not fast enough, maybe if she noticed earlier it could have been different for her.

  The tip of the spear tore through her side, punching clean through her flesh with a sickening squelch. Her breath hitched as pain flared across her body.

  It was obvious now, their plan from the start wasn't divide and conquer, but divide and destroy. In a matter of seconds, the trio was scattered.

  And one of them was critically injured.

  ***

  On the other hand, Reinhart was still moving with the students. His movements slowed as his ears picked up the sounds of faint voices coming from beyond a dense patch of wildflowers.

  "Finally..." He whispered, quickening his pace.

  Behind him, the students still groggy from the early wake-up began to rush forward with renewed hope, a few smiles slipping onto their faces at the sound of familiar voices.

  Reinhart finally reached the bush and stretched his hand out about to push the thick stems aside but our of nowhere, he stopped.

  His hand froze mid-reach and slowly, he turned back to the students. His eyes scanned through the small crowd but this time, his face held something different from his firm look. It was worry mixed with something close to anger.

  It was vague, but couldn't be missed.

  Under these eyes, the students froze.

  Whispers broke out between them as they shifted uneasily.

  “What’s wrong…?”

  “Didn’t he hear the voices too?”

  “They’re just ahead, right?”

  But none of them could shake off the weigh laid on them by Reinhart's eyes.

  It was as if whatever waited beyond the wildflowers wasn’t what it seemed.