...A few days earlier...
...
Tala always said she hated waking up alone. Not because she was afraid, but because silence had a way of remembering things you wanted to forget.
The air was humid, the grass pressed against her cheek like cold, damp silk. She blinked, eyes adjusting to the overcast sky above. Trees surrounded her in every direction, dense and unfamiliar.
Her fingers twitched. Pain laced through her palm.
A slip of paper. Tucked between her fingers, stained lightly with red.
"You are an Executioner. You pass this trial if you eliminate ten fellow students."
Executioner.
The word tasted like ash in her mouth.
"...What the hell?"
Her voice cracked, dry from dehydration or maybe disbelief. She sat up slowly, heart pounding. Around her—nothing. No other students, no familiar voices. Just wind brushing against the trees and the faint whistle of distance.
Then came the growl.
Tala crouched low as the brush trembled in the distance — not from wind, but something heavier. A hollowed.
Her grip tightened on the etched steel of her staff. She could feel the pressure already, not immense, but enough to make her skin crawl.
She remembered the classifications. Thralls, Stalkers, Wraiths... if its any of the ones above those, theres no point in even fighting with her current strength.
Kaito had refused to learn them.
"First-rank, second-rank, third — the names don't matter. If it appears infront of me I'll kill it" Kaito's voice echoed.
Most Hollowed never moved beyond those initial tiers — dangerous, but manageable. Not for civilians. But she was way past being a civilian now, after travelling with Kaito for years in the wildlands she learned a thing or two about surviving.
She listened, tracking the sound — too controlled, too... intelligent.
Then came the whisper in her head, a line from the old tome on the hollowed beasts.
"If it watches from the dark and walks like a man, it's a Stalker."
Stalkers were different. They were what the military considered a match for human Masters — brutal, smart, and with the cruel patience of predators. But worse than them were the Wraiths — evolved Stalkers that had shed their physical form entirely, their souls burning too brightly for flesh to hold.
"Wraiths," Tala whispered to herself, almost like a curse. That was what had inaded her home, killed her people, her family.
She swallowed as she recalled what came after.
"Myths walk rarely among men, but they do exist — Demons born from wrath, Demon Lords, able feast on the blood of 100,000 men without sweat. But Devil Kings? The books say they end nations."
Silence again.
The creature came into view
"Hmm, a half-step stalker, too strong, I can pin it down and escape though" Tala muttered.
The beast was walking towards the sound of running water when it suddenly stopped, nose high in the air as it picked up a scent.
The head slowly moved, then stopped.
Looking directly at Tala.
Tala's hand flew into practiced motion. Two runes flared to life, one golden, one cobalt.
A beam of compressed force slammed into the creature's torso, pinning it to a tree with a sickening crack.
Tala bolted in the opposite direction, the creature's pained growls fading into the hush of the trees.
Branches whipped at her arms. Roots threatened to trip her. But she didn't stop. Not until her lungs were searing and her legs ached with every step. She slowed, turned, eyes scanning the dense underbrush for movement. Nothing. No flicker of red. No guttural growl. Just wind threading through leaves like a whispered warning.
She stood there, chest heaving, palms on her knees. Her heart thudded like a war drum. But nothing came.
Just silence.
"Good," she muttered, dragging herself upright. "Good."
She began walking again—slower now, more deliberate. One hand hovered near the wand at her waist.
The forest changed as she moved. The air thinned. The light bent oddly in some places, refracting off shards of crystal embedded in tree bark. At one point, she passed a half-buried archway covered in vines, the stone inscribed with symbols too worn to read. Something about it made her skin crawl.
Further on, she came across the remains of a shattered statue—only the lower half still intact. The top had been cleaved clean off, the stone around the break blackened like it had been burned by something unnatural. She didn't linger.
The insects here were… strange. Many multi-legged things with translucent shells that pulsed faintly with light, skittering up trees and vanishing into holes too small for their size. One hovered midair, wings vibrating in near silence, eyes fixed on her before darting off.
She found the river by accident—following the sound of running water until the trees opened into a mossy clearing. A pale stream cut through the ground like a silver thread. Tala dropped to her knees and cupped her hands in the flow, bringing cool water to her lips. She drank deeply. Let the tension ease from her shoulders.
Then—
A branch snapped behind her.
Tala froze.
Her hand slowly moved to her side, fingers brushing the etched runestone. She stood, turning just enough to see over her shoulder.
A group was emerging from the trees on the far bank. Twenty… no, maybe 25.
Students, the same dazed look in their eyes. Their steps were sluggish. Their clothes soaked in mud and dark patches of blood. One limped, supported by another. A girl's arm was wrapped in a ripped cloth, soaked through crimson.
No one spoke. The only sound was the water and the dull thud of their boots.
A boy approached her, tall, lean, with wary eyes. A girl flanked him, shorter, solid, and radiating quiet authority.
"Name?" the girl asked.
"Tala."
"You solo?"
Tala nodded.
They exchanged a glance.
"I'm Corin," the boy said. "She's Vessa. We run this group. Everyone pulls their weight. No freeloaders. You in?"
"I've survived alone for a day. Killed a stalker."
A look of confusion appeared on their faces but they didn't question further.
That night, the camp was quieter. People eyed her warily at first.
But her runework earned respect. When a Stalker attacked on the second night, she stalled it long enough for everyone to get their weapons ready.
By the third night, they let her sit closer to the center of the circle.
The fourth, she was running rune drills with some of the younger students. The academy didn't have an age limit only a guideline, the only thing that mattered was power.
They lost people. Five gone on day two, three more on day four. A few new stragglers joined. The group held steady around thirty.
Some cried when it was quiet. Some never spoke. But they shared food, guarded each other while sleeping, and didn't ask about Executioner slips.
Tala didn't tell them.
She never asked who else might be holding one.
...
The night before Zeke and the others arrived at the destroyed camp...
...
The fire crackled, warm. Sparks danced like stars.
Tala sat on a log near the edge of camp. Laughter echoed in the background—someone telling a joke, others groaning.
She stared into the flames.
"I hope you guys are okay," she murmured. "Kaito… I hope you're safe."
It was a hectic day, they had to defend against 4 different attacks. Some wounded and in the tents resting, others sharpening their blades for tommorow.
Tala was about to go to bed when a voice tore through the night.
Not the playful cry of sparring. Not the startled shout of a prank gone wrong.
But on sharp, guttural, and final.
Tala jerked her head around, heart seizing.
The student beside her stood frozen. A second later, her knees buckled and she fell — hard — a clean crimson line marking her throat.
Tala paused.
Didn't breathe.
Didn't even blink.
And the student next to her.
Dead before she hit the ground.
The campfire hissed in the silence, casting flickering shadows on the walls of the ruined structure they'd camped beside.
A figure stepped forward, from behind the smoke and stone. Cloaked in black, hood drawn low over the face. The blade in their hand still gleamed — not with blood, but with arcane light, clean and silent.
Tala raised her hand on instinct, lines of faint blue mana dancing at her fingertips.
But the figure… didn't move.
They stared at her. Or through her. Something shifted in the space between them, like the pressure in the world had changed.
Then a small slip of paper slipped loose from the inside of her jacket.
It fluttered through the air like a fallen leaf, landing face-up at her feet.
The hooded figure flinched.
Another paper drifted from the folds of their cloak. Almost in response. It landed beside the body.
Both slips bore the same words in ink that seemed to writhe across the page.
You are an Executioner.
A voice echoed in her mind — not spoken aloud, but felt.
Monotone. Ancient. Cold like a tombstone.
"Executioners cannot kill other Executioners."
Silence.
The figure stared. She stared back.
Then, slowly, they stepped back into the dark.
But they didn't vanish.
Instead, more figures emerged from the tree line. Shadows, cloaked and quiet, drifting out of the forest's edge like ghosts. Five. No—six… seven… eight. All hooded. All Executioners.
They gathered near the firelight, encircling the camp. Watching the others — Tala's group — who still hadn't noticed the death in their midst.
One of them stepped forward. A man, tall, posture casual, as if murder were a minor inconvenience. His voice was smooth. Disarming.
"You should come with us," he said. "The others—" he nodded toward the sleeping students "—they're nothing but bodies waiting to fall. You know that, right?"
Tala's lips tightened. "That's.. what?."
"Oh?" Another voice — this one female, lilting and amused. "You read the note, didn't you? Ten. That's the number."
"Exactly," Tala shot back. "Ten. Not all of them."
The tall man shrugged, smile curling under his hood. "Sure. That's the minimum."
She narrowed her eyes.
"…Wait."
Her voice dropped, a knot of unease forming in her gut.
"How many did you kill?"
There was a pause. He turned to the Executioner beside him, leaned in, murmured something she couldn't catch.
Then he turned back.
"Our little group of eight?" he said cheerfully. "Only about two hundred."
The blood drained from Tala's face.
The fire crackled.
The air felt colder.