HPDBC Chapter 147 Vyse
Chapter 147 Vyse
Vyse pushed away from the wall, her eyes narrowing. "Are you suggesting one of our students is-"@@@@
"I'm not suggesting anything," Kris cut her off. "I'm saying we need to ask better questions. The Shadow Walkers are expensive. Someone paid a fortune to send them after a specific student, and they didn't care how many others died in the process."
A young healer approached their group, bowing slightly. "Seniors? We've managed to stabilize the poison in most of the wounded, but... Ernest's case is different. The corruption has spread too deep. We can't..."
Derek's face hardened. "Make him comfortable. And send word to his family."
After the healer left, silence fell over the group. Finally, Sara spoke what they were all thinking.
"We failed them," she whispered. "We were supposed to protect them."
"No," Vyse's voice was sharp. "Someone used us as collateral damage to get to one target. And when we find out who..." Her bangles flared with barely contained power.
"If Lyssandra and Levi are alive," Derek said, "they might have answers. The search teams reported traces of an unknown portal signature near the evacuation point."
"And Levi?" Jin asked. "Do we report him as missing or as a person of interest?"
Kris straightened her uniform, decision made. "Both. Something bigger is happening here, and we need to understand what. For now, we focus on finding our missing students. Then..." She looked at the wounded juniors. "Then we find out why the Shadow Walkers turned our training exercise into a slaughter."
Outside the medical wing's windows, the sun was setting on what should have been a routine day of training. Instead, it painted the sky blood-red, as if nature itself was acknowledging their losses.
The real question wasn't just why the Shadow Walkers had come.
It was who their target really was.
And what was worth killing students and making the Favored Ones Academt their enemy
***
This wasn't how training exercises were supposed to go.
Sara's chains of light flashed behind me, trying to hold back our pursuers. The golden radiance of her essence-enhanced attacks would normally have been reassuring - the power of the Radiant One was legendary against corruption. But even her connection seemed weakened today, the light dimmer than usual, the chains breaking more easily. Everything was wrong, everything was falling apart.
I lost all sense of direction, all sense of time. Everything became a blur of green and shadow, punctuated by distant sounds of battle and screams cut terrifyingly short. The only clear thought in my mind was to keep moving, keep running. My lungs burned with each breath, muscles screaming in protest, but fear drove me forward.
Then something changed. The forest's essence patterns shifted, and a new kind of terror gripped the air. Corrupted beasts burst from the undergrowth - everything from shadow-wolves to massive vine-creatures, all fleeing in the same direction. Their fear was palpable, infectious. Whatever could terrify Paradise's monsters had to be catastrophic.
I found myself running with them, becoming part of their stampede. Every lesson about avoiding corrupted beings was forgotten in the face of raw survival instinct. My academy uniform was in tatters, blood - both mine and others' - staining the once-pristine fabric. Cuts and scrapes I didn't remember getting stung with each movement.
The monsters led me to a clearing, and there I saw it - a pitch-black portal hovering in the air like a tear in reality itself. Its edges rippled like liquid darkness, the sight making my essence pulse uneasily. This wasn't our evacuation point, but it was clearly a way out.
[Evergreen Hell]
[Capacity - 0/3]
The words appeared in my vision, Providence's gift of information. A sanctum portal - unknown, potentially dangerous, but in that moment, any escape seemed better than none.
The sounds of battle grew closer behind me - whether it was those masked killers or whatever had sent the monsters running, I couldn't tell. My heart pounded in my chest, blood rushing in my ears as I stared at the portal's surface. It looked like liquid night, promising either salvation or doom.
I thought of my classmates, of Jin's barriers failing, of Sara's desperate light chains, of Derek and Vyse trying to protect us all. The guilt of running, of saving myself, tried to surface, but survival instinct pushed it down. There would be time for guilt later, if I lived.
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The portal began to shrink slightly, its edges contracting. No time left for doubt.
I ran. Through the stampeding monsters, timing my steps between their massive forms. One misstep meant being trampled or torn apart, but fear gave me focus I'd never known I had. A corrupted wolf snapped at my heels, more afraid of what was behind than what was ahead. A massive vine-creature nearly crushed me, its bulk taking up half the clearing as it charged for the portal.
The portal's surface felt like ice against my skin as I stepped through. Darkness wrapped around me, absolute and consuming, pulling me into the void between worlds. The last sounds of Paradise - screams, explosions, the roars of fleeing monsters - faded into nothing.
As I fell through that endless dark, a single thought followed me down: Nothing would ever be the same after today. The training exercise that had turned into a slaughter, the seniors who had tried to protect us, Chen's lifeless eyes - these things would haunt me forever.
If I survived whatever waited on the other side.