The others watched quietly as Liora dragged a chair closer to where I was sitting and imdiately began firing questions, her bright curiosity cutting through the heavy, lingering atmosphere like a beam of light in a dark room. She hadn’t fully grasped, couldn’t possibly have grasped, how close we had all co to never returning from Morvalis just hours earlier.
"What happened in Morvalis?" she asked quickly, eyes wide with anticipation. "How did Ivy die? And... how were you able to hold on, Nyx? I need details."
I exhaled slowly, leaning back against the bed furniture as the familiar weight of exhaustion settled back into my bones the mont the adrenaline from her arrival began to fade. I gave her the shortened version of events because honestly, I didn’t think I had enough emotional energy left to relive the entire nightmare in vivid, painful detail again. My voice stayed steady, but even I could hear the exhaustion threading through every word.
Still, even the summarized version sounded utterly horrifying when spoken aloud in the quiet room.
The Monstrous Ape.
The Blood Ants.
Ivy’s sudden and brutal death.
The mysterious voice that had saved .
The voice.... That particular part stayed locked safely inside my head. For now.
Liora listened with increasingly wide eyes, her earlier bubbly excitent completely replaced by shock and growing disbelief. Her hands had unconsciously tightened around the edge of her chair as the story unfolded.
"You guys actually encountered a Ravager?" she asked, her voice dropping low like she was afraid saying the na too loudly might summon one into the dormitory. "Those things are legendary nightmares."
"Unfortunately," Kaden muttered imdiately, his tone dark.
"They’ve been teaching us about them in class," Liora continued quickly, leaning forward as she tried to piece everything together. "The Arbiters started monster combat training yesterday. It’s intense."
I frowned slightly, pushing a loose strand of hair away from my face. "Already?."
She nodded. "Apparently surviving Altheris and Morvalis ans learning how not to die imdiately. They’re not wasting any ti."
Honestly? It’s Reasonable.
Dark.
Grim.
But reasonable.
"So far they’ve only taught us about two monsters," Liora added. "Blood Ants and Ravagers."
At the re ntion of Blood Ants, the atmosphere in the room shifted instantly.
Quieter.
Heavier.
The easy camaraderie from monts earlier vanished, replaced by a thick, uncomfortable silence. I felt it imdiately. I think we all did. The mory of those tiny crimson bodies crawling across the ground still sent phantom itches racing across my skin.
"The Ravagers are supposed to be extrely difficult to kill," Liora explained, her voice steadier now as she slipped into the information she had learned. "Mr. Asher said their biggest weakness is the neck area, but getting close enough to strike there is almost impossible. They’re too fast, too strong, and their rage makes them almost unstoppable once they start convulsing."
Lyra frowned slightly, tilting her head as sothing clicked in her mory. "Wait... the Ravager... is that the giant ape-looking monster we fought?"
Liora nodded imdiately. "Yes. It looks exactly like an Ape."
Kaden blinked once.
Then slowly turned toward , his expression unreadable.
"...Did you know that before you threw the blade?"
I shook my head honestly. "No. I didn’t."
A heavy beat of silence followed.
Everyone stared at again.
Even Theo, who looked like he had temporarily forgotten he was still recovering from near starvation.
Elion straightened slightly against this sit, his gaze sharpening with quiet, focused interest.
"Then how did you know to throw your blade at its neck?" he asked, voice calm but probing.
The room went silent instantly.
And imdiately, sothing tightened uncomfortably in my stomach.
Because the truth was... I didn’t know.
I rembered the Ape towering over them, its roar shattering the air, its massive body convulsing in unnatural spasms. The chaos. The fear. The certainty that we were all about to die.
And then...
That voice.
Clear.
Calm.
Certain.
Told to Throw it and I did.
No logic.
No prior strategy.
No deep understanding of monster anatomy.
Just pure instinct... or sothing pretending to be instinct.
"I guessed," I said finally, forcing my voice to stay even.
Which technically wasn’t a lie.
Just not the entire truth.
Liora stared at for a full two seconds, processing.
Then suddenly broke into a wide, genuine grin.
"Wow," she said brightly, sounding almost impressed. "You killed a Ravager by pure accident. That’s actually kind of amazing."
"Amazing?" Kaden repeated slowly, disbelief dripping heavily from his voice. "She killed that massive nightmare creature without even knowing what it was."
He pointed at like I had personally rewritten the laws of reality.
"Do you understand how insane that sounds?"
I folded my arms across my chest. "Thank you.... I think."
"No, seriously," Kaden continued, still stuck on the impossibility of it. "You’re telling you randomly guessed the weak point of a monster that trained Purgers struggle to kill?"
"Can you just say what you actually an?" Thorne asked flatly from were he was sitting separate from us, not even bothering to look impressed or shocked.
Kaden blinked. "I’m just surprised."
I tilted my head slightly, studying him with tired eyes.
"...Surprised that soone like actually managed to save all of you?"
Brief silence.
Because unfortunately...
That was exactly what he ant.
Kaden groaned, dragging a hand down his face. "Oh Goddess, you always understand in the worst way possible..." He said and even gave a thump up
I grabbed the nearest pillow and threw it directly at his face.
He caught it easily, laughing as he did.
And sohow...
The rest of us laughed too.
Small laughs.
Tired laughs.
Broken little sounds from people who had seen far too much death in one night and were now desperately clinging to anything that still felt remotely living.
And as I sat there watching it ripple through the group, sothing strange and quiet settled in my chest.
Morvalis wasn’t just changing us individually.
It was changing us together.
Twisting survival into sothing shared.
Sothing binding.
Sothing none of us had asked for.
"What about Blood Ants?" Theo suddenly asked, leaning forward again like exhaustion had temporarily lost its grip on him. "Did your class say anything else about them?"
The laughter faded instantly.
Like it had been switched off with a single word.
Liora nodded slowly. "Yes... actually."
Sothing in her expression darkened slightly, like the mory of the lesson itself unsettled her.
"Mr. Asher said Blood Ants are strange creatures," she continued carefully. "They only appear at night and disappear at dawn."
We already knew that part all too well.
"But apparently," she added more quietly, "there’s only one real way to avoid attracting them."
The room beca completely still.
Even breathing felt quieter.
"How?" Lyra asked softly, almost hesitant.
Liora hesitated for a long mont.
Then answered.
"By not having evil intentions."
Silence.
An absolute silence.
Heavy enough to press into my ears and make them ring.
"What?" Theo said first, breaking the stunned quiet.
Liora nodded quickly. "That’s what Mr. Asher told us. Blood Ants are drawn toward malicious intent. The stronger the intent... the stronger the attraction. They can sense it."
A cold, uneasy feeling crawled slowly down my spine.
Because suddenly...
I rembered everything.
The forest.
The sudden swarm.
The way they had ignored so of us...
And gone straight for others.
I didn’t want to think about what that ant.
"But that’s impossible," Liora continued quickly. "There’s no way to gather this many people together without soone having bad thoughts or dark intentions at so point."
Nobody responded imdiately.
Because we were already thinking the sa dark thing.
Who had they been drawn to?
Elion finally spoke, his tone calm but noticeably sharper now. "Does it react specifically to murderous intent?"
"I don’t know," Liora admitted. "But Mr. Asher said they never leave without taking at least one life. Especially when strong intent is involved."
The room felt colder.
Or maybe it was just .
Lyra looked down at her hands slowly.
"...Are you saying Ivy died because she had evil intentions?" she asked quietly.
No one answered imdiately.
Then Theo spoke, his voice lower now. "She tried to kill Nyx... rember?"
No one denied it.
Not even .
Because it was true.
"So that was actually her karma," Thorne said flatly.
The bluntness of it made sothing in pause.
Not because it was wrong, but because he said it like it was a simple fact of nature.
Like death was just consequence balancing itself out.
No emotion.
No hesitation.
Nothing.
Maybe he really didn’t feel anything about it.
Liora shifted uncomfortably in her chair.
"...Maybe.. that’s why."
And just like that...
The room fell silent again.
Heavier this ti.
Thicker.
More suffocating.
Because now every single one of us was thinking the sa terrifying question.
If Blood Ants were drawn to evil intentions...
Then what how many malicious thoughts had they sensed that night to make such colony co to us?
And worse...
If that voice had warned and guided my hand...
What in Morvalis was trying so hard to keep alive?
User Comments
0 comments from readers