Chapter 35—The Corrupted

The forest erupted.

From the black mist at the pit’s mouth, the first wave of creatures lunged. Not boars or wolves this time—not even beasts warped by mana. These were something else entirely.

Shapes half-born of shadow, their bodies twisted mockeries of form. One had the bulk of an ogre but skin like cracked stone, its eyes hollow pits glowing with dim red fire. Another bounded forward on too many legs, its torso that of a wolf, but its head stretched long and wrong, jaws splitting open sideways to reveal fangs of black crystal.

The Corrupted.

“Positions!” Tadari barked, his training instincts snapping the group into formation.

Ophelin leapt forward without hesitation, shield raised, intercepting the charging wolf-thing with a clang that rattled through the trees. Its jaws clamped against her shield’s rim, but she shoved back with a roar, driving it off-balance.

Randall’s arrow flew past her shoulder, burying itself into the beast’s side. The shaft quivered—then hissed as shadow began to crawl up it, consuming the wood. The wolf-thing shrieked, writhing, but did not fall.

“Don’t let their touch linger!” Liana called sharply, hurling a streak of violet flame. It struck the ogre-thing square in the chest, the explosion lighting the clearing with brief day. Black mist peeled away from its skin—then reformed.

“They don’t burn,” Liana cursed under her breath.

“They bleed,” Raiden answered. He met the ogre’s charge head-on, sword raised. Its arm, thicker than a tree trunk, came down like a falling log. Raiden slid aside, his blade flashing—not to kill, but to carve. The steel bit through its wrist. For a heartbeat, he thought it would be like stone. But the cut slid true, black ichor spraying, the ogre roaring in pain.

It staggered but did not fall.

Lynda raised her staff, voice trembling but firm. “Fracture!”

A line of light cracked through the soil beneath the ogre, then split open in a geyser of stone. The creature reeled, its stance broken, long enough for Raiden to vault forward. With a cry, he drove his blade into its knee.

It dropped to one side, shaking the ground. Ophelin was there in an instant, bringing down her mace on its head with brutal precision, every strike ringing like a hammer on anvil.

The beast howled, swiping wildly, but Tadari dashed in low, cutting across its exposed side. “Now!” he shouted.

Randall’s arrow sang again. This time it punched through the ogre’s exposed eye. The light in its skull flickered once—then went out. The hulking form shuddered, collapsed, and burst into motes of shadow.

The clearing went momentarily quiet, save for their ragged breaths.

Then the mist stirred again.

Two more shapes clawed their way out—smaller, quicker, four-legged, with spines of jagged crystal jutting from their backs.

“Round two,” Ophelin hissed, tightening her grip on her shield and mace.

The fight raged on.

These new beasts darted and lunged, their spines rattling. One leapt at Lynda, jaws snapping. Raiden intercepted midair, his blade carving a streak across its chest. The impact spun him, jarring his arms, but the creature collapsed before it could reach her.

The second flanked hard, darting around Ophelin’s guard. Tadari met it, their blades clashing as he deflected its charge. Randall’s arrow followed, pinning it to the soil long enough for Ophelin to crush its skull under her boot.

It, too, dissolved into black haze.

The forest fell still again.

The group stood in a loose circle, panting, blades dripping with ichor that already steamed away. No corpses remained, only shadows curling into the earth.

“That,” Randall said, voice uneven, “was not natural.”

“They’re Anima,” Liana corrected, her tone low, grim. “But not whole. Their cores are corrupted.”

Raiden’s chest heaved. The clash had been short, furious, but already his body hummed with the strange balance he had felt in the duel. The visions lingered at the edge of his sight—battlefields, banners, storms. He shoved them back down.

Not now.

The forest shifted again. But this time, it was no beast that emerged.

From between the trees ahead, a figure stepped into the clearing. A girl—no, a young woman, perhaps Raiden’s age, her features calm, her gait unhurried. She bore no weapon in her hands, though power seemed to ripple faintly around her, bending leaves, stirring the mist.

Liana stiffened at once. “You…” Liana muttered something under her breath, but stopped, she knew she mustn't interrupt her. She understood what the sudden appearance of this young woman meant.

Raiden blinked, breath caught in his throat. He knew her. Not from the Academy, not from these past weeks—but from his childhood.

“Shelen,” he whispered.

Her eyes softened as they met his, recognition flickering there too. She smiled faintly.

“Exactly as I remembered you.” Raiden muttered, his mouth agape.

The others tensed, weapons still raised, uncertain. But Shelen raised one hand, palm outward, in peace.

“You fought well,” she said simply. Her voice carried calm over the bloodied ground. “But this was only the first trickle. The flood is coming. And before you face it, you must understand.”

They followed her deeper into the woods.

The trees seemed to bend away from her presence, the oppressive mist thinning where she walked. Before long, they reached a grove—a circle of ancient stones, half-buried in moss. Here, the air felt heavy but still, as though the forest itself held its breath.

Shelen turned to them, her gaze sharp now.

“You wonder why the Academy was built here. Why the woods beyond its walls were left to no House. Why the beasts have always stirred uneasily.”

Her eyes lingered on Raiden.

“It is because beneath this forest lies a prison. Not for men. Not for Houses. For something far older. A being once chained by those who came before you—yourself included.”

The others exchanged baffled looks. Raiden’s heart lurched. The words rang too close to the visions, to the storms in his dreams.

Shelen’s expression did not waver.

“Lodor. The Great Animus of the Mountain. His shadow stirs again. And if he wakes fully, not even Aegis’ dome will hold.”

The grove went silent.

For a long moment, only the distant echo of howls answered.

And so their first hunt ended—not in triumph, but in revelation.

What they had slain were scraps, echoes of the true storm to come.

Raiden stood there, blade still damp, heart pounding with the certainty that his duel, his trial, had been nothing but prologue.

The Calamity had only just begun.