...A few days earlier...
Tala always said she hated waking up alone. Not because she was afraid, but because silence had a way of making you remember the 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, a sense of familiarity bloomed within her, this place was just like... home.
She grabbed a nearby tree to help her sit up, still in a daze. She felt an unusual weight on her palm.
A slip of paper, stained lightly with red.
"You are an Executioner. You pass this trial if you eliminate ten students, for every extra student you get an additional point."
Executioner.
The word tasted like ash in her mouth.
"...What the hell is this?"
Her voice cracked, dry from dehydration or maybe disbelief. She stood 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.
While drowning in a million different thoughts she heard something shift.
Tala crouched low as a bush trembled in the distance, not from wind, but something heavier. Her grip tightened on the etched body of her staff. She could feel the pressure already, not immense, but enough to make her skin crawl.
She remembered the classifications for differe hollowed. Wretches, Stalkers, Wraiths... the ideal situation would be to face the first two, if anything higher then those pop up then theres no point in even trying to fight it with her current strength.
She chuckled as she remembered her brothers words. "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, they were still 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, then came the whisper in her head, a line from the old tome on the hollowed beasts.
"If it watches from the dark and observes its prey before attacking, it's a Stalker."
Stalkers were different. They were what the military considered a match for first rate humans- brutal, smart, and with the cruel patience of predators. 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 invaded her home, killed her people, her family.
She swallowed as she recalled the mythical sounding tiers above wraiths.
"Myths walk rarely among men, but they do exist — Demons born from wrath, Demon Lords, able feast on the blood of a hundred thousand men without a drop sweat. But Devil Kings? The elders said they end nations."
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 inTala's direction. Her hand flew into practiced motion. Two runes flared to life, one golden, one cobalt before flashing forward.
A beam of compressed force slammed into the creature's torso, pinning it to a tree with a sickening crack, a crackling sound rang out as small chunkcs of ice grew around the creature holding it to the tree.
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, its gone."
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 atleast four handfulls of the refreshing mana infused stream water and let the tension ease from her shoulders.
A branch snapped behind her.
Tala froze.
Her hand slowly moved to her side, fingers brushing the staff strapped to her waist. She stood, turning just enough to see over her shoulder.
A group was emerging from the trees on the far bank. Twenty… no, maybe thirty.
Students, all with the same detatched 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?"
"Sure."
After the group refilled their bottles in the stream, they walked back into the dense cluster of trees, Tala followed along at the back.
That night, the camp was quieter. People eyed her warily at first but over time her runework earned their 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.
She was running rune drills with some of the students who wanted to learn. The academy didn't have an age limit only a guideline, so regardless of whether they were sixteen or fourty, the only thing that mattered was power.
They lost alot 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. Tala didn't tell them about the executioner paper nor did she ask 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, a clean crimson line marking her throat, her eyes wide in horrow, the light slowly fading away.
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 and Tala's group, 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.
"Those guys over there" 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 how many you need to kill."
"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 have you killed?"
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.
"Impressive right?"
The fire crackled.
The air felt colder.
And the night... had just begun.