Chapter 77
Nyx noticed the change immediately.
The moment Varkhul's body stiffened unnaturally, her presence inside Nille's consciousness sharpened with sudden alertness. Unlike the surrounding students or even the distant instructors, Nyx's perception focused directly on subtle spiritual fluctuations rather than visible movement alone.
And what she sensed from the Lycan Alpha, was wrong.
"Something changed," she warned instantly.
Nille's eyes narrowed while maintaining his stance.
Across from him, Varkhul remained frozen for several seconds, its massive body trembling faintly beneath the blood-soaked fur. The Alpha's breathing had become uneven, almost strained, while thin veins of darkened energy slowly spread beneath the surface of its neck.
Nyx's voice became colder.
"That is not natural rage."
The dragon's instincts immediately recognized the difference.
This was not the emotional frenzy of battle exhaustion or a normal berserk state caused by anger. The spiritual flow inside the Alpha had become unstable too suddenly, too violently, as though something foreign had entered its system directly.
Nille adjusted his footing slightly.
The surviving Lycans nearby also noticed the shift. Several began backing away cautiously from their own leader while low growls spread uneasily throughout the pack.
Even they sensed danger.
Nyx continued quickly.
"Proceed carefully."
Her tone carried unusual seriousness now.
"Do not escalate this further unless absolutely necessary."
Nille remained silent, waiting for her reasoning while keeping his eyes locked on Varkhul.
Then Nyx explained.
"Lycans with intelligence this developed are rarely isolated pack leaders. Their hierarchy is tied strongly to bloodline structure."
Her voice lowered.
"There is a high possibility Varkhul is directly related to their king."
That realization immediately changed the situation.
If Varkhul died normally during combat, the Lycans might still accept it as the outcome of battle between warriors.
But if something unnatural happened to the Alpha—
especially in front of the pack—
the consequences could spiral far beyond Sector 6.
Nyx continued analyzing rapidly.
"If this leader loses control publicly, the entire army may enter retaliatory frenzy."
Nille understood immediately.
The advancing forces behind Varkhul were already unstable. They were only maintaining structure because the Alpha still existed as a commanding authority.
If that authority collapsed violently—
thousands of Malignants could descend into uncontrollable aggression.
And worse—
if Varkhul truly held royal blood or direct connection to the Lycan king, then his death under suspicious circumstances could ignite something far larger than a battlefield incident.
Nyx's tone hardened further.
"And if there truly is political manipulation occurring between the Dalaketnon, the Lycans, and this supposed Vampire threat…"
Her voice paused briefly.
"…then Varkhul may currently be one of the few rational figures remaining among them."
That thought unsettled Nille more than the battle itself.
Because despite the violence between them, Varkhul had shown intelligence, restraint, and even honesty during their exchange.
The Alpha had not lied.
Had not hidden its distrust.
And had openly admitted uncertainty regarding Apo Lakay's influence.
Then suddenly, Varkhul growled.
Not aggressively.
Painfully.
Its massive body twitched violently while its claws dug deep into the earth beneath its feet. The crimson spreading through its eyes intensified further as dark saliva dripped slowly from its mouth.
The surrounding Lycans immediately backed away several more steps.
Fear spread visibly through the pack now.
Nyx's warning came instantly.
"Nille."
Her voice became sharp.
"Something is forcing madness into its system."
Nille did not change his defensive posture.
Even as Varkhul's body trembled violently and the surrounding Lycans retreated in visible fear, he remained calm, lowering his center of gravity while tightening his grip around the jungle bolo.
Inside his mind, his voice remained steady.
"Scan the reason," he told Nyx. "Give me answers."
Nyx immediately expanded her perception through the battlefield, tracing the unstable spiritual fluctuations spreading through Varkhul's body. But before she could fully respond—
Varkhul moved.
The Alpha exploded forward with terrifying speed.
This time—
there was no discipline left in its attack.
Only savage killing intent.
The spear came crashing downward like a falling tree. Nille barely shifted aside in time as the impact shattered the ground where he had stood moments earlier, dirt and broken stone erupting violently into the air.
The difference was immediate.
Nille felt it instantly.
Varkhul's strength had increased.
Not naturally.
The Alpha's movements had become more violent, less controlled, yet somehow even more dangerous because of the raw aggression now fueling every attack.
The next strike came without pause.
The cleaver swung horizontally with enough force to split a human body in half.
Nille ducked beneath it and countered immediately with a compact upward slash aimed toward Varkhul's ribs. His blade cut deep—
but the Alpha barely reacted.
Instead of retreating, Varkhul grabbed Nille's shoulder directly and slammed him across the battlefield hard enough to crack the earth beneath him.
Pain exploded through Nille's back.
Before he could fully recover, the Alpha was already on him again.
No hesitation.
No strategy.
Only destruction.
Its claws tore through the ground while attacking relentlessly with monstrous force. Spear thrusts, savage bites, cleaver swings—every movement carried murderous intent powerful enough to overwhelm ordinary fighters instantly.
Nille retreated carefully while blocking only when absolutely necessary.
Because he understood something important now.
This was no longer the same opponent.
Varkhul's fighting style had deteriorated into berserk aggression, but traces of its original martial skill still remained buried beneath the madness. That made the Alpha unpredictable.
And unpredictability was dangerous.
Especially against something physically stronger than him.
Nille twisted sideways narrowly as Varkhul's claws ripped through the air inches from his face. He retaliated immediately with a brutal elbow strike aimed toward the Alpha's throat before pivoting low and driving a kick directly into its knee joint.
CRACK.
The impact destabilized Varkhul briefly.
Nille used that opening instantly.
His machete flashed repeatedly across the battlefield in tight, efficient strikes aimed toward tendons, joints, and exposed muscle rather than fatal areas.
He was minimizing escalation.
Minimizing damage.
Trying to disable rather than kill.
But the berserk Alpha ignored pain completely.
Varkhul roared violently and tackled Nille head-on before smashing him through a broken stone formation at the edge of the battlefield. Dust exploded outward while nearby students recoiled in fear from the sheer violence of the clash.
Even the instructors watching from afar realized the battle had changed completely.
"That thing lost control," one senior instructor muttered grimly.
Instructor Kaori Takamura narrowed her eyes immediately.
"No…"
Her expression darkened.
"That isn't natural."
Back on the battlefield, Nille forced himself upright through the rubble just as Varkhul attacked again.
This time with its bare claws.
The spear had already been discarded somewhere during the frenzy.
The Alpha's eyes now glowed fully crimson while blackened veins spread across its neck and chest. Foam mixed with blood dripped from its mouth as it attacked wildly enough to frighten even the remaining Lycans nearby.
Nille blocked another claw strike using his reinforced gloves.
The impact alone nearly shattered his stance.
The Alpha pressed harder.
Its jaws snapped toward his throat.
Nille reacted instantly.
He drove his forehead directly into Varkhul's face with brutal force before twisting sideways and carving his bolo across the Alpha's shoulder in a deep diagonal slash.
Blood erupted across the battlefield.
Still, Varkhul did not stop.
Its roar sounded almost painful now.
As though something inside it was fighting for control.
Nyx's voice finally returned sharply inside Nille's mind.
"I found the source."
Nille narrowly avoided another devastating strike.
"What is it?"
Nyx's tone turned cold.
"External infestation."
The dragon's perception focused toward the back of Varkhul's neck.
"There is an insect attached to its nervous system."
Nille's eyes narrowed instantly.
An insect.
Manipulation.
Then the answer connected immediately.
Trần Hữu Khang.
Before Nille could fully react, Varkhul suddenly lunged again with enough force to shake the battlefield itself.
And this time, its killing intent became overwhelming enough that even the nearby Lycans began fleeing from their own Alpha in fear.
The battlefield had completely descended into chaos.
Varkhul no longer resembled the composed warrior Nille had fought earlier. The Lycan Alpha now moved like a creature trapped between agony and madness, its attacks growing increasingly savage with every passing second.
Yet even within the berserk state, traces of intelligence still remained.
That was what made the situation terrifying.
Because the Alpha's instincts and combat experience had not disappeared completely. They had merely become twisted beneath overwhelming rage and pain.
Varkhul lunged again.
Its claws ripped through the earth as it crossed the distance between them with monstrous speed. Nille immediately pivoted sideways instead of meeting the attack directly, redirecting the Alpha's momentum before driving a reinforced punch into its ribs.
The impact echoed violently.
But the Alpha retaliated instantly.
A claw tore across Nille's side before he could fully disengage, forcing him backward across the blood-covered field.
Pain surged sharply through his body.
Nille steadied his breathing again.
He understood now that prolonging the fight recklessly would only worsen the situation.
But killing Varkhul outright, that carried risks far beyond this battlefield.
Especially after hearing the Alpha's words.
Meanwhile, inside Nille's consciousness, Nyx had become unusually focused.
Fragments of Scarf's old memories continued surfacing and merging with her own thoughts as she analyzed the situation rapidly. The dragon's instincts combined with Scarf's accumulated knowledge regarding cursed bloodlines, spiritual politics, and ancient trickster entities.
And one name continued resurfacing repeatedly.
Urto Dimas.
Nyx recalled scattered records connected to the Dimas lineage, beings associated with manipulation, illusion, infiltration, and psychological influence. They rarely acted through direct warfare themselves.
Instead, they corrupted existing systems.
Kingdoms.
Clans.
Packs.
Entire communities could be turned against each other without realizing outside influence was involved until it was already too late.
Then another memory surfaced.
Dalaketnon involvement.
Nyx's thoughts sharpened immediately afterward.
The current information finally began forming a clearer picture.
"Apo Lakay is not simply gathering allies," she warned.
Nille narrowly avoided another brutal strike from Varkhul while listening carefully.
The Alpha smashed through stone pillars and shattered earth behind him like a living disaster.
Nyx continued.
"The Lycans are being maneuvered."
Her tone grew colder.
"The Vampire threat may be real… but the way it was introduced to them was intentional."
Another memory surfaced.
Scarf once documented ancient Dalaketnon strategies involving territorial manipulation. Old forest entities often destabilized neighboring supernatural races by spreading fear, prophecy, or selective truths.
Not complete lies.
Partial truths.
Enough to create paranoia naturally.
Nyx finally understood why Varkhul's words mattered.
The Alpha itself distrusted Apo Lakay.
Which meant the Lycan kingdom had not unified willingly.
Something had influenced the king directly.
Possibly through Imto Dimas.
Nyx's thoughts moved faster.
"If Varkhul dies now while infected…"
Her voice paused briefly.
"…the Dalaketnon may gain exactly what they want."
Nille's eyes narrowed.
Internal collapse.
Retaliation.
Chaos among the Lycans.
All of it could easily escalate into full-scale war between supernatural races already living in unstable territories.
Meanwhile, Varkhul roared again and charged forward violently enough to shake the battlefield itself.
Nille immediately lowered his stance.
The Alpha's claw descended toward his head.
Nille slipped inside the attack range at the last possible second before driving a compact strike directly into Varkhul's injured shoulder joint.
CRACK.
The Alpha staggered slightly.
But instead of retreating, it grabbed Nille's arm and hurled him across the battlefield again.
The force sent him crashing through dirt and shattered grasslands before finally stopping several meters away.
Nille forced himself upright slowly.
Blood dripped from his mouth now.
His body hurt.
Badly.
But his mind remained focused.
Nyx spoke again.
"There may still be a way to stop this without killing him."
Nille wiped blood from his chin.
"How?"
Nyx's answer came immediately.
"The insect."
The dragon's perception locked onto the corrupted energy attached near the back of Varkhul's neck.
"If the parasite is removed before the madness fully consumes its nervous system, the Alpha may recover partial control."
Nille understood the difficulty instantly.
To remove it, he would need to get close enough to physically strike a tiny target attached to a berserk Lycan Alpha moving at monstrous speed.
And he would need to do it, without killing Varkhul in the process.
Ahead of him, the Alpha's crimson eyes locked onto him once more.
Then Varkhul roared.
Not with hatred anymore.
But pain.
The battlefield gradually stabilized, but only barely.
Under the combined efforts of the instructors and senior students, the scattered first-year groups were finally gathered into a reinforced defensive perimeter near the entrance corridor leading back toward Sector 6's underground gateway. Spiritual barriers rose across sections of the open grasslands while combat instructors repositioned the surviving students into organized formations.
The wounded were moved inward.
Long-range ability users were placed behind defensive lines.
Senior students guarded the outer perimeter alongside instructors as waves of Kobolds continued watching from a distance.
Fear had already spread among the first-years.
What began as a practical hunting exercise had clearly evolved into something far beyond academy expectations.
And everyone understood it.
Especially after witnessing the scale of the Lycan forces now gathering across the plains. Far away from the secured formation, Nille continued fighting alone.
Or rather, he continued moving farther away deliberately.
At first, many students failed to understand why he kept retreating deeper across the battlefield instead of returning toward the defensive zone. But Instructor Kaori Takamura noticed the pattern almost immediately.
"He's dragging it away from us," she muttered quietly.
Every movement Nille made forced Varkhul farther from the gathered students. Even during combat, his positioning consistently redirected the berserk Alpha toward open terrain rather than populated areas.
It was strategic.
Calculated.
Nille understood something the others were only beginning to realize, if Varkhul reached the main defensive perimeter in its current state, the casualties would become catastrophic.
So he kept moving.
Kept baiting.
Kept forcing the Alpha's attention entirely onto himself.
Across the distant battlefield, Varkhul roared violently while chasing him through shattered grasslands and broken earth. The Lycan leader no longer cared about anything except killing the human directly in front of it.
And that obsession, was exactly what Nille was exploiting.
Meanwhile, within the secured perimeter, tension suddenly spread again.
Because beyond the distant battlefield—
something else appeared.
At the far edge of the plains, massive banners slowly emerged through the drifting dust and blood mist.
Then came the army.
Thousands.
An estimated two thousand strong.
The advancing force moved in structured formation unlike anything the students had ever witnessed inside Sector 6 before. Rows of Kobolds marched beneath large insignia flags marked with claw-shaped emblems painted in dark crimson across black hide banners.
And leading ahead of the main force, smaller Lycan hunting packs advanced separately.
Each numbering roughly one hundred members.
Elite vanguard units.
Unlike the chaotic battlefield creatures students had fought earlier, these forces moved with discipline. Shields aligned. Spears lowered. Organized formations shifted carefully across the plains like a true military advance rather than a monster horde.
The sight alone caused visible panic among many first-years.
"…That's an army…"
One student's voice trembled.
Another stared pale-faced toward the horizon.
"How are there this many…"
Even some seniors looked shaken now.
Because this no longer resembled a dangerous hunt gone wrong.
It resembled the opening movement of war.
Instructor Kaori's expression hardened immediately.
"All combat groups hold position!"
Her voice cut sharply across the defensive line.
"No one advances without authorization!"
The instructors quickly understood the danger.
If the army interpreted the gathered students as a threat while Varkhul remained berserk, the entire battlefield could collapse instantly.
Yet strangely, the advancing forces had not charged.
They continued marching steadily instead.
Controlled.
Measured.
Almost as though they were waiting for something.
Or someone.
Far in the distance, Nille narrowly avoided another devastating strike from Varkhul while dust and blood erupted around them.
Then he finally saw it too.
The banners.
The army.
The organized advance stretching across the plains behind the Alpha.
Nyx's voice became tense immediately.
"The king's forces…"
Even she sounded unsettled now.
Because what approached them was no longer merely a pack of Malignants.
It was a nation moving beneath a flag.
Instructor Kaori Takamura made the decision quickly, but not lightly.
Her gaze moved between two critical points of the battlefield.
On one side, the defensive perimeter where hundreds of first-year students were now grouped together, many of them exhausted, injured, or spiritually depleted after the chaotic first engagement. Several senior students were already struggling to maintain order, and the Kobold forces that had retreated earlier were beginning to reposition at the edges of the field.
On the other side, Nille.
Far beyond the perimeter, he was still engaged in direct combat against Varkhul, the Lycan Alpha whose condition had now become unstable and unpredictable.
For a brief moment, Kaori considered sending reinforcements.
But she stopped herself.
Not because Nille was unimportant, but because the situation had already escalated beyond a single-target rescue scenario.
Her assessment was simple and harsh:
If even a small portion of the instructors left the perimeter to assist Nille, the balance protecting the main student group would collapse.
And that collapse would be immediate.
The reason was not just the Kobolds.
It was the approaching army.
At the far edge of the plains, thousands of coordinated Malignants were already advancing under unified banners. The presence of structured Lycan vanguard units suggested tactical awareness rather than instinctive hunting behavior. If even a single breach occurred in the perimeter while instructors were absent, the main student formation would be overwhelmed within minutes.
Kaori understood the math clearly.
The students inside the perimeter were not combat veterans.
They were first-years, with only partial experience and incomplete spiritual conditioning. Even the seniors, while stronger, were already fatigued from the initial wave of combat. The defensive formation itself was fragile, relying heavily on instructor presence to maintain stability.
If that structure broke, there would be no second chance.
Meanwhile, Nille's situation was different.
Harsh, but survivable.
He was not surrounded by the full army.
He was not defending multiple weak points.
He was engaged in a one-on-one escalation against Varkhul, with Nyx providing continuous analysis and battlefield adaptation support. While dangerous, it was still a controlled combat zone compared to the chaos threatening the perimeter.
Kaori exhaled slowly, tightening her grip on her weapon.
"This is not abandonment," she muttered under her breath.
It was prioritization.
She raised her voice immediately after.
"All instructors remain at perimeter defense!"
"No exceptions!"
The order spread instantly across the formation.
Some senior students looked shocked, their eyes instinctively shifting toward Nille's distant position as explosions of impact continued to echo faintly across the battlefield.
One of them hesitated.
"But Instructor, he's still out there alone!"
Kaori did not look away from the approaching army.
"If we break formation now," she said coldly, "you will all die before reaching him."
Her words silenced the group instantly.
Because it was not an exaggeration.
It was probability.
The defensive perimeter was the only reason they were still alive at that moment. Removing instructors would not just weaken it, it would destabilize it entirely. And once the formation collapsed, the approaching coordinated forces would no longer need to focus on Nille.
They would simply advance and eliminate everything.
Kaori's eyes narrowed as she observed the banners drawing closer.
"We secure the students first," she continued firmly.
"Only then do we reassess external engagements."
Behind her, the instructors adjusted their positions, reinforcing barrier formations and preparing contingency spells while the student groups were tightened into more compact defensive clusters.
The priority was now clear.
Survival of the majority.
Even if it meant one fighter remained outside the protection line.
Kaori glanced briefly toward Nille's distant silhouette one last time.
"…Hold on," she murmured quietly.
Then she turned back toward the advancing army.
Because whatever was happening out there, was no longer a rescue operation.
It was a battlefield turning into a war zone in real time.
And in that kind of situation, even the harshest truths had to be acknowledged without hesitation.
Within Instructor Kaori Takamura's assessment, the equation had already been reduced to its most unforgiving form:
One isolated student, no matter how capable, was a single variable in an expanding crisis.
The perimeter, on the other hand, contained hundreds of first-year students, several exhausted senior groups, and a defensive structure that was only stable because multiple instructors were actively maintaining it. The approaching organized forces on the horizon were not disorganized Malignants, they were coordinated units, advancing in formation, testing boundaries, and applying pressure in waves.
If even one instructor abandoned the perimeter to extract Nille, the formation would weaken.
One instructor broke formation first.
Seeing how rapidly the situation was escalating, she made the immediate decision to retreat toward the underground exit corridor, the only secure route back into the academy domain. Her intent was simple: report the breach, request reinforcement, and trigger higher-level containment protocols before the advancing forces fully encircled the area.
But the moment she turned, the battlefield reacted.
A sharp whistle cut through the air.
An arrow moved faster than perception allowed.
It struck her leg mid-stride, the impact forcing her down instantly as spiritual energy disruption spread through the wound. The attack was precise, deliberate, and controlled—not meant to kill, but to immobilize.
From the elevated ridge overlooking the battlefield, a secondary Lycan unit emerged.
Unlike the frontline packs that relied on brute strength and coordinated melee pressure, this group moved with disciplined spacing and ranged formation tactics. Longbows were already drawn, arrows nocked in synchronized rhythm as they advanced in partial cover positions across the terrain.
At their center stood their leader.
A Lycan warrior whose presence carried the same oppressive authority as Varkhul, but expressed in a completely different form of combat discipline.
She was known among the packs as the Blood Fang's sibling.
Varkhul's younger sister.
Unlike her brother, who embodied overwhelming front-line brutality, she specialized in long-range warfare, precision strikes, and battlefield control through attrition. Her unit did not rush. They advanced methodically, establishing firing lines and controlling space with calculated pressure rather than raw aggression.
Another volley was released.
Arrows streaked through the air toward the defensive perimeter, forcing instructors and senior students to immediately deploy barriers and deflection techniques.
The students had assumed the battlefield was chaotic.
They were wrong.
This was coordinated.
The arrival of the archer unit changed the entire structure of engagement. What had seemed like scattered skirmishes now revealed layered military intent, melee forces, vanguard packs, and ranged suppression units working in structured synergy.
Worse still, this position should not have been accessible.
The Sector 6 hunting grounds were considered a low-layer controlled realm, separated from higher command awareness. Entry and exit points were monitored under the assumption that large-scale tactical coordination was impossible within its spatial restrictions.
Yet what stood before them defied that assumption entirely.
Even the instructors faltered for a moment, realizing the implication.
This level of organization meant external intelligence, or internal manipulation of the realm structure itself.
From a higher observation point, the situation was being watched differently.
The 12 elders and most professors remained unaware of the true scale unfolding within the hunting grounds due to layered spatial separation protocols. To them, this was still classified as a controlled mid-term field assessment with heightened difficulty parameters.
However, the two deans were watching.
Silently.
Carefully.
And without interruption.
No intervention was issued.
No emergency extraction was initiated.
Because within their evaluation framework, this outcome was not unexpected.
Wounded students, scattered formations, and rising pressure from coordinated hostile units were all part of the design philosophy.
Not failure conditions.
But learning conditions.
Survival itself was the metric being tested.
And within that metric, casualties were not defined solely by death, but by collapse of will, structure, or adaptability.
Back on the battlefield, the injured instructor gritted her teeth, pulling herself behind partial cover as another arrow embedded into the ground beside her.
The Lycan archer leader raised her hand again, signaling her unit to adjust formation.
No panic.
No chaos.
Only continuation.
Nille forced himself back into motion the moment Nyx's analysis stabilized.
Varkhul was still rampaging.
But now the pattern was clearer.
The Alpha's movements were no longer purely its own, they were being overridden in bursts, as if something foreign was interrupting its nervous system at irregular intervals. Each spike of aggression corresponded with brief loss of coordination, followed by violent compensation.
Nyx's voice cut through his focus.
"It's not just control through an insect," she said sharply. "It's neurotoxic reinforcement. The parasite is injecting stimulus signals directly into its pain response system."
Nille narrowed his eyes while narrowly dodging a claw strike that carved a deep trench through the ground behind him.
"Can you neutralize it?" he asked.
A pause.
Then Nyx replied.
"Not directly. But I can interrupt its biochemical binding."
Inside her perception, now layered with Scarf's inherited knowledge, Nyx rapidly filtered through ancient field remedies used across cursed ecosystems, spirit-contaminated terrains, and hybrid biological entities.
Then she found it.
A plant.
A very specific one.
"Bloodveil Herb," she said immediately.
Nille twisted under another sweeping attack, the wind pressure alone tearing through nearby stone.
Nyx continued.
"It grows in low-spirit saturation soil. Its sap destabilizes foreign neurotoxins by breaking spiritual binding chains between parasite and host nervous system."
Nille understood instantly.
"So if I get it into him…"
"Yes," Nyx confirmed. "It will not kill the insect immediately. But it will sever its control link long enough to purge it."
The problem was distance.
The battlefield was collapsing into chaos, Lycan archers maintaining suppression fire, Kobold units advancing in structured waves, and the massive army still pressing forward under banners that rippled like a moving tide.
And Varkhul, Varkhul was still locked onto Nille.
Still hunting him.
Still adapting.
Another strike came down.
Nille stepped inside the arc, grabbed the Alpha's wrist, and redirected the momentum just enough to avoid being crushed before slamming his elbow into its joint.
But even as he created distance, he knew he couldn't hold this indefinitely.
Then Nyx spoke again.
"North ridge. Twelve meters."
Nille turned mid-combat.
Through fractured terrain and broken stone, he saw it.
A patch of dark vegetation growing between cracked earth, unusually untouched despite the battlefield chaos. Its leaves shimmered faintly with a deep crimson tint, as if absorbing surrounding spiritual residue.
Bloodveil Herb.
But reaching it meant exposing himself.
Varkhul would not give him space.
Nyx's tone sharpened.
"I will guide timing. Trust the opening."
Nille exhaled once.
Then moved.
He baited Varkhul into a forward charge, slipping sideways at the last instant and using the Alpha's own momentum to launch himself toward the ridge.
The ground shattered beneath his landing.
Arrows whistled past from the Lycan archers in the distance, but none adjusted fast enough to track his acceleration.
Varkhul roared and pursued immediately, breaking through its own terrain with brutal force.
Nille dropped into a low slide and reached the herb.
His fingers closed around the plant.
The moment he touched it, Nyx activated a controlled spiritual extraction pattern, not harvesting the herb, but converting its sap into a dispersal medium through his own energy flow.
"Now," she said.
Nille pivoted just as Varkhul arrived.
The Alpha lunged.
This time, Nille didn't block.
He struck.
A precise slash of energy-coated sap landed directly at the back of Varkhul's neck where Nyx had identified the parasite attachment point earlier.
The Bloodveil infusion spread instantly.
For a split second, Varkhul froze.
Its body convulsed violently.
The crimson glow in its eyes flickered.
Then, something invisible shattered inside its nervous system.
The Lycan Alpha dropped to one knee, claws digging into the earth as its roar turned from rage into raw, pained disorientation.
Blackened veins across its body began to retract.
The killing intent wavered.
Not gone.
But no longer stable.
Nyx's voice followed immediately.
"Control link disrupted. The parasite is losing synchronization."
Varkhul's breathing became uneven, its massive frame trembling as if fighting against two different commands inside its body.
Nille remained in front of it, blade lowered. but ready.
He did not finish it.
He did not press the opening.
Because now, this was no longer a berserk enemy.
It was a recovering mind trapped inside a collapsing influence.
Behind him, the battlefield continued to burn with tension.
But for the first time since the fight began, Varkhul looked up at Nille without pure madness in its eyes.
Varkhul remained on one knee, its massive frame trembling as the Bloodveil Herb's effect continued to unravel the foreign influence inside its nervous system.
The crimson glow in its eyes flickered again—this time not with rage, but with exhaustion.
For the first time since the battle began, its breathing slowed.
Controlled.
Aware.
The Lycan Alpha tried to rise, but its strength faltered halfway. Its claws dug into the earth to keep itself upright, not in aggression, but in shame.
Nille stayed still.
Blade lowered, posture unchanged.
Waiting.
Varkhul's gaze finally steadied on him.
Not as an enemy.
Not as prey.
But as a warrior who had lost something fundamental.
Its voice came out lower now, strained, but no longer fractured by madness.
"…So that was it."
The Alpha exhaled heavily, its shoulders sagging under the weight of realization.
"I was not fighting you…"
A pause.
Its claws slowly loosened from the ground.
"I was fighting myself."
Silence settled between them, heavy and absolute, as the distant battlefield continued to echo with movement, arrows, and shifting formations.
Varkhul's eyes dimmed slightly, the last remnants of forced aggression finally breaking apart within its expression.
"I remember now…"
Its voice carried something unfamiliar for a creature of its kind.
Regret.
"I was a warrior."
The words were slow, deliberate, as if each one cost it strength to speak.
"But I became…"
Its grip tightened briefly, then released.
"…a wild beast wearing the shape of one."
Varkhul lowered its head.
Not in submission to Nille, but in acknowledgment of its own failure.
For a moment, the battlefield noise felt distant, as if even the chaos around them recognized the weight of what was being said.
The Alpha's voice softened further.
"I let something else hold my instincts."
A bitter breath escaped it.
"And I followed it… thinking it was purpose."
Its claws finally left the ground entirely.
Varkhul sat back fully now, no longer forcing itself to stand.
Not defeated by strength.
But by clarity.
Then it looked at Nille one last time.
There was no hatred left in its gaze.
Only acceptance.
"I lost control of my own body…"
A faint, almost hollow exhale followed.
"…and for that, I am not a warrior."
The words settled into the air like a final judgment it had already accepted long before speaking them.
Varkhul closed its eyes briefly.
When it spoke again, its tone was quieter.
"End it… if you must."
A pause.
Then,
"…but know this."
Its eyes reopened slightly, just enough to meet Nille's.
"I am grateful it was not a mindless death."
For the first time, Varkhul's expression carried something close to peace.
Even in defeat.
Even in collapse.
Because what it lost in control…
it regained in truth.
And that, to a warrior who once valued strength above all else—