"Enemy attack!" The cry rang out, panicked, but no direction followed. Where had it come from? Who had made the call? Eyes darted, searching, trembling in fear, but there was only… nothing.
Only silence.
Only the suffocating weight of uncertainty.
And then, it came again—another life snuffed out.
A Rank 4 soldier's breath hitched as he spun around, sword raised, body coiled in anticipation. Too slow. NOX materialized behind him, a ghost of death with cold fingers that wrapped around the man's spine like a vice.
"So fragile."
The words slithered into the soldier's ears like a curse.
With a sickening flick of his wrist, NOX crushed the man's spine, snapping it as if it were brittle wood.
"Aaahhhhhh…" The soldier's scream rang out, jagged and raw, but it faded quickly—too quickly—as his body crumpled, paralyzed, before his vision disappeared into a void so complete it seemed to swallow all light.
And then, as if he had never been there, NOX vanished.
The silence stretched on, heavy and unyielding, but it was no longer mere quiet.
NOX was giving them time. Not out of mercy, but out of something far worse—a twisted, calculated need to make them feel the same despair that had consumed him for so many years. He wanted them to understand the depth of his horror, to experience the agony he had felt when they, or those like them, hunted him relentlessly.
The screams—the screams that reverberated through the Academy's open grounds—were nothing compared to what NOX had endured. They were only the beginning.
And the soldiers… they were beginning to crack.
They heard the scream. The death rattle of a comrade—Oliver. But there was nothing. No body, no blood, no sign. Just the hollow echo of a life lost.
"Where… Where is Oliver?"
A soldier's voice wavered, thick with dread. His eyes darted across the courtyard, frantically searching for the man who had stood beside him just moments ago. But there was nothing. No trace. No sound. Only the suffocating stillness of absence.
Gone.
His breath turned shallow, his heartbeat a wild hammering in his chest. Panic slithered through his veins like a living thing, coiling tighter with each second. And then—
A whisper.
Low, almost amused. Cold as steel pressed against bare flesh.
"Oh? His name was Oliver?"
[You have created the skill—Ice Sculpture.]
[Cost: 700 Emotion Points.]
Terror clenched his spine. The air around him turned glacial, as if the world itself recoiled. He spun on instinct, sword raised high, ready to strike. But his muscles… betrayed him. His body locked in place, rigid and unyielding.
Crack.
Something inside him snapped—not just his nerves, but something deeper. A splintering sensation spread through his legs, slow and inexorable, as ice crept beneath his skin. He watched in helpless horror as his lower half crystallized into a grotesque sculpture of frost. The cold bit into his flesh, but the pain was secondary to the horror of realization.
He tried to move. The ice cracked.
The fractures spread, jagged lines splitting across frozen flesh.
"No—nooo—"
His scream was swallowed by the night as his body shattered. A grotesque symphony of breaking ice and splintering bone filled the air, and where once stood a soldier, now only scattered shards remained.
Thud.
His severed head rolled across the ground, slow and deliberate, until it came to a stop against another soldier's boot.
A breath hitched. Cold sweat drenched armor. The soldier dared to look down—
And met the lifeless stare of his comrade. Those frozen eyes, forever widened in the last moments of terror, seemed to reach for him even in death.
His stomach twisted. The bile rose.
"Alert! Enem—"
His warning died before it could take form. A hand—ice-cold, unyielding—clamped over his mouth, dragging him into the abyss.
And still, NOX remained unseen.
The killings were not random, not mindless slaughter. NOX was deliberate. Calculated. He targeted the Rank 4 soldiers first, thinning their numbers in a methodical purge.
This was not the work of a righteous avenger. He did not discriminate between the guilty and the innocent. He was not a hero. He was exactly what the Human Supreme Society had called him.
A devil.
But one of their own making.
They had shaped him into this. They had driven him to the depths of despair.
And now, he was simply returning the favor.
A Rank 4 soldier staggered backward, his grip on his weapon weak, his voice brittle with fear. "W-we can't fight something we can't see!"
The air thickened. Turned leaden.
A presence coiled around him—icy fingers ghosting along his throat. The breath in his lungs turned to mist.
"Then don't fight."
The whisper slithered into his ear, carrying death with it.
Snap.
A sharp, merciless jerk. His neck twisted at an unnatural angle, and his body collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.
And in that moment—it began.
The seed of despair had taken root.
The Dharma Soldiers had always been fearless. They were warriors—conditioned to fight without hesitation, to sacrifice themselves without question. Against monsters. Against devils. Against horrors that clawed at the edges of reason.
But this… this was something else.
This was not a battle.
This was an eldritch nightmare.
Across the Academy's open grounds, the remaining Dharma soldiers—Rank 4 to Rank 7—stood rigid, weapons drawn, eyes scanning the shifting void where NOX lurked. The silence was not merely an absence of sound—it was an oppressive force, a waiting, watching presence that crushed the air from their lungs.
Their numbers had already begun to dwindle. Yet, they had found no bodies. No remnants of the fallen.
The dead were simply… gone.
And the living?
The living were left to witness. To feel. To understand a horror greater than any devil they had ever faced.
The vast courtyard, once a place of discipline and training, had become a crucible of despair. The weight of the unknown pressed upon them, heavy and relentless. They had faced demons and nightmares in the past, had stood firm in the face of atrocities that defied the laws of existence.
But this was something else entirely.
This was the first time they realized—
They were the prey.
*******
But of course, the nightmare had not ended—it had only just begun.
NOX spared a handful of Rank 4 soldiers, leaving them trembling amidst the carnage as he advanced toward the Rank 5 warriors.
Why did he let them live? Because death was mercy. He sought something far crueler. He wanted to break them—shatter their belief, their Oath, everything they took pride in.
A Rank 5 warrior staggered backward, panic clawing at his throat. His instincts screamed at him to move, to flee—but before his legs could obey, a hand grasped his face. Cold fingers pressed into his skull, a vice of impossible strength.
"Look at you… so tense," NOX murmured. "Relax."
A sickening crack. The man's body went limp.
[You have created the skill—Phantom Grip.]
[Cost: 700 Emotion Points.]
Terror spread like wildfire, untamed and raw.
[You have gained 1,200 Emotion Points.]
NOX drank it in. Their horror seeped into him, thick and potent, feeding the abyss within. How fitting. They weren't merely dying—they were sustaining him. Their panic, their dread, their despair—each drop of suffering was a gift.
A chuckle almost slipped from his lips.
"They're picking us off!"
"Stay together! Formation!"
A pitiful attempt.
No matter how tightly they clung to one another, no matter how desperately they tried to guard each other's backs, the slaughter did not cease. Blades struck unseen, rending flesh before their owners could even scream. Heads toppled from shoulders, lifeblood painting the earth. Some were impaled by nothingness. Others simply… fell, bodies crumpling like marionettes with cut strings, their minds shattered before their flesh could follow.
"Fuck! FUCK! What is this thing?!"
"Gods… gods above… he's not human!"
"We're dead! We're already dead!"
A Rank 6 soldier clenched his jaw, his hands trembling as he roared, unleashing a desperate explosion of energy in all directions—a last, futile attempt to dispel the abyss that hunted them.
The blast struck nothing.
And then, NOX was behind him.
"Your strength is commendable," he mused, "but useless."
[You have created the skill—Hand of Despair.]
[Cost: 1,500 Emotion Points.]
An unseen force latched onto the warrior's chest. He convulsed violently, his back arching as something within him—something fundamental—was torn away. His lips parted in a scream, but no sound emerged. His flesh withered, crumbling into dust.
Silence fell over the battlefield.
The soldiers stared, horror-stricken, at the empty space where a man had once stood.
[You have gained 3,400 Emotion Points.]
It was over.
They were no longer warriors. They were prey.
One of them broke.
'Finally, a winner,' NOX mused, watching as the first of the Dharma soldiers shattered.
A Rank 4 soldier, barely more than a boy, turned and ran. His breath was ragged, his vision blurred with terror. He didn't care about orders, about formation, about honor. He only wanted to live.
His legs carried him forward. Past the bodies. Past the dying. Past the screams.
He would make it.
He just had to keep running—
A hand clasped his shoulder.
"Where do you think you're going?"
The last thing he felt was the whisper of a blade against his throat.
The world turned sideways.
[You have gained 900 Emotion Points.]
"No! NO! I don't want to die! Please!"
Tears streaked the faces of some soldiers now, their hands shaking as they clutched their weapons—useless, pitiful scraps of metal. Curses slipped past trembling lips. Hands clasped in desperate prayers to gods who would not answer.
"He's a fucking monster…"
"We can't win. We can't win. We can't fucking win…"
"This isn't war… This is slaughter."
They were already dead.
NOX merely watched, his gaze unreadable. Pity? No. This was not a battle. It was inevitability—a consequence of standing in his way.
The battlefield, once a place of disciplined warriors, had become a slaughterhouse.
A Rank 7 warrior finally reacted, his aura igniting as he raised his blade.
"ENOUGH!"
His voice cracked the silence. A command. A challenge. A plea.
NOX tilted his head, unseen in the abyss.
Enough?
Perhaps