No response.
Damn it.
I cursed under my breath. Lav was probably deep asleep. Which meant not even a mana beast's sacrificial explosion—the kind that usually goes kaboom—would wake his ass up. Not even if it happened right under his bed.
It had taken me nearly fifteen minutes to get here, which was slow—too slow—for my liking. But I couldn't help it. The weather had gone rogue. The roads were a mess, the terrain was slippery, and the earth itself felt unstable. The rain wasn't going to stop—I could feel it in my bones. My body was half-drenched already, soaked in icy water. And though it was barely 9 a.m., the sky had the moody grey tone of late evening.
The clouds had merged like they were fusing into some divine chain, forming an unbreakable bond—thick, endless, suffocating. They stretched across the city, probably over the Beast Rims too. It was the kind of sky that made even fire mages shiver.
Normally, I'd love this weather. The gloom, the wind, the charged tension in the air.
But today?
Today it just felt… wrong.
There was a sense of dread hanging over me. My nerves were on edge, my limbs stiff with fatigue. Probably from the training. Or the lack of rest. Or maybe the weight of everything that had happened.
The healing potion had done its job, mostly. But the aftereffects still lingered near my eye. An itching sensation that hadn't fully faded. At least it was dull now, thanks to Ninia. I owed her for that.
At least the pain will keep me alert… in case my body slacks for even a millisecond, I told myself. Trying to stay optimistic.
It didn't work.
And then, without meaning to, my thoughts drifted back to Ronith and Ninia. The way they were treating one another, most
Why the hell was I being so melodramatic about them?
The usual me wouldn't have cared. Not one bit. Their problems weren't mine. Their tension, their silent war, whatever was brewing between them—it wasn't my concern.
Yet… I'd tried to understand.
Why?
It didn't make sense.
It was weird.
And unnecessary.
Whatever.
"WAKE UP, ASSHOLE!" I shouted, flaring my mana as I released a controlled burst into the air—loud, crackling, and thunderous. The resulting shockwave tore through the front of the house like a dry lightning strike.
Huh! Guess my frustration just channelled itself in my mana.
If that didn't wake him, nothing would.
The response was immediate, unsurprisingly.
I sensed his body shift—precise, reflexive, like a trained predator stirred mid-dream. His presence spiked for a brief second, ready for a counter-attack. Before realisation struck him, like lightning, easily evident in his movements, which slowed down.
Who in their right mind would waste time ambushing you, Lav? I muttered in my mind, shaking my head. This guy really is something else, even though the type of alarm I detonated would've startled the best of us.
Still, I felt his footsteps approaching. Steady, hurried. The vibrations actually reached me through the floor.
That surprised me, again. This isn't gonna be the new norm, right?
It wasn't normal to feel movement like that. Not unless your senses were unnaturally tuned, like very unnaturally tuned.
Maybe losing an eye does come with a few perks, I thought, which kinda puts me in a dilemma... Wonder what I'd gain if I lost a limb? A leg? My right arm?
A dark curiosity. One, I just as quickly dismissed.
I wasn't that desperate for power.
Not yet... Not ever, probably.
The wooden door slammed open.
"The hell is wrong with—" Lav burst out, voice tense as if death itself had been chasing him.
Then he saw me.
And froze.
His face shifted in an instant. The anger drained away. What replaced it was harder to read—some mix of confusion, disbelief, and… concern.
His eyes locked onto the bandages wrapped around my head. On the right side. The patch covering what used to be my eye.
His gaze lingered.
Longer than I expected.
He didn't speak. Didn't ask. Just stared.
I gave him a weak, forced smile. It tugged at the bandages and irritated the sensitive skin beneath.
"Surprise…" I said, arms open, tone layered with bitter sarcasm, as I forced out.
"..."
No comment?
Damn. Am I really that pathetic right now? Or do I just look that miserable... Which scared me on how would Sia and Sara would react...
God help me, I prayed as the silence still remained.
His reaction hit harder than I expected. Ronith and Ninia had kept their expressions measured, civil. But this? This was Lav. My best friend. My family.
Of course, his reaction would be different.
He wasn't just looking at an injury.
He was looking at the price I'd paid, probably after doing some dumb shit, which I do indulge into...
Finally, after what felt like a lifetime of silence, he snapped.
"What the hell is WRONG with you, huh?!"
There it was.
He grabbed my arm, dragged me inside without waiting for an answer.
"Thanks for letting me in," I muttered as he slammed the door shut behind us. Dust sprinkled from the ceiling like confetti, shaken loose by the impact.
He didn't stop.
Pulled me through the house, straight into his living room—the one space he treated like sacred ground. Lav maintained it like a ritual. Clean, orderly, spotless. Almost unnaturally so for someone like him.
He dropped me onto the nearest chair.
Still no words of continuation.
But I could feel them coming.
And for once?
I wasn't sure I was ready to hear them.
"I fucking knew your reckless ass would cause your own damn downfall! Sia's gonna kill you!"
Lav yelled, tone sharp—but not as irritating as usual. Maybe because the itching near my eye still dominated my focus. I tried to speak, explain, tell him what had actually happened—because knowing him, he'd assume I snuck out again. Or picked another fight with an out-of-my-league mana beast.
Not that I blamed him. Those weren't exactly unreasonable assumptions.
"Lav, listen to me—" I started, my voice calm, measured—
But he cut me off.
"No! You listen to me! What the hell did you do? Where did you screw up this time? And who the hell even knows about this? Don't tell me—definitely not Sia. Not Sara either, right?!"
His voice was oddly polite now. That condescending, infuriating politeness he only used when he was beyond pissed. I clenched my jaw, trying not to snap. I didn't have time for this. I barely had an hour left to inform him—prepare him—before I had to leave again.
And this lecture?
It was eating away at every second.
"A thousand times," he ranted on. "A thousand fucking times I warned you. Begged you. Tried to stop you. But nope! You're the freedom-chaser, the lone wolf of the Beast Rims. You don't need anyone, right? Not even your—"
"I was ambushed," I said flatly, cutting through his monologue like a knife.
My left hand instinctively moved up to cover my face, both eyes.
Stupid move.
The second my fingers touched the bandages, a fresh jolt of irritation flared across my skin. I winced.
But Lav didn't let up.
"Ambushed? You?! Where? When? What sector?" His voice was demanding now, but steadier. Less emotion, more focus. The strategist in him was waking up.
He opened a drawer in the centre table and pulled out a glass of water and some pain-suppressing tablets. I took them without hesitation, despite how much I hated relying on artificial means to dull pain.
"Thanks," I muttered, swallowing both down.
"Fuck your thanks. I want answers."
He was lucky I was trying to stay patient. Any other day, we'd be in a full-blown shouting match by now. But today?
Time wasn't on my side.
"Near the later cliffs of the Black Mountains," I said.
That shut him up.
He froze.
Mouth half-open, questions mid-birth. The silence that followed was thick.
"…Huh?" he finally said, blinking hard.
God, I hated that word. Huh—that stupid sound people made when their brains refused to function.
Lav knew me. Knew I didn't lie about things like this. But still, he looked at me like I was feeding him some elaborate cover-up.
"Yeah," I said. "Last night. Near the same area we used to race up from. Remember?"
His eyes drifted, recalling the memory. Back then, no mana reinforcement, no fancy tricks—just raw stamina and willpower. I used to lose those races more often than not. But it wasn't about winning. It was about getting stronger, together.
"Huh- I mean… You're joking, right?" he asked, voice softer now. More human.
"Use that word again," I warned, "and I swear to the gods, we'll have a matching set of eyes."
He blinked.
"Huh?"
For fuck's sake.
"Who the hell would ambush you...?" he asked, recovering. "Goodman? Or one of his rat-faced lackeys—?"
"No. It wasn't them."
I looked him straight in the eye.
"It was a Wraith. The shadow demon Rebecca mentioned. Remember?"
His face went still.
His expression cracked—not from confusion, but disbelief. His noble-like gaze widened as his posture collapsed, hands bracing the edge of the table as if reality had suddenly tilted sideways.
"You're… kidding," he whispered, more to himself than to me, as if he genuinely did not wanted to believe my words.
I wish I were.
"What do you think?" I replied, unwrapping the edge of my bandages just enough to reveal the mangled ruin beneath. The skin was torn, scorched, and punctured. My eye? Gone.
I waited for him to flinch.
Look away.
Say something.
But he didn't.
He didn't even blink.
His expression softened, the tightness in his brow melting into something else. And for a split second, I saw it.
His eyes glassed over. Just a little.
He blinked fast, like he was trying to hide it. To stay the usual Lav.
How surprising... And cute.
"I was on my usual night walk," I began once Lav had calmed down enough to actually listen, "trying to clear my head... the usual mess that doesn't let you sleep right."
He nodded slightly.
"I headed toward Buck, same route as always. That's when I sensed something, or rather, a few presences—lurking deep in the shadows. Not around them—inside them. As the night wore on, one of them confronted me."
His brows furrowed, but he remained silent. Let me speak.
"Thankfully, it was just a single entity. A Wraith. One that could travel through the shadows, completely masking its presence. Even I couldn't sense it when it was fully merged with the dark." I paused for a second. "The worst part? It could use the shadow affinity."
Lav's eyes narrowed.
"The legendary one?"
I nodded. "Exactly. The one we used to hear about in old folktales. The god-tier stuff... But it wasn't a true wielder."
His mouth opened, then shut. Finally, he asked the obvious question. "How can you be so sure?"
I didn't hesitate. "Because I'm still alive."
He blinked once, then nodded slowly. He knew. No matter how strong I've become—or ever will be—standing against a true wielder of a legendary affinity was suicide.
"…Any chance it held back?" he asked carefully. "Spared you?"
"None. It wanted to kill me. Fully. No hesitation. No mercy."
His tone dropped lower, quieter. "So that means… the Lunar Walls have been breached. These Wraiths—whatever they are—are inside Varis now. Inside Verdun."
I nodded again. Once.
Lav exhaled sharply, then gestured for me to keep going. "Tell me everything. Every detail."
"Appearance-wise, exactly like what Rebecca described. Long, slick body. No face. Just that hood, draped over a head that wasn't there. They're built to ambush. To kill in the opening move. You can't sense them until they decide to strike—and when they do, you've got maybe a second or two to react."
Lav didn't interrupt, but I could feel his thoughts racing behind his calm stare.
"The one I fought was new. Sloppy. Still learning. But even that was enough to nearly kill me. It manifested a scythe out of pure shadow. No visible weaknesses, no discernible patterns. It fought like a being designed for death."
"...And yet you survived." His voice was barely above a whisper.
"Barely," I admitted. "It escaped at the end. I don't know why. Maybe it was injured. Maybe it underestimated me. But even it seemed surprised that I was still standing."
Lav sat back, lips pressed thin, trying to absorb it all.
"Oh—and they're probably immune to most elemental attacks," I added, remembering. "I didn't test Crimson Ultima's flames, but my basic elemental spells didn't do a thing. What did work, to my surprise, was telekinesis. Turns out, they're not intangible. You can grip them. Push them. Break them—if you're fast enough."
Lav blinked. "Interesting…"
"And then there was this mist," I added, almost as an afterthought. "It appeared out of nowhere. Super-condensed mana. Dense enough to feel liquid. It wrapped around me during the fight—amplified everything. My strength. My reflexes. My focus."
"Do you think the mist was from the Wraith?" Lav asked.
"I don't know. That's what worries me."
He ran both hands down his face. "Okay. Okay… stop for now. I need a moment to process this."
"Yeah. I figured."
We sat in silence for a while. The only sound was the distant rumble of thunder outside.
"…Why you?" Lav finally asked. "Why would it engage you out of nowhere?"
Good question.
"Maybe it saw me as a threat," I said. "Or maybe it was testing itself. It fought like a beast that had just been let loose, trying to understand the world through its own instincts. I honestly don't know. But if these Wraiths do start seeing me as a threat…"
I trailed off, letting the silence speak for me.
Because if that happened, I'd never sleep again. Never walk safely. And anyone near me would be in danger.
Lav nodded slowly. "Let's hope they don't decide to treat you as their personal sparring dummy."
"Yeah," I muttered. "Let's."
Then his eyes sharpened again. "But here's the real question—the one we have to ask. Why aren't they revealing themselves? If they're this strong… why not just start wiping out our top mages? The mountain-splitters. The Saints. The knights who can level cities with one attack, I mean, by your description, they're obviously in numbers, perhaps a legion, an army? Who knows? And by the way they act, manifest, and engage, they're obviously built for hide-and-strike, a form of tactics the greatest legion of sentienity, The Asuras used..."
That question settled like a weight between us.
I didn't have an answer.
But I had a very bad feeling one was coming soon...