Chapter Sixteen: Hunters in the Night
The forest exploded into motion.
Mira reacted instantly, drawing her daggers, her senses sharpening as she scanned the darkened woods. The trees rustled unnaturally, and the once-quiet night was filled with the sound of shifting movement—too many footsteps, too many bodies stalking from the shadows.
Roderic gritted his teeth, gripping the hilt of his sword with his one remaining arm. His wounds were still fresh, his body weak, but there was no time to recover now.
They were surrounded.
And the worst part?
Alex had been right.
He had awoken barely a minute ago, and his first words had been a warning.
Now, here they were—prey caught in a hunter's snare.
Mira whispered under her breath, eyes darting through the darkness. "Who are they?"
Alex's fingers twitched. He sat up slowly, his movements unnervingly calm despite the suffocating tension in the air.
His gaze, those abyss-infested eyes, flickered toward the treetops.
"They're not Blackfang," he murmured. "They're something worse."
Mira tensed. "What do you mean worse?"
Before Alex could respond—
The first arrow flew.
Mira twisted away, the arrow whistling past her ear, embedding itself into the dirt with a dull thud.
Another followed, then a third, then a fourth—a hail of arrows raining down on them from above.
Roderic raised his sword, deflecting the first two, but the force sent tremors through his weakened body. Mira moved like a shadow, dodging and weaving, her Essence sharpening her reflexes just enough to stay ahead of the onslaught.
Alex?
He didn't move.
The arrows never touched him.
The shadows around him shifted subtly, swallowing the incoming projectiles before they could reach his body. The air around him felt unnatural, his Essence pulsing in strange, slow waves.
Mira barely had time to process it before they came.
Figures dropped from the trees, landing in eerie silence, their movements unnaturally fluid.
Not bandits.
Not soldiers.
Assassins.
Mira swore under her breath.
They weren't dealing with common hunters.
These were trained killers.
And judging by their seamless coordination, their utter lack of hesitation—
They were here for Alex.
The first assassin lunged at Roderic, twin blades flashing in the moonlight.
Roderic barely had time to react.
He sidestepped the first strike, but his balance was off—his missing arm throwing off his instincts. The second blade came for his throat.
Mira intercepted.
Her dagger clashed against the assassin's, deflecting the killing blow at the last second. She twisted, launching a counterstrike—a precise slash toward the assassin's ribs.
But he was faster.
He moved like a phantom, body twisting unnaturally as he dodged, his own dagger slicing toward her neck—
Mira dropped low, sweeping his legs.
He flipped mid-air, landing without a sound.
She cursed.
These weren't normal assassins.
They were Essence-users.
Before she could press the attack, two more emerged from the trees, their weapons gleaming with poisoned edges.
Mira's heart pounded. This wasn't a fair fight.
But that had never stopped her before.
Amidst the chaos, Alex still hadn't moved.
He simply watched.
His eyes flickered from Mira to Roderic, then to the assassins circling them like wolves around wounded prey.
Something shifted in the air.
Something cold.
Mira felt it first—a shudder through the Essence around them, as if reality itself had taken a breath before something unnatural happened.
One of the assassins turned toward Alex, noticing the change.
And then—
Alex spoke.
"You should have never come here."
His voice was quiet, barely above a whisper.
But in that moment, everything stopped.
A pulse erupted from Alex's body—a wave of absolute darkness, unseen but felt.
The shadows around him moved.
Not metaphorically.
Literally.
They rose from the ground, writhing like living entities, twisting around Alex like sentient chains.
Mira barely had time to comprehend it before the first assassin lunged for Alex's heart.
His blade never reached.
A black tendril shot forward, wrapping around the assassin's arm—
And ripped it clean from his body.
The man screamed.
The other assassins froze.
For the first time, they hesitated.
And in that single moment of hesitation—
Alex moved.
He wasn't fast.
He wasn't a trained warrior.
But it didn't matter.
Because Alex didn't need speed or skill.
He had power.
The assassins tried to regroup, but the shadows responded to his will, moving with deadly precision.
One tried to retreat.
A tendril wrapped around his throat, lifting him into the air.
He struggled, clawing at the shadow constricting him—
And then it tightened.
A sickening snap echoed through the forest.
His body went limp.
The others panicked.
This wasn't a fight anymore.
This was a massacre.
Mira stood frozen, gripping her daggers tightly, watching in horror as Alex slaughtered them without touching them.
Shadows pierced through flesh, impaled throats, ripped weapons from their grasp.
There was no resistance.
Within seconds, it was over.
The assassins lay dead.
Their bodies untouched by physical wounds—yet their Essence had been drained, leaving behind hollowed corpses.
Alex stood amidst the carnage, his breath slow, his body eerily calm.
The shadows receded, slinking back into the earth like obedient beasts, disappearing as if they had never existed.
And when he turned to Mira—
She saw something in his eyes that terrified her.
Not anger.
Not regret.
But understanding.
The forest was still.
The air was thick with tension, the weight of what had just happened hanging between them like an unspoken truth.
Mira took a slow breath, forcing herself to speak.
"Alex…"
He met her gaze.
She hesitated.
She wanted to ask what had just happened—what he had done, what he had become.
But she already knew.
So instead, she asked the only thing that mattered.
"Do you feel… anything?"
Alex blinked.
His voice was soft, almost distant.
"No."
A chill ran down Mira's spine.
Because in that moment, she realized something far worse than what she had feared.
It wasn't that Alex had become stronger.
It was that he was losing himself.
And she didn't know how to stop it.