The thrill from their first victory was irresistible, and for a brief, shining moment, it worked.
A current of confidence, sharp and intoxicating, pulsed through the team as they moved deeper into the strange forest.
The heavy, choking fear that had gripped them like a soaked cloak since they'd entered the portal had at last, mercifully, eased.
It was replaced by the heady thrill of survival and the irresistible promise of power.
Ragnar, walking point, was practically buzzing with it.
He flexed his stone-like forearm, lifting it for his teammates to see, then tapped it with the flat of his scavenged blade, the sound a dull, satisfying thud.
"See? Teamwork!" he called out, his voice a little too loud in the strange, humming quiet of the woods.
"A rock, eyes, a safety net, and a spear with a hell of a kick," he declared, smiling at Rickon.
"That overgrown lizard didn't stand a chance. We're a well-oiled machine!"
Bran, walking close in Ragnar's considerable shadow, even managed a shaky smile.
The fear in his eyes had been banked, and he walked with his shoulders a little less hunched, his spine a little straighter.
"You were great, Ragnar," he offered, his voice gaining a touch of strength. "You just… stood there while it bit you."
Ragnar let out a short, hearty bark of laughter.
"That's the point, kid! Sometimes, the best thing to do is just be too damn stubborn to break."
Even Sophie's coiled tension seemed to have eased.
Her steps were still light and precise, but the rigid set of her shoulders had softened.
Her sharp eyes, constantly scanning, held a spark of satisfaction.
Only Rickon, trailing at the back, sensed the creeping chill that hid beneath the fresh warmth of their success.
The lie of his D-Grade talent was a heavy coat he couldn't take off, and every congratulatory look from Ragnar felt like a small, sharp jab, a reminder of the silent, ever-widening gap of power that now separated him from the very people he relied on.
He had tasted a soul, a glimpse of true, boundless potential, and now he was forced to act as though he was satisfied with the small scraps from a fortunate kick.
Their confidence, however, was a fragile thing, built on the foundation of a single victory.
The Verge, as if offended by their momentary cheer, soon decided to deliver a brutal, bloody lesson in humility.
They found the first body few hours later.
Sophie, scouting ahead as always, held up a single, tight fist. The team froze instantly, the practiced silence of the academy taking over.
She beckoned them forward, her movements slow and cautious.
There, in a small clearing lit by the strange twilight of the twin suns, lay a scene of cold, almost artful violence.
A man Rickon vaguely remembered from the academy, a barrel-chested brute who had loudly boasted about his B-Grade 'Super Strength' back at the pre-dawn assembly, was impaled.
He hung in the air, suspended three feet above the ground by the thick, pointed branches of a pulsing, grotesque plant.
His eyes were wide open, his face a frozen mask of unfiltered shock and agony, as if his last living thought was utter disbelief that something as simple as a plant had ended him.
The expensive-looking combat gear he wore was shredded, and the ground around the base of the carnivorous flora was stained a dark, rusty brown.
"That's… that's Kane," Ragnar mumbled, his boisterous mood evaporating like mist in a cold wind.
"He was in my conditioning group. A real loudmouth, but… hell." He looked away, his jaw working silently.
The grim reality of Instructor Rostova's words, once a harsh theory, slammed back into them with the force of a physical blow.
This wasn't a test with safety nets and proctors. This was a meat grinder, and they were all just meat.
The trail only grew more gruesome from there.
A little further on, they saw what was left of another aspirant, a woman, slumped against the trunk of a tree whose bark swirled with blue and green patterns.
Her chest was a hollowed-out crater, the edges of the wound blackened and neatly sealed, as if something had violently and cleanly burst out from within.
Her face, the complete opposite of Kane's look of shock, was peaceful. And that, somehow, was infinitely more disturbing.
The final discovery broke what little composure the team had left.
Huddled together in a shallow, muddy ditch, as if for a final, futile comfort, were the bodies of three more aspirants.
Their forms were barely recognizable. They were fused, their standard-issue gray uniforms and their very flesh melted together into a single, grotesque sculpture of agony.
The twisted, waxy mass revealed a death so intensely hot that it fused their bodies into a single, lasting monument to their final, terrifying moments.
It was too much for Bran. His face went from pale to a sickly, mottled green.
He stumbled away from the group, his hands clamped over his mouth before landing on his knees.
He vomited, the wretched, heaving sounds resonating with an obscene loudness in the quiet forest.
Ragnar stared at the fused bodies, his jaw tight, his knuckles bone-white where he gripped the hilt of his blade.
The pride from their earlier kill was gone, utterly erased, replaced by a somber, heavy silence.
These weren't just random corpses, they were people. People he had stood beside, trained with, and listened to as they boasted about the power they were about to claim.
Sophie, however, was a pillar of cold, unyielding logic amidst the rising tide of horror.
She observed Bran with a calm, clinical attitude for a moment before directing her keen gaze toward the others.
Her face was a mask of stone, her eyes hard and clear.
"Remember what Instructor Rostova said," she stated, her voice flat and devoid of any emotion.
It cut through the heavy, grief-stricken air like a shard of falling glass.
"Empathy is a liability. Sentiment is a poison. The Blood Bath wasn't just a test, it was a vaccine. She was trying to cure us of this."
She gestured vaguely at Bran's heaving form and Ragnar's grim, silent face.
"They were weak. They were foolish. Or they were unlucky. We will be none of those things. We will be smart, we will be careful, and we will survive."
Her words were harsh, a slap of cold water to the face, but they were undeniably necessary.
They were the anchor that pulled them back from the edge of a paralyzing, all-consuming despair.
This wasn't Earth. The rules were different here. Mourning the dead was a luxury they simply couldn't afford.
Following Sophie's chillingly practical lead, they began the grim but essential task of plundering the bodies.
Survival meant leaving no resource behind.
They were scavengers now, picking through the remnants of other people's failed ambitions.
They moved with a practiced efficiency, their hands gathering half-full water flasks, a few sealed nutrient bars, and a small, surprisingly intact med-kit from the woman with the hollowed-out chest.
Rickon moved mechanically, his stomach turning, his mind numb.
From Kane's corpse, he carefully, respectfully, removed a slightly damaged but still functional E-Grade Deflector Vest.
It was heavy, but the added protection was invaluable. From one of the fused bodies, he managed to pry loose a simple F-Grade Vibro-Knife, its handle still faintly warm to the touch.
As his fingers closed around the hilt, a dark, primal urge pulsed within him, a hunger that had nothing to do with an empty stomach.
He could feel it. The lingering whispers of the fallen Awakened.
Their souls were faint whispers of power, almost-tangible threads of energy still tethered to their cooling bodies.
He could absorb their talents, add their life force to his own, and leap forward in power.
The temptation was a painful feeling, a constant nagging that tested the limits of his self-control.
He could become so much stronger, right now.
He risked a glance over his shoulder. Sophie was watching him, her expression unreadable, her analytical eyes missing nothing.
Ragnar was helping a pale-faced, trembling Bran to his feet. They were too close.
They would see. If they saw a strange light flicker around his hand, or if he so much as flinched in a way he couldn't explain, the questions would start.
Revealing his true power here, surrounded by the dead, would be suicide. They wouldn't see him as a teammate, they would see him as a monster, a monster feasting on the souls of the fallen.
With a silent, bitter curse, he forced himself to turn away.
He walked past the potent, whispering souls, the lie of his D-Grade talent feeling like both a heavy shield and a suffocating cage.
He was leaving a feast on the table, and every single step he took away from it felt like a betrayal of the very power that was supposed to save his family.
Exhaustion began to set in, a deep, bone-weary fatigue that no amount of adrenaline could fight off any longer.
After hours of tense, silent hiking through the strange woods, it was Sophie's sharp eyes that found them a sanctuary.
"There," she pointed, her voice a low murmur. "Behind that waterfall."
It wasn't a waterfall of water but a slow, silent flow of glowing, bright mushrooms that leaked a thick, shining liquid down a sharp rock face.
Behind the shimmering veil, hidden from sight, was the dark, welcoming entrance of a cave.
It was dry, deep, and, most importantly, easy to defend.
Inside, they collapsed, the last of their strength giving out.
They built a small, smokeless fire using a chemical fire-starter from one of the scavenged kits.
The soft, flickering light pushed back the oppressive darkness and offered a small bit of warmth and comfort.
They ate their scavenged rations in heavy silence, the plain taste of old nutrient paste a harsh reminder of their new, lowly place in the food chain.
They agreed to take turns on watch, two hours at a time. Rickon, his mind a chaotic whirlwind of secrets, temptations, and growing guilt, volunteered for the first shift.
As the others drifted into a restless, uneasy sleep, their tired bodies finally yielding, Rickon remained seated at the cave's entrance.
The world outside was a masterpiece of lethal beauty.
The strange, glowing plants in the forest gave off a soft, otherworldly light, while a thousand unfamiliar stars sparkled like scattered diamonds in the dark sky.
The deep silence was broken only by the steady drip of glowing fungi outside, Ragnar's loud snore, and the heavy pounding of his own heart.
He gripped the simple, F-Grade knife in his hand, an ordinary, weak tool for a boy with the soul of a sleeping god.