Sion looked around the area as he tried to focus while ignoring the pain coursing through his back, a call from the mark he felt pulling him towards something, he had no idea what, but that was not important at the time, his survival in this royal mess was.
Just as he was about to move, to take a step toward the group that circled one of the stones, he heard a voice and his steps almost faltered.
Something whispered again—faint, only for him to hear, due to the way the others around him were, he could tell they were not hearing the same voice as he was.
"Don't run. Become."
He didn't understand it; he was not sure if he wanted to either.
He didn't need to.
A shadow lunged from the mist.
It had a humanoid shape, but its joints bent wrong and its face… it didn't have one, just an open maw in the center of its skull. It darted straight for a terrified student behind Sion.
Sion moved on instinct. No weapons. No training, because he knew what would happen if that thing reached that student; he did not need to know if any of this was real or not anymore; what mattered was it felt more than real, death screaming at every corner of that place.
His body responded before he could think; before he could think straight, his body and heart already knew what he needed to do, what needed to be done.
He moved faster than he should have been able to; he stepped between the beast and the boy, raising his hand...
A loud sound echoed throughout the area.
An eruption of red and purple energy blasted from his palm.
It was not spellcasting. It wasn't something he meant to do. It was raw. Unshaped. Instinctual. But it hit directly where it needed to.
The creature shrieked, launched backward, spine cracking as it slammed against an obsidian wall. The shockwave sent dust and stone scattering across the debt..
The other students froze, the ones who thought he was nothing but a useless commoner, but he did not care about their reaction, his mind was too focused on catching up with what was going on. It was as though his body was moving on its own.
Even the shadows paused.
Sion staggered. "What… was that? What did I just do? How can I even do that? Is it me or is it this body?"
No one answered. Not the boy he saved. Not the mist. Not even the thing inside him, but he felt the mark on his back pulse even more as he looked down at his palms; he could feel the presence of the previous owner of the body, as though he was still there.
The only thing that kept on responding was the mark, pulsing on his back like a second heartbeat.
And then more beasts came.
Dozens, this trial was only just beginning; he had a feeling the next they will be fighting themselves.
Whatever that pulse was, it had drawn their attention. Like a beacon.
And now… they were all looking at him.
"Shit."
The trial had only just begun.
And Sion?
He was already being hunted; this was not supposed to happen, yet it was and not in the way he wanted. He was in trouble just because he tried to play hero. He did not even know how to redo what he just did to make it work.
The growls rose into a cacophony, beasts emerging from the shadows, drawn like vultures to blood.
Sion's breath misted in the air. Every instinct screamed at him to run. But something else… deeper, colder, buried within the mark on his back—it whispered something else entirely, it was like he was not allowed to think only for himself, but for someone or something else entirely as well.
"You cannot outrun what sleeps within you, young man, this is fate, this is destiny, and you are no hero, so quit acting like it. That will only get you one thing... killed."
His eyes narrowed at its words; he knew everything spoken was true; he could not deny that and those around him, students, scattered. Panic fractured the trial group; some screamed spells wildly, others sprinted blindly into the dark, making themselves easy prey.
One girl was snatched mid-leap by a beast with too many eyes.
Another was swallowed whole by a shadow that rippled like liquid.
Sion turned to the stunned boy he had just saved. "Run. Now. We cannot fight them just like that; some are illusions. You have to know what is real and what is fake. If you do not, you are easy prey."
The boy hesitated, then bolted into the fog. Sion did not follow; it was as though he could not. His body refused to move; he stood there frozen, not knowing how to move forward. Despite the slight fear in his heart, deep down, from the soldier he once was, he did not want to run like a coward.
Instead, he faced the beasts that were coming from him; better to test his theory than run like a girl with his tail between his legs.
There were six of them now. They circled him like predators to prey, their white skin slick with mist, their bodies twitching unnaturally, their eyes locked onto him like predators sniffing out something not yet ripe—but promising.
He didn't know any spells; he did not know how to redo the spell or whatever it was he just did.
No weapons. No training.
But that same instinct from before, that pulse, was there again. Throbbing from his spine outward. His fingers trembled by his sides, not from fear, but from the adrenaline that began pulsing within him. He knew something was twisted within him, something was not right, but at the time, he had a feeling it was going to be the only thing to save him, to keep him from dying all because of a crazy king's game.
The mark burned brighter; he could almost see the tendrils of violet and crimson coiling around his arms.
"Use me," a whisper echoed in his skull.
"Let me speak and let me help you; let your limbs guide you."