Alright, so quick recap before we get to the part where I am apparently about to die for a completely reasonable decision.

After we bumped into Lillith and her squad of emotionally concerning people, all seven of us headed to her camp. Nice place, actually.

Cozy fire, decent lighting, absolutely terrible company, because that's where we met Liam. Liam… who I wanted to punch on sight. Don't ask me why.

Instinct.

Vibes.

The universe whispering in my ear, "This man needs to be hit." Nora took one look at him and her face folded into raw disgust like he'd personally offended her ancestors. Because, well, he had done something worse, he looked at her...like she mattered, and I guess that pissed Nora.

We talked for a few hours, random stuff.

Training.

Tests.

Food.

The tragic downfall of Kent's dignity.

Eventually everyone went to sleep, and for once nothing exploded in the middle of the night, which I counted as a win.

Then morning hit.

We woke up.

Stretched.

Drank water.

Killed a couple dozen tigers.

Normal morning things.

And then the universe said, "Actually, no, peace is illegal," because right after that a whole army of saber-tooth tigers crawled out of the underbrush, big ones, black ones, glowing ones, and every single one of them was in the Gemini stage.

For reference: Gemini-stage beasts use Dualflow energy, which is basically mana with anger issues. It's hundreds of times stronger than anything we have access to. We stood no chance.

None.

Zero.

So naturally, we ran.

Which brings us to now.

Me sprinting through a forest. Giant black saber-tooth monsters behind me. Trees exploding. Ground shaking.

Why was Nora screaming?

Well… I may have accidentally provoked them.

In my defense, I didn't know kicking one in the mouth was considered rude.

Anyway, there we were running for our lives.

The boys, excluding Liam because he has no sense of humor and the emotional maturity of a bagel, were laughing like lunatics.

Kent was wheezing.

Xavier was giggling like he'd found religion, which was weird because... it just was.

I might've been shouting "FASTER!" even though I was in front.

Meanwhile, the girls, excluding Page because she doesn't have emotions, were cursing us at full volume. Nora was trying to hit me with her rapier while running. Annalise was yelling about how she didn't sign up for cardio. Lillith kept shouting something about my "brain cell being suicidal."

And the saber-tooth tigers?

Yeah. Still chasing us.

Still angry.

Still glowing with power, I absolutely did not want to experience firsthand.

So, that's where we're at.

Running.

Screaming.

Laughing.

Dying.

The usual.

We ran for three hours.

Three.

Hours.

At some point I accepted that my lungs were no longer organs and were instead decorative air balloons whose only function was to suffer.

Kent was wheezing like a dying accordion. Nora was still cursing me between breaths. Annalise's soul had left her body somewhere around the forty-minute mark and hadn't returned since.

Xavier was just giggling. Page was… Page. And Lillith had gone from screaming to silently plotting my murder after she made me confess that I loved her. Truly yandereness at its peak.

But, shockingly, we lived.

Eventually the thunderous stomping behind us faded, the trees stopped shaking, and no glowing sets of murder-teeth appeared behind us. The tigers finally gave up. Probably because they got tired. Or bored. Or because the gods took pity on us. Either way, we didn't ask questions.

We stumbled into a clearing with a tree so huge it looked like it ate smaller trees for breakfast. Its trunk was wide enough to house a small village. Roots like sleeping dragons twisted across the ground.

We all collapsed near its base, gasping, wheezing, thanking every divine being, and also swearing revenge, depending on the person.

I got up first. No idea how. Instinct maybe.

"Camp here," I said, sounding way calmer than any human who had just been chased by glowing saber-tooth beasts for three hours should sound.

I walked up to a patch of dry leaves, snapped my fingers, and summoned a spark of purple soulflame. It hissed into existence, floating like a ghost before dropping onto the fire pit and bursting into violet light.

A nice, warm, slightly eldritch fire.

Everyone else scattered into tasks, Nora trimmed branches for kindling, Annalise set up the tents with her strings, Kent found water (and tripped twice on the way back), Xavier gathered stones for a perimeter, which was completly useless, as if monster were gonna polietly put the stones out of their way before eating us, Page sharpened her knives with concerning enthusiasm, and Lillith glared at me every few minutes like she was testing whether she had enough energy to strangle me now or later.

It was peaceful.

Suspiciously peaceful.

The kind of peaceful that made the back of my neck itch. The kind that felt like the world was inhaling before screaming in my face again. The kind that meant something, somewhere, was plotting my downfall.

The fire crackled softly.

The wind rustled the leaves.

Everyone was relaxing.

It should've felt safe.

But me? I don't trust peace.

Never have.

Peace is the kind of thing that shows up five minutes before chaos slaps you in the face with a frying pan. Peace is the warning sign. The red flag. The "brace yourself."

So while everyone sat around the fire, catching their breath, laughing, complaining, or just existing…

I sat there, eyes half-lidded, hands warm by the purple flames, senses stretched out into the forest like invisible threads.

Waiting.

Watching.

Because knowing our luck?

Something was definitely coming.

Drage Openhiemer

Drage hated his life.

He hated this forest.

He hated this exam.

He hated the academy.

He hated the world.

All he wanted, all he had ever wanted, was a simple, humble, morally questionable dream:

A large, obedient harem of beautiful women devoted to serving his every whim. He had even planned the whole pecking order for them and how they would sleep with him.

A normal, respectable ambition for a young man his age.

But no.

Instead of soft thighs, warm beds, and gentle kisses, he was running through monster-infested death traps, eating leaves for dinner, and listening to instructors tell him things like "growth" and "character development."

He wanted neither.

He wanted breasts.

Big, gigantic breasts he could choke himself in.

Yet somehow, impossibly, his already tragic existence had managed to get worse.

Way, way worse.

It started about a month ago, right after Princess Nora's birthday ball, the same night he'd watched a goddess descend from the heavens disguised as a woman, and his will had crumbled like dry bread.

His libido… died.

Just collapsed.

Vanished.

Gone like an unpaid servant.

His sexual drive vanished. How was he going to satisfy his harem of beautiful women if he couldn't even get it up?

At first he'd panicked, because for Drage, losing his libido was basically losing his soul, but after a few days, he shrugged it off. Maybe it was stress. Maybe it was shock. Maybe he'd just finally reached enlightenment.

Then the weirdness started.

His body would twitch.

His fingers would move on their own.

Sometimes he'd wake up facing a different direction than he remembered lying in.

Little things.

Unsettling, but ignorable.

After all, why would anyone target him?

He wasn't important.

He wasn't rich.

He wasn't powerful.

He wasn't special.

Just a low-ranked noble boy with big dreams and small magic.

There was absolutely no reason, none, for anyone to care about him.

Which was why the fear now clawing through his chest was so much worse.

This wasn't a twitch.

This wasn't "my-finger-moved-on-its-own-oh-well."

This was his entire body.

Moving.

Walking.

Marching.

Against his will.

Drage's consciousness floated behind his eyes like a helpless passenger in a carriage driven by a drunk horse. He screamed. He begged. He fought. He tried to move even a single finger.

Nothing happened.

Nothing responded.

His legs walked.

His arms swung naturally.

His face stayed blank.

His breathing remained perfectly steady.

He was calm on the outside.

He was dying inside.

The forest blurred past him as something, someone, steered his body through the trees with terrifying precision. He could only watch as his feet followed a path he didn't recognize, toward a presence he didn't understand.

A presence he couldn't feel , but whoever controlled him clearly could.

"Why… me…" he tried to whisper inside his own skull.

No answer came.

Only silence.

Cold.

Suffocating.

Heavy.

The same kind of fear he'd felt when the Vice-Principal first released her aura of dread washed over him again, only this time it was worse.

So much worse.

Because that time, he could still move.

He could scream.

He could run.

He had some semblance of control.

Now?

He had nothing.

He was a puppet.

A spectator trapped in his own flesh.

Just a piece on a board he didn't know existed, in a game he didn't understand, moved by players he couldn't even see.

And Drage, poor, unlucky, libido-less Drage, had no idea that he was walking straight toward the devil himself.

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