"Now that I think about it," Nox muttered with a chukle, "these things only look scary when they're climbing down, right?"

He turned, only to realize that he was completely alone, "ah that's right, they all died."

He then turned to the Eclipsed scrambling to go up the tree before pulling out a dagger from his inventory and tossing it at the creature.

The Eclipsed let out a screech as the SE powered dagger burned into it and burning it from within.

The creature, a tier 1 Eclipsed, didn't even get the chance to struggle that much before its life was easily snuffed out.

"Alright then," Nox muttered as he called back the dagger and sent it into his inventory, "time to go home."

Compared to how he looked when he first entered this dread place, he was now... completely unrecognizable.

His black jacket had been discarded a while back, leaving him with only the black shirt he had underneath, and even that was ripped in multiple places.

His messy hair was even more so and the only things that remained intact were his pants and the boots which were the reason he was alive....the boots, not the pants.

Under his eyes were bags, which indicated the fact that he hadn't slept for days now, but that was the least of his worries, after all, he wanted to get out of this dreaded place, but he didn't know how.

"I'm back," he announced the moment he reached his makeshift home, which was just a cave with rations and edible plants that Lorenne's book had indicated.

Though most of them were disgusting, he had no choice but to eat them since his rations were quickly running out.

Fun fact, did you know that some Eclipsed were edible? You just had to overcome their weird taste and you'd have an endless supply of meat.

Finding out which ones were edible was the hard part, hunting and eating them was easy.

He still shuddered at the memory of him trying to find out which Eclipsed was safe to eat.

Though, most humans would die or have their SE corrupted if they tired eating an Eclipsed but his SE made sure to purify every bit of corruption within it.

"No I didn't find a way out again today," Nox suddenly spoke up, to no one in particular, "but I'll have to try again tomorrow."

Yeah, staying alone in a rift for close to a month now wasn't doing any good to his mentality, especially when he had to try and not die from the occasional tier 4s he encountered.

"Well, it's not like I can actually tell what day it is," He spoke again, "since the night's neverending."

He then opened his inventory to a side of the cave with blood and emptied the corpses of Eclipsed he had hunted and walked to another corner of the cave.

"It's been a month now since that happened, hasn't it," he muttered as he crossed out four marks on the wall, making it six crossed out marks.

Now you might be wondering how he got to in this situation and what happened to his teammates.

Well...

***

[A Month Back]

"We're assigned a tier 2 rift?" Lorenne asked with a small frown, on her face, "isn't that too dangerous for students who are just first years?"

"I'm sure we'll be fine," Elias assured with a smile, "besides, as the headmistress said, there're safety measurements in place."

Though still a bit doubtful, she just nodded and didn't ask anymore questions, she was sure the academy would interfere the moment things went too far...

Levi and Nox, on the other hand, said nothing. Nox, because he had nothing to say, and Levi...well, maybe because he couldn't speak?

They hadn't heard him speak yet, even when he introduced himself, he just pointed to his name on the list and went silent.

"Deployment will begin shortly," a mechanical voice from their watches announced. "Team 47, report to Gate C-12."

"That's us," Elias said. "Come on."

The trio followed him as they walked where the map led them. They just realized that had the other students had stepped back looking at something before them.

They made their way through the crowd and immediately saw what was being admired. It was like a tear in space, that was releasing cold air from within.

Most, or all of them were the size of a door and according to professor Sirius' teachings, this was a small rift, probably tier 1-2.

The assigned groups moved to the rifts with the tags above them, each hesitating for a second before passing the instructors that were standing by them and walking in.

Nox and his team approached the rift that was marked C-12 and stopped just at the entrance.

Now that they were close enough, Nox could feel the dreadful aura this place released. It was as if his very being was rejecting this place, but he quickly suppressed that feeling.

"Alright," Elias suddenly spoke up, "the moment we're in, I want everyone to form a diamond formation with Lorenne in the center, we'll start planning when we have find a safe spot."

His team nodded as they prepared to enter the rift with him.

***

Just outside the hall, Headmistress Aurielle was in an elevator headed to the office when she suddenly froze.

The lights flickered for a second and everything went dark before a glow could be seen from behind her blindfold.

She slowly pulled it off and the darkness around her suddenly changed into a dark forest blanketed by a dark night with no moon or stars.

When she looked around, all she saw was dead bodies of kids that wore the academy uniform, but not a single Eclipsed was around.

She slowly raised her head to see Nox said there, though he was bleeding he still stood straight and on the sword in his hand, a lot more blood was dripping.

The shadows suddenly took the vague shape of a man with horns, a lantern in hand and a white bone like mask, as it looked directly at her and said, "do you like my first gift?"

With his words, Aurielle was snapped back to reality as blood started dripping from her nose which she quickly wiped off.

She suddenly tapped on the panel in the elevator, immediately connecting him to Garron Boar and without a greeting she said, "don't let the kids enter Gate C-12."

Radiant Boar was confused for a few seconds before saying, "but head mistress, they're already in the gate."

At his words, something like a rip was heard in the background, forcing Garron Boar's eyes to widen.

"It has already started," Aurielle muttered with a resigned sigh, there was nothing she could do now.

"H-head mistress..." He started but was cut off.

"I know," She answered, "the rift has gotten much bigger."

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