'What the hell am I doing?' Nox asked himself as his hand slowly went up.

"Then it's decided," Elias said as he stood up, "we'll go deeper into the forest."

The team had tried contacting the academy with their watches only for it to turn out that they couldn't.

All other functions of the watch worked pretty well, except the one they needed most.

No matter how many times they tried, every distress signal came back with the same message:

NO CONNECTION.

Almost as if something in this rift was blocking it.

That shouldn't have been possible, since the watches were meant to work in any type of rift, so the team had no idea why.

Due to this the team had decided to go deeper into the forest, in hopes of taking down the boss Eclipsed since they wouldn't be getting backup anytime soon.

Elias and Lorenne had voted in favor while Levi had chosen not to, which meant that the deciding vote was up to Nox.

He still had an uneasy feeling from the nightmare earlier, so the most logical decision was to vote for them to find a way to contact the academy right?

Well, he decided otherwise.

Regardless of his instincts, they couldn't achieve anything by just sitting in the cave and waiting, hence the reason he had voted.

Maybe it was stubbornness or maybe it was just because the thought of staying still while something intelligent stalked them sounded worse.

Whatever the reason, the decision was made.

"Then it's settled," Elias said, tightening the straps on his makeshift bed. "We move in ten."

Lorenne nodded, quickly packing up the portable stove and sealing the leftovers into a storage capsule.

Levi silently sheathed his daggers, though Nox noticed the faint tension in his shoulders, a rare crack in his usually unreadable demeanor.

Nox stood up and stretched his newly healed arm, It felt fine, completely fine and it had healed a lot faster than he thought it would.

"Hey," Nox flinched slightly as Lorenne stepped to his side, "you okay? You're quieter than usual."

"Yeah," he muttered, "I'm good."

He didn't sound convincing in the least bit but she didn't press him.

Elias soon turned off the barrier blocking the cave's entrance and the endless night's wind rushed in.

The team took in a deep breath before Elias said, "let's move out."

***

Deeper and deeper into the forest the team went, and just like previously, they only encountered Nightlings, lots and lots of Nightlings.

The only anomaly was the part of the forest where they had fought the tier 3 Eclipsed. A clearing had been created from both Nox's and the Cyclop's attacks.

There had been multiple fallen and scotched trees, but not anymore. It seemed the trees had regrown themselves overnight....well, it was still night but still.

If not for the residual SE in the air, due to how much Nox pumped into the creature, they'd have thought nothing happened here.

And that brought them to the second anomaly.

Usually, SE lingering in the air attracts Eclipsed, and this was even more so for those within the Eclipsed realm but apart from Nightlings, there was no other Eclipsed around.

"Let's keep moving," Elias said, and they did.

The trio continued taking down Nightling after the other when suddenly, a heavy pressure fell on their shoulders.

The pressure was so heavy that the quartet thought they were drowning in a sea of darkness.

The culprit soon revealed itself, standing no bigger than an adult human. Like the Nightlings, it had detached itself from the shadows of the trees but it didn't rush to attack.

The team warily looked at it as it stood a distance away, observing them.

Lorenne's eyes widened as they rested on the creature but the team didn't even have to look at her reaction to know that it was bad news.

Their watches let out a ding after scanning it, revealing that it was a tier 3 Eclipsed, but unlike the dark Cyclops, the team knew that it capable of using umbra energy based on its looks alone.

The creature, like all Eclipsed, had a dark form almost as if all light was absorbed within it.

It stood on two legs, or rather on two hooves, its arms were a bit longer than normal with the tips forming what seemed like claws and on its head were two horns.

The creature immediately reminded Nox of the one he saw in his nightmare, but unlike that one, this had no mask made of bone.

"T-that's the boss right?" Elias hopefully asked, turning to Lorenne who was still frozen but soon snapped out of it.

"T-that's not supposed to be in a tier 2 rift," she let out, the sense of dread she felt, evident on her face.

They turned to the creature, only for a crushing wave of killing intent to smothered them, forcing them to take a step back.

The creature tilted its head slightly, watching them with an eerily human curiosity before lifting its clawed hand and pointing directly at them.

"Get ready," Elias shouted as he immediately activated his barrier, but he was second too late.

There was a quick whistle in the air before something cleanly passed through his shoulders.

It took his brain a moment to register that he was hurt before he felt a mind numbing amount of pain.

But instead of screaming, he bit his tongue and successfully put up the barrier before falling to his knees and gripping his shoulder.

There were black veins rapidly spreading where, whatever the creature had shot at him, pierced.

"E-Elias," Lorenne quickly kneeled by his side and took out a capsule from her inventory and pushed the button.

A bandage appeared in her hand, which she quickly wrapped around the wound, since they didn't have enough time to use her healing tech.

Nox and Levi looked at the creature, their guards up, but it seemed to have no intention of attacking just yet, so Nox turned to Lorenne and asked.

"What the hell is that?"

"...." She took a shaky breath before looking at the creature and saying, "A dark Fiend."

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