Chapter 52: First Night

Night changed Grauwald.

During the day, sunlight filtered through the enormous canopy and painted clear paths between the trees.

Applicants could see tracks, identify movement from a distance and hear other battles echoing across the mountain range. Even the Ferocious Beasts felt predictable once their territories and habits were understood.

After sunset, the same forest became something else entirely. Darkness swallowed everything beyond the fires of Isolde’s camp, the temperature dropped rapidly, and sounds that had been insignificant during daylight suddenly carried across enormous distances.

Branches cracked somewhere beyond the perimeter. Leaves rustled without revealing what moved beneath them. Every few minutes, something howled from the surrounding mountains and received an answer from another direction.

Sigurd sat near the western rocks with his back against a broad tree, watching the camp settle into its nighttime rhythm.

Isolde’s hunting teams had returned before darkness fully descended, bringing meat, several minor injuries and eleven examination markers between them. Nobody had died.

One boy had suffered three deep claw wounds across his shoulder after approaching a Ferocious Beast carelessly, but another applicant had cleaned and wrapped the injury before sunset.

The hunting parties had stopped leaving camp once visibility became poor, and Isolde had doubled the number of people watching the perimeter.

Four applicants occupied elevated positions while another six formed pairs that periodically walked the edges of the clearing. Everyone else ate, treated injuries or prepared to sleep.

The arrangement seemed excessive until a roar rolled across Grauwald.

Conversation throughout the camp stopped.

The sound came from somewhere far beyond the northern ridge, deep enough to vibrate faintly through the earth.

A second roar answered from farther west, noticeably different from the first, and several Ferocious Beasts somewhere nearby immediately began fleeing through the undergrowth.

Sigurd listened until their movement faded. Neither roar belonged to anything he had encountered during the day. The Common Rank Demonic Beast he had been tracking was dangerous, but Grauwald clearly contained more than one, and nighttime seemed to make their territories considerably easier to hear.

A boy sitting near the central fire tightened his grip around a wooden bowl and muttered, "Those are both Common Rank, right?"

Marta, one of the applicants Sigurd had noticed helping with the camp earlier, glanced toward the darkness before answering, "Hopefully."

Several people laughed nervously.

Nobody needed her to explain what she meant.

Helheim had supposedly controlled Grauwald’s population so only Ferocious Beasts and Common Rank Demonic Beasts remained within the examination boundaries. Supposedly didn’t make the roar sound any smaller.

The conversation gradually resumed.

Sigurd ate the roasted meat he’d been given and listened.

Information had begun moving between applicants almost as quickly as examination markers. Every new arrival brought stories from another section of Grauwald, and with nearly thirty people passing through Isolde’s camp, rumors accumulated quickly.

One boy from Deployment Zone Twelve had encountered Cassian earlier that afternoon.

"He had eight people with him when I saw him," the boy explained while warming his hands near the fire. "Maybe more by now. We were following the same tracks, but his group reached the beasts first. They killed everything before we could even join."

A girl sitting opposite him frowned and asked, "Did Cassian make them follow him?"

The boy shook his head. "Didn’t look like it. He wasn’t ordering anyone around. People just kept asking him what they should do, and he kept answering."

Several applicants glanced toward Isolde.

Isolde was sitting nearby while checking the rough map her scouts had produced. She noticed the looks and raised one eyebrow before saying, "Don’t compare me to Cassian. His followers appeared accidentally. Mine are organized."

That earned a few laughs.

Another applicant pointed toward the leather pouch near Isolde and added, "And taxed."

Isolde looked at him with perfect calm. "You’re welcome to sleep outside the perimeter."

The boy immediately raised both hands and replied with a grin, "The coordination share is extremely reasonable."

Sigurd lowered his bowl to hide a faint smile.

More names followed.

Someone had seen Tristan Eisenwald Var Grandel kill three Ferocious Beasts alone before disappearing deeper into the range. Another applicant claimed Astrid Drachenmark Var Grandel had taken five examination markers from a group that tried robbing her. The story changed depending on who told it. According to one version, there had been four attackers. According to another, there had been eleven.

Sigurd doubted both.

Then House Wargrave entered the conversation.

A girl with a bandaged wrist leaned forward and said, "I saw the Wargrave boy."

Several people immediately looked toward her.

She continued, "Pure white hair. Golden eyes. He killed a Ferocious Beast with one strike."

Someone beside her snorted. "That’s hardly impressive."

The girl shook her head. "Not the beast. The ground afterward."

That earned more attention.

She gestured with both hands as she explained, "I was maybe a hundred meters away. There was this flash, then BANG! By the time I reached the area, the beast was dead and the earth around it looked like someone had smashed it with a siege hammer. He took the marker and left."

"Odin Wargrave Von Grandel," another applicant supplied quietly.

The name moved through the group.

Sigurd remembered the pure white buzz-cut hair and molten-gold eyes he’d noticed before the examination. He hadn’t seen Odin fight yet, but apparently that would change eventually.

Then someone mentioned a staff.

Sigurd looked up.

A thin boy near the second fire was speaking animatedly to three others. "I’m telling you, the bastard was insane. We found him near Zone Thirty-Four. He was fighting Ferocious Beasts with a wooden staff."

The girl beside him stared skeptically and asked, "A staff is a normal weapon. Why is that insane?"

"Because he was laughing!" the boy exclaimed. "One of those things tried biting him, and he shoved the staff into its mouth and broke its jaw. Then he smashed another one’s head open. I watched pieces of its skull hit a tree."

Sigurd recognized the description immediately.

Kong Zhen.

The boy continued with growing enthusiasm. "And nobody knew who he was. We asked around afterward. Just some commoner who fights like someone forgot to tell him getting hit hurts."

A few applicants laughed.

Someone asked for his name.

The storyteller frowned while trying to remember before answering, "Kong something. Kong Zhen, I think."

That name joined the others circulating around the fires.

Cassian Di Grandel.

Isolde Di Grandel.

Tristan Eisenwald Var Grandel.

Astrid Drachenmark Var Grandel.

Odin Von Wargrave.

Kong Zhen.

The first day hadn’t even ended, and reputations were already forming.

Sigurd wondered how many were accurate.

A brilliant red light suddenly rose above the distant forest.

Every conversation stopped.

The flare climbed high enough to become visible above the canopy before bursting into several glowing fragments.

Emergency signal.

Less than thirty seconds later, a figure crossed the night sky at tremendous speed. Sigurd barely saw the Helheim instructor before they descended somewhere beyond the eastern ridge.

Eliminated.

Another signal appeared twenty minutes later.

Then a third.

The third came close enough that people heard the aftermath. Something roared, trees cracked, and several minutes later an instructor emerged above the canopy carrying two applicants while a third followed through the air under their own power. One of the children hanging beneath the instructor wasn’t moving.

The mood around the fires changed.

During daylight, elimination had been a rule Dietrich explained before sending them into Grauwald. At night, it became something visible.

A scout returned shortly afterward supporting an injured applicant who wasn’t part of Isolde’s camp. Blood covered the newcomer’s leg from thigh to ankle. Two people immediately helped lower him beside the fire while Isolde approached.

"What happened?" Isolde asked as she crouched beside him.

The injured boy grimaced while another applicant cut away the torn fabric around his thigh. "Ferocious Beast. We were setting camp when three came out of nowhere. My group scattered."

Isolde examined the wound before asking, "Can you walk?"

The boy nodded despite the pain. "Yes."

"Then you haven’t failed yet," Isolde told him. She looked toward the girl preparing bandages and instructed, "Clean it, bind it tightly and keep him off that leg tonight. He can decide in the morning whether continuing is worth it."

The boy stared at her before releasing a slow breath. "Thank you."

Isolde simply nodded and stood.

Sigurd watched quietly. That was another reason people followed her.

Not because she demanded it. Because when something happened, Isolde already knew what needed doing.

The camp gradually settled again, though conversation never recovered its earlier volume. Applicants began sleeping in shifts while those assigned to first watch took their positions. The fires were reduced until they provided heat without illuminating half the forest.

Sigurd moved farther beneath the western rocks and sat cross-legged.

He placed his sword within reach.Then he closed his eyes. Vis circulated through his body.

The surrounding noise slowly became distant as Sigurd guided the energy through familiar pathways.

His Nascent Vis Core responded immediately, drawing in ambient Vis and refining it through repeated circulation. Grauwald possessed denser Vis than Helheim City below the mountains, and once Sigurd focused, he could feel it everywhere: within the earth beneath him, the trees surrounding the camp and the cold mountain air entering his lungs.

He didn’t rush. Cultivation wasn’t something improved by impatience.

His breathing became slow and even while Vis flowed through his body, strengthening pathways that had already endured years of training.

Around him, applicants whispered about rankings, beasts and monsters wearing the faces of ten-year-old children. Somewhere beyond the perimeter, another Demonic Beast roared. A second emergency flare rose over the mountains.

Sigurd never opened his eyes. Everyone was advancing through the examination in their own way.

Sigurd simply continued cultivating.

Tomorrow, he would go deeper.