Their bodies simply refused to obey. Their hands shook, their knees locked, their voices strangled in their throats.
The beast's aura rolled over them like a crashing tide, a suffocating pressure that made it feel like the world itself was trying to crush them.
It wasn't just fear. It was domination.
The Shadow Leech was here.
And the students, broken and bloodied, could do nothing but stare into its endless eyes as the mist closed in tighter around them.
The Shadow Leech moved without warning.
One moment it was still, pulsing like a dark mass of slime, and the next its tendrils lashed forward like spears. The air cracked with the speed of its strike.
KRAAASH!
A black tendril coiled around Leo's waist, lifting him screaming into the air. Before anyone could react, the beast smashed him against a tree with bone-cracking force. His body went limp instantly, blood spraying the bark before he collapsed into the roots below.
