He came out of that cave covered in the remains of his eaten body, and he just kept walking.
The silence was thick.
The stone walls are smooth, as if polished by the tongues of the dead.
And ahead... a ripple.
He felt it as a call.
Deep, low: BUM... BUM... BUM...
And suddenly the air trembled.
Not from magic. From breathing.
It wound through the rocks like a river of black metal.
A giant snake.
Her scales were as hard as obsidian, etched with runes that moved like ants.
The eyes are crimson. Like his.
"Are you the one who ate that elf?"
The voice didn't sound; it crashed into my skull.
Kalen was silent. His heart was racing. His forehead was covered in sweat, and his muscles were instinctively tense.
"You are at war with your nature, wretched man. You are hungry. Let me devour you, or fight me."
"…Shut up," he hissed, his eyes lit with shadow. "No one tells me when to die."
He pulled the Shadow, a half-molten black blade, from his back.
One blow, and the snake's tail swept past, knocking down part of the wall.
The battle began.
He jumped up the walls, leaving bloody fingerprints, and crashed into the scales, tearing them apart as best he could.
The snake responded with magic.
A stream of acidic mana erupted from its mouth, burning the air and reality.
He was burning, his skin was cracking, but he didn't give up.
"GO FORTH AND KILL ME!" he roared, plunging his sword into the creature's eye.
Explosion.
The pieces of the snake scattered like the flesh of a sculpture.
Part of the body was still writhing, spewing black slime.
Kalen fell to his knees, cut and bleeding, but still standing.
"You've become something else..." something inside the tattoo whispered.
He looked at the remains—the black heart of the snake, pulsing in his hand—and absorbed it without speaking.
The monster's magic flowed into him.
A new pattern appeared on his arm, near his shoulder: a spiral, like the coils of a snake.
And somewhere far away, deep in his mind, the Shadow stirred... and smiled.
***
"…How much?!" Kalen froze, his eyes narrowing
In front of him stood the witch Beste, already subdued, silent as a cold glacier.
She just nodded.
"Only twenty-three students out of two hundred... The rest are dead."
Devoured, torn to pieces, and disappeared without a trace.
Kallen clenched his fists. Inside, everything was boiling, and not with horror, not with fear—
out of rage.
"This shit wasn't a test. It was a slaughter..." flashed through my mind.
He took a step forward, and the ground crunched under his feet.
The spiders were all around, seventeen giant shadows, frozen, waiting for orders.
"Tirck." Kalen looked up at the spider king.
Let's go on a reconnaissance mission. Everyone.
I want to know what happened here. Who died, where, when, and why.
Thirk, black and silent, bowed his head low. His voice went through the earth:
"It will be done, my king. They will scatter in all directions. We will find the truth."
The shadows began to move.
Hundreds of spider legs, shadowy and viscous, scattered into the depths of the forest, caves, and gorges.
Left alone, Kallen sat down on a rock. His breathing was heavy.
He didn't feel tired; he felt like something wasn't right.
"The inspection shouldn't have ended with such meat. This isn't a battle, it's an extermination."
He closed his eyes.
"You're starting to understand," the voice said, emerging from the tattoo again.
"And you're right. It wasn't an accident. Someone sent the creature. Someone sent death."
"Who the fuck is that?" Kalen hissed. "The Academy? Or the family?"
"First, find those who survived. Compare the footprints. Listen to the conversations. Whoever didn't bleed may have shed blood."
— "And listen to the shadows. They know everything. They will remember everything."
An hour later, one of the spiders returned, its legs trembling.
"We found three of them hiding under an illusion. They didn't have a scratch on them. They didn't fight. They weren't afraid."
Kalen stood up abruptly.
"…So there are rats. And they're nearby."
His eyes flashed red.
He began to make a plan.
"Find them. Quietly. Don't kill anyone until I tell you to. If they're guilty, I'll do it myself."