Seed eased the bathroom door shut without a sound and slipped back across the dark dorm room. His bare feet barely made a whisper against the floorboards as he climbed back onto his mattress, pulling the thin blanket up to his chest.
He lay flat on his back, staring straight up at the ceiling, waiting for exhaustion to drag him under.
It never came.
Every time Seed closed his eyes, the darkness behind his eyelids didn't feel like sleep—it felt like the ancestral hallway. Within seconds, his mind dragged him right back into the pitch-black void. He could practically hear Eeyore's voice shifting directions with every vowel, taunting him from the dark. He could see those hollow, astonishing purple eyes locking onto his soul, freezing his muscles in place.
And worse than the visuals was the phantom sensation that refused to leave his skin: the cold, wet pressure of jagged teeth clamping onto his throat, crushing his windpipe while a gentle voice whispered, Shhh, Seed. Everything will be just fine.
Seed's eyes snapped back open, his chest rising in a sharp, silent breath.
He rolled onto his side, burying his right arm beneath his pillow. Beneath his skin, the Marrow-Hound pulsed with a slow, steady rhythm—thump-thump, thump-thump—a living reminder that none of it had been a hallucination. He had actually died in that hallway. If an executioner like Eeyore existed inside his own bloodline, what else was waiting for him in the deeper trials? And how fast did he need to grow before the next one dragged him under?
Minute bled into hour. Seed stopped trying to close his eyes altogether.
Instead, he lay completely motionless in the dark, running calculations through his head—mapping out his stats, his HP tax, how much raw meat he would need to steal or buy to keep the symbiote fed, and how he could disguise the bone-blade during combat drills. His red-tinted irises didn't blink for long stretches at a time, fixed blankly toward the center of the room as the shadows slowly began to gray.
Eventually, the faint, pale light of early dawn began creeping through the edges of the window blinds, cutting thin silver lines across the floor.
Across the room, a loud, gravelly groan broke the silence.
"Uuurgh... five more minutes..."
Jay rolled over on his mattress with a heavy thud of springs, scrubbing a large hand down his face as he let out a massive yawn. Stretching his arms until his shoulders popped, the 5-Star Vanguard blinked the sleep out of his eyes and turned his head toward Seed's bed to see if his roommate was still knocked out.
Jay froze mid-stretch.
Seed hadn't moved an inch. He was lying on his side, tangled in his sheets, wide awake—his eyes locked directly onto Jay's face with a cold, unblinking stare. Worse, in the dim morning light, the lingering crimson tint in Seed's irises caught the shadows, making him look less like a tired freshman and more like a nocturnal predator that had been watching him sleep all night.
Jay flinched backward so hard his elbow banged against the wall.
"Whoa—what the hell, man?!" Jay blurted out, his voice cracking slightly as he pulled his blanket up like a shield. "Are you seriously just lying there staring at me?! How long have you been awake?"
Seed blinked once, slowly, as if remembering how human facial expressions worked. The eerie intensity in his gaze melted away in an instant, replaced by his usual calm, slightly exhausted look.
"Just woke up," Seed lied smoothly, sitting up and rubbing the back of his neck with his left hand—keeping his right wrist casually tucked near his waist. "Had a weird dream."
Jay squinted at him suspiciously, still looking thoroughly creeped out as he swung his legs out of bed. "Yeah, well, next time you have a weird dream, stare at the ceiling like a normal person. You almost gave me a heart attack."
"My bad," Seed said, a faint, genuine smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.
For twenty minutes, the room filled with the mundane rustle of fabric and boots. Seed pulled on his dark military cadet uniform, making sure to button the right cuff tightly around his wrist to conceal the faint, crimson web-like lines pulsing beneath his skin. As he walked past the window, a shaft of early morning sunlight struck his shoulder, and an immediate, heavy sluggishness washed over his limbs.
The Solar Debuff, Seed noted silently, stepping out of the sunbeam. Even with the new Mutation attribute, the daylight still weighed him down like invisible lead—and worse, he could feel the Marrow-Hound coiled in his forearm shrink slightly, pulling tightly against his bone as if recoiling from the heat.
"Ready to go?" Jay asked, slinging his heavy training pack over one shoulder and opening the dorm door. "If we're late for the Second Trial assembly, Instructor Vance is going to make us run laps until our lungs bleed."
"Let's move," Seed replied, following Jay out into the corridor.
"Ready to go?" Jay asked, slinging his heavy training pack over one shoulder and opening the dorm door. "If we're late for the Second Trial assembly, Instructor Vance is going to make us run laps until our lungs bleed."
"Let's move," Seed replied, following Jay out into the corridor.
The hallway outside Room 505 was already packed with hundreds of cadets marching toward the central courtyard. Yet, the moment Seed stepped into the corridor, the usual morning chatter around them dipped noticeably. Cadets parted slightly to give him space, throwing quick, guarded glances at the rank display glowing faintly on his Academy Watch.
Nobody here thought Seed Armo was weak. Ever since he had become the only cadet in the entire freshman class to completely destroy the assessment puppet, his name and high watch-ranking had spread through the barracks like wildfire. To them, he wasn't some frail, bottom-tier freshman—he was a lethal, unpredictable Blood Manipulator who had shattered a machine designed to withstand 5-Star strikes.
Walking beside Jay, Seed kept his face calm and neutral, internally sighing at the unwanted attention. He could feel dozens of eyes tracking his every step.
Too many eyes, Seed thought, adjusting his right cuff slightly to make sure the crimson lines of the Marrow-Hound stayed completely hidden beneath his sleeve. Destroying that puppet already put a spotlight on my back. If I go all-out in this second trial—or worse, let this symbiote slip out in front of an entire squad—the instructors will start dissecting my Blood Manipulation frame by frame.
"Look at them staring," Jay chuckled under his breath, nudging Seed's shoulder as they stepped out onto the wide stone walkway leading toward the massive iron gates of the Testing Grounds. "Half the freshmen are terrified you're going to get placed in their bracket. Nobody wants to be the next puppet."
"That was a one-off," Seed said flatly, keeping his voice low. "My blood output drained me completely after that strike. Today, I'm pacing myself."
Jay raised an eyebrow, glancing sideways at Seed's pale face and the faint dark circles under his eyes. "Seriously? Well, I guess it makes sense—you look like hell this morning anyway. Word got out from the upperclassmen about the Second Trial: it's a team-based survival simulation against artificial constructs and low-tier beasts."
"Team-based," Seed repeated, his mind immediately locking onto the tactical advantage.
"Yeah," Jay grinned, cracking his knuckles. "So if you're holding back to conserve energy, let me and the rest of the squad take the heavy vanguard hits. You just play support, pick off stragglers with basic blood slashes, and coast through the evaluation. No reason to show your hand twice."
"Works for me," Seed agreed smoothly.
Inside his stomach, a sharp, gnawing twist of hunger flared up—followed by a distinct, rhythmic thump against the inside of his right wrist. The Marrow-Hound had sensed the spike in ambient killing intent radiating from the Testing Grounds ahead, waking up beneath his skin like a starved predator smelling fresh meat.
Seed's fingers twitched slightly inside his glove as the towering iron gates of the Second Trial creaked open before the incoming cadets.
He had a strict rule for today: no showing off, no full-power strikes, and no letting the symbiote out in the open. He would let his teammates take the glory, keep his watch rank steady without raising suspicion, and quietly feed his new monster only when no one was looking.