A black mist, thick with ash particles, permeated the air. Maya found herself in an unknown terrain, yet a primal instinct within her whispered of a forest that once thrived here. Out of the obsidian darkness, a beast of towering stature emerged, its bloodied antlers a morbid crown, and its eyes, livid with fury, bore into hers.

The creature was a grotesque amalgamation of ashes and rotting flesh, belonging to a bleak and cruel realm that gods had forsaken.

Its horrific visage was a chilling echo of the corrupted stag they had once vanquished. Now, rising from the ashes, it stood ready to exact its vengeance.

As she reeled back, gripped by horror, the beast began to articulate words. Whatever terror would have been spoken was cut off when Maya woke up. Wiping off the cold sweat, she was grateful for the barriers of reality.

'I never want to encounter another corrupted beast again.'

Perhaps discussing bleak gods before bed had been unwise—it had clearly seeded her nightmare. Maya's thoughts drifted back to the previous evening, when she'd returned to her room to find Erik already there, an unexpected but welcome surprise.

As Maya pushed open the door and stepped into the room, a sharp, cold gust swept in, causing her to shiver. Erik stood near the window, holding a freshly runed plank, turning toward her with a warm smile. Beyond him, outside, silhouetted against the darkening sky, Elena stood perched on the rampart's edge. The scowl on her face suggested another episode of defiance.

"Elena!" Maya exclaimed, "What are you doing outside? Get inside quickly, you're letting the cold in."

She was relieved to find them both there—she had been eager to discuss the unsettling rumours circulating the academy about certain students. Upon hearing the details, Erik's face turned grave.

He pondered for a moment, then asked, "Lady Anastasia doesn't have a solution to this particular ailment?"

"Unfortunately, no," Maya confirmed, "But she made it clear that it could pose a significant threat in the future."

Erik's eyebrows knitted, deep in thought.

"Is this something even seasoned Hunters are unfamiliar with?" Maya queered.

Erik paused before answering, "I have never encountered a case where wounds inflicted by a corrupted beast gave rise to another corruption. These creatures are rare, making them difficult to study, and it's standard protocol for any hunter to eliminate them as swiftly as possible."

Noting Maya's crestfallen look, Erik gently lifted her chin, his reassuring gaze meeting hers.

He elaborated that corrupted beasts were known only to appear at the edges of the world. Their vessels would rapidly rot away on their own. They would be on their last legs before ever reaching the population.

From his knowledge about corrupted beasts, one would wrongly assume they weren't that big of a deal. Or, at least, they didn't used to be. However, as Erik pointed out, this assumption was based on past experiences. Things were evidently changing.

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"If this creature managed to travel this far," Erik continued, "and still retained enough strength to utilise its strange abilities, it could be a sign of the conditions of Mellgrah changing."

"Do you think it could be a sign of the world's end?"

"Plausible, but it's too soon to make that assertion," he replied.

'…an unbalanced world where gods can prey upon us,' Anastasia's earlier words lingered in Maya's mind, and she suddenly recalled the bleak versions of gods Lady Kiana had shared with Maya.

Although Maya had initially dismissed the idea, she began to wonder if these were the gods witches truly believed in back in the day, as Anastasia's words seemed to resonate with such a grim depiction.

Maya thought of Lady Kiana and how she had impulsively dismissed her own intuition from their last encounter. She had underestimated Kiana, who might not be as suspect as Maya initially thought—perhaps even a valuable source of knowledge. This realization prompted Maya to question Erik about the bleak goddesses and uncover the truth behind Kiana's cryptic words.

Erik confirmed that European witches did indeed worship these four goddesses.

"They aren't perceived as evil entities," Erik explained. "They represent the concepts that humans have always struggled to grasp and cope with. It's only natural they deified them." He further connected these concepts to Maya's understanding. "Everyone dies one day, annihilation is always a looming threat, and change and erosion are common, even necessary, things."

Indeed, Maya recognized they were nothing new. Just because it has been a dominating trend to worship a loving god, if one looks deeper, one will find that the pagan gods preceding contemporary religions had complex, often twisted characteristics.

The ancient Egyptians, for example, had an entire Necropolis dedicated to the cult of the dead. Many religions prophesize a final cataclysmic event. Symbols like ouroboros and phoenixes are well-known.

'They were natural powers we have personified.'

Elena abruptly interjected, veering the conversation back on course, "Sorry to interrupt your boring theological discussion, but what are we going to do about the corrupted student?"

Her sudden interruption shattered the contemplative bubble Erik and Maya were immersed in, and they turned to look at her.

"Um, do you have a suggestion?" Maya asked.

"You want my opinion?" Elena's eyes sparked with surprise. "Why change what we know already works?" She then smirked, mischief playing at the corners of her lips. "I know Mr. Dead-eyes's gonna like it as it involves arson."

However, Erik wasn't amused by her cheeky suggestion. "Are you trying to emulate Amanda? Accusing an inexperienced firemage of arson is the easiest trick in the book."

Was Elena referring to Erik being dubbed an arsonist in the files she had dug up? Even Maya could tell it was a baseless attack on Erik's character from Amanda.

"Hoo, so you sucked at it too? No wonder you los—"

Before Elena could finish her sentence, Maya quickly muffled Elena's blabbering mouth with her hand, making Elena stiffen at the sudden intervention.

"The important thing is he got better over time, right?" Maya tried to smooth over the awkward moment, but when she glanced back at Erik, he seemed lost in thought, his attention elsewhere.

"Me? Yes, that's right…" His answer seemed more like a habitual response, while his mind seemed to be far away.

Maya wondered what was on his mind back then, but couldn't linger on those thoughts any longer. The situation at the academy seemed to step away from any common sense.

Yesterday, they shut down Elena's insane—hopefully joking—suggestion. However, Maya learned that there were individuals with similar radical ideas. Until now, the rumours were about some students losing their magical powers; however, today, they were talked about as a looming threat to the rest of the students.

The panic was rampant, and to Maya's shock, there were circulating predictions that the ones whose magic suffered, with the accent on Nerea, would turn into corrupted monsters and slaughter the whole academy.

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