Bart's heart sank.

  The covered walkway stretched before Bart like a corridor of destruction, its polished wooden floors now hidden beneath a carpet of devastation. The concussive force that had torn through the training gymnasium had transformed the once-orderly passage into a ruined field of shattered timber and fractured stone. Massive wooden beams, reduced to splintered fragments, lay scattered in every direction like the bones of some ancient beast. Jagged pieces of masonry protruded from the debris like broken teeth, their edges catching the fading light.

  The air itself carried the weight of violence, along with the acrid scents of charred wood and pulverized stone. Bart's boots crunched against the debris with each urgent step, his pace quickened by the desperate sounds of battle echoing from the courtyard behind him. Every second counted; Lowell was out there fighting for his life with nothing but a broken broom. He could feel the rough texture of splintered wood beneath his soles, could hear the faint metallic tinkle of scattered metal fragments as they shifted under his weight, but he pushed forward through the wreckage with single-minded determination.

  As he navigated through the wreckage, Bart's eyes catalogued the destruction with growing unease, but he refused to let the horror slow his progress. The sheer force required to reduce solid construction materials to such chaos spoke of power beyond anything he had ever witnessed. This wasn't just damage. It was obliteration. The nightmare hadn't simply attacked the training grounds; it had torn them apart from within, leaving behind only the skeletal remains of what had once been a place of learning and growth. But Bart couldn't afford to dwell on the implications. Lowell needed him now.

  Stepping over a particularly large fragment of what might have once been a support beam, Bart finally reached the threshold of the training arena itself. The devastation here was even more complete, the walls themselves bearing deep gouges where claws had carved through stone and mortar alike. He barely paused, his breath shallow as he prepared to enter the heart of the destruction, knowing that whatever weapons remained would be his only hope of helping Lowell survive the battle raging just beyond these walls. Time was running out.

  Aside from Helena, he and Lowell were the only ones there. The realization hit Bart like a physical blow as he stepped into the training arena. If they were the only ones who had found Helena, if no instructors had come running at the sound of destruction, if the academy grounds remained eerily silent despite the chaos that had torn through this place, then that could only mean...

  Bart's mind rebelled against the thought, refusing to let it take shape or run its course. He didn't have time to finish the thought anyway. In the center of the pit, below the stadium-like seating that surrounded it, was a blackish-purple scar. The sand had turned to obsidian with purple-and-black hued veins running throughout it. Almost as if the scene were being revealed layer-by-layer, the carnage didn't immediately register with Bart's overwhelmed senses. The faintly metallic smell of blood hung in the air. He first spotted the instructor and student-activity advisor, Professor Mille, slumped against the wall at the bottom of the stairs.

  Bart's legs moved before his mind could process the full extent of what had happened. What he should have been able to see, clearly, from above. He was running down the stairs, his breath coming in ragged gasps, his pulse hammering against his ribs like a drumbeat of panic. The echoes of his footfalls were swallowed by the unnatural silence of the gym. His gaze locked on Professor Mille's slumped form, his mind screaming that maybe, just maybe, the instructor was still alive. Maybe he could help. Maybe he could save Lowell. Maybe everything wasn't as hopeless as it seemed.

  His boot slipped on something slick, his body jolting sideways. His hands instinctively shot out to catch himself, and the moment his palm met the ground, he felt it.

  Warm. Wet.

  In that moment of imbalance, Bart's mind finally caught up with what his body had already sensed. He knew. He knew before he even looked down at his hand, before he saw the warm, sticky substance coating his palm. The blood was still fresh.

  He blinked. Time crawled as he slowly lifted his hand. A thick, crimson sheen coated his fingers. His breath hitched, his body going rigid.

  No. No, no, no.

  He instinctively looked to the body, locking on the twisted, eviscerated remains left behind.

  His stomach lurched.

  Viscera was strewn across the floor in grotesque splatters, torn and tossed as if by some frenzied, inhuman force.

  No, not Professor Mille. At least not anymore, if it ever had been.

  The damage to the body made it impossible to tell who it had once been. The body, if it could even be called that anymore, slumped unnaturally with its limbs bent at impossible angles. The torso was gored open, like a butchered animal. The scent of copper and bile was thick in the air, cloying, suffocating.

  Bart's world tilted. His chest tightened, panic gripped him again like the icy hand of Death himself.

  He stumbled back, his boots skidding against the slick floor. His stomach revolted, and before he could stop himself, he doubled over, retching violently. The sound was awful, raw. His body shook, his hands bracing against the bloodied wooden stairs as he heaved until there was nothing left.

  He wiped his mouth with the back of his trembling hand, but the motion only smeared the blood across his cheek. His entire body shook with involuntary tremors, his fingers barely able to maintain their grip on the bloodied wooden stairs. His breathing was unsteady, coming in short, uneven gasps that seemed to catch in his throat before escaping in shallow bursts. His thoughts scattered like leaves in a storm, unable to form coherent patterns or find footing in the chaos of his mind. He tried to push himself up, but his knees buckled beneath him, his legs refusing to bear his weight. Again, he collapsed. Again, he retched, his body convulsing as it tried to purge itself of the horror it had just borne witness to.

  Tears burned in his eyes.

  This wasn't real. It couldn't be real.

  This was Dahncrest. The heart of the Guild Marches. A city reclaimed from ruin, protected by pylons, those ancient, unyielding sentinels designed to filter and repel magical threats. Designed to keep things like that creature out. It had to be safe. It was supposed to be safe. The pylons were supposed to work. The wards were supposed to hold. The nightmare shouldn't have been able to manifest here, kill indiscriminately, or tear through the training grounds like it was nothing more than paper.

  But it had. It had done all of those things, and Bart was left staring at the proof of his shattered certainty.

  And he was in the middle of it all, soaked in the blood of someone who had, just hours ago, been alive.

  A shudder wracked his body.

  They weren't safe.

  This city. This sanctuary.

  It was an illusion.

  And they were all going to die.

  Bart choked back a sob, his mind screaming for him to move, to do something. But the horror had settled into his bones.

  This was what a nightmare truly was. Not just a creature or some distant, half-whispered threat beyond the city walls. It was the smell of blood thick and choking, the finality of a life snuffed out irrevocably, the sheer paralyzing certainty that death had come and it was still hungry. Bart had heard stories of nightmares, had listened to tales told around campfires by travelers who claimed to have seen such horrors in the wilds beyond civilization. But those stories had always felt distant, abstract, like warnings meant for other people in other places.

  Now he understood. The nightmare wasn't just a predator. It was a force of nature, a walking embodiment of everything that could go wrong in a world where magic and reality intersected in ways that defied comprehension. It tore through flesh like it was nothing, reduced the training grounds to rubble, and made a mockery of everything Bart had been taught about safety and protection and the inviolable nature of Dahncrest's defenses.

  Bart swallowed hard, forcing his body to obey through sheer force of will. His limbs felt like they were made of lead, trembling with the aftershocks of terror, but he couldn't stay here. Not when Lowell was still out there fighting. The thought of a friend dying alone while Bart sat paralyzed by fear was worse than any horror that had settled into his bones. It took every ounce of his willpower not to succumb to the overwhelming urge to flee, to abandon everything and run as far from this place as his legs could carry him.

  He would not fail Lowell or Helena. This one, driving thought compelled him.

  He turned, his boots slipping again on the gore-streaked floor, but this time he caught himself, gripping the edge of a bench for support with white-knuckled desperation. His head spun with the dizzying realization that the world he thought he knew had been nothing more than a carefully constructed lie. Safety was an illusion. Protection was a myth. The nightmare had proven that beyond any doubt.

  He didn't know how long he sat there, stunned into immobility by the magnitude of what he had witnessed. It was probably only a heartbeat, but the terror rising within him and the crushing weight of hopelessness made it feel like eternity had stretched out before him, endless and suffocating.

  Shaking himself from the suffocating despair that had clung to him, Bart took a deep breath, willing himself to regain control. He forced himself to stand, slowly, steadying himself as he rose to his feet. He pushed the horror of the room from his thoughts and, as if part of a mantra, reminded himself why he was here. "If I don't find a weapon for Brandt, we'll all die..."

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  Wiping the bile from his mouth a final time, he looked around scanning the room. "You're an Allston. You're a facilitator. You can find something better than a broken broomstick... something that Brandt can use to win."

  At the edge of the pit atop the sand-turned-to-glass and near the lifeless and broken body of the creature's victim, a rack of blunted training weapons was knocked over, its contents scattered across the remaining dirt and obsidian. Carefully, but as quickly as he could, Bart continued the rest of the way down the stairs. He picked up two of the blunted training staves, swinging each of them to test their weight in his hands.

  The staves, although still wooden, were treated such that they were stronger and sturdier than a simple broom handle. Still, Bart couldn't help but wonder how this would help Lowell.

  The dull thud of wood against flesh, the sound of scraping claws on stone. Bart could still hear the battle outside in the courtyard raging, but the sounds were changing. The rhythm of combat had shifted, and there was something else now—a sharp cry of pain that cut through the air like a blade. Lowell's voice, strained and desperate. Gripping both staves tightly, Bart's heart hammered against his ribs. He couldn't waste any more time. To do so might cost Lowell any chance at winning, no matter how slim those chances might seem in the moment.

  Bart carefully climbed up from the far side of the pit, determined not to slip again on the blood-slicked stairs. As he looped back toward the training arena's exit, he paused at the threshold where shattered remnants of the door and wall still clung to the structure. There, in the dim light, he saw it.

  He stopped.

  Ahead of him, one of the weapons lockers that was normally secured under lock and key had been violently torn open. Bart briefly celebrated his luck before his shoulders slumped as he surveyed the scene. The weapons inside were battered by the same concussive blast that had forced the locker open. The bent metal door was twisted, and the acrid tang of heated metal still hung in the air.

  Amid the chaos, however, one item stood out: a medium-sized blade still neatly sheathed. Unlike the other damaged weapons, this sword remained in surprisingly good condition.

  The sword was slightly smaller and, Bart suspected, lighter than the one Lowell had carried. Yet in size and build it was comparable to a traditional broadsword, suggesting that Lowell could likely handle it with similar ease.

  Bart dropped one of the staves and lunged forward, snatching the sword from the chaos of the weapons locker with feverish urgency. This was it. This was Lowell's chance. Adrenaline roared through his veins like wildfire as he bolted from the training area, every heartbeat a drumbeat of hope. The air was still thick with the coppery scent of spilled blood, but now it only sharpened his focus, honed his determination to reach Lowell before it was too late.

  He sprinted recklessly, his boots pounding against the debris-strewn floor with the rhythm of pure necessity. Jagged fragments of wood and metal threatened to trip him at every step, but he refused to slow down. The rapid pounding of his heartbeat filled his ears as he raced toward the narrow, covered walkway, toward Lowell, toward the possibility that this nightmare could still end with them both alive. There was no time to look back, no time to doubt. Only forward, where hope awaited.

  Without pausing to consider his own safety or wait for Lowell to notice, Bart ripped the sword from its sheath and hurled it with all his might in the direction of the other student. His voice, straining to cut through the clamor of battle:

  "Brandt!"

  In an instant, the nightmare swiveled its head, its grotesque features momentarily distracted as it abandoned its assault on Lowell. The sudden shift was almost imperceptible amid the chaos.

  The sword left Bart's hand, spinning wildly as it sailed through the charged air toward Lowell. Instinctively, the creature leapt aside to evade what it incorrectly perceived as an assault. The sword tumbled clumsily, end-over-end, colliding with the ground in a dissonant clatter. It skidded along the uneven cobblestones, spinning, finally coming to a halt just an arm's length away from Lowell. Its sudden appearance a small glimmer of hope in desperate battle.

  The nightmare recoiled suddenly, its hulking form backing away as if reevaluating its next move. In the tense silence, Bart gripped the academy's sturdy training staff with both hands, just as Lowell had earlier secured the broom.

  Bart's voice cut through the chaos, worry unmistakable. "You OK?" The unspoken question hung in the air: Am I too late?

  Lowell's eyes flickered open as he pushed himself upright. With a swift, practiced motion, he grabbed his sword in his left hand while clutching the remaining shard of the broom—now little more than a makeshift dagger—in his right. A wry smirk played across his lips. "Yeah... Took you long enough," he quipped, glancing at Bart with a blend of dry wit and steely resolve.

  "I had to make an entrance," Bart shot back, grinning.

  In a flash of savage intent, the nightmare surged forward, its massive form becoming a blur of shadow and malice. Its gnarled, clawed limb lashed out with terrifying speed, catching the sword Lowell had just claimed mid-swing and wrenching it from his grasp with bone-jarring force. The weapon spun through the air, clattering to the ground several meters away.

  At that same moment, Bart had closed the distance between them, his heart hammering with a mixture of fear and determination. He swung the staff with all his strength, slamming it into the creature's thick leg with a resounding crack that echoed off the courtyard walls. The attack caught the nightmare's leg between the training staff and a jagged piece of uprooted stone. The result was devastating: chunks of writhing shadows were ripped from the creature's body. As the severed worms hit the ground, they writhed briefly before dissolving into wisps of dark smoke, burning away like paper set to fire.

  Lowell reacted without hesitation, his exhaustion momentarily banished by a surge of adrenaline. He lunged after the sword a second time, his fingers knitting into a closed grip about the hilt, defiant. He would not let go of the blade a second time. His attention immediately returned to the nightmare in time to watch as Bart was violently knocked aside by the beast's relentless counterattack.

  Bart held the staff at close to its maximum extension, using every ounce of his strength to keep the nightmare at bay. Though the sturdy wood was withstanding the creature's assault, Bart was not. Every strike sent shockwaves up his arms, every impact threatened to shatter his grip. He was forced to retreat step by step, his boots scraping against the debris-strewn cobblestones as he struggled to maintain his footing. Then, disaster struck. A loose stone caught his heel, sending him stumbling backward, and in that moment of vulnerability, the beast struck.

  A dark, fibrous claw tore into Bart's leg with surgical precision, slicing through fabric and flesh alike. A scream of agony filled the air, raw and primal, and instantly Lowell pivoted to take Bart's place. His shout cut through the chaos like a blade, forcing the nightmare to divert its attention from the wounded Bart. With steely resolve burning in his eyes, Lowell made it unmistakably clear through his aggressive stance and challenging roar: Bart was not the greatest threat in the courtyard. He was.

  The nightmare roared and wasted no time. It charged at Lowell, a seething mass of malice and muscle, its every movement a promise of brutal violence. In anticipation, Lowell dropped into a defensive stance, sword at the ready, muscles coiled like springs. The dance of attack and counter had begun, and every heartbeat pulsed with the urgency of survival.

  Then an arrow slammed into the creature's shoulder midcharge, sending it stumbling and crashing to the ground. It rolled uncontrollably as a second arrow struck squarely in its back.

  Lowell's eyes darted upward. On the roof of the covered walkway, Jehta Seif, the academy's archery instructor, stood poised. With deadly precision, she was already knocking another arrow, her determined gaze fixed on the beast as she provided relentless support for students below.

  Taking advantage of the opportunity, Lowell rushed the nightmare.

  He closed the distance in three powerful strides. The creature was still off balance from Jehta's arrows, its massive form swaying unsteadily as it tried to regain its footing. Lowell swung the blade with all his strength, the steel singing through the air with deadly intent. The beast twisted at the last moment, narrowly avoiding what could have been a fatal blow to its throat, but Lowell's blade still found purchase, biting deep into the monstrously thick hide of its shoulder. Dark ichor sprayed from the wound as the sword carved through layers of writhing flesh, and the nightmare let out another roar of pain that echoed well beyond the academy's walls.

  Bart had managed to pick himself up despite the searing pain in his leg, using the staff as a makeshift crutch to steady himself. His face was pale with shock, but his determination did not waver as he watched Lowell press his advantage. Gritting his teeth against the agony radiating from his wounded leg, Bart limped forward, thrusting the staff at the creature from a safer distance. The nightmare easily sidestepped the attack, but the distraction was enough. Another arrow from Jehta's bow found its mark, burying itself deep in the creature's flank.

  It turned to snap and growl at the archer. Seizing the opportunity presented to him, Bart raised the staff and with a large arc landed a satisfying crack on the side of the creature's head.

  It stumbled back and as it was reeling from Bart's strike, Lowell pressed his attack. He grabbed one of the pieces of the broom up off the ground as he ran past it and leapt at the nightmare, stabbing the broken piece of wood into the muscular neck muscle of the nightmare.

  As the nightmare staggered backward from the combined assault, it threw Lowell off with a violent shake of its massive head. He hit the ground, rolling to his feet as gracefully as possible, landing only a few meters away from the beast. Having regained its focus, the creature rushed at Lowell savagely. Expecting this counterattack, Lowell met the advance with grim resolve, his sword raised in a defensive stance.

  As the nightmare leapt to pounce on Lowell, its eyes burning with vicious intent, Lowell dropped low and slid underneath the beast's massive form.

  While it sailed overhead, Lowell thrust the sword up, the point piercing the belly of the nightmare. Lowell's momentum carried him out from under the creature.

  His sword had struck deep and cut even deeper.

  The tip of Lowell's blade had found something vital, something that pulsed with the creature's unnatural life force. Deep within the nightmare, the sword had struck true, piercing the core and severing the central nerve that bound together the writhing tendrils of shadow. With that link severed, the creature's body would be unable to hold on to its cohesion.

  The nightmare landed on the ground with a loud thud, its body rolling over itself a few times, being carried by its mass.

  Lowell stood up quickly, taking a defensive position with the sword, waiting to see if the nightmare was still alive.

  Breathing heavily, Lowell watched as the first motes of shadow began to break off, splintering away from the creature's body and scattering into the evening sky like dark, fleeting stars. His chest rising and falling with each labored breath as the nightmare writhed, clinging to the last vestiges of existence before its body disintegrated into oblivion.

  It had been ravenously hungry. Too much energy spent taking a form, and holding that form in a battle it had not expected.

  The individual, senseless, worm-like gremlins were too weak to maintain their own shape. Drained of their own essence by the very creature they had once been.

  The once-solid presence that had stalked Helena and torn through the academy's quad was unraveling. The sinewy tendrils of corrupted magic that had bound hundreds of gremlins together in their grotesque imitation of life loosened and dissipated. The collective psyche that anchored its form became fragmented, fractured beyond repair. Without the central nerve Lowell's blade had severed, the creature could no longer sustain its coherent form. The eerie energy that had fueled its unnatural existence flickered and faltered. Lowell could still feel the faint echo of fear it projected, though even that was fraying at the edges like a thread pulled too tight.

  A strange, oppressive silence settled in as the remnants of the creatures power faded. The nightmare, once a twisted and vicious monster, was now a fading memory. Its form dissolved into the aether, as if the very fabric of reality had rejected it.

  Lowell's heart pounded in his chest. The terror he felt, slowly fading with each passing moment until the last roots of darkness vanished, slipping silently into the abyss.