Demons Within: I level up endlessly-Chapter 37: Long Walk Home

The suns rose higher over the Vale, painting the sky in streaks of bright orange. The light pushed away the shadows of the night, but it could not warm the cold feeling in Daniel’s chest.

He walked alone. He moved with a steady, mechanical rhythm. Left foot, then right foot. Breathe in, breathe out.

His uniform was in rags. It was stained with mud and dried blood. Some of the blood belonged to him, but most of it belonged to the monsters he had killed over the last few days.

His hair was matted with dirt, and his face looked sunken.

The forest was waking up around him. Strange birds called out from the high branches, and insects buzzed in the humid air.

Normally, Daniel would be alert. He would be checking his surroundings for threats or resources. Today, however, he ignored it all.

He was not looking for treasure anymore. He was not looking for fights. He was just looking for the path home. He avoided everything that moved.

When his senses picked up danger, he did not engage. He simply walked around whatever it was in a wide circle.

All he wanted was to get away from this place. He just wanted to leave this place. The extraction point was still miles away.

After walking for a few hours, he passed a small stream. His throat was dry, so he knelt down to drink. The water was cool and clear.

As he cupped his hands to lift the water to his lips, he saw his reflection ripples. He stared at himself for a long moment.

The boy looking back was not the same boy who had entered the portal two weeks ago.

He splashed water on his face, trying to wash away the dried blood and the dirt. It cleaned his skin, but it did not help the feeling inside. The feeling of betrayal.

He stood up, wiped his face with his sleeve, and kept walking.

As the day went on, he began to see other aspirants. He watched a disciplined group pass by, feeling jealous because that should have been him with Ragnar and Sophie.

By the time the suns began to set, casting long shadows across the valley, Daniel saw it. In the distance, the massive Gateway Arch stood tall against the sky.

It hummed with energy.

The portal was open, a swirling vortex of blue light that promised safety. People were pouring toward it.

There were hundreds of them. Some were running, cheering with joy. Some were limping, supporting their injured friends. Some were being carried on make-shift stretchers made of branches and jackets.

It was chaotic and full of life. Daniel dragged himself to the edge of the crowd. He kept his head down, pulling his collar up to hide his face.

He merged with the flow of bodies. He stepped through the blue light.

The sensation of travel was instant. One moment, he was in the dangerous forest. The next moment, the air changed.

He was standing on the hard, concrete floor of the Vanguard Academy.

"Move! Clear the landing zone!" an instructor shouted, waving a glowing baton. Daniel stumbled forward. He was back.

The large training field had been turned into a massive triage center. Medical teams in white coats were rushing everywhere.

It was organized chaos.

"We need a healer here!" someone yelled. "Get this one to the trauma unit! Now!"

"He’s lost a lot of blood!" Daniel walked through the noise. He felt invisible. He moved like a ghost, ignoring the chatter and the cries of pain around him. 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

He saw groups of aspirants hugging each other. They were crying tears of relief, laughing hysterically.

They had survived the hell of the Vale.

He saw a pretty aspirant with long red hair. She looked pale but composed. She stood on her own, cleaning her blade with a cloth. She looked up and caught Daniel’s eye for a second, then looked away.

As he moved toward the water station, he walked past a group of three aspirants. They were sitting on crates, drinking water and cleaning their gear.

They were arguing quietly, but the wind carried their voices to Daniel. "Did you see that guy?" one of them asked. He was a short guy with a bandage wrapped around his head.

"The one with the dark hair?"

"Which one?" his friend asked, looking around.

"The one who was always hiding in the bushes," the short guy said. He laughed, a mean, mocking sound.

"I saw him near the Crystal Valley. He was just watching a team fight a Crawler. He didn’t help. He just sat there like a coward."

Daniel froze. He stopped walking.

"Yeah, I heard about him," the third guy added, spitting on the floor. "A total coward. People say he has a trash talent. Attribute Enhancement or something useless like that. He just used other people as bait so he could hide and scavenge their leftovers."

"Pathetic," the short guy agreed. "I bet he didn’t kill a single thing. He probably just waited for people to die so he could loot them."

Daniel stood with his back turned to them. His hand twitched near the handle of his Vibro-Knife.

They were talking about him. They had seen him observing. They had seen him using his [Omnivision] to track monsters and learn their patterns. But they didn’t know the truth. They didn’t know he was studying the enemy.

They just saw a guy hiding in the bushes. They thought he was a coward. They thought he was weak. "Let them talk," Daniel thought to himself. He relaxed his hand. He did not turn around. He did not correct them. It was better this way. If they thought he was a coward, they would not suspect he was strong.

He walked away from them, leaving their laughter behind. The rumors would spread fast.

By tomorrow, everyone would know Daniel Rivers as the coward who hid in the bushes. Daniel found a quiet corner far away from the main group.

From where he sat, he saw a group of guys bragging and laughing. "I took down three Crawlers!" one of them shouted, flexing his biceps. "With my bare hands!"

"That’s nothing," another yelled, laughing."I killed a Level 2 Wolf! It begged for mercy!" They were celebrating. To them, this was a game. They had won the game.

Daniel felt a deep disconnect from them. They were children playing with sharp sticks. They didn’t know what real danger was. They hadn’t looked a Level 5 demon in the eye. They hadn’t been betrayed by the person they trusted most.

He felt old. He felt like he had aged ten years in two weeks. He sat there for hours. He watched the suns go down, casting long shadows across the academy grounds.

He watched the medical teams pack up their gear. He watched the other aspirants filter out to the dorms. He didn’t move. He just waited.

The next morning, the survivors were called back to the training field. They stood in formation, row upon row of grey uniforms.

Daniel stood in the back. He looked around. The crowd was smaller now. When they started, there were two thousand of them. Now, there were noticeable empty spaces in the lines.

Chief Instructor Yara Baldwin walked onto the raised platform. She looked exactly the same as the day they left. Her grey combat gear was spotless, and her posture was rigid.

Her face was stern, but as she looked over the crowd, Daniel saw a flicker of something in her eyes. It was surprise. She hadn’t expected this many of them to come back alive.

She stepped up to the microphone.

Her voice carried across the field, amplified by the speakers.

"Silence!" she commanded. The murmurs died down instantly. The aspirants stood at attention, fearing her more than the monsters.

"Phase One is complete," Baldwin announced. "Look around you." The students looked left and right at the empty spaces where their friends used to stand.

"Two weeks ago, two thousand of you stepped into that portal. Today, one thousand six hundred of you have returned."

A heavy silence fell over the field. Four hundred people were dead. Four hundred dreams ended in the mud of the Aurora Vale.

"Some of you are celebrating," Baldwin said.

"You think you have survived. You think the hard part is over." She paused. She let the words sink in.

"You are wrong." She paced across the stage, her boots clicking on the metal.

"What you faced in the Aurora Vale was the nursery. It was the playground. The monsters there were weak. They were the bottom of the food chain."

She stopped and looked directly at the crowd.

"You have passed the entrance exam. That is all. The real slaughter has not even begun."

"We can’t announce the results now, because some awakened just teleported this morning. We want the portal to close totally by noon before we can analyze and finalize the results."

"Eat well, rest well, and train if you want. We’ll meet here again this evening. Remember, you’re not here to fool around.

You’re dismissed."