Chapter 229: You Are My Rival, Not My Enemy

(The Northwatch Grounds, Riven’s POV)

Riven rushed over to where Cyrus and Gary were lying upon the blackened ground, and since Cyrus was closer, he immediately dropped beside the Second Year and grabbed him by the shoulders.

"Cyrus! Cyrus! Man, are you okay?"

Riven muttered, as he violently shook the man’s body in an attempt to jolt him back to consciousness, only for Cyrus’s head to roll limply from side to side beneath the force.

Riven’s stomach immediately tightened.

It was the same horrifying lack of resistance he had felt only moments earlier while desperately shaking Mary, and although he didn’t want to believe that he was about to discover another corpse, his trembling fingers were already moving towards Cyrus’s throat.

"Come on, man.... Come on."

Riven whispered, as he pressed two fingers against the man’s neck and desperately searched for the faintest indication of a pulse.

But unfortunately.... there was nothing.

Riven shifted his fingers slightly and pressed harder, his breathing becoming increasingly frantic as the terrible familiarity of what he was doing made his chest feel heavy all over again.

"No.... No, no, no, damn it! No!"

Riven muttered, as he withdrew his trembling hand and stared down at Cyrus with a complicated mixture of horror and disbelief bubbling inside his heart.

He did not particularly like Cyrus, especially after everything that had happened today, however, he still did not wish death upon him.

Black Week was supposed to be a competition between students, where grudges could be settled and bones could be broken, yet everyone was still supposed to return to their Houses alive once the madness ended.

Instead, Mary and Cyrus were now dead, while Riven still had no idea as to why?

"Ugh...."

A faint groan suddenly emerged from somewhere nearby.

Riven’s head snapped towards the sound, as he saw Gary’s head moving faintly.

The First Year remained sprawled across the scorched ground several meters away, his body horrifically burned while his fingers twitched weakly against the wet earth.

"Gary!"

Riven immediately abandoned Cyrus and scrambled towards him, nearly slipping against the mud before dropping beside Gary and reaching towards his neck.

"Gary, man, can you hear me? Are you okay?"

Riven asked, as his fingers quickly found a weak pulse beneath Gary’s skin, while the man’s twitching fingers offered the only other indication that he was still clinging to life.

"Gary? Come on, man, say something."

There was no response.

Gary’s eyes remained closed while his breathing came in weak, shallow intervals, and only after Riven looked properly across his body did he understand just how terrible his condition truly was.

Large portions of Gary’s clothes had been burned away, while the flesh beneath them had been badly scorched, leaving behind a sickening burnt stench that remained noticeable even beneath the relentless downpour.

"Shit.... Shit, shit, shit, man."

Riven muttered, as panic immediately overwhelmed whatever hesitation remained inside him.

"You’re in a fucking terrible state. I need to get you to the medical bay right now."

There was no time to search the grounds for whoever had done this, and there was certainly no time for Riven to remain here trying to understand how Mary and Cyrus had died when Gary could join them within minutes.

Riven quickly hooked one arm beneath Gary’s legs while supporting his upper body with the other, grunting beneath the strain as he lifted the unconscious First Year before shifting him carefully across his shoulder.

"Hold on, man.... Just hold on."

Riven muttered, as he pushed himself upright despite the bruises covering his own battered body.

His swollen eye made it difficult to see properly through the heavy rain, while every hurried movement sent fresh pain through the injuries Gary himself had inflicted upon him only moments before.

Yet none of that mattered anymore.

Gary was alive.

After finding Mary butchered behind the boulder and Cyrus lying without a pulse upon the scorched earth, that single fact was enough for Riven to cling to with everything he had.

"I don’t know what the fuck happened here, but you’re not dying on me too."

Riven assured him, as he tightened his hold around Gary and began running towards the nearest Academy medical bay with every ounce of speed his battered legs could produce.

STEP. STEP. STEP.

Each passing second suddenly felt unbearably valuable, because Riven understood that the difference between Gary surviving this horrific attack and becoming the third corpse could very well depend entirely upon how quickly he reached a healer.

"You are my rival, but you are not my enemy.

I would never wish death upon you."

Riven muttered through clenched teeth, as he disappeared from the Northwatch Grounds.

However, while his attention remained entirely occupied with the task of keeping Gary alive, he failed to notice the countless bodies lying near the distant edge of the Northern Forest, several of which belonged to the very friends he had entered it alongside.

—-------------

(Meanwhile, Jeff’s POV)

Meanwhile, Jeff woke up with a splitting headache, as the vicious blow that had knocked him unconscious made it incredibly difficult for him to regain his bearings even as his consciousness slowly returned.

SPLAT!

His palm sank into something wet and mushy as he instinctively tried pushing himself upright, although Jeff initially thought little of it since the heavy rain continued pounding relentlessly against his back.

However, as his blurry eyes finally opened and he glanced down towards his hand, Jeff froze upon noticing an unnatural amount of blood coating his palm.

’Blood? Am I bleeding?’

Jeff wondered, as he immediately checked himself for injuries before gradually realizing, with growing horror, that the blood covering his hand wasn’t coming from him.

Instead, he was lying in it.

"What...?"

Jeff muttered, as his gaze slowly wandered across the surrounding ground and his half-conscious mind struggled to comprehend the mutilated bodies scattered throughout the rain around him.

’What’s going on? Am I dreaming?’

Jeff wondered, as his breathing gradually became more frantic before his wandering gaze suddenly landed upon Matt’s mutilated remains nearby.

His eyes widened in horror, and before his mind could even begin processing what had happened to his friend, he noticed something else lying only a short distance away.

Batista’s severed head.

The man’s lifeless eyes remained wide open beneath the pouring rain, staring almost directly towards Jeff as though the dead man himself were silently watching him.

"H-Hic...."

Jeff’s already concussed mind could take no more.

Whatever strength had returned to his body disappeared at once as his eyes rolled backwards, causing him to collapse face-first into the blood-soaked mud before losing consciousness once again.