Everyone turned to see that the ritualist was frozen in time. In fact, everyone outside the ritual circle was frozen in time. The ritualist, the several sets of parents, a few guides in red vests. This must be the time magic that he had talked about. The only movement was from the sixteen teenagers standing in the circle. It was eerily quiet.

Florin stepped forward. Or he split in two? There was one Florin walking around, and the other one was frozen in place. Hugo thought that the ambulatory Florin looked a little transparent. It was like he was a reflection in a window, a faint echo of the real boy.

With a leap of logic, Hugo assumed that it was Florin’s soul walking around. Everyone’s bodies were stuck in normal time, but their souls were sped up. Hugo stepped forward too, and marveled as he looked through his hand. Marion joined him and laughed as he put his hand through his body’s head.

More people followed his example, trying out their new freedoms. Two boys verified that their souls could interact, running into each other and bouncing off, laughing. Lina stood there, poking at her soul body. The two nox just stood there, frowning.

Florin’s soul drew his sword as he walked towards the nox standing near him. He yelled out, “There can be only one!” Then he stabbed the nox’s soul, piercing it all the way through. Blue light poured from the wound and was absorbed into Florin. Soon the nox’s soul was gone.

The circle erupted into chaos. Almost everyone screamed in terror. Many ran away, only to find invisible walls around the edge of the circle. Hugo drew his dagger and backed up in terror. A few people seemed to expect this turn of events though, and immediately attacked the people standing near them. A dark haired human grabbed a girl from behind, pulling her to the ground and stabbing her.

Lina used her riese height to cross the distance quickly and attack Hugo. Her huge hands wrapped around his throat as she brought him to the ground. Hugo stabbed into her side, over and over again. Bright blue light flowed from where he stabbed, but Lina just bore down on him harder.

Hugo wasn’t feeling faint though. Apparently souls didn’t need to breathe. He kept stabbing at her, working his way up to her neck. Lina pulled back and slammed his head to the ground. That had an immediate effect on Hugo, making him feel bruised all over. He renewed his defense, stabbing at her. The injuries slowed Lina down, but didn’t stop her. Hugo was almost knocked out when she slammed him down again.

Just as Lina pulled Hugo up again for another slam, Marion came out of nowhere with a utensil in each hand. With a fork he stabbed at her eye. She flinched back, into the path of his other hand. He stabbed his knife deep into her soul skull. That was enough to finish Lina off, and she burst into blue light. Both boys absorbed the light. They stood up, unsteady. Hugo noticed he was feeling slightly stronger.

The two of them looked up to see Florin finishing off another boy. Another blue light was absorbed. He scanned around, looking for more victims. Eight teenagers had sensibly run from the violence and were huddled up against the edge of the ritual. Four had just dissolved, leaving four teenagers in the middle of the ritual.

The dark haired boy and Florin were off to the right, and Marion stood with Hugo closer to the middle. The two friends stepped back, a panicked look on their faces. Florin and the other boy stalked forward. It was terrifying to see them walking forward, stepping through the frozen bodies.

Marion grabbed Hugo’s arm and was about to run when Florin did the unexpected. He turned and stabbed at his ally. The dark haired youth ducked to the side, turning the blow into a glancing one. He tried to counter attack with his duel daggers, but Florin had the range advantage. He played with the boy, dancing out of the way of his knives and stabbing him back each time.

It was only a matter of time. Hugo knew that Florin was going to destroy his ally soon, and then he would turn on the rest of them. With his sword and obvious skill, Florin would be unstoppable. If they didn’t stop him now, they never would. Hugo pulled from Marion’s grip and said softly, “Now. We have to get him now.”

Hugo ran forward, not looking back to see if Marion was following. He leapt up stabbing down with his knife and both hands. He was aiming for Florin’s head, but missed when he lunged forward. Florin finished off the dark haired boy at the same time as Hugo’s attack landed. His knife bit deep into Florin’s shoulder, and incapacitated that arm.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t his sword arm. Florin whirled around swiping out with his sword. Hugo was barely able to get his dagger in the way of the sword, but he lost the knife in the exchange. Hugo leapt back from the wildly swinging boy.

“Bastard!” yelled Florin.

Hugo jumped back again, keeping one eye on Florin, the other looking for his lost dagger. He couldn’t see the dagger anywhere. Maybe it didn’t exist anymore now that it wasn’t attached to his soul. He did see Marion sneaking up on Florin though.

“You suck at this, you coward!” yelled Hugo, trying to create a distraction for Marion.

His friend took the opportunity, stabbing a fork and knife into Florin’s head at the same time. But Florin wasn’t caught unawares, he was already stabbing back with his sword, catching Marion right in the chest.

Marion ignored the strike and continued his attack. Both boys' souls burst into blue light. The light was quickly absorbed into Hugo. He stood there, shocked at the sudden loss of his friend.

Strangely, Hugo didn’t feel sad. Nothing felt real in this weird ritual plane. He did feel stronger though, perhaps the ritual was granting him power from the symbolic victories. He looked around, seeing the other eight still standing at the edge of the circle, and the yellow column of light.

A few boys had regained their courage, seeing that Hugo was unarmed. They started stalking towards Hugo. He backed up, not wanting to get into another fight, especially unarmed. He reached out and touched the column of light.

A yellow flash signified the end of the ritual.

...

Hugo slowly got to his feet. He must have fallen over as the ritual ended. A few people from the outskirts were stirring. A blue screen popped up in the center of his vision. It was partly translucent but he could easily read the message.

Congratulations

Your soul has been marked for greatness and you have been granted access to the Acamarian system. You are granted access to the mana of the world, use it wisely. May your legacy be long and grand.

He read it but didn’t really comprehend it. Hugo was busy staring past the message at the ground in front of him.

They were all dead.

All the people who had died in the spirit world were dead in the real world too. The ritual magic was fading, the glow of magic disappearing from everywhere except underneath the eight people who fought in the soul space. The dim light seemed to highlight the dead bodies. The riese Lina was lying motionless on the ground to his right, her parents crying over her body. The nox parents on the other side of the circle were repeatedly slapping the motionless nox boy. They seemed unwilling to admit that he was dead. Florin’s parents were staring at his unmoving body, seemingly in a state of shock.

The ritualist stared at the ritual and mumbled to himself, "Why are the activation nodes still active?" He walked up and tapped the glowing circle under Florian's body. This spurred the parents into action, and they turned on him, shouting that they had been cheated. He kept retreating in the face of their fury.

Perhaps the most tragic were the ones that had no one to mourn them. A dark skinned boy lay ignored in between parents grieving for their own children. A girl with long braids lay face up, dead eyes staring at the edge of the ritual circle. His friend of a few days, Marion, lay face down on the cold stone. Hugo lurched into motion when he saw that his friend’s body was in danger of being trampled by Florin’s parents. He stood over the body, forcing the argument to go around him.

He shook his head, realizing what had happened. The ritualist had killed these people. “You!” Hugo yelled as he pointed at Alexandru, “You knew this would happen. You killed these people. It wasn’t an accident, the power didn’t randomly kill them. You wanted people to die, didn’t you!” Hugo was shaking by the end.

Everyone looked at him strangely, even Florin’s parents who had just been yelling at the ritualist. His outburst had strangely moved the attention to him instead of Alexandru. Hugo looked to the other eight that had stood on the circle with them. Didn’t they feel anything? They had just watched seven people die, why weren’t they as furious as he was. But no one backed him up. When Hugo looked back, the ritualist was gone.

Without anyone to focus their anger at, the people in the clearing grew quiet. The soft sounds of sobbing were the only things heard over the sound of the wind.

Two soulmarked guides started clearing away the bodies. They had prepared for this eventuality even if the body count was only expected to be one or two from such a small ritual. Stretchers came out, and each body was stripped and placed on a funeral pyre with the other bodies from an hour ago. As soon as the last body was on the pile of logs, they lit it all on fire.

A women in a red vest came up to Hugo and said, “You were with the tall, skinny kid, right?”

“What? Uh, yeah. Marion was my friend,” Hugo said.

She shoved Marion’s bag into his hands and walked on. Hugo watched her leave, not sure what to do with the bag. Should he return this to Marion’s family? Let them know how he had died?

But he had no idea who they were. He had talked with Marion for days and had never learned his last name. He knew all about Marion’s little sister, the funny things his mom did, and how strict his father was, but he had never learned their last name or even what part of town they lived in.

“Five minutes! We are leaving in five minutes!” a woman in a red vest yelled. The pyre had just been lit and already they were planning on leaving. How heartless were these people? Then Hugo remembered the reason for their urgency. The monster surge would be coming soon.

This brought focus to his thoughts, he needed to get ready now. He couldn’t afford to get left behind. He quickly emptied Marion’s bag. There was a book and some letters that he stuffed in his own bag. He tossed aside Marion’s sleeping roll and toiletries. He grabbed a bag of random bits and bobs, along with his coin purse and put them into his own bag.

What was left was an extra change of clothing, a utensil set, a long knife, and several pairs of socks. He dropped it to the ground, there was nothing worthwhile left. Despite the fact that his friend had been richer than he was, he had purchased substandard equipment for this trip.

Hugo shouldered his bag and turned to say goodbye to his friend in the pyre. He felt like he should make the goodbye poetic and honor him. Nothing fitting came to mind though, and he just said, “Goodbye my friend. Your absence makes the world dimmer. You will be missed.”

Then he turned and hurried to the trail head. There would be a time for grief, but it wasn’t tonight. There was a small group assembled at the edge of the plateau. It was made up of the teenagers that didn’t get soulmarked, their parents, and several mountain guides in red vests. They had stayed behind to clean up after the large group and light the funeral pyres. A mountain guide finished locking up a storage shed and then ran over to the rest of the group.

They needed to go now, the mountaintop would soon be overrun. The heartbeat meant that mana had been sucked out of the countryside. The only source of mana now was the top of the mountain. They needed to be gone before a whole countryside worth of monsters arrived here, searching for their lifeblood.