Loop

Loop is a level-three military-academy student and friend of Brandon and Fei. His attempt to rescue Fei exposes him to Quinn's secret and becomes one of the encounters that forces Quinn to improve his own combat technique. (Chapters 30–40)

Biography

Discovering the rooftop attack

Loop first supports Brandon's effort to challenge Quinn and questions whether the blind instructor Leo could know if an ability had been used. After Brandon and Fei are expelled from beast-weapons class, Loop arranges to meet Fei on the roof to discuss changing combat classes. He instead finds a red-eyed masked figure feeding on his bloodied friend and immediately attacks to protect him. (Chapters 30–35)

Loop's bone weapons withstand Quinn's strength, and his training makes the fight far closer than Quinn expected. Quinn wins only by spending stored blood to heal through the spikes and overwhelm Loop's defence, then feeds from him while he is unconscious. When Loop later realises Quinn is connected to Brandon's disappearance, fear keeps him from pressing the secret publicly. He transfers to another combat class to stay away, while Quinn uses the difficulty of their fight as motivation to learn better movement and evasion. (Chapters 35–40; Chapter 157)

Appearance and personality

The corpus does not give Loop a stable physical description. He is loyal enough to attack a frightening unknown creature for Fei, possesses practical fighting experience, and responds to the later threat through avoidance rather than confrontation. (Chapters 34–39)

Powers and abilities

Bone manipulation

Loop can grow a long, white, sword-like piece of bone from his body, pull it free as a weapon, and rapidly produce additional blades. He can also cover his body with outward-pointing bone spikes after taking a breath and reinforce his body internally with bone. At level three, the material is stronger than a basic-tier beast weapon; it resists Quinn's attempt to break it and the spikes pierce several parts of Quinn's body. (Chapter 35)

The ability remains vulnerable to sustained force. Repeated blood swipes eventually break Loop's swords and overwhelm his reinforced body, while an opponent willing to accept wounds can close through the spike defence. No later increase in ability level or new technique is demonstrated. (Chapter 35)

Relationships

• Fei: Loop meets Fei as a friend and attacks Quinn after finding Fei being fed upon. (Chapters 34–35)
• Brandon: Loop belongs to Brandon's group and later knows that Quinn is connected to Brandon's fate, although he cannot prove what happened. (Chapters 30–38 and 157)
• Quinn: Loop fights Quinn without recognising him at first, then fears him after connecting the masked attacker to the student. Their fight exposes weaknesses in Quinn's technique. (Chapters 35–40)

Items

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