Rob froze, his sword mid-swing.
His brother's head struck the dirt. Eyes wide. Mouth still open.
He'd killed before. He knew death's rhythm—the spray of blood, the choking gasp, the way bodies folded.
But this…
Arconis hadn't just swung. He'd arranged it. Every feint, every step, every shift of weight—all calculated to place his brother exactly where the blade would fall.
Manaless. Exhausted. And yet he'd dismantled a high–first-stage fighter like a child snapping a twig.
A cold truth settled in Rob's gut:
They weren't hunters. They were prey who had wandered into a dragon's den.
He'd seen Serpes move—a ghost who slipped past every strike. But Serpes evaded.
Arconis didn't evade.
He answered.
And that made him something else entirely.
Rob didn't hesitate.
He backed away—slow at first, then faster—putting ten paces between himself and the monster with the scythe.
The formation was broken. Bernard knelt, wrists shattered. His brother's body lay headless. Rob alone remained at the front.
Why die here?
They still had another prize—Serpes, cornered, drained, ripe for the taking.
Rob's eyes darted to the massive boulder where they'd pinned the spatial mage.
Empty.
"Of course," he breathed, shoulders sagging.
No one with a shred of self-preservation would wait around to be butchered.
Above, nestled in the thick branches of an ancient oak, Vael crouched—every muscle screaming, every breath controlled. He'd spent the last of his strength to climb, to vanish, to watch.
Arconis wasn't just strong.
He was a revelation.
Every move was stripped of ornament, pared down to survival distilled into violence.
The scythe wasn't a weapon. It was a predator. Its curve carved lines no sword, spear, or axe could. It reaped. It hooked. It crushed. And the way he dodged—always by a hair's breadth—spoke of someone who had brushed against death so often he knew its exact reach.
But the scythe…
Early Dawn.
The name burned in Vael's thoughts. A weapon with its own will, its own mana. Divine Relic—the words meant little to him, but the truth was undeniable.
05:00.
Vael sank deeper into the branches. No point moving. No point fighting.
Just pray the massacre lasted five more minutes.
Kiera looked—and smelled—like something dragged out of a grave.
Dirt crusted her skin. Dead leaves clung to her hair. Blood—hers and others'—cracked brown across her arms.
Two days. No sleep. No food that wasn't scavenged or stolen. Just running, hiding, killing.
At last, her hunters had broken off, turning on each other when she proved too costly.
Now she knelt by a muddy creek, a pale, hollow-eyed ghost staring back at her.
"Fuckass exam admins," she rasped, voice raw. "When I get out of here…"
The threat withered into silence. She scooped brackish water with trembling hands, drinking greedily. It tasted of mud and iron.
05:00.
Five minutes between her and a bath, a meal, a bed she might never wake from.
Then—
A twig snapped upstream.
Her head whipped up. Not free yet.
The forest held its breath.
Arconis stood motionless, scythe resting on his shoulder, eyes black as void fixed on Bernard's broken team.
They stared back, weapons shaking, waiting for the blow that would end them.
Silence.
Then—
BONG. BONG.
Davy's voice boomed across the forest, raw and unfiltered.
"Well, candidates—this last stretch's been one hell of a show!" His chuckle rattled the trees. "One minute left on the clock! And as a little… parting gift—the top three get their mana back."
A surge hit Vael's core. Spatial awareness snapped into focus like a struck chord.
Exhaustion vanished.
"Go fish!" Davy roared.
Arconis' scythe blazed with bloody light.
"Well, friends," he drawled, lips curving into a predator's smirk as mana poured back into him. "As much as I'd love to finish this… I believe someone else has been waiting."
Vael didn't blink.
He blinked.
Space folded. He appeared behind the archer, twelve hours of rage and humiliation condensing into a single breath.
"Dimension Slash."
The whisper barely carried, but the result didn't need volume.
A crescent of violet distortion tore from his rapier—cleaving the archer in half before she could gasp. She dissolved into motes of light.
It didn't stop.
The buffer vanished mid-prayer. Rob split apart as he turned.
The wave sputtered out inches from Bernard's pale face.
Vael blinked again, materializing so close Bernard could smell the ozone and blood on him.
"You're the leader, right?" Vael's voice was velvet sheathing a knife.
Bernard trembled.
"Those hands must hurt."
Shing. Shing.
His severed hands hit the dirt with wet thuds. For one frozen heartbeat, silence.
Then Bernard screamed.
"I'm not done."
Vael's smile was a blade's edge.
The tongue, first. Silence.
An eye next—for every time they mocked his vision.
Finally—the family jewels. A kick, a twist of spatial energy, a convulsion of pain that left Bernard choking on nothing.
Vael ended it with a thrust through the heart.
Mercy was never his style.