Chapter 324
Seconds
A few minutes ago…
IAM had climbed back down from the tree and begun walking in a random direction, away from the area where he had seen the most commotion. If he stayed near that chaos, he would only be risking his life.
He hoped he would be lucky enough to find the others — or somehow accomplish the near-impossible task of convincing a stranger to help him.
He moved cautiously, his eyes scanning everything with suspicion. The last thing he wanted was to run into a deadline creature. Communicating with other students would be far easier than fighting one of those.
He had also fully formed a theory about how to pass this trial. If he was right, he would need as many people as possible to cooperate with him. It was vital.
In the end, all roads led to him relying on someone else to further his own goals.
He almost felt like a parasite.
Pushing those strange thoughts aside, he kept his guard up and moved through a thick patch of leaves into a clearing — a clearing occupied by five people who were standing in complete silence, as if waiting for something.
IAM paused in slight surprise as he assessed the situation. There was no time to quietly retreat. One of the more perceptive individuals noticed him and shouted,
"Hey! What's that? Come out!"
IAM considered his options briefly before stepping forward and fully revealing himself. He watched as relief flashed across their faces — whether because he wasn't a deadline creature or because he was alone, he couldn't tell.
The group consisted of two women and three men. They appeared to be in their twenties, all slightly older than IAM, and clearly familiar with one another.
The woman at the front, who had dyed her hair blonde and wore pink eye contacts, said with a smirk.
"What's up? Are you by yourself?"
"…"
Seeing that IAM didn't respond, she nodded calmly, as if speaking to a child.
"Okay, my little darling… if you're by yourself, would you like to join us? We're all brainstorming what to do since they didn't tell us how to pass this trial. So annoying, right? Anyway, this is John… Mia…"
As she gestured to her companions and introduced them one by one, IAM's eyes narrowed slightly.
Brainstorming in silence? Yeah, right.
They had clearly been waiting here to catch others off guard. From what he could tell, they would either threaten people into joining their group or gang up on them. If a deadline creature appeared, they could work together to take it down.
IAM didn't think it was entirely a bad idea. In fact, it aligned with what he had been planning. The fewer people who died and the more who cooperated, the better — if his theory was correct.
They could also provide protection until he reunited with the others. It was certainly safer than wandering alone, where he risked encountering a deadline creature with no backup.
All he had to do was submit and join them.
But would it really be that easy?
IAM wasn't sure he could trust them. He knew nothing about their character, and they all seemed far too familiar with one another. They must have been extremely lucky to find each other so quickly.
That suspicion was reinforced by the numbers displayed above them — from twenty-three to twenty-eight. They stood clustered together, meaning they had most likely received their recommendation together, just like IAM and his friends.
There was also the matter of whether they would even want IAM in their group in the first place… a thought that was quickly voiced by one of the men.
"Wait a minute, Jess… isn't this the guy who isn't using his avien?"
Everyone focused on IAM more closely before they all noticed it.
"Holy shit, you're fucking right!" the woman with the contacts exclaimed.
The other woman smiled faintly. "I actually heard he's a massive coward. Apparently he surrendered to his opponent without even trying, and ever since then he's rejected anyone who wanted to fight him." She snickered mockingly.
The woman at the front had her eyes turn cold as she looked at him with open disdain.
"Do we really want such deadweight with us? I see no benefits. He's just going to hold us back…" one of the men added.
His words left a tense silence hanging in the clearing. Throughout the entire exchange, not a single word left IAM's lips. He simply stood there, as if pondering something else entirely.
"I guess he really is a coward. I mean, look at him. He hasn't even said anything in protest. What a prat," the woman with the contacts said.
Her words seemed to serve as a signal. All their eyes flashed with their respective colors as they silently reached the same conclusion.
Even after all of that, IAM didn't react. That lack of response only seemed to aggravate them further. It was as if he didn't feel threatened at all.
All they could see was an unreadable expression — and eyes that resembled black holes, staring deep into them.
It was fair to say… they hated it.
"Puh! A little bastard like you thinks you're the shit, huh? Walking around without using your avien like you don't even need it… Are you looking down on us, you little shithead?"
Off to the side, a man with a nearly bald head and a baby face spat the words out with venom thick in his throat.
The woman at the front, who seemed to be the leader, stepped forward with clear wrath in her eyes.
"You limp-dick fool! Just wait until we're done with your ass!"
Her blonde pigtails bounced with the aggressive motion of her head as the group slowly inched toward IAM, spreading slightly as if to surround him.
IAM looked at the scene in silence before letting out a simple sigh.
Why always me?
For the first time, he spoke.
"Are you guys sure you want to do this?"
There was a brief pause. Then laughter erupted. They pointed at him openly.
"Did you hear that? This kid really thinks he's the shit!"
"Do you have eighth-grade syndrome or something? Are you blind? Can't you see it's five versus one? You're fucking cooked, you ugly bastard!"
"I'm going to enjoy wiping that look off your face!"
The jeers and biting words tried to gnaw at him, but IAM felt nothing. He simply watched them in silence as they advanced with growing vigor.
He seemed to come to a decision.
Not using his avien didn't mean he had no way to protect himself. If that were the case, he would never have dared to participate in the trials as a normal person.
What happened next was beyond the imagination of both the five approaching him and those watching from afar. No one expected it.
The five couldn't even begin to fathom that such a thing would happen to them in such a shocking and ruthless manner.
IAM suddenly pulled out KASSARA from its place just as they began activating their various path methods. Their eyes flashed with power as they prepared to teach him a painful lesson, already treating him like a toy to play with.
Everything that followed occurred within seconds.
The five novices, caught up in their own superiority after dismissing IAM as nothing more than an ordinary human, hadn't even noticed the weapons resting at his hips. Had they done so, they might have approached with far more caution. The reality that unfolded might never have come to pass.
But it was too late.
IAM had already switched KASSARA to automatic.
He aimed.
And squeezed the trigger.
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG
A literal rain of bullets swallowed their vision. They tore through the air with ruthless precision before shredding through flesh in an instant, and an extremely gruesome scene unfolded.
IAM simply moved KASSARA from left to right, letting it do the work, his face completely expressionless.
The man on the far left felt the first bullet tore through his left ear, ripping cartilage clean off the side of his head in a wet spray. A split second later, another punched through his cheek, shredding teeth and tongue before bursting out the other side in a mist of blood and shattered enamel.
Then one went straight through his eye.
The orb collapsed inward before erupting outward—vitreous fluid, blood, and fragments of bone spraying behind him as the round tunneled into his skull. The back of his head snapped open in a violent bloom of red and white.
He was already dead.
But the bullets kept coming.
They hammered into him relentlessly. One caved in his throat, collapsing his windpipe in a burst of dark blood. Another tore through his lung, forcing a thick, bubbling spray from his mouth. His arm jerked violently as bone splintered under impact, flesh ripping open in ragged chunks.
Each round punched fist-sized cavities through him, chunks of meat and cloth exploding outward. His body jerked and twisted unnaturally, forced backward as if an invisible giant was pummeling him. Skin split. Ribs shattered. Organs ruptured into pulp.
He was no longer a person—just a violently disassembling mass of blood and torn tissue.
The same fate befell the others.
The second man faced a bullet that entered just beneath his collarbone and detonated through his chest cavity, sending fragments of rib and shredded lung bursting from his back. Another ripped through his jaw, tearing it clean off and sending it spinning into the air with strands of muscle still attached.
The woman beside him had a round punched through her lips, shredding them into ribbons before tearing through the back of her skull. The top of her head split open like overripe fruit, brain matter splattering across the grass behind her.
The leader's face of contempt froze permanently.
A bullet struck her nose first—flattening it instantly—then tore through her face, peeling skin and muscle away in a red spray. Another split her eye socket apart with pieces of her contact, the eye bursting under pressure before the back of her head erupted outward in a gruesome fountain. Fragments of bone, teeth, and hair scattered midair.
Her pigtails whipped as her skull partially collapsed inward, one side of her face no longer recognizable as human.
The nearly bald, baby-faced man reacted a fraction too late. Fear replaced arrogance in his wide eyes.
"Wai—ahhhhhh—"
The bullet entered through his open mouth.
His teeth shattered into powder. His tongue exploded in a burst of blood. The round exited through the back of his neck, spraying a thick arc of red behind him.
More bullets followed, stitching across his torso. Each impact tore open new holes, flesh peeling back, organs rupturing under the relentless assault. By the end, his body looked perforated beyond recognition — dozens of ragged cavities leaking blood in thick streams. The cluster of bloody craters would have made anyone with trypophobia recoil in horror.
IAM released the trigger.
The forest floor was painted red.
Just as suddenly as it began, it stopped.
Silence fell...
Within seconds, their bodies began to fade away, confirming their elimination.
A shocking reality had just unfolded.
One person had eliminated five novices in seconds.
That was all it took. Seconds.
And they had all fallen!
IAM kissed his teeth in mild annoyance. There was a condition attached to his use of KASSARA — he was only permitted three cartridges to keep things "fair." Because of this unexpected situation, he had burned through more than half of his first cartridge. He hadn't wanted to risk retaliation or anything unforeseen.
He was also slightly irritated for another reason. That was five people gone. Five individuals who could have been useful to him if things had gone differently.
Instead, they had been eliminated by his own hands.
As IAM turned and walked away, one thing stood out clearly—there was not a trace of emotion on his face regarding their deaths. Even if it was all an illusion.
He truly felt nothing.
...
The five traumatized individuals jolted awake elsewhere, drenched in cold sweat, gasping as if they had just surfaced from deep water. Their hands trembled, eyes wide and unfocused, the phantom sensation of torn flesh and bursting bone still clinging to their minds.
Back in the viewing area, Ari, Snow, Jeremy, and the woman stared at the screen in a strange, heavy silence.
This group of boys was slightly ridiculous.
The woman was the first to find her voice.
"While as ascenders grow stronger, weapons like normal guns—ones that aren't mechs—eventually become useless. At novice and experienced level, up until peak experienced… guns are still completely lethal. At his current level, alongside his peers, he's basically unstoppable if he decides to kill them."
"How greedy…" Ari muttered.
"How unfair…" Snow added quietly.
"How broken…" Jeremy sighed.
They all stared at the screen a moment longer.
"What the fuck!" they said in unison.