The morning was gray.
Not in the sense of cloudiness — it was just that everything seemed faded. It was as if even the air in Wildkran had lost its color.
The students poured out onto the parade ground: there were 8 classes in total, with over 400 students. They were divided into sectors, each representing a different race and school of magic.
Airships with symbols of the elven clans hung in the air. Below them were the scarlet banners of the demons. To the side was the alchemical tower of the dwarves, as if the very poison of reality flowed from its pipes.
Kalen stood with his hands in his pockets, yawning.
"Hey." Reina nudged him with her elbow. "Did you sleep?"
"Yeah, you can't sleep when someone's sticking a pitchfork into your brain."
"You're making a strange joke."
She wanted to say more. She wanted to say that he had changed. He was harder. Sharper. He didn't smell like magic; he smelled like death.
But she didn't say anything.
"Class A-4, to the banner of Waldkran!" The organizer's voice rang out.
Kallen and Reina came up together. Behind them was their entire class: 52 people. Half of them had fear in their eyes. The rest had pride, as if they had already won. Yeah, right.
"From today on," said the new mentor, the necromancer Saen, "you will pass the Victriad."
— This is not a competition. This is a selection.
"The survivors will go on to the next round of training. The dead..." he shrugged, "will be written off as lost. We're in Wildcrane. They don't keep the dead here."
Silence. Only the sound of the alchemical vapors bubbling in the lanterns.
Kalen noticed that some of them were starting to tremble.
Reina stood still, but her eyes—crimson, burning—never left his.
"You've become someone you're not. You're no longer the Kalen I saw on that first day."
— So. You'll be divided into biomes. The Forest of Gloom, the Swamp, the Scar of the Earth, the Aetherial Dust, and the Area of the Abandoned City. Five locations.
— Each class has its own zone. Yours is the ethereal dust.
— What the fuck?"
Kalen looked at the map. Aetherial Dust is an area where the entire landscape resembles shards of dreams. Perception breaks down, the laws of magic are distorted, and shadows move differently than they should.
"The perfect place," he chuckled. "For us."
"I agree," Reina said. "If anyone's going to go crazy first, it won't be you or me."
They were loaded into a small transport with resonating crystals. A minute later, the class was on its way to the zone.
There's an air of anxiety. Like before a storm.
"KALEN!" Reina's shout nearly shattered the space.
He didn't even have time to curse - the ground beneath his feet crumbled. No, not the ground. The very ether shuddered like a mirror. The void yawned and swallowed him up.
He was falling.
Without wind. Without sound. Just falling through a magical crack, probably created long ago in one of the experiments of the alchemists of Voldkrana.
And then…
A CRUNCH.
Kalen landed. His knee skimmed the ice, but he was already used to the pain, and he just blinked. The forest was deathly white. The trees were made of frost and shards of glass. Instead of sap, the trunks were dripping with frozen blood. The air was like a razor, burning him from the inside.
"WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?"
He stood up and looked around. There was no portal, no trace, no way out. Just him and the shadows between the ice, whispering how to die more beautifully.
The projection worked: a message flashed inside the eye, embedded by the Academy's mages for urgent instructions.
[Route error. Initiation of a replacement mission.]
Challenge: Beste, the Ice Witch.
Goal: Destroy the object.
Survival rate: 0.02%
"Fucked up.
He knew that no one would come. An off-route zone. The outside probably just assumed he was dead. Or lost.
The Shadow's tattoo on his back pulsed like the heart of an animal. He touched it, and a silhouette appeared in the darkness of the ice.
"Ward," Kalen called.
A black knight emerged from the shadows. The red patterns on his armor pulsed like magical arteries. His empty helmet turned towards Kalen.
"You started too soon. This is not your war. But if you command it, I will go."
— Let's go. If we die, we die with music.
They went.
The snow didn't fall; it hung in the air like ash. Between the trees, there were statues made of ice, people frozen in mid-scream. Kallen approached and noticed that one of the statues' eyes was still moving.
"She doesn't kill. She freezes the mind."
"Beste," he said. "Get out. We're on different paths, but I'm here for your head."
Silence.
Then, from the depths of the forest, a voice came. Cold, whispering, like an icy stream in the ear:
"Why do you need a head if you're already losing it?"
The trees cracked. From their trunks, like from their wombs, ice predators emerged—translucent, with crystal-like paws.
Kallen drew his sword, which was filled with Shadow. His hand burned with the strain, but he did not flinch.
Ward stepped up beside him. Together, they took on the fight.