The relief was a fleeting warmth.
It was a ghost of a feeling, a brief respite before the cold reality returned.
The exhaustion settled in, a bone-deep ache that seemed to weigh down his very soul.
Candidates who had passed the second stage—a group significantly smaller and more ragged than the one that had taken the written exam—were herded out of the evaluation arena.
They moved like a tired, battered army through a series of cold, sterile corridors.
The air buzzed with a new kind of energy. It wasn't just nerves; it was the sharp, metallic tang of survival.
Kael walked alone.
He was a satellite in a distant, lonely orbit, watching the planets of the other candidates cluster and align.
He kept to the edge of the crowd, his gaze fixed on the gray, polished floor. He could still feel the phantom weight of their stares, hear the echo of their resentful protests.
"He cheated. He found a loophole."
He hadn't won their respect. He had only won their resentment.
They arrived in a massive, hangar-like staging hall. The ceiling was lost in shadows so high they seemed to swallow the light. The far wall was a single, colossal set of steel gates, scarred and ancient.
Proctors in stern, black uniforms lined the perimeter, their faces grim, their posture rigid. They were no longer teachers; they were wardens.
The atmosphere was heavy, suffocating. The excitement from the previous stage had evaporated, replaced by a tense, wary silence.
Kael saw Ren across the hall. He was the sun around which the other powerful candidates orbited. But the sun was burning with a cold, white rage.
He wasn't smiling. His face was a mask of controlled fury.
His eyes were locked on Kael, a silent, venomous promise of retribution.
Kael quickly looked away, his heart giving a painful, heavy thud against his ribs. It felt like a trapped bird beating its wings against a cage.
"This isn't over. For him, this is just the beginning. That wasn't a victory. It was a provocation."
The lead judge from the evaluation stepped onto a raised platform. Her presence commanded an immediate, absolute silence. Her voice boomed through the hall, amplified and unforgiving.
"Congratulations on making it this far."
Her tone held no warmth, no praise. It was a statement of fact.
"Most of you will fail this next stage. Do not disappoint me further."
"You have reached the final trial."
—--
"Stage Three is a comprehensive survival and combat simulation," the judge announced, her voice a sharp crack in the silence.
A massive screen behind her flickered to life, bathing the hall in a cold, blue light. It showed a chaotic, rotating map of a sprawling, ruined cityscape mixed with an overgrown, savage wilderness.
It was a concrete tomb.
"The objective is simple: survive for twenty-four hours."
A collective gasp swept through the hall. The words sent a shockwave through the crowd, followed by a torrent of frantic whispers.
"Twenty-four hours?!"
"In there? That's impossible!"
"My Evolve isn't made for endurance…"
The judge's lip curled in a sneer. "If you think that's impossible, you have no business being here. Leave now."
No one moved.
"Your performance will be scored based on a point system," she continued, her voice sharp and impatient.
The screen shifted, displaying a grim list under the title: SCORING.
"Points are awarded for neutralizing designated hostile targets—bio-mechanical drones that will be hunting you from the moment you enter."
Images of sleek, predatory robots flashed on the screen. There were spider-like scouts with razor-sharp legs, hulking bipedal sentinels with heavy cannons, and swarms of insectoid drones that moved like a metal plague.
"Points are also awarded for locating and securing designated data caches hidden throughout the arena."
The image changed to a fortified, glowing data port.
"And finally, bonus points will be given to candidates holding one of these at the end of the twenty-four hours."
The screen showed a glowing, golden token, spinning slowly. It seemed to hum with a light of its own.
"There are only ten tokens in the entire arena."
The implication was a physical blow. To get the highest scores, they would have to fight each other. They would have to steal, to betray, to win.
A cold dread washed over Kael. This wasn't a test of control. It was a war.
The judge's gaze swept over them, hard as iron.
"You may form teams. Your gear is your own. The academy is not responsible for any injuries sustained."
She paused, letting the weight of her next words sink in, a cruel smile touching her lips.
"Cooperation is allowed."
"Betrayal is not forbidden."
The words echoed in the sudden, dead silence of the hall.
A chill, colder and sharper than any he had felt before, ran down Kael's spine.
This wasn't a test.
It was a culling.
—--
The hall immediately fractured. The forced unity of the candidates shattered into a hundred jagged pieces.
The atmosphere became a flurry of hushed, frantic activity.
Stronger candidates, those with obvious combat Evolves, grinned with a savage, predatory excitement. Their eyes lit up. This was their element. Their chance to truly dominate.
"Finally, a real test!" one of them boomed, cracking his massive, stone-knuckled fists. "Enough with the games!"
Others, the more pragmatic and cunning ones, were already scanning the crowd. Their eyes darted back and forth, calculating, assessing, looking for potential allies and potential threats.
Groups began to form, small pockets of whispered strategy coalescing in the chaos.
"We stick to the high ground. Let the idiots fight it out below."
"You handle defense, I'll go for the caches. We split the points fifty-fifty."
"Anyone with a sensory Evolve, over here now!"
Ren stood at the center of the largest, most powerful-looking group. He was their unquestioned alpha. He wasn't whispering or negotiating.
He was giving orders.
He spoke loudly, his voice filled with an unshakeable, arrogant confidence that drew others to him like moths to a flame.
"The rules are simple. Stay out of my way, and you might survive. Get in my way…"
He let the threat hang in the air, a confident smirk on his face. He scanned the faces of his new followers. "The tokens belong to us. Anyone else who touches one will be eliminated. Understand?"
They nodded in eager agreement, their expressions a mixture of admiration and fear.
They saw a leader. A winner.
Kael stood on the edge of it all, an island in a sea of shifting alliances.
No one approached him.
No one even looked at him, except to quickly look away. He was the outcast. The last-place survivor. The pariah who had passed by a trick.
To them, he wasn't an ally.
He was a liability. A walking target with a score of zero.
"Of course. Why would anyone team up with the weakest one here? I'd just slow them down."
The isolation felt like a physical weight, a crushing pressure on his chest.
He was completely, utterly on his own.
—--
Fear, cold and sharp, coiled in Kael's gut like a serpent.
He looked at the powerful groups forming around him, a tapestry of strength and confidence. He looked at the images of the hostile drones, their red optical sensors like bloodthirsty eyes.
He felt a familiar, crushing wave of self-doubt wash over him, threatening to drown him.
"How can I survive this? Me? Alone? With this… this useless Evolve?"
His mind flashed back through the exam, a painful montage of his failures.
The crushing weight of the written test. The sea of mocking faces.
"…I don't belong here…"
The utter humiliation of his first power evaluation. The sound of their cruel laughter echoing in his ears.
"…You have nothing…"
Ren's final, venomous words after he'd barely passed. The promise of pain in his cold, furious eyes.
"…I'll crush you…"
The fear threatened to swallow him whole. It would be so easy to just give up. To walk away from the gate and accept his fate.
But then, other memories surfaced, pushing back against the darkness.
Proctor Elara's intrigued gaze, a silent acknowledgment that he saw something more. The lead judge's grudging respect.
"…noteworthy…"
The feeling of the light, a perfect, unwavering needle under his command. The soft, clear notes of the calibrator singing a song of pure control.
And the triumphant, exhausted feeling of his victory, a warmth that fear could not completely extinguish.
"…I'm still here."
He had survived. He had faced ridicule, humiliation, and his own crippling self-doubt, and he was still standing.
The fear was still there. It was a cold, hard knot in his stomach. He acknowledged it. He let it wash through him.
But he did not let it control him.
He steeled himself, the memories of his small victories forging a new layer of resolve over his fear, like armor plating over a fragile core.
"I've survived everything they've thrown at me so far. Every word. Every look. Every test."
His fists clenched at his sides, his nails digging into his palms.
"I'll survive this too."
—--
"You have five minutes to prepare!" a proctor bellowed, the command cutting through the strategic murmurs.
Automated dispensers hummed to life along the walls, issuing basic survival packs to each candidate with a sterile, impersonal thud.
Inside was a canteen of water, a single, dense nutrition bar, a small med-kit with bandages and antiseptic, and a basic compass that spun uselessly in the hall's magnetic field.
Kael clutched his pack. It felt laughably inadequate. It wasn't a survival kit; it was a parting gift.
He watched as other candidates in their newly formed teams pooled their resources. Some had brought their own advanced gear—grappling hooks, tactical vests, energy shields.
They laid it all out, a small arsenal of personal equipment.
They looked like soldiers preparing for battle.
He looked down at his own empty hands and the thin academy uniform he wore.
"My only tool is my head. I have to hope it's enough."
No one had invited him to join their group. He was on his own.
He took a deep breath, the cold reality settling in his bones. He wouldn't have a team to watch his back. He wouldn't have a powerhouse to clear his path.
He would have to be smarter. Faster. More careful than any of them. He would have to be a ghost.
As he was checking his med-kit, a movement caught his eye.
A girl standing a few feet away, also alone, gave him a small, hesitant nod.
She was one of the other low-ranking candidates, someone who had barely scraped by like him. Her face was pale with a fear that mirrored his own, but her eyes held a spark of shared understanding.
It wasn't an offer of an alliance. They both knew they would be too weak together.
It was a simple acknowledgment. A silent message of solidarity from one outcast to another.
"I see you. Good luck."
Kael felt a tiny bit of the crushing weight on his shoulders lift.
He gave a small, appreciative nod back.
He wasn't completely alone in his struggle. There were others on the bottom, fighting their own desperate battles.
He gripped his pack tighter, a new sense of quiet determination solidifying in his chest.
He would stand alone if he had to.
—--
RRRRUUUMMMBLE…
A deep, groaning tremor echoed through the hall, a sound that vibrated up from the floor into their bones.
All eyes snapped to the colossal steel gates. Dust motes danced in the air as ancient, powerful gears began to turn, waking from a long slumber.
The final trial was about to begin.
The proctors began a countdown, their voices amplified, devoid of emotion, like the tolling of a great clock.
"Three minutes remaining."
The candidates moved towards the gate, a great, nervous mass of bodies surging forward. The air crackled with anticipation and the raw, electric tang of adrenaline.
Some candidates bounced on the balls of their feet, their faces lit with a hungry, predatory eagerness. Others prayed, their lips moving silently, their faces tight with anxiety.
"Two minutes."
Ren and his team pushed their way to the front, carving a path through the lesser candidates with shoves and glares. They positioned themselves for a head start, a spear tip ready to be launched.
He glanced back over his shoulder, his eyes scanning the crowd until they found Kael.
A cold, predatory smirk spread across his face, a look of utter contempt.
"You won't last an hour," he mouthed, the words a silent, final curse that felt as sharp as a knife.
"One minute."
Kael's heart was a frantic drum against his ribs, a wild, panicked rhythm. His palms were slick with sweat. He could feel the familiar tremble starting in his hands, a traitorous sign of his fear.
He took a deep breath, just as he had on the evaluation stage.
He held it, trapping the panic in his lungs.
And then he let it out, slow and steady.
"Don't think about him. Don't think about them. Just the mission. Survive."
The trembling in his hands lessened. His focus narrowed.
"Ten. Nine. Eight…"
The final countdown began. The crowd surged forward, a wave of bodies pressing against the unmoving steel of the gate.
Kael deliberately hung back, letting the most aggressive candidates push to the front. He melted into the shadows at the edge of the crowd, making himself small, forgettable.
"Three. Two. One."
—--
KLAXON!
A deafening alarm blared through the hall, a raw, primal scream of metal.
The massive steel gates slammed open with a deafening crash, revealing the arena beyond.
It was a breathtaking, terrifying vista.
Shattered skyscrapers clawed at an artificial twilight sky, their broken peaks like skeletal fingers. Overgrown vines and strange, phosphorescent moss choked the skeletons of ancient buildings. In the distance, the dark, tangled canopy of a dense forest began, a place of unknown dangers.
It was a city reclaimed by a savage, metal jungle.
For a heartbeat, the candidates stood frozen, stunned by the sheer, brutal scale of it.
"This… this is the arena?"
Then the spell broke.
With a collective, primal roar of battle cries, they surged forward.
A wave of bodies and unleashed power poured into the arena, a chaotic flood of light, sound, and fury.
Ren was at the very front, a blur of motion as he and his team charged in, a brilliant construct of golden light already forming around him. They immediately claimed a path towards the city center, a force of nature.
Explosions and shouts erupted almost instantly as the first candidates encountered the waiting drones. The test had begun.
Kael waited.
He watched the chaotic flood of examinees pour into the concrete canyon, a rushing river of ambition and violence. He let them go, let them become the first targets.
He was the last one left in the staging hall.
The proctors were already turning away, their job done. To them, he was just another number, a ghost already forgotten, likely to be the first one eliminated.
He looked into the jaws of the arena, at the flickering lights of battle and the deep, waiting shadows that promised both death and concealment.
He was trembling again. But this time, it was different. It wasn't just fear.
It was a hunter's adrenaline. It was a survivor's resolve.
He took his first step across the threshold, leaving the sterile safety of the hall behind.
He stepped into the ruins, a lone figure against a landscape of urban decay and predatory steel.
He whispered the words to himself, a vow made to the coming darkness, a promise to the boy he used to be.
"No matter what happens… I'll survive."
—--
End of Chapter 10