High above the restless sea of students, General Hildart Watson stood with his hands clasped behind his back, his eyes scanning the crowd with a predator's focus.
His gaze lingered, almost involuntarily, on the small cluster that comprised Class 001.
In the corridors of power and among his elite colleagues, this year's Class 001 was whispered about as a failure—the "worst in history."
Despite containing scions of prestigious lineages, the chemistry was volatile, and the potential seemed fractured.
But Hildart's attention was fixed elsewhere. He was looking at Ashfei.
A Chosen from the Ash Areas.
The report had been so improbable that Hildart had forced his subordinates to verify the data three times. In the five-hundred-year history of New Age City, the desolate Ash Areas had produced fewer than a hundred Chosen.
Yet, those few who did emerge possessed a terrifying, jagged tenacity that often eclipsed the polished talent of the high-born.
'Let us see what a ghost from the ashes can do when thrown into the furnace,' Hildart mused.
Down below, Ash felt a prickle at the base of his neck. He glanced around, his gray eyes sweeping the balconies.
'Is someone watching me?' he wondered, but the sensation vanished as quickly as it had arrived.
The homeroom teachers of the classes have left to leave the remaining work to their superiors.
Hildart's voice boomed again, amplified by the subterranean dome.
"The rules have been etched into your devices. I will not repeat them. When the barrier drops, you have seven days to survive. If the weight becomes too much, press the emergency signal on your watch to forfeit."
He raised his right hand, the fingers splaying wide as he began the countdown.
"I will count to three. Anyone still standing in this staging area two minutes after the start will be disqualified."
"One..."
The sound of unsheathing steel and the hum of mana filled the air. Students crouched low, their faces masks of desperate ambition.
"Two..."
Kael gripped his sword hilt; Fenrir's eyes turned a predatory gold; Isolde's posture became as rigid as an ice sculpture.
"Three!"
The shimmering blue energy of the barrier dissolved into nothingness.
From an aerial view, the five thousand students looked like a swarm of disturbed hornets, a chaotic tide of humanity pouring into the dark verdancy of the artificial forest.
Most moved in tightly knit squads, seeking the safety of numbers to secure points.
Cooperation wasn't forbidden, and for the weak, it was the only way to breathe.
The members of Class 001 vanished into the treeline almost instantly, each a blur of speed and purpose.
Only Ash remained behind for a heartbeat. He didn't rush. He had seven days—a lifetime in a place where seconds felt like hours.
He checked the weight of the silver spear provided by the academy. It was a mass-produced piece, lacking the soul and balance of the weapon he had used in the First Door, but its reinforced tip was rated to pierce the hide of a Semi-Predator.
It would suffice.
With a measured pace, Ash stepped into the shadows of the forest.
The environment was hauntingly beautiful. Shafts of artificial light pierced through the canopy, illuminating vibrant moss and ancient-looking oaks.
'It's peaceful,' Ash thought, his boots crunching softly on the loam.
'Too peaceful. There are no colossal trunks with weeping sap or the oppressive stench of the Gray Forest.' Walking here felt like a strange tour through a memory.
It reminded him of his desperate struggle just weeks ago, when he was nothing but a frightened boy running from shadows.
'But I am no longer that boy.'
Swish!
A sharp whistle of displaced air came from his blind spot. Ash didn't turn his head. He tilted his torso a fraction of an inch to the left, allowing the projectile—a living one—to sail past his ear. In the same fluid motion, he drove the silver spear upward.
The tip entered the creature's eye socket, crunched through the brain, and erupted from the other side of its skull.
[You have slain 1 Semi-Spawn: +10 Points] [Current Ranking: 4,900 / 5,000]
Ash retracted the spear with a dull squelch. The creature tumbled to the dirt, dark blood staining the vibrant grass. It was a 1.5-meter-long monstrosity, sleek and obsidian-skinned.
It lacked a face, possessing only a long, serrated snout filled with needle-teeth and a tail shaped like a curved bone-blade.
'A Mist-Stalker. If there is one Semi-Spawn...'
Rawl—Rawl—Rawl!
Hissing cries erupted from the undergrowth. The canopy shook as a dozen more silhouettes emerged from the leaves.
'...there is always a pack.'
Twenty of the creatures surrounded him, their bone-tails twitching in anticipation.
They lunged simultaneously, a coordinated strike from every angle.
Ash didn't panic. As the lead creature leapt, he dropped into a low roll, passing beneath its underbelly and breaking out of the encirclement. As he stood, he snapped his eyes open.
[Eyes of the Void: Active]
The world slowed. The chaotic movements of the pack were stripped down to skeletal frameworks. He saw them—the glowing blue dots at the base of their spines and the junctions of their throats.
Ash lunged. With his strength amplified by five days of [Adaptation], his thrusts were no longer the clumsy stabs of an amateur.
They were surgical strikes.
Swish!!!
The spear whispered through the air, piercing one stalker through its spinal weak point. He withdrew and spun, the shaft of the spear whistling as it caught two more in the throat.
'Seventeen left.'
His intuition flared. He leapt backward, a razor-sharp tail whipping through the space where his chest had been a millisecond before.
Landing in a defensive stance, he realized something: these creatures shared the same anatomical flaws.
He didn't need to keep the Void eyes active.
He deactivated the skill to conserve his stamina, his mind memorizing the location of the dots.
'If I let them swarm me, I lose. I have to break their rhythm.'
Ash became a blur of black cloth and silver light. He charged the nearest stalker, driving the spear upward from beneath its jaw, the tip exiting the top of its head.
He didn't wait for it to fall; he used the corpse as a shield, swinging it into the path of two others while his left hand—free from the spear—clenched into a fist.
As a stalker lunged at his face, Ash punched. His fist, hardened by the Void's influence, smashed directly into the creature's eye, caving in its skull.
He tore his blood-slicked hand free and snatched his spear back, thrusting it through the heart of the monster he had just used as a blunt instrument.
'Thirteen left.'
Ash counted each kill with a terrifying, rhythmic detachment.
His face remained a mask of ice, his "empty" eyes staring through the remaining thirteen monsters.
The Mist-Stalkers hesitated. Their primal instincts, usually tuned to sensing fear, found nothing in Ash. To them, he didn't feel like a human.
He felt like a walking grave. They had thought he was a lamb separated from the herd; they realized too late they had cornered a wolf.
Swish!!!
Ash didn't give them time to retreat. He surged forward, his spear a silver flash. The last thing the creatures saw was a pale boy in a black coat, his lips curled into a cold, predatory smirk.
...
One minute later.
Ash slowly withdrew his spear from the final carcass. Crimson droplets slid down the silver shaft, dripping rhythmically onto the pile of twenty-one bodies.
The ground was no longer green; it was a map of gore.
[You have slain 20 Semi-Spawns: +200 Points]
[Current Score: 210 Points | Current Ranking: 7 / 5,000]
A single skirmish had already placed him within the point bracket of the middle classes.
But Ash's eyes were fixed on the deeper, darker part of the forest, where the 2,000-point monsters resided.
With his spear leveled, Ash plunged deeper into the heart of the foundry.