Dawn broke on day seven with an eerie stillness.
No bird calls. No rustling in the undergrowth. Even the ever-present mist seemed to hang motionless in the air, as if the entire forest was holding its breath.
Kaito woke the others before sunrise. None of them had slept well—the tension of knowing this was the final day had kept them all on edge.
"So what's the plan?" Takeshi asked, gripping his club nervously. "Do we just wait here until Integration happens?"
"I don't know," Kaito admitted. "The system hasn't given any specific instructions about what to do today."
As if summoned by his words, the system screen appeared in front of all four of them simultaneously. Yumi gasped, Hiroshi flinched, and even Takeshi looked startled.
**[Trial Ascension: Final Day]**
**[All participants will now receive final assessment]**
**[Integration will begin at sunset]**
**[Recommended: Prepare accordingly]**
**[Warning: Final day typically experiences increased creature activity]**
"Increased activity?" Yumi said nervously. "It's been plenty active already."
Kaito studied the notification carefully. "Prepare accordingly" was vague, but it implied they should do something. Gather resources? Find better shelter? Improve their equipment?
"We should stay here," Hiroshi said weakly. "This cave has kept Kaito safe for six days. Why risk moving now?"
"Because staying in one place might not be enough," Kaito said slowly. An idea was forming, one that made his stomach twist with anxiety. "The system said to prepare. What if that means we need to be stronger before Integration happens?"
"Stronger how?" Takeshi demanded. "We can't absorb Genes like you can."
Kaito's mind was racing through possibilities. "Maybe you can now. Your Gene State might have changed naturally after six days. Or maybe there's another way to increase your stats."
He thought about his titles—each one had provided stat bonuses. And titles seemed to be earned through achievements, through pushing beyond normal limits.
"We need to fight," he said finally. "One last hunt before sunset."
"Are you insane?" Takeshi said. "Hiroshi can barely walk, and you want us to go pick fights with monsters?"
"I want us to survive whatever comes next," Kaito shot back. "The trial was just the beginning. That's what someone wrote in the ruins I found—'the real test comes after.' If we go into Integration weak, we might not make it."
The cave fell silent as the others processed this.
"What ruins?" Yumi asked quietly.
Kaito explained about the old structure he'd found, the evidence of previous participants, and the warning carved in stone. As he spoke, he saw their expressions shift from fear to grim determination.
"So others have been through this before," Hiroshi said. "And whoever survived long enough to leave that message thought Integration was the real danger."
"We don't know that for certain," Kaito cautioned. "But I'd rather be overprepared than underprepared."
"I'm in," Yumi said, standing and checking her knife. "If there's a chance to get stronger before whatever comes next, we should take it."
Takeshi looked torn, glancing between Hiroshi and the others. Finally he nodded. "Alright. But we stay together. No splitting up, no heroics."
He looked pointedly at Kaito as he said it.
They set out an hour later, moving slowly to accommodate Hiroshi's injury. Kaito led them to an area where he knew F-rank creatures congregated—safer than the deeper forest, but still dangerous for people with basic equipment.
The forest's unusual stillness persisted. They walked for twenty minutes without encountering a single creature.
"This is wrong," Kaito muttered. "There should be wolves or foxes everywhere here."
"Maybe they're hiding," Yumi suggested. "You said the system warned about increased activity. Maybe the creatures know something's coming."
Before Kaito could respond, the ground began to shake.
It was subtle at first, like the vibration from a distant train. Then it intensified, becoming a full earthquake that sent all four of them stumbling.
"Not again," Kaito said, memories of the cafeteria flooding back. "This is how the trial started—"
The earthquake stopped abruptly. In the sudden silence, Kaito heard something that made his blood run cold.
Howling. Dozens of voices, all around them.
**[Emergency Event: Final Trial Surge]**
**[Multiple hostile entities approaching]**
**[Recommendation: Survive]**
Creatures burst from the undergrowth on all sides. Not just wolves and foxes—Kaito saw things he'd never encountered before. Creatures that looked like bears made of stone. Birds with metallic feathers that gleamed like knives. Something that might have been a deer if deer had fangs and glowing red eyes.
"Back to back!" Kaito shouted. "Protect Hiroshi in the center!"
The four of them formed a tight circle as the creatures closed in. There were too many to count—at least twenty, maybe more. A mix of F-rank and E-rank entities, all converging on their position.
The first wave hit like a tsunami.
Kaito's stone blade flashed, catching a wolf across the throat. His increased Speed and Dexterity made his movements almost blur—strike, dodge, pivot, strike again. Genes dissolved into light around him as creatures fell.
**[Multiple Genes detected]**
**[Automated absorption initiated due to combat state]**
**[+1 Speed, +1 Constitution, +1 Strength]**
Beside him, Yumi fought with surprising ferocity, her knife finding weak points in creature after creature. Takeshi was less skilled but made up for it with raw determination, his club crushing skulls and breaking bones.
Hiroshi, unable to stand properly, had picked up a sharp stick and was stabbing at anything that got close.
They fought for what felt like hours but was probably only minutes. Kaito lost count of how many creatures he killed. His arms burned with exhaustion, his lungs heaved, sweat poured down his face despite the cool forest air.
And still they kept coming.
"There's too many!" Takeshi shouted, his club arm starting to slow.
A stone-bear creature charged at Yumi. She tried to dodge but wasn't fast enough. The creature's paw caught her shoulder, sending her sprawling.
Kaito moved without thinking, throwing himself between Yumi and the follow-up attack. His blade caught the creature in the eye, driving deep. It roared and swiped at him, claws raking across his chest.
Pain exploded through him, but his increased Constitution kept it from being fatal. He wrenched his blade free and drove it into the creature's throat.
**[Mistwood Bear (E) defeated]**
**[Gene absorbed: +2 Constitution]**
"Yumi!" Hiroshi called out. "Behind you!"
A metal-feathered bird was diving at her exposed back. Takeshi swung his club, but the bird was too fast, too agile.
Then something impossible happened.
Takeshi's club began to glow with a faint golden light. When it connected with the bird, the creature didn't just fall—it exploded into fragments of light, its body completely destroyed.
**[Title Unlocked: Desperate Protector]**
**[Effect: +3 Strength when defending allies]**
**[Emergency Gene Activation: Rigid State temporarily bypassed due to extreme circumstances]**
Takeshi stared at his glowing club in shock. "What—"
"Don't question it!" Kaito shouted. "Keep fighting!"
The tide began to turn. Whatever had happened to Takeshi seemed to have triggered something in the others too. Yumi's knife strikes became faster, more precise. Even Hiroshi seemed to move with less pain, his makeshift spear finding targets with increasing accuracy.
The system was adapting to the emergency, allowing them to access power they shouldn't have had yet.
When the last creature fell, the four of them collapsed, gasping for breath. The forest floor was littered with dissolving corpses and floating Gene crystals.
"Everyone alive?" Kaito managed to ask.
"Barely," Takeshi groaned.
"I can't believe we survived that," Yumi said, checking her wounded shoulder. The injury was already starting to close—apparently she'd absorbed enough Genes to trigger accelerated healing.
Hiroshi was examining his leg. The bandages had come loose during the fight, but underneath, the wound looked significantly better than before. "The Genes," he said wonderingly. "They're healing me."
Kaito pulled up his stat screen, curious about his own changes:
**[Physical: 15]**
- Strength: 11
- Constitution: 15
- Dexterity: 14
- Speed: 15
**[Mental: 8]**
- Intelligence: 9
- Wisdom: 7
- Charisma: 4
**[Will: 12]**
**[Luck: 2]**
His physical stats had jumped dramatically. The Constitution increase alone probably saved his life when that bear attacked him.
"Check your stats," he told the others. "I think the emergency situation forced the system to let you absorb Genes regardless of your Gene State."
They did, and their expressions shifted from exhaustion to amazement.
"I have stats now," Takeshi said. "Actual numbers. I'm not as high as you, but... this is real. I'm stronger."
"We all are," Yumi said.
The sun was starting to dip toward the horizon, painting the sky in shades of orange and red.
**[Trial Ascension Complete]**
**[All participants have survived the seven-day period]**
**[Integration will commence in 60 seconds]**
**[Prepare for transfer]**
Sixty seconds. One minute until everything changed.
Kaito looked at his three companions—no longer just strangers, but people he'd fought beside, bled beside. People who'd chosen to face the final surge together rather than hide.
"Whatever happens next," he said, "we face it together. Agreed?"
"Agreed," they said in unison.
The world began to glow with that same blue light from the trial's beginning. But this time, it wasn't just Kaito—all four of them were being enveloped.
And in the last moment before everything changed, Kaito saw words appear on his screen:
**[Welcome to the Ascension Realm]**
**[The true trial begins now]**
Then reality tore apart once more, and Kaito Hayashi stepped into the unknown.