The Great Forest trial had reached its conclusion, but for the spectators packed into the sprawling tiers of the Academy Arena, the atmosphere suggested that the true event was only just beginning. The arena itself was a marvel of ancient architectural engineering—a massive, circular stadium carved from reinforced obsidian and warded with centuries of high-level defensive enchantments. The air inside was thick, vibrating with the collective anticipation of the student body and the residual Anym of hundreds of returning combatants. It smelled of ozone, scorched earth, and the metallic tang of blood a sensory reminder of the brutal night spent in the woods.
High above the battlefield, the spectator stands were a sea of distinct uniforms, reflecting the strict hierarchy of the institution. The Year 2 students, having survived this exact trial, occupied the lower tiers. They were vocal, leaning over the stone railings and debating the metrics of the freshmen who had successfully navigated the "Dead Zone". For them, this was a moment of evaluation; they watched the magical screens with practiced eyes, looking for potential rivals or underlings. In the tiers above them sat the Year 3 Seniors—the true elites of the academy. They were unsettlingly quiet. Their presence was like a heavy weight pressing down on the stadium, their sharp, analytical gazes focused not on the spectacle, but on the efficiency and technical execution of the newcomers.
On the arena floor, the transition from the wild forest to the structured colosseum was jarring. Seven more teams arrived in rapid, stuttering flashes of blue teleportation light. These were the students who had survived by the skin of their teeth. Unlike the leaders who had returned hours earlier, these groups were the physical embodiment of desperation. One team stumbled out of the light, their uniforms shredded into ribbons by the thorns of the southern marshes, their skin mapped with deep lacerations. Another team appeared with their leader literally dragging two unconscious teammates across the stone floor, his eyes bloodshot and his teeth bared in a snarl of pure, exhausted willpower. They had scraped together their 250 points in the final, agonizing minutes of the dawn, and the toll was visible in every staggered step some of them had meet beast with point higher than 100.
As these teams gathered in the designated recovery zones near the edge of the field, their frantic energy died instantly. They looked toward the center of the ring and froze. There, standing in a pocket of absolute stillness, were Nara and Levi. The contrast was devastating. While the others were covered in the grime and failure of the forest, Nara and Levi looked as though they had never left the academy grounds. Their uniforms were crisp, their breathing was rhythmic, and their auras were contained but immense. The sheer gap in their presence acted as a physical barrier; the arriving teams subconsciously retreated to the very edges of the arena, not daring to intrude upon the space claimed by the two strongest freshmen.
A high-ranking faculty member stepped onto the central elevated podium, his voice amplified by a resonance spell that made the very stones of the arena vibrate. "The preliminary trial is almost over," he declared, his voice echoing into the rafters. "Ten teams have secured their place. Now, we move to the final stage: The Open Ring. The rules are absolute. The battlefield is live. Whoever has the courage to prove their standing, step forward. You may challenge the current occupant, or you may wait for their battel to end and start yours. The last one standing is the victor of the intake exam."
The crowd erupted into a deafening roar, a wall of sound that would have shaken a lesser man. But on the floor, no one moved. The seven battered teams remained in the shadows of the recovery zone, their eyes darting between the podium and the center of the ring. Even One from All, the "King" whose pride had been wounded in the ravine, stayed his hand for the moment. He stood near the western pillar, his hand gripping his recently healed shoulder, his gaze fixed on Nara and Levi with a cold, simmering intensity. He was waiting, observing the two monsters who had to finish before him.
Nara broke the stalemate. With his hands buried in his pockets and a look of detached calm on his face, he walked toward the center of the ring. Every step was measured, his boots clicking against the obsidian floor with a steady, haunting rhythm. Simultaneously, Levi pushed off from his leaning position against a pillar. He moved with the predatory grace of a wolf, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. They met in the exact center of the arena, twenty feet of dead space separating them. The roar of the crowd seemed to fade into a distant hum for them; the world had narrowed down to the person standing opposite them.
In the stands, the Year 2 students were in a fever pitch of speculation. "This is it," one sophomore(meaning a year 2 student) whispered, his knuckles white as he gripped the railing. "The Architect versus the Sword King. I've seen Nara's deconstruction—it's flawless. But Levi's draw speed is supposedly faster than the eye can register. How do you build a defense against something you can't see?"
"It doesn't matter how fast you are if you can't break the material," another countered. "Nara turned a Behemoth's diamond shell into glass. If he touches that sword, the fight is over."
As the debate intensified, a new presence manifested in the front row of the Year 2 section. He arrived without a sound, his arrival heralded only by the sudden drop in temperature and the way the air seemed to grow heavy with static. He was a Year 3 student, but he was one of the Top 3 elites—the "Monsters" of the senior class. His hair was a stark, bone-white, falling over his eyes in sharp, geometric lines. The Year 2 students nearby immediately went silent, some of them physically trembling. They knew who he was. He was a person whose combat record was a series of one-sided massacres. He didn't acknowledge the juniors. He simply sat down and leaned forward, his eyes—unusually cold and perceptive—fixed on the ring below.
Back in the center of the battlefield, the air began to ripple. Levi didn't draw his sword. He didn't change his stance. Instead, he simply twitched his thumb, clicking the guard of his blade against the mouth of the sheath.
The sound was small, but the result was catastrophic. A massive, invisible crescent of compressed air and high-density Anym erupted from the friction of the blade moving a mere inch. It was a vacuum slash, a projectile of pure vacuum force that tore across the obsidian floor, ripping a jagged trench into the reinforced stone as it accelerated toward Nara. It was a "tester"—a strike delivered with casual indifference, yet it possessed enough power to cleave a lesser student in half.
Nara didn't dodge. He didn't even shift his weight.
As the vacuum slash reached him, Nara raised his right hand in a slow, deliberate arc. A thick, viscous flood of Black Anym surged from his core, coating his arm from his fingertips to his elbow. It didn't behave like standard energy; it flowed like liquid obsidian, dark and heavy, before suddenly snapping into a solid state. The energy took on a cold, metallic sheen.
CLANG.
The sound was a physical shockwave. When the vacuum slash collided with Nara's palm, it sounded like a wrecking ball hitting a steel vault. A cloud of pulverized stone and white vapor exploded around Nara, obscuring his form for a heartbeat. The floor beneath his boots shattered into a spiderweb of cracks from the sheer downward pressure of the block, but his arm didn't waver a single millimeter. He had caught the edge of the invisible blade with his bare, coated hand. With a sharp, bone-chilling crack, Nara closed his fist, and the compressed vacuum energy shattered into harmless, glowing sparks that vanished into the air.
The white-haired senior in the stands didn't join the sudden burst of cheers from the crowd. He remained perfectly still, his chin resting on his hand. He wasn't looking at the dust clearing around Nara. Instead, his gaze was fixed on the giant magical screens that were still broadcasting the final ten seconds of the forest trial.
"These two are impressive, certainly," the senior remarked, his voice quiet but possessing a resonant quality that silenced the entire section of Year 2 students. "Their control is refined for their age. But you are looking at the wrong stage. The real monster—the one you should truly fear—is the one who refused to leave the forest until the very last second."
The sophomores blinked, looking up at the screens. The timer showed 0:09... 0:08... 0:07. In the depths of the Dead Zone, Kael's group was in a state of absolute, hysterical collapse. Valen and Tora were on their knees, their faces distorted by tears and terror as the teleportation circles began to flicker and fade. They were short on points, and the forest around them was a graveyard of already-looted beasts. They had failed.
Kael, however, remained at the center of the clearing, his hood pulled low over his face, his silhouette dark against the rising morning sun. He didn't look at the countdown. He didn't look at his sobbing teammates.The air around him beginning to glow with a sickly, toxic crimson light.
"Secret Dragon Art," Kael whispered, his voice cutting through the sounds of his teammates' panic. "Skyfall Crimson Horizon."
The atmosphere above the forest didn't just change; it disintegrated. The clouds turned a violent, bruised red, and the air screamed as the pressure shifted. Massive, roaring meteorites made of blood-red, ultra-compressed Anym tore through the atmosphere, trailing plumes of crimson fire. These weren't random strikes. They were guided projectiles that sought out every remaining high-value beast in the entire sector with terrifying precision. A series of thunderous, earth-shaking explosions rocked the forest, turning the entire horizon into a wall of crimson flame. On the arena screens, Kael's point total didn't just climb; it bypassed 250 and soared into the thousands in a single, devastating heartbeat.
In the arena, the timer hit 0:00.
A massive, violent explosion of crimson light erupted in the dead center of the ring, manifesting directly between Nara and Levi. The force of the teleportation was so immense that it generated a secondary shockwave, forcing both Nara and Levi to slide back several feet to maintain their balance.
Kael stepped out of the fading red light. He didn't head for the recovery zone or the spectator stands. He remained in the heart of the battlefield, his hands casually shoved into his pockets, his hood still casting a deep shadow over his features. He looked at Nara, then at Levi, and then slowly reached up to brush a small flake of ash from his shoulder.
"My apologies for the delay," Kael stated, his voice smooth and intentionally insulting in the absolute silence of the stadium. "I had to make a grand entry now that am here shall we get this 2v1 started?"
The stadium was paralyzed. The Year 3 senior in the stands finally shifted his gaze downward, a sharp, dangerous smile cutting across his face. The preliminary trial was a memory; the massacre had begun.
End of chapter 19