The entire fight, the ten-minute match from hell that made all of the previous Step’s of Strength that had preceded them look like children’s play fights, replayed through both the students' and the professor’s minds on loop. Even Victor found himself staring blankly at the static of the illusory window.
He had seen all manner of people go through the Step of Strength. He had seen warriors of legend, sorcerers that could bend nature to their whim, Saints that could partition their patron God for a cup of coffee and receive it before they’d even finished the sentence. Yet never had he seen one as unfairly lopsided and vicious as that fight had been.
He knew, logically, that it was because he was already bending the Trial as it was just to allow multiple people to take it at once, introducing holes and gaps in the rules and structure that could allow all manner of errors or mistakes to happen. All the logic in the world, however, still couldn’t stop the bone-deep dread that filled him as he watched those four teenagers being carved to pieces.
Magic, as horrifying as it had the opportunity to be, was actually rather tame as far as injuries went. Control and finesse were a big part of learning magic, getting the correct effects with as little mana usage as possible, getting the shape of the spell just correct, things of that nature. While limbs could be lopped off and organs could spill forth from created injuries, it was just so much quicker and easier to stop their heart, or overload the brain until it failed, literally or through pain response.
What he had just witnessed from the last ten minutes was nothing less than brutality given flesh. Bloodlust made solid. The very intent to harm made manifest. It was a uniquely horrifying experience to watch a teenager –nearly a young adult but still not there yet– grow desensitized to the sight of limbs being cut off; it was an even more horrifying experience to watch that same teenager grow desensitized to avoiding those same limbs when they were sent flying at them.
The less said about the image of holes blown clean through them from the sheer force of a sword's thrust or entire chunks of their bodies deleted from existence, the better.
Even the visions of Zenik’s destruction at the hands of the little green menace’s parents weren’t as horrifying to the man, though that might have to do with the fact that there usually wasn’t anything left after someone got hit by an attack from them.
‘Speaking of…’ Victor thought, turning to look as subtly up at the rafters as he dared to try and get away with.
He had no doubt that the stone dragons that made up the main defence for the Academy were aware that the dragon was here –they tended to have an uncanny sense for when another of their kind was nearby– but he could hardly fault them for having not forced the little green dragon out yet. Where the stone dragons of Dragon-Scale Academy had worked themselves to the bone to develop the bloodline trait of extreme durability and healing breath, the lineage of the green one never had enough weakness in their veins to bother with such a thing. They were pure dragons through and through, and the attention that this newest addition to the bloodline was showing that blue-haired teen was bound to be trouble down the line.
Golden eyes stared down at the illusion with an attentiveness that had alarm bells ringing in Victor’s mind. The little dragon had appeared in visions of the future before, of course it had, but never in the way that he was seeing it now. He had seen it riding a top its parent’s monstrous backs as they burned the city down, he had seen its body paraded through noble auctions right before a foot the size of the building itself slammed down on it, he had even seen it just flitting around Zenik peacefully, darting through the air in the background of other people’s futures without drawing any attention to itself.
But attaching itself so firmly to someone like it was doing now? Watching someone with enough attention to light them on fire? Going so far as to actually attempt to sneak into a building like this just to get a look at what the blue-haired child was doing? He’d never seen anything like it before, and that made his fingers twitch, and his stomach tie itself in knots.
He couldn’t know everything that was possible to happen, of course not, that was the domain of Kronethia and Kronethia alone, but the advantage of being one of his followers was that Kronethia allowed him to peek into the myriad ‘potentials’ of the future that lay ahead. That knowledge, that reassurance that he at least would have an idea of the general situation surrounding whatever he was focusing on, was what kept Victor calm and in control, no matter where he went or what he did.
Now, however, between that woman that he had not seen before, and the dragon that was acting so unusually compared to what he had seen before, he could feel that cushioned safety net of reassurance crumbling beneath him. He just hoped that whichever timeline they had slipped onto, whichever bundle it could be found in or specific path that they had wandered down, that it wouldn’t be one of the disaster ones.
“The next Step is starting,” Xyn muttered idly, getting a short grunt from Victor in return as he turned his attention back to the illusion in front of him.
Too many questions, not enough answers, no time to sus any of them out. He wondered if this Step would be any easier for them than the first two. Somehow, he doubted that it would be.
XXXxxxXXX
Was it too much to ask that the Trial at least give them bodies that couldn’t tire? He understood not clearing out mental fatigue since he didn’t think that the Trial itself could directly interfere with their minds, but their bodies? That was an entirely different ball game.
It had already been revealed to them that their bodies were simply just recreations of the real thing and that they could be rebuilt basically from the ground up without any difficulties, so what was stopping the Trial from simply making sure that even if their minds were exhausted, their bodies wouldn’t share in the same fate?
The answer was nothing other than incompetence or uncaringness in Alec’s opinion, and whichever it happened to be, he wouldn’t be happy.
Which is why, when their surroundings began to flicker and change, he couldn’t help the exhausted huff that left his lips as he sat up and slowly pushed himself to his feet. Behind him, he could hear the other three doing the same with varying degrees of exhausted groans and quiet grumbling of their own. None of them were in top shape, not even Glenn, who had done, objectively, the least of the four of them. That was just how brutal Nainika had been as an opponent.
It was a humbling experience, even for someone with an ego like Glenn’s, to face an opponent who could break you down as effectively as Nainika had proven to be able to. It was equally as awe-inspiring to Alec to face an opponent whose technique had been so polished, whose every move had to be met with absolute perfection, else you fall to their blade. But in that same token, it was exhausting beyond anything that Alec had ever experienced in his life to be forced to match up to such perfection for as long as they had been forced to.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
All he wanted to do was lie down and sleep for an entire week. He wanted to lie on his bed and ingrain the feeling of his somewhat stiff mattress into his every muscle fibre and let darkness claim him for however long its jealous heart wished.
‘But no. Instead, I’m stuck having to go through another two Steps of this trial, which is bound to be just as difficult as the first two, knowing our luck.’ He grumbled mentally to himself.
The sight of the streets of Zenik forming around them did not help his annoyance at all. In fact, it made him want to scream until his voice went hoarse, but he kept a lid on that impulse, at least for the immediate moment.
“We’re back in Zenik?” Callum questioned, looking around curiously.
“Congratulations, Royal-Boy. Want a trophy?” Glenn snarked, getting a muted scowl from the green-haired boy.
“What do you think it will be?” Olivia asked, stepping away from the two of them and up next to Alec instead.
Usually, she’d be all for defending someone being bullied and getting to put down Glenn and his ego a little, but she was too tired right now to deal with either of their bullshit. Alec was the safest option for keeping things quiet and the only one willing and able to answer her query properly.
“Don’t know. Nothing about this has been usual so far, and we’re flying blind.” Alec mumbled in response, rubbing a hand over his face, “No one in the Trainarium made it this far, so we can’t even really guess beyond what the priest of Kronethia said, that it will be some kind of puzzle or crisis. My bet is on crisis.”
“That would be the kind of thing that would get thrown at us, isn’t it?” She sighed, resting her weight on one leg and crossing her arms.
All four of them jumped as the words appeared in the air ahead of them with a small gong, Callum even blinking and rubbing his eyes as if he was seeing things.
The groans that left the four of them could have been enough to wake the dead, the words floating ahead of them bringing forth a sense of crushing desolation so strong it was almost palpable to the four of them.
The silence that followed was a noise all in its own right, the four teens staring blankly up at the words, as if struggling to comprehend the simple message that they contained.
“Silver linings.” Glenn scoffed, Olivia hated herself for finding it sort of funny.
“’Additional rewards’?” Alec parroted with squinted eyes, his thoughts swimming through molasses, “What is that meant to mean? All that we’re doing is completing this Step to go onto the next…?”
At his side, Olivia said nothing but couldn’t help but agree with Alec’s question. They weren’t gaining anything through this Step except to go onto the next, which was pretty all or nothing if she were honest. Was this one of the glitches that the Hand had mentioned when describing the Trial to them all?
All was silent for a few moments as the four young adults stared up at the words. A weak breeze ruffled their hair and clothes. Slowly, the words fizzled out of existence, leaving just the four of them alone in the empty city street, with nothing but the most barebones of basics to guide them.
“S-So, where are we meant to-“ Was all that Callum could get out, stuttered and confused, before Alec's near-on scream cut him off.
“You Gods-damned Trial!” He took a step forward and looked around quickly, zeroing in on what quickly became apparent to the others was a blacksmith, making a mad dash for it as quickly as he could.
“Dius! Don’t freak out on us now!” Olivia snapped as she followed after him, the other two hot on her heels thanks to the sheer spectacle of Alec’s actions.
“Do none of you realize it!? Thirty minutes? In Zenik?” Alec shot back, turning to give them all a heated glare before drawing a leg up and slamming it into the door of the blacksmith with all that he had.
Flimsy metal cracked and wood splintered as the door went flying open, part of the lock still stuck into the building's side even as the rest of it slammed into the wall with an almost deafening bang.
Olivia stared blankly for a few seconds as her mind churned through her teammate’s words, her eyes locked onto Alec’s form as he stole a blade –it was a simulation, who cared if laws were broken– but not actually registering anything that he was doing.
Finally, though, the realization that Alec had already come to hit her as well. And the curse that left Olivia’s lips was far more colourful than the exclamation that had left Alec’s.
“You two going to fill me in?” Glenn scoffed with crossed arms and an annoyed look.
“You can’t even get from one side of the city to another in half an hour!” Alec snapped, running out of the building while fastening the scabbard to his side and looking around wildly, “The time limit is completely broken! How the hell are we meant to find out everything in such a large area!?”
Alec’s words crashed into Glenn and Callum at the same time, their eyes widening and their jaws dropping as they realized that not only was he right, but the actual extent to which he was right as well.
“Goddammit! I’m going to the nearest cathedral! Alec, you-“ Olivia began, whirling around to point at him at the exact moment that he took off running with a hurried thumbs-up over his shoulder.
“Is he really-!?” Callum startled, jumping when Olivia whirled on him and Glenn with fire in her eyes and venom on her tongue.
“You two stick with him! I hear that you ran off on your own, you better believe that I’ll dice the both of you up the moment we wake up!” With her parting threat delivered, she took off in the opposite direction to Alec, the two boys just following her words since they had no reason not to and no ideas to act on in their stead.
There was silence for a minute as the two boys tried to catch up to their companion, finally doing so as he cheered in exhausted triumph and turned abruptly to a small stone building on the side of the street, hugged in a shadowed alleyway between two far larger buildings.
“What the fuck is this, Dius?” Glenn demanded with a small groan as he jogged to a stop behind the blue-haired teen.
The speed and precision with which the teen cut through the handle and lock on the door, despite his obvious exhaustion, was something that Glenn refused to admit intimidated him. He wasn’t scared of the younger boy, not at all. Yet he knew that, put into the same position, he could hardly pull off anything as precise and fast as that had been.
“This,” Alec began, using his foot to swing the door open and stepping forward without hesitation, revealing a circular trapdoor on the ground that he opened with similar ease to the door, “Is an entrance to the city's sewers.”
Glenn had a feeling that he knew where this was going, and he was getting a very, very bad feeling about it. Why did the Third Step have to be this?
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