Another hyena dropped dead, its brain matter decorating the dusty arena floor.
[Ding!]
[Killed Starved Hyena (Level 6)]
[EXP + 25]
Sunny stood amidst a pile of corpses, his chest heaving slightly. Not from exertion but from the sheer rush of it. The dopamine was hitting him like a drug.
"More," Sunny whispered, his eyes scanning the chaotic battlefield.
"I need more!"
His Obsidian Spike-Stag was a blur of black death. The other students were struggling, screaming, casting pathetic fireballs that barely singed the hyenas' fur. Meanwhile, Sunny was power-leveling.
He checked his progress bar.
[Level 4: 850/1000 EXP]
"Just a few more. Come on, you mutts!"
He spotted a pack of ten hyenas cornering a group of terrified girls near the eastern wall.
"Jackpot."
Sunny raised his finger to command the beetle.
"Go. Wipe them—"
BOOOOOOOOM!
The command died in his throat.
The air pressure in the Colosseum plummeted instantly. The sky above the arena, which had been clear and sunny, suddenly turned a dark, suffocating blue.
A massive shadow covered the entire stadium.
"What the fuck?" Sunny looked up.
It was back.
The Sky-Ocean Leviathan.
Prince Valerian's whale broke through the clouds like a falling moon. It didn't slam into the ground this time. Instead, it opened its mouth.
A vortex of compressed water mana swirled in its throat.
"SCATTER!" General Korg roared from the balcony, his voice laced with genuine alarm.
"SHIELD UP!"
But the hyenas couldn't shield up.
A beam of high-pressure water swept across the arena floor. It moved faster than sound. It didn't hit the students but it targeted every single living monster in the arena.
The pack of ten hyenas Sunny was targeting? Vaporized.
The ones attacking the mohawk guy? Turned to red mist.
The ones cowering in the back? Gone.
In three seconds, the arena was silent.
The whale let out a low, triumphant song, then swam lazily back into the rift in the sky.
Sunny stood there, his finger still pointing at empty air. His jaw twitched.
[EXP Gained: 0]
"That..." Sunny gritted his teeth, his knuckles turning white.
"That absolute fucking kill-stealer!"
He didn't care about the Prince saving lives. He cared that he was 150 EXP away from Level 5, and that blonde pretty boy just deleted his farming spot.
"Rich kids," Sunny spat on the ground. "They ruin everything."
On the balcony, General Korg clapped slowly.
"Well then," Korg grinned, leaning over the rail.
"That was efficient. A bit boring, but efficient."
He looked down at Prince Valerian, who was standing in the center of the arena, not a speck of dust on his white robes.
"Prince Valerian!" Korg announced. "Since you've wiped out the threat and displayed power far beyond a Novice, you pass. You are granted instant admission to the Elite Class. You may leave."
The surviving students gasped.
"He passed?"
"Of course he passed, did you see that whale?"
"Thank god, maybe we can leave too?"
Valerian looked up at Korg. His face was bored. Disinterested.
"Pass?" Valerian asked, his voice amplified by a wind spell. "I didn't come here to skip the line, General. I came to test my beast."
He gestured around the empty arena. "My Leviathan is barely awake. If this is all the Academy has to offer, I might as well go home and train with the Royal Guard."
Sunny rolled his eyes. Oh look at me, I'm so strong, I'm so cool. Fuck off.
General Korg's smile widened. "You want a challenge, Your Highness? You want to see what we really have?"
Korg slammed his fist on a red button on the railing.
"ALRIGHT THEN! PLAN B!"
The ground beneath the arena shook violently. The students screamed as three massive trapdoors opened in the center of the muddy, blood-soaked ground.
"Since the Prince killed the trash mobs," Korg roared, "You all get to fight the Bosses! If you survive, you pass. If you don't... well, the cleaning crew is on standby!"
[System Warning: Boss Class Entities Detected!]
Sunny's eyes narrowed. "Bosses?"
From the first trapdoor, a pillar of fire erupted.
A massive lion stepped out. Its mane wasn't hair—it was living, swirling magma. Its claws left scorched marks on the stone.
[Boss: Inferno Lion (Tier 2 - Mid)]
From the second trapdoor, a skittering sound that made Sunny's skin crawl filled the air.
A scorpion the size of a tank crawled out. It had twin tails dripping with neon purple venom and pincers that snapped the air like hydraulic presses.
[Boss: Twin-Tail Death Stalker (Tier 2 - Low)]
From the third trapdoor, something heavy thudded.
A bear. A massive, bipedal bear covered in metallic silver fur. It roared, and the sound wave knocked the nearest students off their feet.
[Boss: Iron-Hide War Bear (Tier 2 - High)]
"Three Bosses," Sunny analyzed rapidly. "Tier 2. That's Bronze Rank. We are supposed to be Novices. This is a massacre."
"I'll take the Lion," Prince Valerian said calmly.
"It seems bright."
He didn't even summon the whale again. He just snapped his fingers, and a water barrier formed around him as he walked toward the Inferno Lion.
That left the Scorpion and the Bear for the rest of the 150 students.
"SCREEEE!" The Scorpion charged into the crowd on the left.
"ROAR!" The Iron-Hide Bear charged right... toward Sunny's side.
"Run! Run!"
Students scrambled, tripping over each other. The Bear swiped its paw.
A guy with a shield-beast tried to block. The shield shattered. The guy flew twenty meters and slammed into the wall, unconscious (or dead).
"Shit," Sunny cursed. "It's aggroed on us."
The Bear was looking right at him. Or rather, at the group Sunny was standing in.
"Do something!" a girl screamed at Sunny.
"Your bug is strong, right? Kill it!"
"Shut up," Sunny snapped. "I'm thinking."
His Obsidian Spike-Stag was an assassin type. High penetration, high speed. But that Bear...
[Target: Iron-Hide War Bear]
[Defense: High]
[Passive: Metal Skin - Negates 80% of physical damage from Tier 1 sources.]
"Fuck me," Sunny muttered. "My beetle is Tier 1."
The Bear charged. The ground shook with every step.
"Beetle, intercept! Aim for the eyes!" Sunny commanded.
The black streak shot forward. The Spike-Stag was fast. It reached the Bear in a millisecond, its horn aiming for the soft tissue of the eye.
But the Bear was fast too. It didn't dodge. It just closed its eyelid.
The beetle bounced off the Bear's eyelid. Sparks flew. The horn didn't even scratch it.
"What?" Sunny's eyes widened. "It tanked a critical hit with its eyelid?"
The Bear roared and swatted the air. A massive paw hit the beetle.
Sunny felt the impact in his own chest due to the soul link.
"Ugh!" He stumbled back, coughing.
The beetle went spinning through the air, crashing into the dirt. Its obsidian shell was cracked. One of its legs was bent at a wrong angle.
[System Warning: Pet 'Obsidian Spike-Stag' critical damage!]
[Durability: 15/100]
"Return!" Sunny shouted.
The beetle dissolved into light and shot back into his ring just before the Bear stomped on the spot where it had landed.
Sunny was defenseless. The Bear turned its massive head toward him. It smelled the mana connection. It knew Sunny was the one who attacked it.
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," Sunny backed away, his heart hammering against his ribs.
He pulled out his Balanced Iron Shiv. Against a Tier 2 Iron-Hide Bear, it was basically a toothpick.
"System! Options!"
[Option 1: Run.]
[Option 2: Die.]
[Option 3: Fusion.]
"Fusion!" Sunny yelled in his mind as he dodged a massive paw swipe. The wind from the blow nearly knocked him over.
"Fuse what? I have nothing that can pierce that hide!"
He looked around frantically. Dirt. Rocks. Dead hyena parts.
Near the wall, where the first student had been smashed, lay the shattered remains of his beast. It was a Rock Armadillo. The beast was dead, crushed by the bear.
But its shell... giant shards of rock-infused bone... lay scattered on the ground.
And next to it, a glowing red sac from a dead Fire Salamander that had been killed in the crossfire.
"Defense... and explosion?"
Sunny sprinted.
"Hey! Where are you going?" Mohawk Guy screamed, hiding behind a rock.
"To save your ass, you useless prick!" Sunny shouted back.
The Bear roared and chased him. It was faster than him. Sunny slid across the ground, grabbing a massive shard of the Armadillo shell in one hand and the Fire Salamander's flame sac in the other.
The Bear was three meters away. It raised its paws for a smash attack that would turn Sunny into a pancake.
"System! Fusion! NOW!"
[Target: Rock Armadillo Shell (Tier 1 Material) + Flame Sac (Tier 1 Material)]
[Compatibility: Low.]
[Risk of Failure: High.]
"I DON'T CARE! FUSE IT WITH THE SHIV!"
Sunny grabbed the Iron Shiv from his belt and jammed it between the shell and the sac.
[Target: Shell + Sac + Shiv]
[Triple Fusion Initiated...]
Time seemed to slow down. The Bear's shadow fell over him. The stench of wet fur and iron filled his nose.
The mana cost was massive.
[Mana: 0/12]
Sunny's vision blurred. The items in his hands grew scorching hot.
"Just... fucking... WORK!"
A blinding orange light erupted in his hands.
[Ding!]
[Forced Fusion Successful!]
[Item Created: ???]
He didn't have time to check the stats. He didn't have time to check the name. He felt something heavy, hot, and unstable in his hand.
The Bear's paw came down.
Sunny didn't dodge. He thrust the glowing, jagged object upward.
"EAT THIS!"