"BEGIN!"
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
The sound of metal grinding on stone filled the maze. From hidden hatches in the walls and floor, hundreds of mechanical nightmares crawled out. They were Arcana-Constructs: spiked golems, clockwork wolves, and floating sentries armed with arcana-blasters.
"Go!" Asher commanded, his eyes already scanning for threats. "Ryn, stay close—"
But when he turned around, Ryn was already gone, separated by a wall that had shot up between them at the last second.
Asher cursed under his breath. "Damn it. He better not fall asleep in a corner."
He spun his spear, intercepting a clockwork wolf lunging at his throat. With a precise thrust of wind-infused steel, he pierced its core.
One.
"Now..." Asher's eyes darted through the chaotic corridors. "Where is Sero?"
_______ ___ _
BOOM!
A section of the maze wall exploded into dust from the sheer impact of something slamming through it.
Mirana Dume walked through the debris.
Arc blue electricity crackled wildly around her silver hair, and the air around her felt heavy and damp, like the pressure drop before a hurricane.
Behind her, the twisted wreckage of three "Centurion-Class" golems lay smoking, their cores ruptured by precision lightning strikes.
[Rank 1: Mirana Dume - 850 Points]
The name sat at the very top of the sky projection, glowing in platinum.
Currently, she was staring at a group of five students who had formed a temporary alliance to ambush her. They stood nervously, weapons drawn, greed warring with fear in their eyes.
"She... she already has 850 points!" the leader shouted, sweating profusely as the static in the air made his hair stand on end. "If we take her out, we split half her score! That's over 400 points right there!"
"Move," Mirana said, her voice cutting through the wind swirling around her.
"There are five of us and one of you!" The leader gathered his courage, channeling flames into his sword. "Get her!"
Mirana didn't bother drawing a weapon. She simply took a step forward.
Zzzzt—CRACK!
She vanished.
Using the Lightning to explode off the ground, she moved faster than their eyes could track.
"Where is she-!"
She reappeared in the center of their formation instantly.
'...Too slow.'
She swept her arm out. A blade of compressed Wind and Water slashed outward in a perfect circle, followed instantly by a discharge of high-voltage Lightning.
BOOOM!
The five students were blasted backward as if hit by a cannonball. Their barrier shields shattered instantly under the combined elemental assault, and they collapsed to the ground, twitching slightly from the residual shock.
[Eliminated. Points Transfer: +250]
[Rank 1: Mirana Dume - 1100 Points]
She walked past their unconscious bodies without a glance, the electricity around her fading back into a hum. She had already passed the 1,000-point threshold, but she didn't stop.
Because she was looking for the Boss.
______ ___ _
"Haa... haa..."
Meanwhile, in another sector, Sero was running for his life.
[Rank 1,743: Sero - 0 Points]
He had zero points. He hadn't fought a single thing. His only goal was to be one of the 500 survivors.
"There's the Grey Core!" a voice shouted from the intersecting corridor.
Sero skidded around a corner, coming face to face with a duo of students wielding fireballs. They grinned, seeing the easiest target in the arena.
"Easy points," one of them sneered. "A free 50 points just for walking."
Sero backed away, his back hitting the cold stone wall. His legs were shaking uncontrollably.
'I can't... I can't fight them...'
The student raised his hand, a fireball swelling in his palm.
SWISH.
A blur of green arc cut through the air.
The fireball was sliced in half, dissipating into harmless sparks before it could leave the caster's hand. Asher Leonhart landed smoothly between Sero and the attackers, his spear spinning in a defensive arc.
[Rank 7: Asher Leonhart - 420 Points]
"Two against one?" Asher smirked, though his golden eyes were cold. "How ungentlemanly. Why don't you try stealing points from someone who can actually fight back?"
The attackers froze. They looked at the spear, then at the leaderboard rank.
"Asher Leonhart... Rank 7..." one of them muttered, paling. "Run!"
They didn't hesitate. They turned and fled into the maze, deciding that 50 points weren't worth getting skewered by a powerful spear user.
Asher sighed, lowering his spear. He turned to the trembling Sero and offered a hand, putting on his best 'friendly' smile.
"You alright?" Asher asked.
Sero stared at the hand, then at Asher's face, stunned that a high-ranker had just saved him. "Y-Yes... Thank you..."
Asher pulled him up. 'Good. First contact established.'
"Stay close to me," Asher ordered gently. "We need to survive until the count drops."
_______ ____ __
And then, there was Ryn.
He was currently deep in Sector 9, casually leaning against a wall in a secluded dead-end corridor, shielded from the worst of the chaos.
[Rank 707: Ryn Dale - 250 Points]
While the rest of the arena was a bloodbath of screaming students and exploding constructs, Ryn was busy with a far more pressing matter.
He was peeling the foil wrapper off a fluffy, slightly squashed pancake.
"Thanks, Mom," he whispered, taking a large bite. The sweetness of the honey and berries exploded in his mouth, washing away the dust of the battlefield.
He couldn't be blamed. It was well past noon, the exam had dragged on for hours, and he was absolutely starving. Fighting on an empty stomach was against his principles.
As he chewed, he glanced at his score. 250 points. Not terrible for someone who hadn't broken a sweat.
He hadn't hunted anyone down, of course. That was too much effort. He had simply stumbled upon two students who had been locked in a fierce duel for more than ten minutes. By the time Ryn arrived, they had exhausted all their arcana and were panting on the ground, barely able to stand.
They were stupid. They had forgotten the cardinal rule of a battle royale: never leave yourself open.
Ryn had simply walked up, tapped their barrier generators to shatter the last 1% of their shields, and claimed the points. It was basically charity work. Add in the two small scout constructs he had dismantled earlier, mostly because they were buzzing too loudly and annoying him, and he sat comfortably in the middle of the pack.
Gulp.
He swallowed the bite and looked up at the sky projection.
[Candidates Remaining: 819]
"Just a few more," he mumbled, wiping a crumb from his lip.
If about three hundred more people could kindly get eliminated in the next ten minutes, he could go home sooner and take a long nap.
"Come on," he encouraged the distant sounds of explosions. "Work harder."
He took another bite of the pancake, savoring the peace amidst the war.
'Mm~, delicious as always!'
Just as Ryn reached into his pocket to retrieve another pancake, his hand froze.
'I can't even have lunch in peace...'
He sighed, mentally bidding farewell to his peaceful break, and slowly looked up.
Standing atop the wall just a few meters away was a figure with silver hair and eyes that crackled with suppressed lightning.
Mirana Dume.
She was looking down at him with an unreadable, cold expression. Her uniform was pristine, not a speck of dust on it, despite the chaos she had undoubtedly caused elsewhere.
Ryn blinked. Mirana stared.
A heavy, awkward silence stretched between them for ten long seconds. The sounds of distant explosions seemed to fade away, leaving only the tension in the alleyway.
Ryn looked at the pancake in his hand, then back at the terrifying girl who could probably vaporize an ordinary boy like him with a sneeze.
But he already figured out her personality. She wouldn't attack others unless they challenged her.
'Then why is she staring?' Ryn wondered, feeling her gaze bore into him. 'Could it be...?'
Slowly, he extended the treat toward her.
"...Want one?"