The hall hadn't caught its breath yet. Darius's fight had reset the bar for everyone watching — he'd been pushed to his limit and adapted faster than the limit could catch him, stacking power, timing, and instinct until his opponent simply couldn't keep up. Nobody wanted to talk. They wanted to watch.
Then the silver-robed official's voice cut through the silence.
"Candidate Thirty-Eight."
A young man rose without ceremony, dressed in plain gray robes with his black hair tied back and an unremarkable sword hanging at his hip. Nothing about him screamed danger — no aura, no swagger, nothing that made the crowd sit up.
Kellan leaned toward Zion. "Who is that?"
"No idea," Zion said, shaking his head.
Mira's eyes narrowed slightly as she studied him too. "Me neither." Something in her tone suggested she already sensed there was more to him than the plain clothes let on.
He stepped into the formation, and azure light swallowed him whole.
The illusion rebuilt itself into an endless plain, grass tall enough to hide a war and rippling slowly under a steady wind, with the young man standing alone in the center, his hand resting on his hilt but not yet drawing it. When the voice announced "Begin," the grass shifted almost immediately, and a shadow burst free — a beast with a leopard's body and a serpent's head, its scales the exact shade of green needed to vanish into the field around it. Steel met claws with a sharp clang, and the creature bounced back into the grass just as fast as it had come, but he didn't give chase.
"Why isn't he attacking?" Kellan hissed.
"He's waiting," Mira said.
"For what?"
Zion's eyes sharpened. "Not an opening. He's listening."
The wind kept blowing and the grass kept rustling, but underneath both sounds was something that didn't belong — a faint disturbance that made his grip tighten as he turned toward it, only to find nothing there. A heartbeat later the grass exploded behind him, and though he never turned to look, a single flash of silver crossed the field and the beast stopped mid-lunge, a thin red line already blooming across its shoulder before it understood it had been cut.
Kellan's jaw dropped. "He didn't even look."
"That was clean," Mira murmured.
Zion said nothing at all, too focused on the sword itself — every motion economical, nothing wasted, nothing flashy, just precision doing exactly what it needed to and no more.
The beast surged back in, faster and angrier this time, and he met it with the same efficiency: blocking, stepping back, ducking beneath a tail-strike that would have taken his head off, then striking for the throat and missing by a hair as the creature twisted clear. He didn't press the advantage — he retreated a step instead, and for the first time the beast hesitated too, both of them measuring the distance between them until they moved at the same instant and their bodies crossed through the tall grass in total silence. He kept walking. The beast didn't move again until the gash across its chest finally caught up with it and it collapsed.
"That's it?" Kellan asked.
Mira was already shaking her head. The wound was sealing itself even as she spoke, the beast rising again larger than before, claws lengthening and scales hardening into something like black iron.
His eyes narrowed, a small, sharp smile crossing his face.
"Good."
Then he closed his eyes.
"Why would he—" Kellan started.
"He's not using them anymore," Zion said. "He's reading everything else."
The beast blinked out and reappeared behind him with its claws already falling, but the blade rose to meet it anyway, blocked without a single glance spared. Another strike came from the right and was blocked just as cleanly, another from above and he simply wasn't there anymore, another from behind and the sword found it without hesitation — the entire exchange turning into something less like combat and more like a conversation between instinct and blade, four directions of attack and never once was he late, never once was he wrong.
When his eyes finally opened, it was because he'd found what he was listening for. The wind died as though the illusion itself were holding its breath, and he stepped forward into that stillness with a single motion — no burst of power, no roar of energy, just silver and silence, and then a line drawn across the beast's body that ended the fight before the creature even understood it had lost.
He sheathed his sword as the illusion dissolved around him and walked back to his seat as though nothing at all had happened.
"Candidate Thirty-Eight has completed the first stage," the official announced.
Kellan stared after him long after he'd sat down. "That guy is terrifying."
"His strength isn't what's frightening," Mira said quietly.
"Then what is?"
"His control."
Zion, still watching the empty formation, added, "He doesn't waste anything. He's not fighting the opponent."
Kellan frowned, not following. "What does that mean?"
Mira's mouth curved into a small smile of her own. "I think I understand." She didn't get the chance to explain it, though — another formation lit up across the hall.
"Candidate Thirty-Nine."
This one didn't need silence to be noticed. Dark blue combat gear, a spear strapped across her back, a high ponytail that swung like a warning, and eyes sharp enough that half the hall straightened without meaning to.
"Another one," Kellan grinned.
Mira sighed. "You sound thrilled."
"I am."
"You're going to get yourself beaten before the real battles even start."
"At least I'll know who to be afraid of."
She stepped into the formation and the plain vanished, replaced by a towering canyon with cliffs high enough to swallow the sky, and at the bottom of it waited a mountain of black armor wielding an axe the size of a door. She pulled the spear from her back, and her entire presence shifted with it — the grin gone, replaced by something with no warmth in it at all.
The giant charged and she met it head-on, spear and axe colliding with enough force to crack the canyon floor beneath them, neither side giving an inch. She twisted her wrists to slide the spear-tip off the axe and into the creature's shoulder, then ducked beneath the counter-swing and spun to drive her point into its knee, staggering it before following with strike after strike, each one finding a different weak point.
"She knows exactly where to hit," Kellan breathed.
"She's studied it," Zion said.
Mira frowned. "It hasn't attacked enough times yet for her to know that much."
Zion's smile came slowly. "She doesn't need it to."
She fell back and watched the next swing — not the axe itself, but the feet, the shoulders, the grip — until understanding settled over her and she smiled for the first time. "I understand."
When the giant swung again, she didn't retreat. She stepped into the arc, twisted around the blade, and drove her spear through the gap in its armor, then yanked it free as the creature roared, swept its legs out from under it, and had the point resting against its throat before it even hit the ground.
The illusion dissolved, and she walked back to her seat as though she hadn't just brought down a mountain.
"Candidate Thirty-Nine has completed the first stage."
Kellan shook his head. "Three monsters in a row."
"Maybe the Academy grouped the strongest candidates together," Mira offered.
"No," Zion said.
"Then why?"
His eyes swept across the hall, over all three hundred and fifty-two remaining candidates. "They don't need to arrange it. They're just here."
Nobody had anything to say to that.
The assessment ground on for hours, one formation lighting up after another, one battle unfolding after the last — some candidates fighting with a kind of brilliance that carried them through, others showing raw power but failing for lack of adaptability, some surviving on cunning, others on speed, a few on sheer physical strength, and some, plainly, not built for battle at all. The tension in the hall only thickened as the numbers grew, because no one knew how many would survive the first stage, no one knew where the Academy drew its line, and no one knew what the second stage would demand of them.
At the edge of the hall, the elderly examiner watched it all in silence, his gaze drifting from formation to formation and settling, in turn, on face after face that still believed talent alone would be enough. It never was. The Academy wasn't searching for those who could shine for a single moment — it was searching for the ones who could go on shining after the darkness finally arrived.
Another candidate stepped onto the platform, and the battle continued.