One by one, the classes were summoned.
At first, the crowd buzzed with excitent.
Parents leaned forward, noble families adjusted their seats, ready to see their investnts bloom.
Hope hung in the air like perfu. Everyone waited for the young warriors to prove themselves.
The first class marched into the arena.
A dozen students, so tall and proud, others young and clearly nervous, all adorned in the standard issue uniforms of Silver Blade Academy.
Mana threads shimred in their collars, swords glinted, staffs humd faintly with enchantnts. There was a ripple of clapping from their section of the audience.
Then the announcer gave the signal.
The crimson drape covering the cage didn’t lift—but the runes surrounding it surged, glowing with a deep, sickly green light.
The air around it twisted again, this ti violently. The temperature dropped, and a deep pulse echoed through the arena.
The class froze.
Every single student halted mid-step.
Their expressions shifted—from confusion to discomfort, from discomfort to pure horror.
It happened so fast.
One girl clutched her chest, another boy’s staff fell from his shaking fingers and clattered to the ground.
A taller student near the front suddenly fell to his knees, vomiting on the marble.
Then—like marionettes with cut strings—they all collapsed.
Screams rang out from the crowd.
Healers rushed forward, but the announcer raised a hand, signaling them to stay back.
From the far platform, Langren Voss’ voice bood: "Failure."
A pause.
Then louder, for all to hear:
"Failure!"
Another student twitched on the ground, eyes rolled into his skull.
One boy’s pants were wet—his bladder had given in.
Several sobbed openly, clutching their heads, murmuring nonsense.
"Failure!"
Again, the announcer repeated, as if each echo hamred another nail into their pride.
Gasps and shocked murmurs flowed through the crowd. Teachers from the stands exchanged glances. What had just happened?
Nolan was confused, "what is going on?"
"Failure!"
Again.
The crowd’s excitent was now a frightened hush.
Parents gripped their seats.
So began to question if this was too dangerous. But no one dared challenge the judgnt of the Baron of Black Vale.
The failed students were dragged off—yes, dragged—by armored Mana Knights who bore the insignia of Black Vale, not Silver Blade City.
Each one silent, each one grim. Their faces betrayed nothing, but their caution spoke volus.
The arena was cleansed, the blood and bile vanished in a flicker of runes.
Then the second class was called.
They marched in, confident—perhaps thinking the previous group had rely been weaklings.
Arrogant, even.
One boy laughed. Another twirled his spear as if performing for the crowd.
They barely made it ten steps in.
The mont the glow pulsed again from that infernal cage—thud—a wave of invisible pressure rolled over them.
Instantaneously, their formations broke.
The cocky boy dropped his spear and scread. "Noooooooo!"
One girl tried to run—tried—but collapsed before she could reach the exit of the arena, far away. "Save !"
Another began clawing at her own face, shrieking about bugs, bugs crawling into her eyes.
One by one, the students lost their minds.
From the stands, it was chaos. So parents wept. So cursed the Academy. Others stared in silent disbelief.
"Failure."
Langren’s voice cut through the noise like a blade.
"Failure!"
"Failure!"
Again and again.
The tone never changed.
It was cold, precise.
As if these children weren’t people, but flawed tools tossed away from a craftsman’s bench.
The third class went in.
They didn’t last five steps.
A girl fainted before she even reached the glowing circle.
Two boys clutched each other, sobbing as if about to be executed. Another simply laid down and curled into a fetal position, murmuring "I’m not real... I’m not real..."
The audience began to scream at the announcer to stop.
A few tried to storm down from the stands—parents, relatives—but were stopped by magical barriers.
"Failure!"
It rang out again.
"Failure!"
"Failure!"
One professor vomited into a bucket. Another passed out. The test wasn’t physical, that much was now obvious—it wasn’t even magical in the traditional sense. It was sothing else. Sothing deeper.
Sothing primal.
Fear, perhaps. Or madness itself, coiled into invisible claws and wrapped around the minds of the young.
The fourth class entered.
This ti, they refused to walk.
They begged their professor. One student clutched the hem of the teacher’s robe, crying and swearing she would do anything—just not go in.
Mana Knights from Black Vale had to forcibly separate them from their ntor, dragging them into the circle like prisoners to execution.
The pressure hit.
One boy’s eyes rolled up in his skull and he collapsed, foaming at the mouth.
Another scread, calling out for his mother. One student tried to bash his own head against the floor to escape the presence, another tore his own robe as if trying to flee his body.
"Failure!"
Langren bellowed once again.
The fifth class...
Collapsed before even entering.
Just being near the cage, just sensing its awful, crawling, wrongness from afar—was enough.
One teacher knelt beside her student, whispering a spell, praying it would work, but the child rely stared into the distance, unmoving.
"Failure!"
Cold.
Precise.
"Failure!"
"Failure!"
Silver Blade’s own teachers were stunned. So covered their faces in sha.
Others whispered among themselves—what was this test?
Why were Black Vale’s knights taking control of everything?
Why weren’t the Silver Blade Mana Knights allowed near the cage?
Even Nolan was silent now, his earlier irritation about his students forgotten. His fingers dug into his sleeves, nails pale.
Granfire stood beside him, arms crossed, his usual arrogance dulled by the horror.
"I don’t get it..." Granfire muttered. "Why are they all—why can’t they—what is that thing doing to them?"
Nolan didn’t respond. He felt sothing too. Not fear. Not madness. But a pull.
A subtle weight behind his ears.
A voice he couldn’t quite hear.
The sa pressure that whispered nightmares not as words but as feelings. Hunger. Void. The sll of blood that hadn’t yet been spilled.
Sothing in that cage knew him.
Granfire frowned and turned. "Those aren’t just monsters. That’s not so magical beast. It’s..."
"Sothing else," Nolan murmured. He thought of Lirazel’s words, her panic, her scream about bloodlines and demon gods. If she was right...
Lirazel would imdiately say, "I told you so!"
Then this wasn’t just a random test.
This was a ssage to Nolan that he must take Lirazel’s words seriously.
"Why can’t we help our own students?" one teacher growled to no one in particular. "Why are only Black Vale knights allowed to escort them? We are Silver Blade!"
"Because we’d run," Granfire said simply.
And though no one wanted to admit it, they knew he was right.
The sixth class was dragged out, broken, bleeding, incoherent. So had to be sedated. Others... restrained.
Langren Voss stood silent now. Even he appeared sowhat weary, his usual performative tone softened.
The arena was quiet, like the silence after a storm—when you wait for the next thunder to hit.
Nolan could hear nothing but his own heart pounding.
And then the voice ca again, loud and clear:
"Class A!"
It bood across the arena, echoing from every rune-lined wall.
Granfire’s eyes lit up.
He straightened his back, a sudden grin spreading across his face. Not arrogance, but pride. Fierce, unshakable pride.
"That’s my class," he whispered.
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