The night was no longer silent.
What was once a field of makeshift tents and flickering lanterns had beco a rciless killing ground.
Screams tore through the air, shrill and ragged, blending with the clash of steel and the fluctuations of mana. Shadows flailed against the tent walls as bodies writhed and fell, staining the dirt black with blood.
Lanterns were kicked over in the frenzy, spilling fire across the ground.
The flas licked upward, casting the survivors in a hellish orange glow that made them look less humans and more like demons feeding on one another.
The stench was thick. Everywhere slled of blood, smoke, and sweat.
It was chaos.
Kairo stood like a statue, detached from the imdiate chaos as he watched it all happen. After dispatching the first three applicants that ca for him, he beca a wildcard in this ga of predator and prey.
His chest heaved at an unnatural rhythm as he watched.
Everywhere he looked, he saw betrayal. Friends from the Trial of Steel turned on each other without hesitation.
On one of the corners, Kairo recognized a boy. Two nights ago, he had shared his ration with his companion. Kairo saw them as it happened then, and now? Now, he saw as the boy drove a blade into his companion’s throat.
He flinched, his eyes turning cold.
On another side, a girl wept as she strangled another in the dirt as blood splattered over her white tunic until it was crimson. She choked till death.
The weak cried out for help, but the strong ignored them.
A few psychopaths among the applicants laughed as they killed one target after another. They were enjoying the carnage.
Kairo’s muscles twitched.
Abilities flared in a wild conflagration everywhere he looked. Fire danced in wild arcs through the air, spreading through tents. A powerful gust of wind sent bodies tumbling, while on another side the ground trembled as earth mana shattered a sleeping mat into shrapnel.
He flinched as a lightning arc split the dark, leaving a smoking corpse twitching in its glow. That guy was one of the more powerful applicants.
The instructors were nowhere to be seen. No one ca to stop it, the Academy had abandoned them on purpose.
That confird Kairo’s deduction. ’This is part of the test’.
His dark gaze swept the battlefield, and for a mont, he almost forgot these were teenagers like him. No, in this light, they looked like predators, beasts in human skin, clawing at each other for a chance to live one more day.
This wasn’t rest, this wasn’t recovery.
This was the real test.
...
In a well-furnished building inside the Academy in the staff quarters, Major Pain sat on a chair with a serious look on his face, leaning forward with his hands clasped over each other as he watched the proceedings of what was happening.
A holographic projection hovered before him.
He didn’t watch it like this was so inhumane activity at all. Rather, he watched it with the analytical eyes of a chess master playing a ga of chess.
His eyes were cold with no emotion. "Survive, if you want to climb". He muttered. "Survive, then thrive. Survive if you want to reach the top".
"Nexus Academy does not accept weaklings". He said coldly.
...
Overpowering the 3 applicants who ca for him may have seed simple, but it was an illusion. Defeating them so rapidly was only possible because of a few planned things that went his way.
First, he prevented them from using their special abilities; that was the wild card that he didn’t want to entertain.
If they did, the battle would have turned complicated.
By blitzing them to death with maximum application of his special ability, he won, but as a side effect, he was now hungry again.
Still, he snarled as he watched the chaos. "If survival’s the ga, then I’ll be the last one standing".
The system responded.
DING!
~----~
[Predatory Instinct Amplified!]
[You have unlocked a new Passive Skill: Night Combat Adaptation!]
>Enhanced perception in low light.
~----~
Imdiately, the world that was only illuminated by the pale glow of moonlight now beca extrely clear to Kairo.
The world lacked colors, but he could see in HD-quality black and white.
Almost at the sa ti that this happened, having just ganged up on and killed an unfortunate duo who fell prey to them, a small gang of 4 applicants walked in Kairo’s direction with nacing smiles on their faces.
They jogged towards him like hunters hunting prey.
Kairo stared at them, then... sothing snapped.
Maybe he didn’t stand a chance against 4 applicants on a normal day, but this was night. And he could see well at night while they could not.
WHOOSH!
Kairo turned into a blur that charged towards the students, not running in a straight line but weaving and ducking, running in a zig zag pattern.
Yes, though Kairo may have used the peekaboo style to great success against the construct while he was in the flow, he was still in full control of himself.
With his special ability, Kairo realized that reading comic books were not bad at all. They gave him a foundation for combat techniques to use. Even if his execution of them were rubbish, to his current opponents, rubbish was enough.
This ti, he didn’t use the peekaboo style though.
Rather, he used the Khabib Nurmagodov style. Raising both fists to face level, he constantly moved, weaving his body left to right and as the applicant with a spear thrust, Kairo ducked, then charged.
With his center of gravity lowered, he wrapped his arms around his opponent’s leg, tripping him, and then...
BAM!
He wrestled him and slamd him against the ground with brutal power as the concrete cracked slightly. Not satisfied, he went in and with a clenched fist pounded down on his opponent’s face.
Crack!
Knocked out, not yet dead.
He punched again.
Crack!
Dead.
Silence.
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