The grey void of the trial ground was no longer silent.
It was brimming with candidates.
The announcement from the Will of the Eternal Domain had acted like a drop of blood in a shark-infested ocean.
Ethan stood at the center of this gathering storm, his expression was unreadable.
He wasn't scared.
He wasn't even particularly annoyed anymore.
He had moved past anger into a state of cold, crystalline clarity.
"So," Ethan whispered, his voice barely audible over the sound of dimensions cracking.
"This is how the game is played. When a piece on the board becomes too strong, you change the rules to break it."
He looked at the Sword of Infinity in his hand.
It felt light, almost weightless, as if it were an extension of his own will.
The sword knew what was coming.
It hummed with a hungry, vibrating energy.
In the distance, the first wave of candidates appeared.
They didn't come in ones or twos.
They came in thousands.
These were the "protagonists" of their own stories.
