The pounding on his door was a restless rhythm. A drumbeat of his doom.
Edward's mind raced. He cycled through a thousand excuses. Each one was more silly than the last.
A particularly aggressive nightmare? I was fighting a teleporting shadow assassin sent by a cosmic entity.
Yeah, that would go over well.
He shoved a piece of his mangled bedframe under the door. A flimsy barricade. It wouldn't buy him much time.
He looked around the ruined room. He was trapped.
Then his eyes fell on the window.
A narrow, uninviting slit in the stone. Barely wide enough for a child. But it was his only way out.
The shouts grew louder. More furious. He scrambled onto his desk. He wrenched the window open with a groan of rusted hinges.
He painstakingly wriggled his way through. The rough stone scraped his back and chest. He finally dropped to the ground outside.
He didn't look back. He just melted into the pre-dawn shadows.
The fallout was a disaster.
By sunrise, the story had twisted into a legend of his pathetic inadequacy.
The official version, concocted by Chris, was that Edward Ross, in a fit of rage, had destroyed his own room. He was a volatile failure. A ticking time bomb.
His punishment was swift and demeaning.
He was stripped of his dorm room. He was forced to move into a storage closet in the janitorial wing.
He was also assigned to indefinite janitorial duty.
Which brought him to today.
The Sunstone Academy's annual combat tournament. The grand arena was packed. Banners of noble houses fluttered in the breeze. The roar of the crowd was a deafening wave.
And Edward was there. Not as a spectator. But as a sanitation engineer.
He pushed a large, wheeled bin filled with refuse. He wore a drab, grey janitor's uniform. His job was to be invisible.
He could hear the announcer's voice booming. Calling out the names of the combatants. Each name was met with a roar.
A grand celebration of the system that had branded him worthless.
'What a thrilling spectacle,' he thought, his inner voice dripping with sarcasm. 'The future leaders of our society, hitting each other with shiny metal. The pinnacle of civilization.'
He tried to keep his head down. To fade into the background.
But fate was not done kicking him.
"Well, well, look what the gutter coughed up."
Edward didn't need to look up. The voice was a familiar blend of arrogance and disdain.
He slowly raised his head. Chris stood before him. Flanked by his cronies. Chris was dressed in magnificent, polished plate armor. He looked every bit the storybook hero.
"Finally found your true calling, Ross?" Chris sneered. "Seems fitting. Garbage handling garbage."
His cronies snickered. The crowd nearby began to watch with cruel amusement.
Edward just stared. His expression was a perfect, unreadable mask. He said nothing.
Silence unnerved people. It made their insults vanish into a void.
His silence only enraged Chris further. "What's the matter, trash? Cat got your tongue?"
Chris took a step forward. His foot "accidentally" hooked Edward's ankle. He gave a sharp tug.
Edward stumbled. The heavy refuse bin tipped over.
The contents; half-eaten food, discarded wrappers, sticky, spilled drinks spilled out in a disgusting wave. Right onto Edward.
He was covered in it. The crowd erupted in jeers and laughter.
Edward lay there in the pile of garbage. The foul-smelling refuse clung to his uniform and hair. A new low.
He felt the cold burn of rage. But he locked it down. Losing his temper was what Chris wanted.
He slowly began to pick himself up.
But the humiliation wasn't over. The Headmaster, from his high seat, decided this was a perfect teachable moment.
"It seems one of our janitorial staff has had a mishap," the Headmaster announced, his voice echoing through the arena. "But let this be a lesson. Every person has a role, no matter how humble."
The crowd murmured in agreement.
"In fact," the Headmaster continued, a cruel idea forming, "to demonstrate this, let us have a special exhibition! Let us see how even the weakest can face a challenge!"
A cold dread washed over Edward. He knew what was coming.
"Let's have him face one of the academy's training golems!"
The crowd roared. It was a circus act. A public flogging disguised as an exhibition.
They were going to watch the Rankless trash get beaten for their entertainment.
Guards dragged a stunned Edward to his feet. They pulled him into the center of the arena.
He stood there, alone on the sun-bleached sand. The jeers of thousands washed over him. He was weaponless. He was powerless. He was covered in garbage.
This was the tournament of his shame.
A stone platform rose from the arena floor. His opponent.
A ten-foot-tall training golem of stone and metal. It was designed to test novice students.
Against a normal student, it was a fair fight. Against him, it was a public execution.
The golem's crystal eyes locked onto him. It raised its massive stone fists.
Edward stood his ground. He could feel the twenty Soul Points he had left. A tiny, secret reservoir of power. He had his dagger. He had his skills.
He could fight. He could even win.
But what would that prove? It would only raise more questions. More suspicion.
Sometimes, the most strategic move was to do nothing. To play the part they had assigned him.
He relaxed his fists. He waited. The golem took a heavy step forward. Its arm reeled back for the first blow. The crowd leaned forward, ready for the show.
And then the world screamed.
Not a human sound. A high-pitched, tearing shriek. The sound of reality being rent asunder.
Every head in the arena snapped upwards.
Above the coliseum, a shimmering, unnatural tear had appeared in the sky. A massive, swirling vortex of black and purple energy. Far larger and more unstable than the goblin breach.
A high-level dungeon breach. Right here. Right now.
A deafening, terrifying siren began to blare. A frantic warning that was already too late.
The tournament of shame had just been interrupted by the apocalypse.