The remaining days before the trial melted away under the thick, suffocating tension that had gripped Golden Star Academy.
In the public training plazas, students formed hasty battle arrays, trading exorbitant sums for spirit-repellent talismans, coagulant potions, and enchanted armor. Nobody talked about grades or theory anymore. The phrase on everyone's lips was the Black Crag.
An unmonitored survival zone. Three hundred students entering, with a historical fatality rate that made even seasoned border mercenaries sweat.
Yet, inside the private administrative sanctum of the Roy estate, life operated with mathematical, quiet precision.
I stood in front of the full-length mirror in my suite, fastening the silver buttons of my custom field coat. Unlike the standard burgundy academy uniform, this coat was woven from obsidian-dyed shadow-silk, layered underneath with reinforced alloy plating. Not that I needed physical armor anymore—the Chitinous Bio-Mesh woven beneath my epidermis had already settled to an absurd density, capable of deflecting blades and absorbing kinetic shockwaves without leaving a bruise.
Beside the vanity table, Ronald placed a sleek spatial storage band and two slender, ebony-sheathed daggers.
"Master Ryuk," Ronald spoke, bowing his head. "The logistical preparations for the academy convoy are complete. All six heavy-transport gunships will lift off from the central academy docks at precisely eight o'clock."
"Has the Vance family made any unusual deployments?" I asked, testing the balance of one dagger before sliding it smoothly into my boot sheath.
"Indeed," Ronald replied, his eyes narrowing with a sharp, professional chill. "Our financial intelligence confirms that Master Vance personally transferred three million liquid star coins into the black-market guilds of the outer slums two nights ago. Furthermore, six senior disciples from the Vance Clan's outer branch—all of them Stage 3 and Stage 4 Martial Adepts—have registered as trial participants through secondary noble sponsorships."
"Sponsored cannon fodder," I murmured coldly. "Arthur wants a pack of hounds to drive the beasts toward us while he waits with his Sun-Devouring Core."
"Precisely, Master. Shall I instruct our private mercenary company to intercept the transport shuttles?"
"No," I said, a faint, razor-sharp smile touching my lips. "Let them enter. If they die outside the gates, the Garrison will launch an inquiry. But inside the Black Crag? Alien beasts are notoriously careless with where they leave human bones."
I closed my eyes for a fraction of a second, tapping into the secondary thread of my consciousness.
Plaintext
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HOST PARASITE TELEMETRY (TARGET: ARTHUR VANCE)
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[Target Realm]: Martial Adept (Stage 3)
[Active Parasitic Clones]: 142,000 Units
[Colonization Site]: Entire Bronchial Network & Alveolar Beds
[Incubation Status]: Stage 3 (Complete Parasitic Lattice)
[Lethal Trigger Readiness]: 100% (Instant Pulmonary Collapse Available)
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One hundred and forty-two thousand clones.
They had wrapped themselves like an invisible, microscopic web around Arthur's respiratory tree. Every breath the golden boy took was now subsidized by my viral army. He felt stronger, more energetic, entirely unaware that the fiery vigor flowing through his chest was merely the thermal friction of thousands of dormant predators feeding on his qi.
Enjoy your false peak, Arthur, I thought. When you try to ignite that family artifact, my clones will snuff out your spark from the inside.
"Let's move, Ronald," I said, taking the spatial band. "We wouldn't want to keep our young master waiting."
The Central Airfield of Golden Star Academy looked like a military staging ground.
Six massive, armored assault shuttles hovered three feet above the tarmac, their anti-gravity repulsors kicking up howling gusts of wind. Around the boarding gates, hundreds of students stood in tight clusters, their faces pale beneath their tactical visors.
When my convoy rolled to a stop at the VIP platform, the bustling crowd fell abruptly silent.
I stepped out first, the wind catching the tails of my dark field coat.
A moment later, Lina emerged from the passenger side.
A collective gasp rippled through the front ranks of the students.
She wasn't wearing her academy skirt. Instead, she was clad in form-fitting, midnight-blue combat leathers, her long pink hair tied into a high, striking ponytail that whipped in the slipstream. Around her waist was a light-spirit rapier forged from sky-iron, a gift delivered to her vault the previous evening.
More terrifying than her attire, however, was her aura.
She made no effort to suppress it. The pure, unyielding majesty of a Stage 2 Martial Adept rippled outward in waves of subtle, suffocating heat. The ambient air around her seemed to warp faintly, carrying the ghostly, phantom resonance of an apex predator.
Just a week ago, she had been the disgraced, unawakened orphan that people mocked in the corridors.
Now, she stood on the tarmac like an empress preparing for war.
"Look at her... is that really Lina?" "Stage 2 Adept?! How is that possible? She awakened less than three weeks ago!" "It has to be the Roy estate's resources... he poured an entire fortune into her..."
Whispers of envy, awe, and dread buzzed among the crowd.
Lina didn't look at any of them. Her amber eyes remained fixed ahead, cold and resolute, until she glanced at me. When our eyes met, the icy resolve in her gaze melted into a subtle, reassuring warmth. She took half a step closer to my side, her boots clicking in unison with mine as we approached Shuttle 01.
Across the tarmac, leaning against the boarding ramp of Shuttle 03, was Arthur Vance.
He looked different. His eyes were rimmed with faint crimson veins, and a feverish, manic intensity burned in his blue pupils. Draped across his chest was a heavy, dark-red pendant bearing a glowing solar crest—the Sun-Devouring Core. Flanking him were six broad-shouldered youths with hardened, scar-marked faces, their hands resting loosely on heavy war-axes and cleavers.
Arthur caught my eye.
A twisted, cruel grin stretched across his pale lips. He didn't shout. He simply raised two fingers to his temple and dragged them across in a mocking salute.
I see you, Roy, his bloodshot eyes seemed to gleam. Enjoy the flight.
In my mind, a soft status ping chimed.
[Target Arthur Vance: Heart rate spiking to 160 BPM. Parasitic absorption rate +12%.]
I gave him a calm, leisurely nod, the kind an aristocrat gives to an insect buzzing near a window, and boarded Shuttle 01 with Lina.
Inside the VIP cabin, the heavy blast doors sealed shut, cutting off the deafening roar of the jet engines outside.
The shuttle lurched violently as it ascended into the storm clouds, banking hard toward the southern jagged perimeter of Lock Night City where the imperial border met the rift frontier.
Lina sat across from me in the plush leather seat, checking the tension of her rapier's scabbard.
Deep inside her sea of consciousness, the Sovereign Dragon Empress was pacing restlessly like a caged celestial tiger.
"Little girl, be on high alert the second those shuttle doors open," the Empress warned, her voice tight and razor-sharp. "
Lina tightened her grip on her hilt. 'I know, Senior. But I won't let Arthur touch Amar.'
"Hmph! Worry about yourself first!" the Empress snapped, though her tone softened with a strange, lingering dread as she turned her spiritual senses toward me. "And as for that boy... do not leave his side. As much as his presence terrifies my remaining soul... that inexplicable, devouring shroud around him is the only thing in this trial realm that can truly swallow an ancient calamity whole."
Lina looked up from her sword, her gaze resting on my face.
I was sitting quietly against the window, watching the jagged black spires of the distant mountains pierce through the storm clouds below.
To her, I looked like a calm, calculating young master preparing for a difficult board meeting.
She couldn't see what was happening beneath the surface of my skin.
Plaintext
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SWARM STATUS PANEL
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[User]: Amar Roy
[Physical Realm]: Martial Adept (Stage 2)
[Main Form]: Human
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[CLONE SWARM MATRIX]:
- Active Bacteriophage Clones: 571,840,000 / 1,000,000,000
- Colony Tier: Primary Swarm (Tier 1 - Saturated)
- Environmental Status: Approaching High-Rift Density Zone
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[SWARM READINESS]:
- Active Aerosol Cloud: Primed (10-Meter Instant Deployment)
- Kinetic Bio-Armor: 75% Absorption Online
- Chitin Weaponry: Dormant (Awaiting Target Blood)
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Five hundred and seventy-one million clones.
More than halfway to the billion milestone.
Through the vibrating floor of the shuttle, I could feel the atmospheric pressure changing. The air was growing thinner, heavier, saturated with the wild, untamed radiation of the space rifts.
In thirty minutes, the shuttle would touch down on the edge of the Black Crag.
Arthur Vance thought he had brought an execution squad. The Academy Council thought they were testing our survival instincts.
They had no idea that they were opening the gates of an untamed wasteland to five hundred and seventy million invisible predators who had just caught the scent of blood.
I looked across the cabin at Lina, offering her a faint, gentle smile.
"Are you ready, Lina?" I asked softly.
She drew her sky-iron rapier an inch from its sheath, the blade flashing with cold, celestial golden light.
"I'm ready, Amar."
"Good," I murmured, turning back to the window as the shuttle breached the lower cloud deck, revealing the endless, jagged expanse of black stone below.
"Then let's go hunting."