As Kai walked back to the group of survivors, he navigated a landscape of different faces.
Some recruits wore expressions of grim triumph; others bore the hollow stare of shell shock, their bodies trembling with spent adrenaline.
The six elite soldiers re-entered the white hall, their earlier amusement gone, replaced by a chilling, professional blankness.
"The first and second tests are concluded," the one with twin daggers strapped to his chest announced. "Fifty passed. The remainder have failed."
He gestured to the right side of the resounding room with a blade-like hand. "The twenty failed candidates who are still breathing will now stand here." A grim smile stretched across his lips, devoid of any warmth.
For a full ten minutes, no one moved as fear and denial reeled in them. Eyes of accusation and pleading darted around.
It was painfully obvious to spot those who had faltered—their postures slumped, their hands still shaking.
The two spear-wielding soldiers stepped forward, unfurling a crisp sheet. "Step forward now," the one with fiery red hair commanded in a low, growling voice, "or we will drag you out."
Slowly, like condemned prisoners, they began to separate themselves.
Some of those who had passed reached out instinctively, their hands closing on empty air as if to pull their failing comrades back by invisible threads.
The social order of the group was shattered. Among the failed stood five of the most physically imposing recruits, their bravado now stripped away and replaced by a dawning horror.
And standing calmly amidst the "passed" group was the small boy everyone had written off—Kai.
The soldier with the sickle silently gestured, and the failed group was herded out through a heavy side door.
Lieutenant Gray entered through the same door a moment later, his polished boots clicking on the stone.
A faint, assessing smile played on his lips as he surveyed the survivors.
"Congratulations on passing the second test," Gray said, his voice echoing loudly. "You have earned the right to continue." He paused, letting the momentary relief sink in before twisting the knife.
"But know this: if any of you fail the remaining trials and we discover you were hiding reserve strength or capability…" His eyes turned to glacial chips.
"You will spend every remaining day of your long life scrubbing monster gore from the city gutters. Do I make myself clear?"
No one dared to answer. The threat hung in the air, more intimate and terrifying than the specter of quick death.
"Follow me. The next test is conducted off-site."
…
They marched through a series of tunnels that eventually led to a vast, domed chamber with a transparent crystalline ceiling.
The noon sun hammered down, magnified by the lens-like structure, turning the space into a giant greenhouse of heat and light. The remaining participants were arranged in groups of five.
"Pay attention!" Gray's voice boomed. He pointed to five colossal obsidian pillars arranged in a wide pentagon, each one at least a quarter-mile apart.
"You will run the route. Complete fifteen full laps. Maintain your entry speed upon return to the starting pillar. This is the simplest test of endurance you will ever face."
A strange, almost predatory smile touched his lips as his words ended.
Ninety percent of the fifty recruits felt a cold dread seep into their stomachs.
Simple? The pillars were distant monoliths under a blazing sun. Fifteen laps were a marathon of agony. How many would even make five?
The shared thought was a silent scream in their minds.
Kai's mind, however, was on a more immediate concern: the sharp, hollow ache in his gut—the need for food.
At the signal, they launched. Within five minutes, the front runners—the remaining physical elites—were already rounding the second pillar.
Then the true nature of the test was revealed.
From hidden panels in the walls, soldiers emerged. They wore expressionless ceramic masks—some frozen in ridiculous smiles, others in grins of anger or sorrow.
They stood like sentinels, arms crossed, each holding a small, black remote.
They began to press buttons. The blazing lights intensified to a painful, blinding glare.
Simultaneously, hot water began to rain from the ceiling in an unpredictable torrent.
While others cried out, stumbling as searing water blistered their skin, Kai moved with an uncanny, fluid grace.
He weaved, ducked, and pivoted, not with frantic energy, but with a prescient calm that made his small body dominate the chaos.
The vibrations thrumming through the floor and air told him everything—the millisecond before a jet of water would fall, the subtle shift before a hidden pressure plate triggered a blunt metal piston to shoot up from the ground. He avoided them all, almost like a ghost in the machine.
He remained almost perfectly dry, his pace never faltering into a panicked sprint.
By the time he completed his third lap, he had closed the gap on the lead pack. The huge recruits gasped as the small, dry boy glided past them.
"How? He was just at the start!" a blue-haired giant wheezed, clutching a stitch in his side.
"He's already on the fourth pillar!" another bellowed, disbelief overriding his pain.
"Damn it! I won't be shown up by a brat!" a previously collapsed, skinny recruit roared, surging back to his feet with a final reservoir of pride, then took off after Kai.
A spark ignited in the others. Seeing the impossible stance of a child not just surviving, but mastering the hellscape, a spark ignited in the others.
Despair turned into a feverish determination. They began to watch Kai, not just as a competitor, but as a blueprint. They studied his rhythms, his slight shifts in direction.
Some tried to mimic his movements. None could replicate his seamless flow, but a few began to anticipate the triggers—a flinch a second earlier, a sidestep that avoided the worst of a water blast.
The gauntlet became slightly less dense, shifting from pure chaos to a brutal puzzle a handful could now partially solve.
Kai crossed the final mark, completing all five pillars and fifteen laps. He stood, barely winded, and looked up.
Through the transparent wall of the observation deck high above, he saw Lieutenant Gray. The man was not watching the stragglers or the middle of the pack.
His dark-blue eyes were locked solely on Kai, and on his lips was a smile of unsettling satisfaction.
…
"Whose child is that?" the blue-haired recruit rasped to his companion, pointing a trembling finger at Kai.
"He's no child," another muttered, voice thick with superstition and fear. "You know the old tales… monsters that wear human skin, living among us, doing our work with impossible ease."
"That's a thousand-year-old ghost story," a slim recruit retorted, but his eyes were wide with doubt. "But… look at his eyes. That's not human."
At the finish line, Kai closed his eyes, trying to pretend the exhaustion expected of him. But it was useless.
His senses were hyper-alive. He could feel the shallow, ragged breath of every recruit around him, could sense the focused attention of the masked soldiers behind the walls, all through the subtle vibrations they sent through the stone and air.
A disembodied voice, synthesized to match Gray's commanding tone, echoed from speakers in the ceiling and walls: "Congratulations on completing the third evaluation. Identity tags will be issued to all successful candidates."
The voice paused for two minutes, then continued.
"Those who do not receive a tag will follow the illumined arrows on the western wall and await their processing."
The test was over, but the judgment was just beginning.