The grounds were still vibrating from Solomon’s booming voice as the ten candidates rejoined the rest of the first year Goats. Students from every Alliance remained gathered around the Combat grounds, with the Griffins and Behemoths standing closest to the Goats. From the edge of the stone platform, Leonardo caught their gaze. With two fingers, he gestured for them to return to their formation. A barely visible grin tugged at the corner of his mouth.
The Goats gathered tightly together, shoulder to shoulder on the sand. The tension began to drain from their bodies. Several of them exchanged proud looks, convinced that stepping forward before Solomon and the eight Faculty Leaders had been the hardest part. Their shoulders relaxed and a quiet sense of satisfaction spread through the formation.
Vulkan folded his arms and let out a confident laugh.
“We got this.”
Before anyone could agree, a voice tore across the field.
“HMMM… DID YOU NOT FORGET ONE THING?!”
The raw, tar and ash soaked voice of Master Juro echoed across the open plain.
Every trace of satisfaction vanished. The entire group froze. An icy, charged silence descended upon the Combat grounds. Silarias, Nyx, and the rest of the Goats stood motionless in formation. Like a single machine, they turned around slowly. Questioning, agitated looks darted back and forth between them.
All around them, first years from every Alliance watched. The Griffins and Behemoths closest to the Goats stared openly. Some looked at them with wide, fearful eyes, but most gazes burned with pure hatred or arrogant contempt. What do these guys think of themselves? the onlookers thought. In the end, most of them are only eighteen too, while some are still snot nosed kids.
Silarias narrowed his eyes. His knuckles turned white as he clenched his fists so hard that his nails bit into his palms. His heart began to pound wildly against his ribcage. He is not going to give us a single second of rest, he thought, as cold adrenaline surged through his veins. This is not an announcement. This is an ambush.
Master Juro took a slow, deep drag from his metal pipe. The fire in the bowl flared brightly, casting an orange glow across his hardened, scar laden face. He blew out a thick, gray ring of smoke that rolled slowly over the sand, spreading outward and beginning to obscure the view of his feet.
“WHO TOLD YOU THAT YOU HAD PASSED?!” Juro roared.
His voice struck the field like a physical blow.
“COMBAT TRAINING BEGINS NOW, DODOS! YOUR TIME STARTS NOW!”
Almost at once, Silarias, Vulkan, Beat, Nyx, and Aurelius reached for the clasps of their black Goat cloaks. With a powerful, practiced motion, they tossed the fabric into the air. The heavy black cloaks flared out against the clear blue sky, caught the wind like the wings of swooping birds of prey, and landed in deep shadow on the sand. The five lowered themselves into fighting stances. Their centers of gravity dropped, the muscles in their thighs tightened, and their breathing became deep and focused.
Vulkan leaned slightly to the side with a sweaty forehead and looked with an agitated, confused expression at the girl beside him. “Ehh… psst, Valeria, why are we actually getting ready? We have not even gotten a signal!”
Valeria did not turn her head a millimeter away from the rising steam on the field and cast a quick, nervous glance at Nyx. “Yeah, why?! What kind of random fighting stance is this?!”
Before Nyx could part her lips, the stone ground between them tore open. This was no normal dust cloud. Thick azure mist billowed from the cracks in the sand with a loud hiss. The temperature around their ankles dropped instantly and condensation formed on their boots. In one fluid movement, the smoke converged and formed the massive figure of Master Juro directly in the middle of their formation.
Without a trace of hesitation, Juro struck out. His heavy hand grabbed Vulkan’s collar, and the hydraulic pressure in Juro’s forearm discharged with a dull thud. Vulkan swallowed his cry as he was effortlessly hurled aside, sliding meters across the stones and leaving a deep trail of kicked up sand behind him.
In the same unbroken movement, Juro’s lower body dissolved into a swirling azure smoke shift. He glided like a dangerous shadow across the ground, straight at Silarias. His sharp, dark eyes remained tightly fixed on the boy.
“So, little monkey… you have grown?!”
Juro brought his elbow down with devastating force. The displaced air shrieked in their ears. Silarias crossed his forearms above his head at the very last moment, but the brutal impact knocked the air from his lungs. Unable to hold his ground, he was launched through the air like a skipped stone. Silarias’s teeth slammed together. What speed! he thought, gritting his teeth while the world spun before his eyes. He is using his own mass to accelerate the smoke cloud! While airborne, Silarias twisted from his hips, turned his fall into a smooth flip, and landed in a deep slide. He dragged one hand through the sand, carving a trench to slow himself down.
Juro was already turning around on the sand. His gaze found Beat and Apollo, who exchanged a fleeting glance. No consultation was necessary.
“Let us see if those legs of yours are worth anything!” Juro growled.
Beat and Apollo shot forward. Beat’s eyes lit up in a dangerous crimson glow. Static electricity crackled from his arms to the ground, and the muscles in his calves strained to their limit. Beside him, Apollo’s eyes radiated a bright orange light that made the air around him quiver. The two began circling Juro at full speed. Dust, sand, lightning, and sparks of fire merged into a raging, colorful storm.
If we enclose him in a slipstream, he cannot consolidate his smoke! Beat thought, while his heart hammered wildly in his throat. We cut off his vision and draw the oxygen away!
In the middle of the swirling dust cloud, Juro stood completely motionless. A low, rasping laugh rose from his chest.
“Haha… pff… wait, do I taste straw… doesn’t matter, I’m getting you.”
With a wide sweep of his arm, Juro fired a fan of tiny smoke particles. They were no ordinary magical projectiles and did not travel in straight lines. They sought friction. The faster an object moved and the more friction it generated against the surrounding air, the more strongly the projectiles were drawn toward it.
Beat, who was on the verge of building even more speed, felt the friction beneath his feet increase. One of the smoke bullets accelerated toward the heat of his sprint and struck his ankle with a dull crack. His leg buckled. He lost his balance and slid forward at full speed, crashing straight into Apollo’s legs. The raging storm collapsed in an instant.
Even before the two boys hit the ground, two massive claws constructed from soot shot up out of the sand. The smoke hands gripped Beat and Apollo firmly around their chests, lifting them effortlessly and holding them helplessly in the air.
Heavy, rhythmic footsteps echoed through the cooling mist. Master Juro strode forward calmly. A smoke vent embedded in his throat glowed brightly, pulsing azure with the deep rhythm of his breathing. His Lucid Armor shifted seamlessly as flexible plates of hardened smoke and dark metal formed around his broad shoulders, chest, and forearms. He stood like an indestructible fortress built from pure combat experience.
Look at them, Juro thought, as his gaze slid past the gasping boys. Big talk about multiple Faculties, but their foundation wavers the moment chaos takes over. I will break them until nothing remains but pure steel.
He stood still, letting the smoke slowly circle around his boots, and looked at the onlookers with an icy cold glare.
“So… first years. Ready for the test?”
At the side of the field, a first year Griffin leaned nervously closer to a massive Behemoth. “Man, that guy is an absolute monster. But well, he probably only does that against them to show them who is boss…”
The Griffin had not even finished his sentence before Juro’s head turned toward him with a dangerous click.
Without warning, Juro hurled himself like a dark meteor toward the onlookers. A wave of Black Carbon mixed with the azure smoke and slammed across the plain like a gruesome shockwave. The blast threw sand meters into the air and filled the grounds with the sharp scent of burnt iron. The black matter spread across Juro’s entire body and hardened into shining armor that resembled solid soot. With brutal strikes and throws, he began hurling the surrounding Griffins and Behemoths through the air. Bodies flew in every direction and cries of shock filled the grounds.
At the edge of the raised stone platform, Solomon looked with a slightly raised eyebrow at the abrupt slaughter on the field. He leaned with a tight face toward Mistress Vespera.
“Ehh… is he always so… ehh… outspoken in his didactic methods?”
“YEP,” Vespera interrupted sharply, without shifting her gaze from the chaos on the sand.
Solomon cleared his throat and tried to maintain his professional posture while wiping a strand of straw off his sleeve. “Because if he beats half the first years into the infirmary on the first day in this manner…”
He was rudely startled by two high pitched, excited voices right below the edge of the platform. Miki and Ren were waving their arms wildly to attract the attention of the Occult Leader.
“PSSST! Vespa!” Miki shouted, her voice cracking with pure enthusiasm. “We have experienced so much since the Ward! And we missed you so very…”
Before Miki could finish her sentence, a thick, coiling smoke tentacle shot up out of the cloud beneath them. The tentacle wrapped around the waists of Miki and Ren like a snake and yanked them into the air with a hard jerk.
Solomon and Vespera exchanged a tense look. Neither of them said a word.
Miki and Ren tumbled through the swirling azure smoke. Despite the wild rotation, Ren remained focused. Not now! he thought fiercely. We will not let ourselves be swept aside like little children!
With a movement as fast as lightning, he channeled his mana. Several flexible iron strips detached from his chestplate. They flew toward each other, connected with a crisp metallic click, and compressed into a heavy iron sickle with a razor sharp edge. Ren tensed his muscles and rotated his entire body in the air. The sickle carved a gleaming circle through the smoke tentacle in one clean stroke.
Miki used the opening immediately. She clenched her small fists, concentrated a fierce magical charge beneath the soles of her boots, and pushed off against the remaining shockwave. Together with Ren, she blasted through the smoke. They landed under control and slid several meters across the sand, stopping in the middle of a startled group of first year Griffins and Behemoths.
Miki and Ren sprang up as if nothing had happened. Full of adrenaline, with sparkling eyes and broad, proud grins, the two little ones ran up to the much larger students.
“Hey! Hey! We are first years too!” Miki yelled hyperactively, puffing out her chest. “We are Miki and Ren!”
Right in the middle of the total frenzy of flying bodies, roaring students, and blowing sand, the two held out their small hands expectantly to the group.
The Griffins and Behemoths stared from the small hands to the two determined faces. One of the Griffin students gave his companion a subtle nod, dismissively signaling for him to send the children away.
However, a gigantic female Behemoth stepped out of the line. Her broad shoulders and two large bull horns cast a long shadow over Miki and Ren. She looked at the outstretched hands with a deep frown, glanced at her chuckling Alliance members, and spat on the ground.
“Do not act so stupid toward them,” the girl grunted in a deep, raw voice that vibrated across the sand.
She turned back to Miki and Ren, leaned slightly forward, and grabbed both small hands at once with her giant, calloused hand.
“Hulda,” she said firmly, as the muscles on her broad arms tensed against the rising wind. “I am from the Oxtail Kingdom.”
Miki’s eyes immediately lit up as Hulda’s massive, calloused hand closed around her small fingers. Ren grabbed the side of the giant fist with both hands and shook it up and down with all his strength. The brutal threat of the battlefield seemed not to exist for a moment in their cheerful little bubble.
“Thank you so very much!” Miki shouted, her voice slightly cracking with genuine childlike relief. “We really thought for a second that everyone here was super mean!”
Ren nodded vigorously and showed a broad, innocent grin. “Yeah, we are really happy there are nice people here too!”
Right at that moment, the ground tore open. A deafening explosion of jet black matter blasted a crater into the sand less than twenty meters away. Four older students were flung through the air like ragdolls and collided hard with one another.
“SHOW ME WHAT YOU HAVE!!” roared the raw, demonic voice of Master Juro right through the thick, suffocating dust clouds. The pure shockwave made the stones beneath their feet vibrate violently.
Before Hulda could respond, a heavy thud struck the ground nearby. Something came bouncing toward them at incredible speed. A compact ball of azure smoke tumbled across the sand, carved a smoking trench, and stopped at the feet of the trio. As it came to rest, the swirling smoke rapidly dissolved into the sizzling air.
Heavy, painful coughs sounded from the mist. To everyone’s surprise, a slender woman of twenty rose from the trench. She hurriedly brushed the sand from her clothes, swept a strand of ash blonde hair from her face, and drew a deep, labored breath. Then she looked straight into the large, sparkling eyes of Miki and Ren.
Her face, smeared with soot, brightened in an instant. She seemed to forget the deadly battle around them completely.
“Oh, you are so cute!” she exclaimed with genuine admiration, her voice cheerful and high pitched. She stepped forward immediately, grabbed the hands of Miki and Ren, and began shaking them with exaggerated affection while gently patting their cheeks. “I am Siera Cinderpulse from the Phoenix Alliance.”
With an unexpectedly graceful and dignified movement, she executed a deep, perfect bow, as if she were in a royal ballroom instead of on a ruthless battlefield. When she looked up, she saw the imposing figure of the Behemoth standing there, and her face broke into a broad, warm smile.
“And you are here too, Hulda! Haha!” she called out in surprise, although another heavy cough immediately interrupted her laughter. She struck her chest a few times to clear the ash from her lungs.
Hulda let out a deep laugh that made her broad, muscular shoulders shake. “Yeah. Juro is intense, haha!”
Siera burst into cheerful laughter as well. It was an absurd tea party amidst total destruction. But this heartwarming reunion was brutally disrupted. From within the dense, ink black dust clouds behind them, a thick swirling smoke tentacle shot at lethal speed straight toward Siera’s back. The air pressure dropped and a sharp hissing sound cut through the biting wind.
Without looking back, Siera turned in one fluid motion. The heels of her boots ignited with a blinding orange glow, and the extreme heat distorted the air around her. With a devastating burning kick, she sliced straight through the massive tentacle. Sparks erupted in a brilliant arc. Glowing ethereal feathers drifted through the air as the remains of the deadly black smoke scattered into harmless wisps.
Ren stood rooted to the spot. His mouth hung wide open. He stared in pure awe at the glowing feathers slowly hissing as they landed on the sand. Slowly, very slowly, he turned his head to the left.
There stood a first year Griffin, staring with wide eyes and an open mouth just like Ren at Siera’s smoldering heels.
“WOAAHHHH,” the Griffin whispered, completely spellbound by the sudden explosion of deadly grace.
Ren nodded blankly, his eyes still wide. “Yeah… right.”
The Griffin snapped out of his trance. Realizing that he had been staring openly, he straightened his back and looked at Ren. What is the point of acting stupid or arrogant toward these guys anyway? Ethaniel thought as the battle continued around them. They are holding their ground, and that young guy actually seems pretty easy to get along with. He held out his hand in a stiff, awkward manner, cleared his throat, and made an obvious attempt to appear mature.
“Ethaniel Goldhart… young man…” he stammered, as a slight blush rose to his cheeks. He made a desperate effort to break the ice, but stumbled hopelessly over his own formal words. “Pleased to… eh…”
Further away, another group of students crashed into a massive pillar with a gruesome, bone shattering thud. A new brutal assault from the Master made the ground tremble beneath their feet.
“COME ON! KEEP MOVING OR I WILL BREAK YOUR LEGS!” the inhuman roar echoed across the ruined grounds. As the smoke crawled over, “I DON’T HAVE LEGS LEFT THAT CAN BE BROKEN!” could be heard screeching back from somewhere in the middle of it.
Before Ethaniel could properly finish his stuttering sentence, another slightly taller Griffin stepped forward calmly out of the shadow. He moved with a reserved, calm elegance and placed a soothing hand on Ethaniel’s shoulder.
“What Ethaniel is trying to say,” the newcomer began in an extremely polite, controlled tone, “is that you are doing quite well for such ki…”
He caught himself just in time. His flawless smile flickered before he smoothly corrected himself.
“…I mean, such young students. My name is Sigardus FederLuck.” His smile widened, and he looked at the two children with a genuinely welcoming gaze. “We are from the Griffin Alliance. Welcome to the university.”
With a perfect formal smile and a graceful light bow, Sigardus offered his inviting hand to Miki and Ren. The scene was completely surreal. A bizarre moment of noble politeness, while the world around them fell into a swirling storm of fire, ash, and relentless chaos.