The Trials Begin (5)
The wave reached him.
Nero felt it before anything else.
Not pressure.
Not force.
Absence.
It passed through him like something searching for structure—and finding none worth reacting to. For a brief, fleeting moment, there was a hollow stillness inside his chest, as though something had brushed against the very core of him…
…and failed to grasp anything.
Then it was gone.
Just like that.
No resistance.
No consequence.
No judgment.
It continued past him as if he had never been there.
The world resumed.
To his left, a boy seized mid-breath, his body locking rigid before white fire swallowed him whole. There was no heat, no flare—just an instantaneous reduction to ash that scattered and vanished before touching the ground.
To his right, another candidate disappeared entirely. No light, no sound. One moment present, the next… nothing.
