The fourth stage began without warning.
No ceremony.
No speeches.
No preparation beyond a single command echoing across the remaining platforms.
And then—
the world changed.
The Hunting World
The fifty candidates were transported.
Not to an arena.
Not to a platform.
But to an entire planet.
A wild, untamed world filled with monstrous lifeforms.
Mountains that moved like living beasts.
Oceans that roared with predatory intelligence.
Forests where even the air itself felt hostile.
The rules of this stage were simple:
Collect as many points as possible by hunting beasts.
And more dangerously—
steal resources from other candidates if possible.
This was no longer a duel of honor.
It was survival layered over competition.
A race where every hunter could become prey.
The moment they arrived—
they dispersed.
No coordination.
No alliances.
Only instinct and ambition.
Fifty monsters scattered across a world of monsters.
The Hunt Begins
Vladimir moved first.
Crimson flames erupted around him as entire packs of beasts were reduced to ash before they could even react.
He did not chase.
He did not hesitate.
He simply burned everything within range until nothing remained but scorched ground.
William moved differently.
He did not waste time traveling physically.
He stepped through the invisible structure of space itself.
Distance became meaningless.
His fists appeared inside enemy formations before his body even arrived.
Beasts collapsed one after another as he disrupted their existence at a fundamental level.
Kashmir melted into the shadows of the planet.
He did not fight directly.
He allowed his shadow army to spread across the terrain like a plague.
Beasts were captured silently, drained, and stored within the depths of his shadow world.
A growing reservoir of living energy.
Merito walked through destruction like a silent absence.
At first, the environment resisted him.
Speed-based beasts tried to overwhelm him.
Spatial predators attempted ambushes.
But every time—
he erased the moment they acted.
Time between attacker and target ceased to exist.
He would appear beside them and strike with a simple blade.
Then store them in a containment bag where even weight and storage limits had been nullified.
Everything became reduced to nothingness.
Controlled nothingness.
Mark moved like light itself.
Entire packs of beasts were gathered into luminous paths and sliced apart by condensed beams of celestial energy.
His hunting style was efficient.
Elegant.
Absolute.
Javier the sixth ranked candidate don't need to do anything complicate
He need only to cut .
If a beast existed on his way —
he cut its existence into separate truths.
Nothing survived contact with his blade.
Daniel distorted space itself.
He did not attack beasts directly.
He tore apart the space between their organs.
A single gesture could turn a massive predator into a collapsing collection of separated matter.
And so it continued.
For three days.
No rest.
No pause.
Only slaughter and accumulation.
When the stage ended—
the results were announced.
A vast ranking appeared across the sky.
KASHMIR
MARK
WILLIAM
XAVIER
Daniel
MIRITO
Vladimir
THIAGO (Gravity Body)
MARIA (Replication Body)
SARA (Void Destruction Body)
The rest followed behind.
A wave of dissatisfaction spread immediately.
Several candidates questioned the fairness of the distribution.
Others argued that environmental conditions, interference, and stolen resources had distorted the true outcome.
The atmosphere grew tense.
Arguments erupted across the battlefield.
But the judge remained unmoved.
Then—
he raised his hand.
The Deciding Trial
A voice echoed across the planet.
"To determine rightful ownership of the top ten positions… a final selection phase will be conducted."
Silence fell.
Even the strongest candidates focused.
The judge continued.
"The candidates ranked outside the top ten will now have the opportunity to challenge the current top ten."
A shift occurred in the atmosphere.
Not a reward.
Not a consolation.
A second war.
The real war.
The judge extended his hand.
A massive structure began forming at the center of the planet.
A floating arena constructed from cosmic material.
A battlefield designed not for hunting—
but for judgment.
"No restrictions will apply," the judge announced.
"Any candidate outside the top ten may challenge any of the top ten directly."
"If they win—"
"They take the position."
"If they lose—"
"They are eliminated from contention."
A cold silence followed.
The true meaning of the stage became clear.
The top ten were not secure.
They were targets.
And the ones outside—
were predators seeking replacement.
The arena stabilized.
The cosmic structure pulsed with light.
And for the first time in this stage—
the hierarchy of power was no longer fixed.
It could be rewritten.
By force.
By battle.
By survival.
The cosmic arena stabilized at the center of the planet.
A structure forged not for spectacle—
but for truth.
Its surface reflected the laws of reality themselves, bending slightly under the pressure of the beings gathered around it.
The announcement had changed everything.
The candidates outside the top ten were no longer ranked as failures.
They were challengers.
And the top ten were no longer safe positions.
They were targets that had to prove their legitimacy.
For a brief moment, silence dominated the battlefield.
Then—
movement.
The First Wave of Challenges
The lower-ranked candidates struck first.
Not out of arrogance.
But desperation.
Each of them understood the same truth:
this was their final chance to rewrite destiny.
They surged toward the arena like a collapsing storm.
Dozens of challengers selected their targets.
And the battles began.
Mark's Arena
A challenger attempted to reach Mark before even fully entering the platform.
It did not end in a clash.
It ended in an instant.
A flash of celestial light passed through the battlefield.
When the light faded—
the challenger had already fallen out of the arena.
No struggle.
No resistance.
Only overwhelming speed.
Mark stood still as if nothing had happened.
Daniel's Arena
A space-manipulation expert attempted to trap Daniel within a layered spatial prison.
The structure formed perfectly.
Then immediately failed.
Daniel did not break it.
He simply stepped through a version of space where the prison had never fully existed.
The challenger's expression turned pale as his own technique collapsed around him.
A single counter-shift ended the duel.
Vladimir's Arena
Flames erupted violently as a group of challengers attacked together.
Their combined techniques created storms capable of destroying continents.
But Vladimir did not retreat.
He advanced.
The fire around him responded like a living extension of his will.
The opposing flames were consumed, reversed, and rewritten into his own power.
The challengers collapsed one after another under the weight of their own extinguished attacks.
William's place
Several challengers coordinated an attack meant to isolate him.
They attempted to sever his perception, overwhelm his senses, and trap him in layered attacks from multiple directions.
For a moment—
it seemed effective.
Then William closed his eyes.
And the world around him became lines.
Connections.
Threads.
He did not fight the attackers.
He removed their relation to their own actions.
Their attacks passed through empty space.
Their coordination broke apart instantly.
Within moments, all challengers were thrown out of the arena without understanding how they had lost.
Kashmir's Arena
The shadows expanded before the challengers even arrived.
What awaited them was not a battlefield—
but a domain.
Inside it, every movement became slower.
Every attack was absorbed.
Every attempt to resist was turned into fuel for the shadows themselves.
One by one, the challengers were swallowed into darkness and expelled outside the arena unconscious.
Merito's Arena
The challengers rushed him together.
Too many attacks to count.
Too many techniques layered over each other.
But the moment they reached him—
they ceased.
Not blocked .
Not destroyed .
Simply removed from the moment they occurred.
When perception returned, the challengers were already outside the arena, unable to recall the exact sequence of their defeat.
Only the certainty remained:
they had never truly been able to fight him.
Javier's Arena
He did not move.
He waited.
The first challenger attacked.
The blade was already gone.
Not deflected.
Separated from the concept of "being a weapon."
The challenger's technique collapsed mid-execution.
Xavier stepped forward once.
The battle ended.
Even Maria, Tiago, and Sarah demonstrated absolute dominance in their respective arenas, each overwhelming challengers who attempted to exploit weaknesses that no longer existed under direct confrontation.
The Final Outcome
As time passed, the wave of challengers began to diminish.
One by one—
they fell.
Not through lack of courage.
But through overwhelming disparity in comprehension of power.
The truth of the top ten became undeniable.
They were not simply stronger.
They operated on different layers of reality.
When the last challenger was expelled from the arena—
silence returned.
The judge raised his hand once more.
His voice echoed across the planet.
"All challenges have concluded."
A pause.
Then—
"The top ten positions are confirmed."
No objections remained.
No doubts survived.
Because even those who lost had witnessed the same truth.
The ranking was not arbitrary.
It was not symbolic.
It was earned.
The cosmic arena slowly dissolved, leaving behind the ten candidates standing alone upon the planet.
Not as participants in a trial anymore—
but as confirmed pillars of the tournament's highest stage.
And somewhere beyond the planet itself—
greater observers were already watching.
They are waiting .
They are measuring.
They are preparing for what came next.