At 7:00 AM, Leon halted at the meeting point mentioned in the black envelope, panting heavily. Exhaustion clung to him as he watched the sea of students crowding the central city of Thule.
As Leon moved forward, he saw Jade standing among a group of wealthy guys, laughing. One of Jade's friends saw Leon and tapped on Jade's shoulder.
When Jade turned, Leon wasn't there.
Sweet-scented air drifted into Leon's nose as he bumped into two identical ladies.
"Sorry," he apologized and continued without giving them a second look.
After passing several students he couldn't count, he saw Vera. Vera stood there, brushing a hand against a broad-shouldered guy's chest in a sarcastic manner.
With every touch, the guy's expression softened, as if charmed under a spell. "Don't stop," the guy said when Vera removed her finger from the center of his chest.
When Jade and his friends appeared behind the guy, Vera's eyes widened in shock. She dropped her act, pushed the guy to the side, and then threw herself on Jade.
Jade remained still as Vera wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him deeply.
The poor students standing close had shock filling their faces. But those who bathed with money stood there smiling.
"Money," Leon whispered, then continued toward the main entry point.
Before Leon could stop at the entrance queue, he stumbled when he saw Tiger cracking his knuckles in slow pops.
The look in Tiger's eyes gave Leon one final sentence: 'I'm ready for you this time.'
A few minutes after Leon stopped and shifted his gaze to those entering the crowd from afar, a sharp chime echoed. It snapped every student's gaze toward the towering screen hanging over them.
The screen, which was at first displaying pictures of men in black combat uniforms and unearthly monsters, now showed one single image.
The murmuring students all became extremely quiet when a silhouette of a proctor in a severe uniform loomed over the screen.
A loud feminine voice rose from both sides and the ground.
"Welcome, awakened and normal students."
The students turned to each other's confused faces as they questioned themselves.
"Awakened and normal? Who are the awakened?"
Before anyone could get an answer, another voice rose.
"Your first trial begins in thirty minutes. Survive in the Shattered Land."
The name hung in the air like a curse, doubling their unanswered questions.
'The Shattered Land?' Leon thought as images he had seen from his history books flashed into his mind.
'The place that serves as a scar left behind by the last great war?' He looked up and watched the images referencing the actual land.
'Shattered Land, the breeding ground for monsters? Nice.' Leon's face glowed with both joy and fear when a towering monster appeared on the screen.
The proctor's voice rose again in a cold tone. "Enjoy your ride."
After a few seconds, a low hum filled the plaza. Star-shaped symbols flared to life beneath each student's feet.
The students wowed as lines of light crawled across the stone like transparent snakes. It weaved the entire floor into a massive, glowing teleportation array and climbed on their legs.
Each student got scanned by a light blue light that swept across their faces. Some had fear in their eyes, while others stood there as if they had gone through it over and over.
Leon's heart hammered against his chest when the blue light finished scanning his face and reached his neck.
Deep within him, he felt the restless energy stirring like a plucked string as the light continued scanning his chest.
After all the students were assessed, they marched onto different platforms in groups. On the platform Leon walked to, he caught Tiger's eyes from a distance. Tiger stared straight into Leon's eyes, as if only the two of them were on the now-moving platform.
'Hasn't he done enough?' Leon said low in his head and shifted his gaze to the right.
There, Jade was also watching. He stood there with no emotion, as if the land they were being sent to was a mere excursion. Beside him, Vera clung to him like a snail. Her earlier bravado was gone, entirely replaced by a genuine fear that was all over her face.
When the platform reached five meters below, it launched upward at the speed of light.
Above them was a swirling blue beam of light. Each student got hit and teleported in motes of light.
Leon's own came with nausea, as if his atoms were yanked through a keyhole and slammed back together in the wrong order.
Everything on the platform went dark.
When two seconds passed, the students' bodies reassembled on a cracked crimson earth. The stones on the land crunched like dry bones beneath their boots as they moved forward.
The taste of rust and rotten meat seared into Leon's lungs as he regained his senses. He blinked countless times before taking in a deep breath on the second time.
Tilting his head upward, he saw not only the sky but a living, floating green fire. The clouds, which should have been ash in color, were purple. They pulsed, stretched across the sickly green light, and throbbed in a slow rhythm.
There was no sun, moon, or stars. Only a faint eldritch glow from jagged rocks jutted like broken teeth.
While other students rushed forward searching for those they knew, many others materialized and bumped into one another.
Ninety-nine percent of the students had someone they knew. Leon was the one percent who came alone.
As he watched them reunite with each other, Mr. Lee's words echoed in his head after a broad-shouldered student shoved him aside. Only the strong survive.
…
Minutes after every student had materialized, small drones zipped from nowhere and hovered above them.
Holographic messages brightened the dark sky.
[TRIAL 1: SURVIVAL]
[DURATION: 48 HOURS]
[WARNING: THE TERRITORY IS HOSTILE]
The hologram later displayed a ghostly map with a single pulsing waypoint across the sky as the drones vanished one after another.
'48 hours? No food or water?' Leon wondered, then turned to watch the other students.
On their pale and reddened faces, he could tell they were also asking the same question he had asked.
While some students relaxed on the ground, a skittering sound erupted from a canyon on the far left of the land.
The sound was so sharp and loud that it froze every warm blood.
"…monsters are coming!"
"…where?!"
"…they are everywhere!"
The air grew thicker as ten percent of the students closer to the canyon set out into a stampede. Screams erupted like a ragged hymn of pure terror.
As the strong moved forward, the weak among them fell. In an instant, they became a carpet beneath the rushing crowd.
Leon was neither weak nor that strong, yet he managed to pull himself from the ground after he got shoved by a broad-shouldered student.
When he turned to see those nearing him, he froze.
Shreds of human flesh steamed across the crimson earth like grotesque confetti. That didn't just hit him; it unmade the concept of "death."
"What the fuck!" he shouted.
Before he could close his mouth, countless pieces of the drifting flesh coated his tongue. It didn't taste like meat, blood, or anything foodlike. Instead, it had the same coppery warning tang he'd tasted when he first experienced his power awakening.
"No… no, no, no, no," he said and gagged at the same time. He shook his head and tried to unswallow the ones that were already taking refuge in his stomach.
When he managed to pull some up to the middle of his throat, a deafening sound struck and made him swallow again.
A voice rose in his head when he straightened: the first trial has begun. And there is no way back.
…
After several hours, the holographic message reappeared.
[PARTICIPANTS: 10,000]
[DEAD: 1500]
Leon's face paled in a flash. Yet he navigated through lands that were twisted, unlike the other students who stood there and got killed by the unseen monsters.
Leon skirted ridges that rippled like frozen waves and avoided narrow crevices that exhaled eye-stinging vapors.
He threw himself through a dwarf-like hole when he spotted a dog-like monster with four blazing eyes and a long, blade-like tail.
When he stood up, he found himself standing in a cave of jagged, translucent crystal that shimmered like thousands of moons.
He rushed and hid behind a square-crystal pillar when he felt something watching him. He ducked down as soon as a chittering sound like knives being dragged across glass blasted from behind the pillar.
For a second, Leon saw heaven as a creature with flat, long, and sharp limbs stopped just an inch from his side, growling.
Its long limbs moved on their own and stretched toward Leon's direction as if they had brains of their own.
Leon held his breath and closed his eyes after one limb stretched toward him.
The cave's atmosphere remained tense as if the land itself was waiting for Leon to falter.
As soon as the limb closed an inch before Leon's face, a crackling sound echoed and dragged the creature at an unmeasured speed.
Leon remained still even when the creature's presence was no longer there. He rushed outside like a mouse fleeing from a cat.
He scrambled down a steep slope and breathed heavily. 'I'm safe here.'
As soon as the thought faded, a new sound cut through the silence around him and made him scream in a fatigue-weighed voice. "Not again…"