Deep underground, blinding searchlights lit the fully sealed, colossal alloy chamber up bright as day.
Susannah Manatt gripped her automatic rifle, her palms slick with cold sweat.
In this open expanse, easily the size of four football fields, there was not a scrap of cover anywhere. The sheer exposure of it set her heart hammering beyond her control.
Yet when she turned her head and caught sight of Sin Mal standing beside her, that near-suffocating tension eased by a miraculous degree.
There was not a trace of timidity in Sin. A fanatical will to fight burned in her.
Susannah drew a deep breath.
She thought back to last night. After the two of them had bumped fists and sworn their oath, she had slept soundly for the first time in ages.
Probably because she had already steeled herself completely - whatever kind of hellish trial came next, she would grit her teeth and see it through.
"Hey. Susannah."
Sin Mal dropped her voice, trading information fast, at a volume only the two of them could catch.
"Something's off. This place is bare. It doesn't look like any standard tactical training ground - it looks more like an underground arena built to cage beasts."
Sin's fingers were already resting on the alloy dagger strapped to her outer thigh, her body angled slightly forward. "I've got a strong hunch. Whatever we're about to face, I don't think it's human at all."
Susannah blinked, her cowlick bobbing. "Not human? What's that supposed to mean? You're saying... the Chief Instructor's test is making us fight lions and tigers barehanded or something?"
She glanced down at her own gear, puzzled.
They were hardly barehanded right now. Their tactical vests were crammed with the newest model armor-piercing magazines, high-explosive grenades, special alloy short knives of astonishing hardness - the blades had even been fitted with high-frequency vibration functionality.
Their medical kits carried cardiac stimulants and high-concentration adrenaline that took effect within three seconds.
Armed to that degree, forget lions and tigers. Even a full-grown tyrannosaur would be shredded into a sieve in a heartbeat.
"I don't know."
Sin Mal's gaze stayed locked on the sealed, heavy metal gate directly ahead.
"But I can feel it. Something terrifying is watching us from the depths behind that door... Once the fighting starts, you stay glued to me. If you get eliminated, the joint-responsibility rule means I go down with you."
"Yes! I'll fight with everything I've got!"
Susannah nodded hard.
And it wasn't only Sin Mal.
All two hundred and fifty soldiers assembled here were elites who had crawled up through blade-light and blood.
They had picked up on the arena's unusual, murderous atmosphere just as keenly.
But so what?
Over the past three weeks they had endured inhuman torment they wouldn't have dared imagine even in their dreams.
The daily training intensity pushed their muscles right up to the dangerous threshold where the tissue began to dissolve.
And every time they felt certain they were about to die, they were mercilessly dumped into the special medical pods deep inside the base.
Those were black-tech medical pods Anti-Entropy had built by analyzing and reproducing the biological recovery technology Dr. Mobius had so lovingly sponsored, blended with the potent S-rank Valkyrie restoratives Rita had brought along.
It didn't matter how horrifically their bones had been broken in the day's training, or how utterly their strength had been drained.
One hour soaking in that pod full of acrid chemical fumes, and by predawn the next morning they'd come bounding back out fresh as ever, ready for a whole new round of torment.
This experience of bouncing back and forth across the edge of death, over and over, was something none of them had known in all their years of military service.
But it was precisely that borderline-insane cycle of breaking and rebuilding that let them feel, with perfect clarity, that if the men they were now went up against the men they'd been three weeks ago, they could gut their past selves inside a single exchange.
Quite a few soldiers who had long since hit a physical plateau could even feel some kind of shackle inside their bodies beginning to loosen.
What they didn't know was that this repeated remolding on the brink of death had already brought them within reach of the first-stage Genetic Lock's threshold.
Strength brought absolute confidence.
They gripped their rifles, chests thrown out straight, waiting for the final inspection.
Meanwhile, in the panoramic control room directly above the arena.
Rita Rossweisse stood at the main console.
Behind her, beside the holographic screens, stood several "examiners" of considerable standing.
Welt Yang of Anti-Entropy Entertainment pushed up his glasses, his expression level.
Fu Hua, who had been teaching the recruits Inch Heart Fist and Tai Xu Sword Qi and guiding their power control, stood quietly with her arms folded.
And beside them, conspicuously present, was that white-haired elder from the upper echelons of Shenzhou who had once struck a deal with Su Yu.
The old man looked down at the two hundred and fifty figures below, arrayed in flawless formation and radiating a startling killing aura, and something like undisguised astonishment flickered in his eyes. He was not stingy with his praise.
"Three weeks. Three short weeks, and you've tempered an entire unit's spirit to this degree. Momentum like that - in all this world, I suspect only the elites of that ancient organization called Schicksal could match it."
As a senior figure among the Shenzhou authorities, he naturally understood exactly how much weight Schicksal carried in the hidden world.
Once his admiration had run its course, the old man turned his head with a touch of curiosity and looked at Welt beside him. "Mr. Yang, this graduation test is a rather important occasion. Why hasn't young friend Su Yu come to oversee it himself?"
A white glare swept across Welt's lenses, and the corner of his mouth curled. "You'll be seeing him soon enough."
And in the mechanized containment tunnel at the rear of the arena.
A colossal thing sheathed in pink armor crouched silently in the dark.
Dr. Tesla stood with a holographic diagnostic tablet in hand, running the final confirmation on the armor parameters.
She was sporting two heavy dark circles under her eyes, yet her spirits were extraordinarily high.
As the saying goes, nobody feels tired while they're up to no good. Even after pulling an all-nighter, her head was still buzzing with excitement.
"Sure, the outer shell of this Honkai Beast turned out butt-ugly, but this reinforced composite armor is genuinely rock-hard. I can't wait to see the looks on those cocky little hotshots down there when their bullets can't punch through and their jaws hit the floor!"
Next to Tesla, Kiana and Kevin waited in specially made tactical medical uniforms.
Their job was simple - when the "Kindling" down below genuinely couldn't take any more, they'd go in as the final "medical staff" and haul them out.
Of course, getting rescued by them meant instant disqualification.
"So what about Su Yu? What are you planning to do once you've slipped in there?"
Kiana watched the man changing clothes beside her and asked, curious.
Su Yu stood in the shadows and, right in front of them, quietly activated the power drawn from his bond with Rita - The Perfect Maid's Magic Mirror.
The lines of his muscles began to shift by fractions; his bones gave faint clicks as they resettled.
In a matter of seconds, his height, the shape of his face, even the rhythm of his breathing and the aura he gave off had all turned into those of an ordinary veteran soldier.
He pulled on a matching set of camo fatigues and buckled a tactical helmet over his head.
Disguised like this, he could stand right in the middle of those men and not one of them would notice their ranks had gained an extra body.
In truth, Su Yu's hidden "director" role in this examination was exactly that.
He would mix into the crowd and periodically release gravitational pressure with the Divine Key - Star of Eden, manufacturing panic by hand.
"Su Yu." Kiana studied the practiced ease of his disguise, held it in for a long moment, then delivered her verdict one word at a time. "You really are a big rotten villain with a belly full of wicked ideas."
Su Yu tugged the brim of his helmet down, sighed, and answered in the world-weary tone of a man who had seen through all worldly things:
"Kiana, it isn't me who's wrong. It's this world!"
16:00 sharp.
Everything was ready.
Rita Rossweisse's cool, gentle voice echoed through the entire underground arena over the loudspeakers.
"Starfire Furnace. Final test begins now."
"Ladies and gentlemen, you have one objective and one only. Survive twenty minutes."
The instant her voice faded -
A grinding roar of machinery.
The heavy alloy gate ahead, a good dozen meters tall, began to rise, the ground trembling with it.
A thick purple-black baleful glow flashed once in the darkness beyond!
Click. Clack.
Two hundred and fifty rounds chambered in perfect unison as the elites dropped into the highest level of combat readiness.
But when that oppressive presence, laced with savagery and destruction, came sweeping out of the tunnel's depths like a physical hurricane -
Every face in the arena changed at once.
"What the hell... is that thing?!"
A soldier who had survived a hundred battles stared, his voice cracking high enough to sound shrill.
Three weeks of life-and-death grinding had pushed these men's perception far past ordinary human limits.
They were confident they'd hold their own against any spearhead unit on the planet.
But standing before that enormous shadow, which hadn't even fully stepped out of the tunnel yet -
The alarms in their skulls shrieked, and every cell in their bodies screamed the same single word at them:
Run!!!
"RAAAAGH!"
A savage roar that seemed ready to tear eardrums apart tore through the whole arena!
The next moment.
A horror over four meters tall, its entire body sheathed in pale silicon-based shell and ominous purple armor, came stamping forward on heavy feet and stepped fully into the glare of the searchlights!
That hollow head plating, and the enormous ram horns on its forelimbs like siege hammers, hit the eye with a visual force that bled straight into despair.
"What the hell is that thing?!"
"Shit!!!"
Just as the formation rippled with disorder from the unknown terror -
Rita's voice, without a flicker of feeling in it, announced the countdown to their deaths right on schedule:
"Twenty-minute countdown. Beginning now."
"[May the fortunes of war favor you all.]"
"All squads, spread out! Concentrate fire! Cover the heavy weapons team!"
At the acting commander's furious bellow, the two-hundred-fifty-man formation - rattled only a moment ago by the Chariot-Class Honkai Beast's terrifying pressure - snapped back into its tactical discipline.
Three weeks of hellish torment had forged an astonishing degree of coordination between them.
Gunfire ripped out in a hammering chorus.
A dense net of interlocking fire formed in an instant.
Hundreds upon hundreds of large-caliber armor-piercing rounds poured onto that monster the size of an armored vehicle like driving rain, dragging blinding tongues of flame behind them.
And then came the sight that broke their hearts.
Those rounds, capable of tearing open a light tank, struck the Honkai Beast's pale silicon shell and produced nothing but bursts of dazzling sparks. They didn't leave behind so much as a single scratch visible to the naked eye!
Even special high-explosive grenades detonating at its feet couldn't force the giant thing back half a step!
Just as cold began creeping up everyone's spine -
The arena's loudspeakers crackled with a mechanical system voice dripping with obvious malicious glee:
"[Friendly reminder: heavy fire support Supply has been deployed. Rookies, help yourselves.]"
With a heavy rumble, as the mechanical voice died away, a section of alloy flooring at the edge of the arena sank slowly downward.
An armory rose into view before their eyes - packed with heavy man-portable rocket launchers, anti-materiel sniper rifles, and even a twin-barrel rapid-fire cannon still in component form!
But that spiteful little gift dropped every heart in the room straight to the bottom of a pit.
Because the armory had been deployed at a position that was neither an inch left nor right - it sat squarely in the blind spot directly behind that Battle-Car Class Honkai Beast!
To reach the heavy firepower, someone would have to walk straight into that monster's trampling path and carve out a corridor with their lives!
"Shit! Those lunatic instructors!"
The acting commander spat the curse through gritted teeth, then made his call on the spot.
"First, Third, Fifth Squads! Fan out, use stun grenades and flashbangs to pull that thing's attention! Sin Mal! Susannah! Take the artillery team around the flank! Get that cannon assembled for me!"
"Copy!"
As the demolitions expert, Sin Mal wasted no words.
She moved like a nimble black panther, seizing Susannah, who was still standing there dazed, by the arm.
"Run, Susannah! Don't fall behind!"
"RAAAGH!"
The Battle-Car Class Honkai Beast let out a deafening roar, and its vast body charged the densest cluster of the decoy squads at a speed and with a force that flatly violated common physical sense.
In fact, Tesla, hidden away in the master control room, had deliberately dialed this Titan mech in its monster hide down a full three output settings.
But for creatures of mere flesh and blood, it was still a one-sided slaughter, a wolf loosed among sheep.
A low hum.
Mixed in with the decoy squad, Su Yu shouldered his rifle and mimed firing while covertly channeling the Divine Key - Star of Eden in his hand.
Ripples of gravity so heavy they nearly forced blood up the throat settled with pinpoint accuracy over the soldiers trying to flee.
That crushing weight, as if it meant to pulp their internal organs, perfectly simulated the corrosive sensation of high-concentration Honkai energy radiation.
Bang!
The Honkai Beast's massive forelimb slammed down, punching a deep crater into the alloy floor.
Three soldiers who couldn't dodge in time were flattened into paste by that horrific impact before they could even scream!
At least, that was what their comrades saw.
In reality, in that hair's-breadth instant, Kiana and Kevin - already lying in wait in the shadows - had used speed far beyond ordinary human limits to drag the dying men into a concealed medical corridor, leaving convincing holographic afterimages behind in their place.
But in the eyes of those ordinary soldiers, brothers they had lived beside day and night, shouldered rifles and gone hungry with, had just died horribly right in front of them!
There hadn't even been a whole corpse left behind!
____
________________________________________
If you want more chapters, please consider supporting my page on (P). with 50 advanced chapters available on (P)
👻 Join the crew by searching Leanzin on (P). You know the spot! 😉