The darkness beyond Door Twelve was absolute.
Nova stepped through with his blades already drawn, senses out to the max, mana coiled and ready. Behind him, the door sealed with a sound like a tomb closing. Fifty candidates stood in the black, their breathing the only proof they weren't alone.
Then the lights came on.
They were standing in a cavern. Rough stone walls rose fifty feet overhead, studded with crystals that pulsed with faint bioluminescence. The floor was uneven—broken rock, shallow pools of water, patches of something that looked disturbingly organic. Tunnels branched off in four directions, each one disappearing into darkness.
And in the center of the cavern, already moving—monsters.
Gremlins. Two dozen of them, their red eyes reflecting the crystal light. But not the weak ones Nova had faced in Northvale. These were 1st Order, Ranks 3 through 5. Stronger. Faster. More dangerous.
Behind them, something larger stirred.
"Forget the monsters!" someone shouted. "Focus on survival—"
Too late.
The gremlins charged.
Chaos erupted.
Fifty Awakened reacted in fifty different ways. Some ran for the tunnels. Some formed defensive circles. Some—the arrogant ones, the foolish ones—attacked immediately, their powers flaring in brilliant displays of fire and lightning and raw force.
Nova did none of these things.
He watched.
The flame-wielder Cassian—1st Order, 4th Rank—unleashed a wave of fire that caught three gremlins and turned them to ash. But the fire also caught the attention of everything else in the cavern. A dozen more gremlins shifted course toward him.
The wind-affinity girl Lyra moved like smoke, slipping between creatures too fast to track. Her strikes were precise—a knife here, a burst of wind there—but she wasn't engaging.
The Valemont nobles grouped together, their superior cultivations (1st Order, 5th to 2nd Order, 1st Rank) allowing them to cut through gremlins with contemptuous ease. But they were loud about it. Flashy. Drawing attention they didn't need.
And in the center of the cavern, the larger thing stirred again.
Nova's eyes found it.
A moguen. 1st Order, 8th Rank. Nearly peak first-order. Its massive fists could crush bone with a single blow, and its hide was thick enough to turn most attacks from candidates of this level.
It was watching the chaos unfold.
Nova immediately moved.
Not toward the Moguen—that would be suicide. Not toward the tunnels—that would mark him as prey. He moved through the chaos, teleporting in short bursts, appearing where gremlins weren't looking, striking and fading before they could react.
Ten units per teleport. Nineteen teleports total if he used them all. He had to be efficient.
A gremlin lunged. He appeared behind it, blade finding the base of its skull. Three units of mana for the strike—no, wait, the strike itself cost nothing. Only the teleport. He was counting wrong.
Focus. Mana for movement only. Kills are free.
Another gremlin. Another teleport. Another kill.
Sixteen teleports left.
He worked his way across the cavern, always moving, never engaging for more than a heartbeat. Around him, candidates fell—screaming as gremlins overwhelmed them, bleeding out on the uneven stone. The exam had been running for three minutes, and already a dozen were down.
Fourteen teleports.
The moguen moved.
It chose the Valemont nobles—the loudest, the most visible, the ones who had drawn the most attention. They saw it coming and laughed, confident in their superior cultivations.
The laughter stopped when the moguen's fist caved in the chest of their strongest member—the 2nd Order, 1st Rank boy who had been showing off since the moment they entered.
He died without a sound.
Twelve teleports.
Nova kept moving. Killing gremlins. Conserving mana. Watching.
The moguen was a problem. At 1st Order, 8th Rank, it out-ranked him by six levels. His blades could hurt it—Artifact-grade weapons ignored mundane durability—but getting close enough to use them meant surviving its attacks.
He couldn't survive its attacks. Not yet. Not without his bloodline fully activated.
Let someone else handle it, he decided. Focus on survival.
Ten minutes in, the gremlins were mostly dead.
Twenty-three candidates remained standing. The rest were either down—bleeding, unconscious, possibly dead—or had fled into the tunnels. The cavern floor was slick with blood, and the crystal light had taken on a reddish cast that might have been imagination or might have been reflection.
The moguen stood in the center, surrounded by bodies. It had killed seven candidates personally, including three of the Valemont nobles. The survivors gave it wide berth, fighting each other now as much as the remaining monsters.
The exam doesn't end until five remain, Nova remembered. That means we have to kill each other.
A boy with earth affinity—1st Order, 5th Rank—caught his eye. He was shaping stone into projectiles, hurling them at anyone who came close. His aim was good. His defense was better—a wall of rock that circled him like a shield.
Dangerous. Avoid. Nova thought
A girl with lightning—the one Nova had observed earlier, 1st Order, 6th Rank—was the strongest candidate still standing. She moved like a storm given form, her strikes arcing between targets with devastating precision. Three candidates lay at her feet, twitching from residual current.
More dangerous. Much more.
And the moguen still watched. Still waited.
Nova realized what was happening.
The moguen wasn't just killing randomly. It was observing. Looking for the biggest threats, the ones who would need to be eliminated first. It had already taken out the Valemont nobles. Now it watched the lightning girl, the earth shaper, the flame-wielder Cassian who had survived through sheer aggressive power.
The Moguen charged—not at the lightning girl, not at the earth shaper, but at him.
Nova teleported without thinking.
Sixty-five feet to the left, appearing behind a rock formation. The moguen's fist crashed through the space he'd occupied a moment before, sending stone fragments flying.
It had seen him. Had noticed him. Despite his quiet kills, his careful avoidance, his deliberate invisibility—it had picked him as a threat.
Why?
No time to wonder. The moguen was already turning, already tracking, already coming.
Nova ran.
He teleported in zigzags, appearing and disappearing, using the terrain to break line of sight. Each jump cost ten units. Each jump brought him closer to running dry.
One hundred twelve units left. Eleven teleports.
The moguen was fast. Faster than something its size should be. It crashed through rock formations like they were paper, its dead eyes fixed on Nova with an intensity that bordered on intelligent.
He couldn't outrun it. Couldn't outfight it. Could only delay.
Think. Your past self fought worse. What would he do?
The answer came not as memory but as instinct.
Use the environment. Use the other candidates. Turn their strengths into your weapons.
Nova changed direction.
He teleported toward the lightning girl.
She saw him coming—saw the moguen behind him—and her eyes widened with understanding.
"No—get away from me—"
Too late. Nova appeared three feet from her position, then teleported again immediately, leaving her directly in the moguen's path.
The creature didn't slow. Didn't reconsider. It simply adjusted its target to whoever was closest.
The lightning girl screamed—in fury. Lightning arced from her body in a massive discharge, slamming into the moguen's chest with enough force to stop it in its tracks.
1st Order, 6th Rank. Full power. The attack would have killed most creatures at her level.
The moguen shuddered. Smoke rose from its charred hide. But it didn't fall.
It swung.
The girl tried to dodge—she was fast, so fast—but not fast enough. The moguen's fist caught her shoulder, and she flew across the cavern, landing in a crumpled heap against the far wall.
Alive, Nova noted. Maybe. But out of the fight.
The moguen turned back to him.
Sixty-eight units left. Six teleports.
He ran again.
The cavern had become a killing field.
Twenty minutes in, only twelve candidates remained standing. The survivors had stopped fighting each other, united by the common threat of the moguen. It didn't matter. The creature killed them anyway—the earth shaper crushed beneath its fist, the flame-wielder Cassian torn apart mid-fireball, a half-dozen others whose names Nova never learned.
He watched them die and felt nothing.
This is what survival requires, his past self whispered. This is what you become.
The moguen was wounded now—bleeding from a dozen cuts, one eye destroyed by a lucky strike. But it was still dangerous. Still hunting. Still focused on him.
Thirty-two units left. Three teleports.
The moguen charged one last time.
Nova didn't run.
He stood his ground, blades ready, and watched. Watched the way it moved, the way it committed to attacks, the way its wounded side dragged slightly with each step.
There. The blind spot. The moment between movements.
The moguen swung.
Nova teleported—not away, but forward. Directly into the creature's guard. Appearing beneath its reaching arm, inside the arc of its swing.
His blades rose.
Artifact-grade steel, honed to impossible sharpness, driven by 22% enhanced strength and the momentum of a teleport-assisted strike. They found the moguen's throat—the one place its hide was thin, the one vulnerability all creatures of its type shared.
The blades sank deep.
The moguen gurgled. Its massive hands clawed at him, but he was already gone—teleporting away, landing twenty feet distant, watching as the creature collapsed.
It took a long time to die.
When it finally stopped moving, Nova checked his mana.
Twelve units left. One teleport. Maybe.
He was alone.
The cavern held only bodies—candidates and monsters alike, scattered across the blood-soaked stone. He counted quickly. Four other survivors, all of them at the far end of the cavern, all of them staring at him with expressions that mixed fear and respect.
Five left. The exam was over.
The doors opened.
Nova walked out without looking back.