The air hung heavy with unspoken dread. White needed no words to command the room—her mere presence had already seized ten thousand pairs of eyes.
When she finally spoke, her voice carried none of the warmth one might expect from a woman. It was something else entirely: a sound that seemed to carry winter's breath, cutting through the silence like frost spreading across glass.
"As you all know," she began, "everyone gathered here—ten thousand souls ranging from eighteen to twenty-four years of age. But numbers guarantee nothing. Only power matters."
She paused, letting her gaze sweep across the sea of anxious faces. "I won't waste your time with speeches about morale or inspiration. The truth is simpler, and far colder: death awaits those who fail to awaken a rank powerful enough to ensure survival. For those who awaken E or F rank skills, I can tell you with absolute certainty what awaits in the first trial."
Another pause. The silence stretched, suffocating.
"Death."
The word landed like a stone in still water, rippling through the crowd. White watched without expression as hope drained from thousands of young faces, replaced by the ashen taste of reality. She let them sit with it—the weight of mortality, the crushing of youthful dreams.
Only when she saw resignation settle into their shoulders did she continue, her tone shifting almost imperceptibly. "However... even E and F ranks hold possibilities. History records instances where such individuals developed abilities rivaling S-rank talents from certain trials."
A murmur of hope, quickly extinguished by her next words: "But these miracles are statistically insignificant. I advise you to abandon such fantasies."
She raised her hand in a casual gesture, and a translucent screen materialized in the air above the platform. Ten thousand heads tilted upward in unison.
"Before the awakening begins, you will receive a briefing on the dimension to which you'll be teleported. Information marginally improves survival odds—even if only marginally."
The screen displayed a landscape that defied natural law: rivers flowing upward into clouds, forests growing sideways from vertical cliffs, days and nights cycling in chaotic patterns.
"As you can observe," White continued, "the trial dimension operates under principles alien to your reality.
Time flows irregularly. Gravity shifts according to location. Your survival probability depends heavily on where you materialize."
She gestured toward clusters of colored markers on the holographic display. "Red dots indicate World-Shattering Beasts—entities capable of destroying cities within minutes. Encounter one, and your fate is sealed.
Blue dots represent areas explored by candidates over the past nine centuries. Observe carefully: these cover less than two percent of the dimension. Ninety-eight percent remains uncharted."
Her voice dropped, becoming almost intimate in its cruelty. "Lucky landings in blue zones offer marginally better survival rates. Unlucky landings..." She didn't finish the thought. She didn't need to.
"You'll remain in this dimension for months or years, depending on how quickly you locate the exit. I estimate—conservatively—that fewer than five hundred of you will emerge alive."
She descended from the platform, her white robes trailing behind her like snowfall. As she passed a man dressed entirely in black, she nodded once—a signal. He ascended the stage as she departed, and the calling of names began.
Raze stood motionless, the briefing replaying in perfect recall behind his eyes. Information was power.
Power was survival. He had committed every detail to memory: the shifting gravity, the temporal anomalies, the distribution of red and blue markers across the dimension called Erase .
"Raze." A voice cut through his calculations. "You seem lost in thought."
Mantis stood beside him, his breath coming in shallow bursts, muscles coiled tight with nervous energy. Sweat beaded on his forehead despite the chamber's cool temperature.
"Nothing significant,"raze replied, his tone flat and unconvincing. "Merely considering what rank and skill might manifest."
"Oh." Mantis attempted a reassuring smile that collapsed into a tremor. "You'll probably do fine, though. I mean, statistically, someone has to—"
His voice cracked. His hands wouldn't stop shaking.
Raze observed his friend's deterioration with clinical detachment, yet something unfamiliar stirred in his chest—a warmth that spread with uncomfortable intensity as Mantis's forced humor broke through the tension.
Raze chuckled despite himself.
The sound drew Mantis's attention. "It's pretty messed up, finding amusement in your friend's suffering," he said, half-joking, fully desperate.
Raze dismissed the comment with another laugh, clapping Mantis's shoulder with rhythmic reassurance. The gesture felt mechanical, practiced, yet it served its purpose. Mantis's shoulders dropped an inch. The atmosphere between them loosened, just slightly.
Raze didn't understand why he'd chosen humor in this moment. The warmth in his chest felt like weakness. He didn't welcome it.
Then the robotic voice called out: "Mantis Flake."
Mantis inhaled sharply, gathering fragments of courage. He stood on unsteady legs, palms slick with perspiration, and glanced toward Raze —seeking something, anything. But Raze had already retreated behind his walls of thought, eyes distant, mind calculating probabilities.
Sighing, Mantis walked toward the platform. Thousands of eyes tracked his movement: some hungry for his failure, others desperate for his success. William watched from his seat, a faint smirk playing at his lips as Mantis placed his trembling hand upon the glowing orb.
Contact.
The orb erupted into violent motion, spinning with centrifugal fury, pulsing crimson. Mantis squeezed his eyes shut as instructed. He felt warmth first—gentle, almost comforting—then heat, then fire racing through his veins like liquid lightning. His body ignited from within, radiating brilliant red light, molten and terrifying and alive .
The orb slowed. Stopped.
The robotic voice filled the chamber:
"Name: Mantis Flake. Skill: Fire Control. Rank: A."
Mantis stood frozen, disbelieving, as tears carved paths down his cheeks. He descended from the platform in a daze, heart thundering like a caged thing desperate for escape, and collapsed into his seat beside William. Joy—cold, shocking, unbelievable joy—shivered through him in waves.
He wasn't dreaming. This was real. He was real.
Mantis turned toward his friend, grinning, radiant, transformed—
And found raze watching him with eyes like winter lakes. No congratulations. No shared celebration. Just silence, deep and calculating, as raze gaze drifted past him toward the stage where the next name was being called.
Mantis's smile faltered. "Raze?"
But raze said nothing. His attention had already moved elsewhere, fixed upon the glowing orb with an intensity that made Mantis's victory feel suddenly, inexplicably small.
"Raze Cromwell."
The voice echoed. Raze stood without hurry, straightening his collar with precise, economical movements. He didn't look back at Mantis. He didn't acknowledge the thousands of eyes now turning toward him—including Mantis's, confused and hurt and suddenly afraid.
He simply walked toward the platform, each step measured, deliberate, predatory .
And as he climbed the stairs, Mantis realized with growing unease that he didn't know this person at all.
The friend who had laughed beside him moments ago had vanished, replaced by something else—something that moved through the crowd like a blade through water, something that looked at the glowing orb not with hope or fear, but with the cold certainty of conquest .
Raze placed his hand upon the orb.
The chamber held its breath.
And then—