The third creature did not charge.
That was the first thing that made my skin tighten.
The two in front were aggressive in the way normal trial monsters had been so far, all muscle and teeth and pressure, but the one behind them stayed half-hidden in the shadow of the broken stones. It did not move like prey. It did not move like a beast either. It watched.
Its eyes stayed on us for a little too long.
Not in the blank way monsters usually stared, but with a kind of focus that made me feel as if it was measuring the distance between our breathing and our mistakes.
Liora noticed the same thing almost at once. I could tell because her body shifted subtly beside me, her feet planting a little firmer into the dirt.
Kael had already adjusted his stance.
The three of us did not say anything for a second, and that silence said more than words could have. None of us liked what we were seeing.
"Something's off," Liora said quietly.
I did not take my eyes off the creatures. "Yeah."
Kael's voice was low and calm, but I could hear the edge under it. "The one in the back is controlling the others."
I almost answered, but the front creature moved first.
It lunged with enough speed to tear a line through the dirt where my foot had been a second earlier. I turned with the motion instead of away from it, letting its claw sweep past my side while my sword cut across its shoulder. The blade bit into hard flesh and a spray of black blood splattered across the ground. The thing hissed, but it did not break its rhythm. It twisted immediately and came back at me from a different angle.
Liora stepped in on the opposite side and struck the exposed flank with a clean, controlled hit.
Kael did not rush. He waited for the creature's recovery, then moved in and cut into the joint between two layers of armor-like hide.
The beast stumbled.
For a split second, I felt the shape of our teamwork settle into place. Not perfect. Not polished. But real. We were not fighting as three strangers anymore. We were starting to move like a team.
Then the second creature came from the side, and the first one recovered faster than I expected.
The pressure in the clearing changed.
I frowned and adjusted my grip.
This wasn't right.
It was not just strength. It was timing. The way the attacks were coming felt too coordinated for something that should have been acting on instinct alone. One monster kept us busy while the other pressed our flank, and the one in the back stayed still long enough to direct the tempo of the fight.
That thought made my shoulders tighten.
"Keep moving," I said.
Kael glanced at me briefly. "You see it too?"
"I see enough."
The second creature swung at Kael.
He blocked, but the force shoved him half a step back, and the monster tried to follow through with a kick aimed at his ribs. I moved in before the strike could land, catching the blow on my blade. The impact rang up my arm and made my wrist ache, but I held the pressure long enough for Liora to slash through the creature's side.
Black blood spilled onto the dirt.
The creature recoiled, but instead of panicking, it retreated in a controlled step and circled wider.
My eyes narrowed.
Monsters did not retreat like that.
Not here.
Not in a trial like this.
I looked past the front lines, back toward the third creature, and felt my breath catch.
Its shape flickered.
Only for a second.
Just a slight distortion in the air around it, like heat wavering above stone. The outline of its body seemed to bend wrong, then settle again. I blinked once, then focused harder, trying to tell whether I had imagined it.
It happened again.
A little stronger this time.
The body of the leader blurred at the edges and then snapped back into place.
Illusion?
The thought came to me, but I didn't trust it yet.
It was too clean. Too sudden. A mistake in sight could get me killed if I was wrong, and I had already seen enough in my last life to know that seeing what you wanted to see was a good way to die early.
The leader creature shifted its head slightly.
That same pressure hit the clearing again.
The two in front moved in sync.
I exhaled once through my nose and forced myself to focus on the flow of mana instead of the shape of the monster.
Then the system flashed.
A blue window appeared in front of my eyes, cutting across the battlefield so suddenly that my body almost reacted on instinct alone.
[Unique Skill Detected]
[Illusion Distortion]
[Would you like to copy this skill?]
I froze.
For a second, I honestly didn't understand what I was reading.
Copy this skill?
Not learn.
Not unlock.
Copy.
My grip tightened on my sword.
The fight continued in front of me, but that window hung in my vision like a blade at my throat. I had never seen anything like it before. I had expected the system to help me grow, but not like this. Not in a way that felt like it was reaching into the enemy itself and offering to take something that should not belong to me.
The front creature lunged again.
I moved just in time, but not cleanly enough. One of its claws scraped across my shoulder and tore through the edge of my jacket. Pain flared sharp and brief, and it was enough to pull me back into the fight.
The window was still there.
I could feel my pulse in my ears.
Copy it?
Was it safe? Was it even real? Was this some kind of trap?
The leader creature shifted again, and for one unsettling second there seemed to be two of it. Then only one remained. The space around it twisted subtly, and the two creatures in front of us moved as if they knew exactly how to use the confusion.
I had a choice to make fast.
The illusion was already affecting the battlefield.
If I waited too long, one of us would get hit with something worse than a scrape.
I focused on the prompt and made the decision.
Yes.
The moment I accepted, a sharp pressure hit my head. It wasn't pain exactly, but it was enough to make my vision blur and my jaw tighten. Something forceful pushed its way into the back of my mind, not like a memory, but like a structure being forced into place. It felt unnatural. Heavy. A little dangerous.
Then the window changed.
[Copying Skill…]
[Compatibility Confirmed]
[Skill Acquired: Illusion Distortion (Lv. 1)]
I barely had time to process it before the system vanished.
My breath came out a little slower after that.
So that was how it worked.
I didn't know what exact condition had triggered it. Maybe it was the way I had identified the distortion. Maybe it was the pressure from the fight. Maybe the system had simply decided I had seen enough to claim it.
Whatever the reason, I now had something I hadn't had a second ago.
A new skill.
One that wasn't mine in the beginning.
One that should not have been mine at all.
That realization gave me a strange feeling. Not triumph. Not relief. Something closer to caution.
Because if I could do this once, then the system was not simply making me stronger.
It was making me dangerous in ways I still didn't understand.
"Eren."
Liora's voice cut through my thoughts.
I looked up.
She was watching me.
Not the battlefield.
Me.
Her expression wasn't suspicious yet, but it had changed. There was a sharpness to it now, a quieter focus. She had noticed the pause. Not enough to know what I had seen, maybe, but enough to know that I had reacted to something the rest of them hadn't.
"That thing," she said, eyes still on me for a heartbeat too long, "what did you see?"
I glanced back at the leader creature.
Nothing about my face changed. "Enough."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one you need right now."
Kael's gaze shifted between us, then back to the monsters. He didn't interrupt, but I could tell he was storing the moment away.
The leader creature moved.
The illusion spread wider.
This time I felt it instead of merely seeing it. The space around the beast bent in a way that made the distances wrong. The dirt on the ground looked a little farther away than it should have. The stone behind it seemed to shift positions when I wasn't looking directly at it.
My stomach tightened.
So it wasn't just hiding itself.
It was distorting the field.
That meant the whole fight could be lying to us.
"Don't trust what you see," I said sharply.
Kael looked at me. "You're sure?"
"No," I said, and that honesty made both of them blink for a fraction of a second. "But I'm sure enough not to ignore it."
That was the truth.
I wasn't all-knowing. I wasn't seeing through everything. I was working off instinct, the system, and the small cracks in the illusion I could catch if I focused hard enough. That was enough to move, but not enough to relax.
The second creature attacked again.
This time it feinted.
Its body came in low, then twisted at the last second, forcing me to adjust my defense while the leader creature's false image shifted closer from the side. The false body crossed in front of my vision and for one ugly second my sword nearly hit the wrong target.
I corrected late.
Too late.
A sharp pressure struck my side and shoved me off balance. I gritted my teeth as my boot slid through the dirt.
The monster had read the opening and used it.
That was the kind of thing that made me hate trials like this. Not the fighting. The fact that the enemy could teach you something about yourself if you made the wrong move once.
Liora came in fast and rescued the angle I had lost, cutting the second creature away from my shoulder before it could press the advantage. Kael stepped in immediately after her, keeping the creature from circling behind us.
I recovered my footing and looked again at the leader.
The illusion had a flaw now.
Not obvious. Not to someone standing too far away. But I could feel it with the new skill inside me. The distortion was strongest around the leader's position, but the edges of it were weaker than the center. If I moved through the edge instead of chasing the image, I might be able to hit the real body.
Not a guarantee.
Just a chance.
It was enough.
"Kael," I said, "keep the second one busy."
He gave me a quick look. "You're going for the leader?"
"Yes."
"You sure?"
"No," I said again, moving already. "But do it anyway."
That was enough for him.
Kael moved to intercept the second creature without wasting another word, forcing it into a direct exchange. Liora followed a half-step later, not because I told her to, but because she read the battlefield fast enough to understand what I was trying to do. The two of them began pulling the fight wider, and that gave me a narrow line toward the back.
The leader noticed immediately.
The distortion intensified.
For a second, the world around it seemed to double. Its body split into two images, then three. My eyes wanted to follow the nearest one. My body wanted to trust the shape in front of me. But the new skill inside my mind tugged faintly toward the distortion's center, like a thread pulling through fog.
I moved toward that thread.
One false image passed in front of me.
I did not swing.
Another shifted to the left.
I ignored it too.
The real body was lower than the others, half-hidden by the angle of the broken stone behind it.
There.
I lunged.
The leader creature reacted faster than I expected. Its false body flashed to the right as if trying to drag me off target, and for one terrible instant I almost followed the wrong shape. My instincts screamed at me not to rush it. I forced myself to stop thinking about the image and trust the pressure in my chest instead.
That pressure pointed to the real one.
I stepped through the distortion and struck.
My sword cut into flesh.
Not deeply enough to kill yet, but enough to prove I had found the real body beneath the illusion.
The leader let out a sharp, ugly sound and the distortion around it shook violently.
So it could be hurt.
Good.
Liora saw the opening and moved in instantly, her blade driving into the side exposed by my strike. Kael cut into one of the rear legs, forcing the creature to stumble. The illusion wavered hard enough that I could feel the mana in it begin to crack.
I didn't wait.
One more step.
One more strike.
I drove my sword straight through the creature's chest.
The body froze.
The illusion broke apart.
For one second, the false shapes around the clearing flickered like damaged glass and then vanished altogether, leaving the creature's real body exposed. Black blood poured through the wound at my blade, and the pressure in the field dropped so suddenly that the remaining two monsters seemed to lose part of their coordination.
Kael took the second one down with a clean strike through the neck.
Liora finished the first with a sharp, efficient cut that split its body at the side.
Then there was only silence.
And the sound of our breathing.
I stood still for a moment, sword in hand, and looked at the leader creature as it collapsed into the dirt. The system window appeared again, this time with a much colder tone than before.
[Skill Copy Complete]
[New Skill Registered: Illusion Distortion (Lv. 1)]
[Authority Progress Increased]
I kept my face neutral.
Inside, though, I felt the implications of it settle heavily.
That was the real power of this system.
Not just rank.
Not just stats.
It could take something from an enemy and make it mine.
Not freely. Not casually. But enough.
Enough to matter.
Enough to change everything if I survived long enough to keep using it.
Kael exhaled and looked around the clearing. "That was not a normal trial monster."
"No," I said.
Liora looked at the body, then at the area where the illusion had broken, and finally back at me. Her expression had changed again. There was a small curve at the corner of her lips now, not enough to call it a smile yet, but close.
"You figured it out faster than I expected," she said.
I wiped a bit of blood from my blade with my sleeve. "It wasn't that fast."
Her eyes stayed on me, calm and direct. "That's not what I meant."
I looked back at her.
For a second, neither of us spoke.
Then her smile appeared.
Small.
Quiet.
But knowing.
"Interesting," she said.
That word hit harder than it should have.
Not because it was loud, but because it wasn't. It was the kind of word people used when they had already decided to pay attention.
And that was bad.
Kael glanced between us, then gave a tired, exasperated look that suggested he had no intention of being part of whatever weird moment had just happened. "If you two are done, I'd like to leave this place before more things show up."
Liora's smile faded into something more neutral, but not completely. "Practical as always."
"Someone has to be."
We kept moving.
The trial zone didn't feel any less wrong now that the leader was dead. If anything, it felt worse. We began finding more injured candidates the deeper we went. Some had weapons broken in half. Some had torn uniforms and exhausted eyes. Some were sitting against the rocks with the kind of blank expression that only came after fear had already drained out of them.
Half the candidates we passed looked like they had encountered the same type of abnormal monster we had just killed.
And from the way they were talking, a lot of them had given up early.
"We ran into those things again…"
"They were too fast…"
"They looked human for a second—"
"I couldn't tell which one was real…"
"Half our team broke apart…"
The more I heard, the clearer it became that the trial had gone far beyond what was standard. The academy had either intentionally seeded a much harder test than they admitted or something inside the trial zone had escaped whatever control they had planned for it.
Neither option was reassuring.
When the extraction signal finally echoed across the field, it hit like a relief and a warning at the same time.
A sharp tone rang through the zone.
"Trial Phase Ending. All candidates prepare for extraction."
For a second, no one moved.
Then the field shifted.
The broken stones dissolved. The air flickered. The pressure of the zone snapped away like a held breath finally released. I felt the ground under my boots change, and the next moment we were standing back in the extraction area outside Aethen Academy.
The sight in front of me was worse than the fight.
Stretchers lined the field.
Healers moved quickly between injured students.
Some candidates were sitting on the ground, exhausted and pale.
Some had blood on their sleeves.
Some were shaking from overuse of mana.
A few looked like they had already given up on trying to stand up straight.
The trial had hit them harder than most of them had expected.
And judging by the way people were talking, a lot of them had encountered those same strange monsters.
"Those things weren't normal."
"They moved like they were reading us."
"We couldn't keep formation."
"We lost too many people in one section…"
"Half the teams broke down."
I listened in silence.
So it wasn't just our group.
That made the whole thing worse.
Kael looked across the field with a darkened expression. "This was arranged."
Liora stood beside us, looking at the wounded students and the scattered chaos with a quiet face that revealed less than I expected. "If it was, then the academy is testing something far nastier than they announced."
She looked at me for a split second after saying it.
That same small, thoughtful interest returned to her expression.
I ignored it.
Mostly.
An instructor stepped onto the central platform, and the noise around us slowly faded. He was older, sharp-eyed, and calm in a way that made everyone instinctively quiet down. His gaze swept across the damaged field once before he began to speak.
"This trial," he said, "was intended to assess adaptability, combat ability, team coordination, and survival under pressure."
He paused, then added in a steady voice, "The results exceeded the expected failure rate."
A low wave of whispers spread through the crowd.
The instructor did not react.
He looked down at the tablet in his hand, then back up.
"Now I will announce the top five teams."
The field tightened.
Everyone listened.
Everyone waited.
"Fifth place."
A team name was called. Scattered reactions followed.
"Fourth place."
A little louder.
"Third place."
People started paying serious attention now.
"Second place."
The crowd shifted again.
Then the instructor raised his head.
"First place."
The silence that followed was immediate.
"Team 27."
A ripple moved through the candidates.
Not everyone knew the number, but those in the near groups turned quickly to see who it belonged to.
The instructor did not wait long.
"Liora Vance."
A few heads turned in recognition.
"Kael Draven."
That name drew a stronger reaction.
Then he paused for just long enough to let the tension sharpen.
"Eren Vale."
For a moment, the field went quiet in a different way.
Then the whispers began.
"Who?"
"Eren Vale?"
"That team had him?"
"I don't know that name."
"Wasn't that the quiet one?"
The reactions were divided between recognition and confusion, exactly the way I wanted them to be.
Liora looked at me again.
This time her smile was a little more visible.
Not large.
Not bright.
Just enough to suggest she knew exactly what kind of attention that last name had created.
"Interesting," she said softly.
Kael did not look surprised, but I could tell he was already considering the implications.
I kept my expression blank.
That was the point.
Let them talk about Liora.
Let them talk about Kael.
Let them wonder about the third member whose name they didn't know yet.
No one needed to know that the strongest part of our team had not been the easiest to identify.
The instructor's gaze moved across the crowd once more.
For just a brief second, it paused in my direction.
Not long enough for anyone else to notice.
Long enough for me to notice.
Then he looked away and continued with the next part of the announcement.
I stood there in the middle of the extraction field, the blood of the trial still drying on my sleeve, and understood something very clearly.
I had entered the academy hoping to grow quietly.
That was no longer going to happen.
The trial was over.
We had taken first place.
And now the academy had started looking at us.