She was born into power.
Not just the raw mana that bloomed early in her blood, but the kind of power that bent heads and straightened backs at her arrival.
Thalia Renwild, first daughter of House Renwild, high nobility of the Fyorian Empire, crown jewel of Fyorian Capital.
Her family name rang out across cities—generals bowed to it, merchants branded products with it, and suitors lined up for miles just to be denied by it.
She was the sixth child—last born, but not least. In fact, of all her siblings, she was the strongest.
Even as a child, the manor staff whispered that she would be the one to carry the Renwild legacy forward.
She didn't walk—she arrived.
Tutors begged to teach her. Duelists fled from sparring matches.
Mages feared her temper.
Her father called her "the Empire's future."
Which is exactly why he forged a connection with a prodigy of equal promise—Justin Bridge, the son of a renowned knight who had served the Renwild family with distinction for over two decades.
Justin was everything she wasn't: light-hearted, silver-tongued, and reckless.
But his talent was undeniable.
A boy born with two classes, both equally potent—a miracle so rare the Empire held a private parade just for his twelfth birthday.
So Thalia and Justin grew up together—reluctant friends turned rivals, rivals turned something like siblings.
They competed in everything.
Fought.
Laughed.
Bled.
He was the only one her age who ever gave her a proper fight.
Maybe the only one who understood the pressure behind their bloodlines.
When the acceptance letters from Silver Mist Academy arrived, they celebrated together. But not with surprise.
Because of course they were chosen.
Silver Mist wasn't a school. It was a myth.
Rumoured to be a floating fortress academy hidden within the clouds, guarded by ancient spirit-beasts and ringed with anti-magic storms.
They said the only way to enter was to be recognized by the Veil itself.
The elite who came from Silver Mist weren't just powerful—they were gods in training.
Most of the world's legendary heroes, monarchs, and military geniuses were alumni.
It was a place where bloodlines didn't matter. Only power.
Thalia had smiled at the letter.
Elegant, embossed, sealed with a silvered flame.
But deep inside?
She wasn't impressed.
She had always assumed she'd end up somewhere better.
Somewhere more... worthy.
She had no idea how wrong she was.
Because the moment she stepped foot into that coliseum—when the exams began, and the Battle Royale began—her pride cracked.
The students here weren't just strong.
They were monsters.
And she'd been thrown straight into their den.
She and Justin got separated early on.
Some random boy tackled him off a cliff in the first five minutes and she hadn't seen him since.
Since then, she'd been surviving, not fighting.
Every victory felt like a trick of luck: a terrain shift at the right moment, a better angle, an opponent distracted.
Each battle left her more bruised than the last.
She hadn't felt like a prodigy in hours.
Right now, she had one orb left and a timer that read 23 minutes.
If she could just hide, stay low, wait it out—she might scrape into the top ten.
But of course, fate didn't give a damn.
Because she was currently being cornered by a boy who wasn't even breathing hard.
He was thin, pale, dressed in cracked leather dyed the color of grave dirt.
His eyes were sunken and dark, his smile tight and bone-white.
Class: Necrozi. And a nasty one.
He hadn't said a word yet.
Didn't need to.
Skeletal arms burst from the ground with every step she took, clawing at her ankles, dragging at her movements.
Thalia's Terrakai magic lashed out—vines whipped and coiled, stone plates jutted from the ground to shield her, her fists glowing with pulsing green runes as she shattered another summoned skeleton into dust.
But it was like draining the ocean with a spoon.
She darted left. Right. Jumped off a rising root and hurled a stone javelin straight at his face.
He lazily waved a hand.
A bone wall rose. The javelin shattered.
"You're panicking," he finally said, voice like a smirk wrapped in a whisper.
"You're used to winning, aren't you?"
She gritted her teeth.
"I've killed things that smelled better than you."
He chuckled. "And yet… you're still backing up."
He pointed behind her.
More skeletons. A circle. A cage.
Thalia didn't move fast enough.
A hand caught her ankle and yanked.
She fell, rolled, blasted the corpse to ash—but by then, three more were lunging.
She spun, slammed a palm to the dirt, and erupted a pillar of rock beneath her, launching herself skyward.
The air pulsed with tension.
Dust swirled between her feet as Thalia skidded back, boots grinding against the cracked terrain.
Her breaths came sharp, shallow, frantic.
Her last orb flickered at her side, dim and unstable like a candle in the wind.
Her timer read 21:47, ticking with cruel indifference.
She clenched her fists tighter, trying to will her trembling arms to obey.
Across from her, the Necrozi boy didn't even look winded.
Black veins webbed across his pale arms like something that didn't quite belong to the living.
In one hand he held a jagged scythe—old, chipped, yet still devastatingly lethal.
His other hand was open and twitching, crackling faintly with necrotic energy.
"Still standing, Renwild?" he said, his voice oily and slow, like syrup poured over a blade.
"How noble of you."
Thalia's jaw clenched.
She rotated her shoulders, her muscles aching.
Her ponytail was soaked with sweat, curls sticking to the back of her neck.
Blood had dried along the corner of her lips, and one eye was already beginning to swell.
"I'm not here to impress you," she spat, lowering into a stance.
"You think because I'm a noble, I haven't bled before?"
The Necrozi smiled. A slow, unpleasant thing.
"Oh, I'm not interested in your blood," he said.
"I'm interested in your orb. And maybe, if there's time, your screams."
He dashed forward, impossibly fast.
Thalia barely managed to twist aside, the scythe missing her ribs by inches.
She retaliated by slamming her palm into the ground—the earth responded instantly.
Vines erupted, thick and thorned, reaching for his legs like a pack of starved wolves.
But the boy jumped, spinning in the air with grace.
Mid-spin, he unleashed a torrent of black energy from his palm, blasting the vines into ash.
He landed lightly, like a shadow.
She raised a wall of stone between them to buy time, panting.
Her mana was running low—dangerously low. She could still draw from her internal wellspring, the signature gift of Terrakai class users, but even that was fraying now.
"You're slower," the boy called mockingly from behind the stone.
"Weaker. All that glory, all that pride, and now you're just another name I'll forget by morning."
"Funny," Thalia muttered under her breath, "you talk like someone who's never met Justin Bridge."
"Well, I guess you haven't"
She rolled left just as his scythe punched through the wall like paper.
It grazed her shoulder—blood splashed across her sleeve.
She screamed. Anger, pain, and something else—fear.
No. Not here. Not like this.
She twisted, sent a spike of stone flying from the earth, but the boy side-stepped it and slammed his boot into her stomach.
She hit the dirt hard, gasping.
He stalked toward her slowly.
"Do you know how many students I've gutted in the last hour?" he said, casually spinning the scythe.
"Dozens. All prettier than you."
She raised her hand—and fired.
A blast of raw green mana hit his shoulder, staggering him back just enough for her to scramble upright again.
"I'm not just another student, you rot-stinking corpse-freak," she snapped, fury flaring in her bright green eyes.
"I'm Thalia Renwild, third daughter of the Fyorian Empire.
And I'll crawl my way into the top ten if I have to rip your face off and wear it as a crown."
The boy laughed. "Oh good. You've still got some fight left."
He rushed her again—and this time she didn't dodge.
She caught the shaft of the scythe between her forearms and screamed as the force drove her to her knees.
Her muscles screamed. Her orb trembled.
"I'm… not… DONE!" she roared—and from beneath them, the earth fractured.
Massive thorns speared upward, one of them slicing a deep gash along the boy's thigh. He hissed, staggering back.
"Fine," he spat, blood dripping from his leg.
"Then die interesting."
And just like that—they lunged again.
Thalia's body slammed against the bark of a twisted, gnarled tree — one of the dozens that had erupted across the arena since the last terrain shift.
Her back hit first. Then her head.
Her vision blurred as the impact stole the breath from her lungs.
Splinters tore into her skin like cruel little teeth.
The ground didn't catch her gently either.
She rolled across jagged roots and muddy earth, finally landing in a heap with one arm twisted beneath her.
Dirt smeared across her cheeks.
Her orb flickered weakly at her hip.
Barely pulsing. One or two more hits and it would shatter — and her chance of being among the top ten would vanish with it.
She coughed. Blood stained her lip.
This was it.
She wasn't going to win.
Not against him.
The Necrozi boy stepped into view through the warped forest. Not tall. Not sickly-looking. Just... normal. Almost forgettable.
But that had changed.
When he'd activated his class, something had twisted.
His limbs had elongated ever so slightly, his skin turning deathly pale as thin black veins traced across his arms like cracks in porcelain.
His eyes had sunk into his skull, glowing faintly with violet rot.
And his smile—gods, that smile—was the worst part. Too wide. Too calm.
He twirled his scythe lazily, as if this was all just a game to him.
"Any last prayers, princess?" he asked softly, mockingly, as he raised his weapon above her.
Thalia grit her teeth.
She didn't answer. Her mana reserves were nearly gone.
Her class was already overexerted.
She couldn't even stand without her knees shaking.
Justin…
She thought of him.
Of that idiot smile of his.
Of the way he always made everything look easy.
She hoped, just for a second, that he'd burst through the trees, like always.
But she knew better.
She was alone.
The scythe came down.
And then—
Reality stuttered.
The very air stopped moving.
It wasn't a gust of wind or a sonic boom. It was silence. Heavy. Dense. Final.
As if the world had inhaled and forgot how to exhale.
The Necrozi boy froze mid-swing, his scythe locked in motion. His brows furrowed.
Thalia blinked.
The shadows twisted unnaturally around her.
Then, like the ripples of a pond hit by an unseen pebble, the space beside the Necrozi boy shivered.
Then it happened.
The ground rippled. Once. Like water touched by a phantom step.
And he appeared.
A figure collapsed from thin air and landed between Thalia and her would-be executioner.
White hair, pure as new snow, clung to his blood-matted forehead.
He looked like hell.
A stitched-up corpse that forgot to stay dead.
Blood matted his hair, trailing down the side of his jaw.
His clothes were torn to shreds.
His boots were soaked. One sleeve hung useless, soaked in red.
His face was bruised and smeared with grime, but beneath the carnage, those gold irises burned.
Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, and his whole body trembled with exhaustion.
But even battered and broken…
Even with one arm clearly barely working…
He looked devilishly handsome.
Not in the polished, royal-poster kind of way. No.
He looked like something carved from stormlight and vengeance.
Like someone who should've stayed down five battles ago but just didn't know how to die properly.
Thalia blinked.
She'd seen him before.
Briefly. Back during the screening, when Justin had accidentally bumped into him.
He hadn't said a word then—just walked off with that same dead-calm expression.
She'd never caught his name. Never even cared.
Now? She couldn't forget that face if she tried.
The Necrozi boy reacted fast. His scythe swung up in a flash of violet light—
But the white-haired boy was faster.
He vanished.
No mana chant. No flourish.
Just gone.
And then—behind the Necrozi.
A blur of motion. A brutal elbow into the boy's spine.
CRACK.
A gasp left the Necrozi's lips.
He spun—too late.
A strike to the jaw snapped his head sideways.
Then—both of the boy's hands glowed with unstable, violent mana.
He rammed them forward into the Necrozi's chest.
BOOM.
A shockwave split the clearing. Dirt flew. Trees buckled.
The Necrozi boy was flung back, crashing through a tree trunk like a cannonball.
Both of his orbs shattered mid-air.
He didn't scream. Didn't curse.
Just stared wide-eyed at the white-haired boy, dazed and disbelieving, as the teleport sigils activated around his feet.
Gone.
Just like that.
The clearing fell quiet.
And the white-haired boy was left kneeling, breathing raggedly, blood dripping from his chin.
He turned to her.
His golden eyes locked onto hers. Flickering. Steady. Tired.
Even now—even now—he looked like he could tear down a mountain with his bare hands.
He didn't speak.
Didn't smile.
He just looked.
And then—he disappeared.
The same ripple in reality. The same fold in the air.
One moment he was there.
The next, he wasn't.
Thalia remained frozen in place.
Bruised. Exhausted. Silent.
"…who the hell was that?" she whispered.
She was stunned.
Shocked.
Grateful.
But most of all, something deep inside her shifted.
That boy… whoever he was…
He had just saved her.
And left like it meant nothing....
Meanwhile, somewhere else in the arena…
The scent of crushed leaves and scorched air laced the battlefield as screams echoed through the ever-shifting terrain.
And amidst the chaos, a girl danced through blood and smoke like she belonged there.
Her name was Selene Vaelthorn, and everything about her screamed power.
Long black hair streaked with silver shimmered like night silk, pulled into a loose braid that whipped as she moved.
Her eyes—violet and gleaming—were cold stars that never blinked.
Her clothes was pristine despite the madness, her green necktie fluttering like a banner of defiance.
Even her boots barely made a sound on the cracked stone and mossy underbrush.
She moved with precision.
Her class, a rare hybrid between Chronoweaver and Bladekeeper, gave her control over momentary time distortions and enchanted dual sabers that shimmered like glass dipped in starlight.
A boy lunged at her from behind with a glowing warhammer.
He never made it.
In the blink between one breath and the next, she twisted.
The air around her bent slightly—time folding like a page—and her blades flashed once.
The boy dropped his weapon before he even understood he'd been cut. A glowing line crossed his chest—then came the sound, delayed by milliseconds, and his orbs, three of them, shattered into sparks.
He vanished in a flicker of light, mouth open in stunned silence.
Selene exhaled softly.
"Next," she whispered, and walked forward without sparing the spot another glance.
Elsewhere in the Arena…
Mud splashed. Trees cracked. Thunder rolled.
Justin Bridge was a storm.
Dust swirled around his boots as he hurled a broken-bodied attacker into the dirt, his second sword already spinning in a tight reverse grip.
Sweat poured down his temples, darkening the edges of his golden-blond hair, but his eyes burned like emeralds locked onto a single goal.
"Thalia… where the hell are you," he muttered, ducking a fireball and driving his sword through a stunned boy's shield.
The orb cracked with a loud snap! and blinked out.
Another elimination.
His dual-class talents made him unpredictable.
One hand wielded physical blade arts that left bruises and broken ribs; the other summoned spell chains of kinetic force that burst like invisible landmines.
Behind him, someone screamed at him—he didn't turn.
In front of him, two students stepped into his path.
One with spiked gauntlets, the other with glowing crimson eyes and claws shaped like bone.
They grinned.
He didn't.
"You picked the wrong mood," Justin said, flipping both swords with a sharp clang and charging.
Other Corners of the Arena…
A girl with fiery orange braids clutched her staff, panting as steam hissed from burns across her arms.
Her Terrakai armor was cracked and leaking energy, her last orb flickering desperately.
"Please—wait—!"
Her attacker didn't.
The punch came too fast, a blur of monstrous speed from a mutated boy with a Berserker class.
Her orbs shattered.
She was gone before her scream finished echoing.
Elsewhere, a boy cloaked in shadow melted through trees, reappearing behind another student and slicing cleanly through their shoulder with a dagger made of void energy.
The student twisted in shock—but his orb cracked like brittle glass.
Pop. Gone.
A laughing girl—blonde and bloodstreaked—spun through a trio of opponents, her daggers moving faster than their eyes could follow.
"You boys call this a challenge?"
She ducked under a blade, kissed one on the cheek mockingly, and drove both daggers into the next boy's sides.
His orb exploded into motes of blue light, and he cursed her name as he disappeared.
In the skies above, a winged boy with a white-bladed spear rained attacks from above—until someone from below launched a spear of mana and took out both his wings.
He crashed through two trees, slammed into a boulder, and vanished in a puff of defeated sparks.
Everywhere, the arena thinned.
Orbs shattered like firecrackers. Students screamed and vanished. The timer ticked down.
The strong kept standing. The lucky kept running.
But few still fought like they had something to protect.
Then, the Shift Came Without Warning.
One moment, the arena was cracked stone, burned grass, and scattered corpses of shattered trees.
The next, a rumble deep beneath the ground signaled the cruel hand of the system flipping the battlefield once more.
The rumble became a roar.
And then?
Water.
A deafening, gushing wall of it.
It came from nowhere and everywhere—screaming down from the sky in thick, merciless sheets, erupting from beneath their feet like the arena was coughing up an ocean.
Students screamed, shouted, scrambled.
Some tried to run and failed, slipping under the rising tide.
Others swam for high ground or climbed trees now transformed into mangled docks.
The water wasn't ordinary—it shimmered faintly with mana, responding sluggishly to the flailing of limbs and frantic breaths.
It wasn't deep everywhere; pockets of land still jutted up like tiny islands, and thick branches protruded from sunken tree trunks offered temporary salvation.
"Wait, wait, what the fu—!" a boy with lightning cuffs around his wrists barely had time to scream before a column of water rocketed him skyward like a faulty geyser.
He flailed. He cursed. He was gone.
Panic rippled across the arena like a second wave.
Spells fizzled.
Swords slipped from hands.
Wings, no matter how pretty or well-polished, were useless when drenched.
"NOT THE HAIR!" screamed a girl somewhere near the west quadrant.
She tried to conjure a fire shield, but it sputtered like a wet match.
Another student—a broad-shouldered knight-in-training with a big voice and a bigger ego—attempted to stand his ground.
"WE HOLD THE LINE!"
The line held for exactly four seconds.
Then it buckled like a wet sandwich and dragged him under.
Someone in the distance managed a deadpan gasp between mouthfuls of water.
"Oh look… the terrain has changed again. I, for one, am shocked."
"You said it changed every fifteen minutes!"
another student shrieked as she clung to a floating piece of tree bark.
"That wasn't fifteen minutes!"
"I don't think the Professors care," a necromancer boy muttered as a skeleton hand bobbed up next to him, gave a thumbs up, and then dissolved.
And yet, despite the chaos, some students adapted.
A thin girl with gills flared along her jawline took to the new terrain like it was home sweet home.
She dove into the water with a grin, twisting through it like a dolphin on bloodlust.
Another boy, panicking mid-drowning, discovered
his class allowed him to harden his skin like stone. Which helped until he sank like, well… a stone.
"Oh good," he bubbled under the surface, "I'm waterproof. And also dying."
Somewhere in the east, a boy in a drenched hoodie was paddling furiously on what looked like a summoned ice disc.
He waved at the others like a happy gondolier.
"Teamwork, anyone?"
"No! Go drown, Marco!" a girl screamed.
"You tried to electrocute me two rounds ago!"
"Oh come on, water under the bridge—"
She hurled a rock at him.
He ducked and kept rowing.
Floating corpses—well, stunned students with broken orbs—bobbed gently in the shallows before the teleport runes whisked them away in sparks of light.
For some, this was mercy.
For others, pure embarrassment.
A mage in expensive robes tried to float with his nose held high.
"I trained in the Fyorian capital!
I will not drown like a comm—" SPLASH. "GLLBLRGH—"
He disappeared mid-gargle in a flash of rune-light.
A group of students attempted to form a human raft, holding hands and screaming as they slowly rotated like an unwilling carousel.
"I SAID DON'T LET GO!" one howled.
"I JUST MET YOU LIKE FOUR MINUTES AGO!"
Up in the sky—or what was left of it above the stormclouds—a few winged students fought to stay airborne, but the humidity and soaked feathers made it an exhausting task.
"Don't look down, don't look down—"
"HEY, IDIOT, YOU'RE HOLDING ME!"
"Let me go, I'm lighter!"
"YOU'RE A DAMN DRAGONKIN!"
A pale-skinned boy with a bandana shouted as he floated by on a splintered door, "I *told* you guys terrain shifts were gonna be wild!"
His friend, clinging to the same door, coughed up water.
"Wild? This isn't wild, it's a freaking aquatic funeral, bro!"
Elsewhere, a Terrakai student tried to use vines as makeshift lifebuoys.
"WHY ARE MY PLANTS DROWNING?!
THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO BE WATERED, NOT SLAUGHTERED!"
A girl clinging to a floating log deadpanned, "Your plants have abandonment issues.
Learn to nurture better."
But for some? This was paradise.
The *Aquilans*—beautiful, graceful beings descended from the ocean's magic—emerged like sirens of old.
Their legs shimmered and transformed, melting into sinuous, glistening tails with vibrant scales that caught the faint, arcane sunlight shimmering through the fake water canopy.
They were mesmerizing.
Some students simply *froze*, forgetting they were in a battle Royale.
One particularly dazed boy muttered, "If this is drowning, then Neptune take me now…"
The Aquilans students didn't hesitate.
They swept through the water like streaks of lightning, their movement effortless.
With tridents, spears, or spells that danced like underwater currents, they knocked orbs loose, shattering hopes and dreams with elegant lethality.
One Aquilan girl with emerald-scaled fins smirked as she circled her prey.
"Didn't think the pond would have predators, did you?"
A boy tried to swim away but she caught him by the collar, dragging him backward and punching his orb with a pressure bubble so strong it popped like a glass bulb.
Not everyone went down so easy.
An Earth-user managed to launch a huge rock platform above the water's surface, lifting five others with him.
"Alright! My dirt babies won't drown today!" he shouted.
A few seconds later, a Water mage blasted the whole platform from underneath, flipping it like a pancake.
"Rocks float now?" the mage laughed, zipping past with a dolphin tail.
But not all Aquilans won.
One got too cocky, diving at a girl who looked helpless—until she pulled a lightning charm from her waist and screamed, "EAT VOLTS!"
Zzzzzap!
The Aquilan yelped, flipped backwards, and vanished in a teleport shimmer.
Meanwhile, on a half-sunken hill, a Necrozi boy was dragging two unlucky opponents down into deeper water with a swarm of skeletal fish conjured from mana.
"Did he just summon PIRANHAS?!" someone shrieked from above.
"Who gave the zombie boy a fish tank of death!?"
High up in the sky, a Wind-affinity student hovered by controlling pressure currents.
"This isn't even the final terrain shift," she muttered darkly.
"I swear if the next one's lava, I'm dropping out."
Through all the chaos, dozens of orbs cracked, shattered, or blinked out of existence, taking students with them.
The battle had entered its final phase.
And Silver Mist Academy was far from done testing its monsters.