Since the secret high command meeting, a subtle shift infused Blackthorn Academy.
From orbit, instructions trickled down, oblique but unmistakable:
Monitor. Categorize. Evaluate.
Commandants and instructors adjusted their behavior, pretending business as usual.
But to the discerning — those who slept and ate warfare — the signs were clear.
The predators were circling.
---
Cadet Quarters, Command Wing
Kale Drayen sat cross-legged on his bunk, a datapad shining in his lap.
Dozens of documents scrolled across the screen — records of previous culling exams, case studies, alien threat analyses.
Kora lay nearby, sharpening a combat knife with slow, deliberate strokes.
"You feel it too," she said, not looking up.
He glanced over at her.
"The tension?"
"The scrutiny."
Kale provided a humorless smile.
"I'd be concerned if they weren't watching us by now."
They had reached the point where talent alone could no longer sustain them.
Politics. Alliances. Reputation.
It was all part of the battlefield now.
---
The cadet corps was splintering.
Lines drawn years ago were solidifying into battle lines.
The Dynasts shut their inner circle, whispering among themselves of "preserving tradition" and "reasserting order."
The Militia-born — hardened sons and daughters of Earth's outer defenses and Mars frontier colonies — rallied around voices like Ox and Kale.
Cipher cadets traveled among the worlds, scheming and experimenting, some allying with power, others with feasibility.
Even the instructors seemed to be divided, some offering subtle favor, others becoming increasingly bitter and arbitrary.
And at the eye of it all stood Kale Drayen, constant, a black hole around which the chaos churned.
He hadn't sought this out.
But he wasn't running from it either.
---
Briefing Room 7A
A mandatory academy assembly brought all of the cadets together.
Rows of young people in black uniforms sat rigid, silent.
At the front, Commander Arlen Vos, head of cadet operations, strode to the podium.
His voice cracked like a whip.
"The final examination — the Culling — begins in two weeks."
A rustle spread through the ranks.
Vos continued:
"Four levels of difficulty. Each level, more difficult than the last.
Only the strongest, smartest, and most cunning will survive."
"Success in the Culling will determine not only your graduation. but your postings. Your futures."
"And for some of you, your survival."
His eyes swept the room, lingering for a moment on the usual troublemakers — the dynast heirs, the independent radicals, the quiet killers.
And finally, briefly, on Kale.
"Good luck," Vos finished.
The room emptied in a low tide of muttered strategies and seething rivalries.
---
Aftermath
Outside, under Blackthorn's simulated sky in the central atrium, Kale stood for a moment alone.
Above, the Academy's massive banners billowed:
"Through Struggle, Ascend."
Kora rejoined him, shouldering through the crowd.
"They'll come for you first," she whispered.
Kale's mouth twisted in a dry smile.
"I'm counting on it."
Across the courtyard, Cassian Dorne glared at him from the midst of a cluster of elaborately dressed Dynast cadets.
Cassian's lips twisted in a snarl, though Kale couldn't decipher the words.
He didn't need to.
The inference was clear.
Stay down.
Or get knocked down.
---
Elsewhere
Behind closed doors not far from the atrium, five Dynast cadets conferred in secret.
Cassian Dorne leaned over the table, voice low and insistent.
"Drayen's influence is dangerous. If he wins the Culling, the entire chain of command shifts. Our families lose their grip."
One of the others, a thin woman from a Europa corporate dynasty, snarled.
"You want him. eliminated?"
Cassian hesitated — a beat too long.
"We just need to make him fail. Spectacularly."
Another cadet, a brutish man with cruel eyes, laughed.
"And if he doesn't get the message?"
Cassian's smile was cold.
"Then we make it irreversible."
---
Back to Kale
Later that night, Kale paced the Academy's north observation deck, staring out into the barren Martian desert beyond the walls.
Ox appeared at his side, arms crossed.
"You ready for this?" he asked.
Kale didn't answer immediately.
He was watching a dust storm form on the horizon — a black, boiling maelstrom creeping forward under the frozen stars.
"I don't think it's a matter of being ready," Kale eventually said.
"I think it's a question of being willing."
Ox grunted assent.
"You've got the brains. Kora's got the knives. I've got the fists. We'll make it through."
Kale smiled at last, small and tight.
"Yeah.
We will."
Above their heads, unnoticed, small drones recorded every word, every gesture, transmitting it back to their unseen viewers in orbit.
---
Meanwhile — The Unsleeping Eye
Vice Admiral Mannerheim viewed the latest footage on board the UNS Vigilant Eye.
Drayen.
Tessan.
Varin.
The tight-knit nucleus forming beneath the radar of most instructors — but not beneath his.
"The seeds are sown," he whispered.
"Now let's see what blooms."
Director Khain made no comment behind him.
But her hands danced across a console, subtly flagging names for "further review" with the Culling imminent.
The tempest to follow would not only decide who led humanity into its next war.
It would decide who lived long enough to see it.
The days leading up to the Final Culling were a crucible.
The Academy abandoned all pretence of justice and order.
Training became war.
---
Day 1: Psychological Warfare
It began at 0400, when screams of alarm pierced the cadet barracks.
Lights blazed with a dazzling intensity.
Instructors stormed in, dragging cadets from bed, shouting orders.
Kale hit the deck running, tying his boots even before his head cleared.
Outside, chaos reigned.
Cadets were pushed into live-fire obstacle courses with no sleep.
Puzzle solutions under simulated gunfire.
Shrieking instructors barking false orders, stressing the instincts to disobey or obey under pressure.
A young Cipher cadet cracked first — sobbing uncontrollably in an ethics simulation designed to pit survival against loyalty.
Half the class was hollow-eyed by noon, nerves fraying.
Kale sliced through it like a knife, focused and calm, committing it all to memory — who broke, who bent, who survived.
Kora and Ox stood beside him, silent shadows.
Cassian Dorne and the Dynast elites strolled through the chaos, having lower-ranking cadets take cover for them in drills, conserving their own energy.
It was cowardice disguised as tactics.
Kale took note.
---
Day 2: Physical Ruin
Then there were the marches.
Fifty kilometers across Martian landscape in full combat gear, no food, no water, rationed oxygen.
Those who fell behind were forced to strip off their gear and carry it — doubling the weight.
By the third hour, two cadets collapsed from heat exhaustion.
One instructor systematically tagged them with failure tabs and left them for the medics.
Failure meant you didn't make it to the Culling.
There were no second chances.
Kale's muscles seared with every step he made.
Felt the gritty rub of sand on his armor joints.
But he did not slow.
Neither did Kora.
Neither did Ox.
By sunset, only two-thirds of the cadet class marched on upright.
The others were absent.
---
Day 3: Tactical Anarchy
Simulated missions inundated the Academy.
Each cadet team was given bogus orders, cross-purposes, and "enemy" instructors seeded in their ranks.
Trust no one.
Question everything.
During a sabotage simulation, Kale's team was ambushed by another team impersonating allies.
The battle was brutal.
Fists. Knives. Blunt trauma.
No safeties.
Ox fought like a wrecking ball, breaking two ribs on an opponent without hesitation.
Kora moved with liquid accuracy, eliminating three cadets in under a minute.
Kale read the battlefield like a living chessboard, cutting down threats before they could even react.
Their squad remained alone in the end.
A observing instructor in the darkness spoke into her recorder:
"Subject Drayen. Lethality confirmed.
Subject Tessan. Stealth and adaptability confirmed.
Subject Varin. Brute force and squad cohesion confirmed."
---
Night 3: Silent Threats
The sun dipped below the blood-red horizon, and for the first time in days, the cadets were granted two hours of downtime.
Kale sat on the steps of the barracks, cleaning his gun.
Kora sat next to him, whetting her blades.
Ox propped a wall, arms crossed, sleeping.
That's when Cassian Dorne appeared, two Dynast heavies standing on either side of him.
No trainers around.
Kale didn't rise.
Didn't even glance up.
Cassian stopped a few feet away, voice as slick as poison.
"You should resign, Drayen.
Before you ruin more than your own future."
Kale silently loaded a fresh magazine into his rifle, checked the sight.
"Is that a threat, Dorne?"
A sneer.
"A chance."
A long silence stretched between them.
In the distance, a sandstorm prowled the plains — a low, ominous rumble.
Kale finally looked up, Cassian's eyes meeting his without blinking.
"You should pray you never sit across from me when the knives come out," Kale said.
Not anger.
Not bravado.
Cold certainty.
Cassian's smirk faltered — just slightly.
Then he turned and departed, his bodyguards behind him.
Kora spoke low after they were gone:
"They're desperate."
Kale nodded.
"Good. Desperation makes people stupid."
---
Elsewhere — High Orbit
Aboard the UNS Vigilant Eye, Vice Admiral Mannerheim watched the new footage.
His smile was thin.
"Drayen doesn't yield to pressure.".
He becomes it."
He turned to Director Khain.
"Prepare the next phase."
Khain's lips twisted.
"With pleasure, Admiral."
Far beneath the Academy's underground vaults, locked programs stirred.
Weapons. Simulations.
Beasts long imprisoned.
The true test was coming.
And it would be unlike anything the cadets expected.
---
Day 4: The Blooding
At dawn, without warning, the Academy's sky shields came down.
The Martian wasteland yawned out around the cadet complex.
Automatic gates slammed shut behind them.
In thundering loudspeakers, Commander Vos's voice boomed:
"Certainly, cadets.".
You have survived your final preparations.
Now begins the true Culling."
"Four tiers. Four trials.
Only the strongest survive.
The first begins. now."
Together, the cadets beheld the desert — where drone-packs armored and war-simulations lethal whirred to life.
Explosions ripped through the distance.
Death awaited.
And only those who were willing to become monsters would survive.
Kale drew out his rifle.
Kora pulled her knives clear.
Ox cracked his knuckles.
They moved forward without hesitation.
Into destiny.
Into war.
Towards the blood before the glory.
---
---
> Quote of the Chapter:
"It is not the strong that survive. It is the strong that are willing to become monsters in order to survive."
— Anonymous Instructor, Blackthorn Academy
---
---
> Quote of the Chapter:
"You don't fight wars with the soldiers you have. You fight them with the soldiers you make."
— Unknown Special Forces Commander