At 7:00am Leon halted at the designated point, panting. Exhaustion clung to him as he absorbed the chaotic sea of students in the stark granite plaza.
Hoping for a gap, Leon spotted Jade, standing among a group of cool, wealthy dressed guys, laughing heartedly.
Drifting his gaze from them, to the path ahead, anxious footsteps pulsed in his ears like drums.
As Leon pushed politely through the crowd and reached the front, he saw Vera brushing a hand against some guy's chest in a sarcastic manner.
The guy's expression softened, as if under a spell. But as Jade and his men appeared behind him, Vera dropped the act, ran to Jade, and threw herself on him.
She flung her arms around Jade's neck, and kissed him deeply.
Some student's faces ignited with shock while the wealthy clothed stood there with smiley expressions.
When they vanished from Leon's sight as he moved forward, he saw Tiger. The larger and broad-shouldered boy was smirking, cracking his knuckles with a slow, deliberate pops.
Seeing the look in Tiger's eyes, Leon knew he was the sole reason for that sound to erupt.
A sharp chime echoed, in an instant, snapping every gaze upward to the towering screen that at first was displaying pictures of men in wired black uniforms and monsters.
On the screen, a proctor in a severe uniform appeared, her image turning the chatter into a diluted silence.
"Welcome, awakened and unawakened students," her voice boomed like a gale across the plaza, causing the students to cast confused glances at each other.
"Your first trial begins in thirty minutes. Survive in the Shattered Lands."
The name hung in the air like a curse, letting smell of sweat fill the air.
Shattered Land, a place Leon knew from history books and nightmares. A scar the last great war left behind. Where all history books called it as the breeding spot for the monsters.
A low hum filled the plaza as star-shaped symbols flared to life beneath their feet's.
Lines of light crawled across the stone, weaving the entire floor into a massive, glowing teleportation array that snaked around their boots.
Light-blue light splashed across the student's faces, etching their stark fear into sharp relief.
Leon's heart hammered as the restless energy within him stirred in response to the light from the array, humming like a plucked string.
As he whirled around, following the movement of the array, he caught Tiger's eyes across the platform, staring straight at him, as if only the two of them were on the moving platform.
When Leon's gaze fell off Tiger, it landed on Jade. Jade stood utterly emotionless, as if surviving in the shattered land was a mere excursion.
Beside Jade, Vera clung tightly on his right arm, her earlier bravado gone, only to be replaced by a genuine, pale fear that was visible on her face.
As if the world wanted him to see them only, the platform quelled, transporting each and every one standing on the moving platform upward at high speed.
The teleportation wasn't a feeling, it was a violation. Hitting Leon with a nauseating feeling as if his atoms were yanked through a keyhole and slammed back together in the wrong order.
Everything turned dark. The granite plaza was gone.
And as their bodies resembled back, a cracked crimson earth crunched like dry bones beneath their boots.
As Leon's prismatic vision resolve back, air filled with the taste of rust, and something sweetly rotten seared his lungs.
Inhaling the air felt like mixing Dusthollow's gritty smog with volcanic fire.
Leon looked up, at the sky that stretched tight with pulsing purple and sickly green light that throbbed with a slow, sick rhythm. No sun. No moon, and no star. Only the faint eldritch glow from jagged rocks that jutted like broken teeth.
Many of the students materialized around him, bumping into one another in a disoriented panic, yet Leon felt profoundly, and terrifyingly alone.
Mr. Lee's words echoed as a broad-shouldered student shoved Leon aside: 'Only the strong survive.'
A crackle of static small drones zipped overhead, flashing a holographic message into the thick air:
[TRIAL 1: SURVIVAL]
[DURATION: 48 HOURS]
[WARNING: THE TERRITORY IS HOSTILE]
The hologram flickered, imprinting a ghostly map with a single pulsing waypoint across the sky before the drones vanished.
'48 hours? Will we be given food or water?' Leon said low in his head but saw a reflection of his questions at the doomed faces of the students around him.
From a canyon to his left, a skittering sound erupted, causing his blood to turn cold.
"…monsters are coming!"
"…where?!"
"…they are everywhere,"
The air grew thicker, weighted with a sudden dread that initiated a stampede. Screams erupted like a ragged rising hymn of pure terror.
Some of the students fell, becoming a mart for those standing.
Leon, who managed to pull himself from the ground after being pushed by those with broad-shouldered, froze after turning.
Shreds of human flesh, still steaming across the crimson earth like ludicrous confetti. Seeing that didn't just hit him; it unmade the concept of "death."
And when some fell in his mouth, a sharp, metallic stink coated his tongue – the same coppery warning tang he'd tasted when he first experienced his power awakening.
It made him gag.
"No… no, no, no, no," he said, tilting his gaze away, and sucking out a ragged breath that burned.
At that moment a deafening truth struck him like a butcher's blade, cutting through his skull: The first trial had begun. And there was no way back.
…
The holographic message reappeared as the drones flew back, updating them with cold menace.
[PARTICIPANTS: 10000]
[DEAD: 1500]
When Leon saw it, his face paled. Yet he moved, navigating a land that seemed twisted by a mad god.
He skirted ridges that rippled like frozen waves, and avoided narrow crevices that exhaled foul, eye-stinging vapors.
Seeing a dog-like monster with blazing four eyes and a long blade-like tail, Leon threw himself through a dwarf-like hole.
Standing straight in the inside of the hole, Leon found himself in a field of jagged, translucent crystals that shimmered with sickly light. And at that instant, he felt being watched.
He spun, hearing chittering sound echo through his back. But saw nothing apart from the raised crystals that continuously threw a long-distorted shadow that seemed lean toward his every direction.
As the chittering increased, he ducked behind a square-pillar crystal, his heart pounding heavily in his chest.
The sound echoed like knives being dragged across glass the moment he heard it moving at the left side of the crystal he hid behind.
For a second, Leon saw heaven, as a creature with flat long and sharp limb stopped just an inch from his side growling.
The creature stood there, its long limbs moving on their own toward Leon's direction, as if they had a brain of their own.
Leon swallowed hard, held his breath, closed his eyes tightly, after spotting one limb at the creature's right hand stretched toward him.
The atmosphere in the crystal cave remained tensed, as if the land itself was waiting for him to falter.
Feeling the limb closed in with him, a loud crack sound echoed from behind the crystal.
The creature turned at great speed toward where the sound erupted. Even after hearing the creature moved from the left side of the crystal to the far back, Leon didn't move.
He only moved when he heard no chittering sound in the cave. He rushed outside, forgetting he'd stopped the inflow and outflow of air through his nostrils.
Leon breathed as he scrambled down a steep slope. And at the point where he took gasping for air, a new sound cut through the oppressive silence, mixing with his pants.
"Not again…" he said, his voice carrying the weight of fatigue that had already overwhelmed him.