While everyone fought for a better rank and tried to get out of this place, which wasn't much different from hell, Orion watched from above with a smile.
From what he'd watched over the last half hour, this was the final section of the Dungeon, whatever this thing was. All the warriors were split into two factions, fighting and pushing toward the portal.
When the timing felt right, Orion decided he'd let himself get killed and use that one minute of immortality to cross the room. He'd died so many times since morning that he'd even learned how to get himself killed in the cleanest way, fast enough to stand up and start walking again as soon as possible.
He was resistant to pain and sudden shocks now.
Even if a real death threat came now, he probably wouldn't feel fear the way he used to. Whether that was good or not, he didn't care. His second life had started out pretty well so far.
Immortality plus a "system" with stats (even if he hadn't used it properly yet) and a world full of fantasy creatures.
"I should add the magic to this list. Nice.."
He focused on the two leaders below, trying to figure out which one was more skilled, but he couldn't. He didn't understand the language they were speaking.
But thanks to the blonde girl's beauty and the way her voice cut through the chaos, he chose a route closer to her side to start his plan.
He smiled one last time, imagining the shock that would hit the young warriors' faces down there.
Because for that one minute after he died, his facial muscles wouldn't work.
..
"Touch it and the exam ends!" Highly famous words on the surface of the Human Domain.
This saying was the motto of all prestigious families while training their next generations. But everyone knew how hard it was to achieve. And this wasn't the only rule of the entrance exam.
Another rule lived underneath, quiet and cruel.
Nobody could hold their gaze on the giant dragon's face sitting atop the portal. It looked like a real creature, but it was actually a statue. If you looked, you died.
Seraphine's eyes were full of pride, but even she wouldn't test her luck.
Fortunately, she didn't need to force her gaze to stay steady; her bloodline magic handled it. The other contestants survived on pure instinct and luck.
Fighting monsters without even being able to look fully upward, without even using half your field of vision, was part of what made this room so brutal.
They'd seen the consequence earlier in the Maze, when a boy lifted his eyes the wrong way and collapsed where he stood. No lunge. No roar. Just a body losing the right to live.
One wrong glance at the big guy and you're done.
Seraphine treated the draconic statue like a pit in the floor. Mark it, respect it and move around it.
"Rear line, swap!" she ordered with a strong, guttural scream.
She wouldn't use this kind of voice in daily life, but military operations were different. War demanded force. It demanded movements and signals that crushed even personal emotions.
For a few minutes, Seraphine kept shouting orders in a tone that would scare even her in normal life.
An arrow cracked past her ear and pinned a crawling monster to the wall. Another arrived almost immediately and ended the twitching. Seraphine gave a single nod toward the shooter.
The archer straightened, jaw tightening, shoulders squaring with pride and satisfaction.
Seraphine wouldn't care even if everyone died in this damn hell. But soldiers needed small things, short words, small gestures, that counted as praise from their leader, especially when they felt helpless on a battlefield like this.
Here, a nod kept a spine from folding. A simple "good job" made them hold.
Across the chamber, another formation held its own space.
Valerius Lykaios, an as*hole noble, one of the strongest and most influential candidates in the exam, stood at its center.
His voice carrying cleanly even as the whole field was full of screams. His armor still looked untouched and his posture was confident.
His people moved as a unit around him, disciplined and proud in a way that irritated Seraphine almost as much as it impressed her.
Two formations in one room meant two priorities. They were supposed to end this entrance exam, but the real world didn't work the way it was supposed to.
Here, every opening became a contested, bloody dogfight. Every retreat came with judgment from the other side. Rivalry stayed alive even here, clinging to blood and stone like it meant something.
Seraphine had started getting tired of this time-wasting progress. She was one of the few who could actually calculate the rising number of creatures pouring into the room with every passing second and things were going to spiral soon. Very soon, reaching the portal would become impossible.
"Hold the center more!" Valerius called, anger and authority wrapped in his voice. "Any shifts from your side send the whole wave onto us!"
Seraphine measured the space between their lines and the angle of his left flank. His words had some truth. It was probably because of that smug girl with the club who'd fought the Orc minutes ago.
Small things created bigger ripples and mistakes. The rhythm she made with much effort was slipping away from her fingers.
Seraphine could have answered him, but Valerius's smug look was irritating. She refused to give him the pleasure.
She lifted her bow and fired without shifting her stance. The arrow struck a leaping creature mid-air and broke its momentum. It hit stone, skidded and stopped moving.
"Your right flank drifts," she called back, her voice flat and carrying. "Fix it!"
Valerius stiffened, then snapped orders with sharp gestures. His soldiers, the candidates working under him, moved fast. They tightened their defense against the flying monsters from the right side.
The portal pulsed again. This time it was different.
Light surged inside the arch, pressure rolling outward like heat from an opened furnace. Seraphine felt it in her teeth before she even saw the next bodies.
A fresh wave of monsters spilled out.
Their numbers were so high that even the slow ones, the ones who couldn't grasp how bad things were, finally started to understand.
Monsters came low and fast, their movements and voices wrong in too many ways. Some moved like they had too many joints. Some moved like they didn't care about death.
They crashed into the shield wall before anyone had fully accepted what the new wave meant and Seraphine saw the first cracks form in the only place cracks truly mattered.
In people.
Shoulders rose. Eyes widened. Hands clenched too tight. Breathing turned shallow.
That was when candidates started doubting and trying to reach safety by leaving the line. First they retreated in small steps. Then the whole wall would break. Then everything would end.
Leaving the defense wall bought one second of relief and sold everyone else a minute of disaster.
Seraphine's eyes were shining so brightly you could see it even from a distance. If things stayed like this for even a short time, pushing into the portal room and making this much progress, would stop being possible.
"Eyes up!" Seraphine barked. "Shields high. Hold your ground."
"If you fall back, I'll feed you to the monsters!"
The scream was so sudden and so powerful it drowned out the entire portal room. It even echoed to where Orion was watching from outside.
She stepped forward to anchor the pace. Her rapier worked in short thrusts and tight angles. No showy swings. No wasted movement. She aimed for mouths, throats, soft joints, anything that ended fights quickly and kept the wall steady.
A creature lunged for her face. She shifted just enough and drove steel into its mouth. It fell hard. Someone behind her gagged, coughed, then forced himself back into position without being told.
Seraphine glanced once, then looked away. He stayed in line.
That was enough.
On the far side, Valerius rotated his front and fed fresher bodies forward. His blade punished anything that slipped through. Loud and arrogant, yes, but his instincts held and his people obeyed because his anger left them no room to drift.
The portal kept pulsing. The floor kept trembling. The air tasted of copper and filth. The blood and stains all over their bodies would never wash out after this.
Then the crowd behind the lines shifted.
It started small. A rear rank leaned. A head turned. A few hands lifted, then dropped, as if pointing felt wrong. Voices overlapped in broken fragments, too fast to parse.
Seraphine felt the ripple and followed it with her eyes.
And in that moment, Seraphine's instincts told her only one thing.
Something was wrong.
Very wrong.