Devourers weren't all the same.
That was the first thing Tom had told him last night, when they were riding to the inn.
"A Devourer can eat your body and wear you like a coat," Tom had said. "Some don't even need teeth. They just look at you, and your will is gone. Like the Puppeteer."
Jack hadn't liked the sound of that one.
"And there was this drunk traveller once," Tom had added, grinning. "Said a Devourer swallowed him and spat him out on another planet. Whole different sky, different star. One sun? Crazy."
Tom had laughed it off as a tale because how then would the traveller have returned? Jack had listened, though.
The point was simple.
Devouring wasn't one thing. It could be physical. Something nobody noticed. He could live his life in peace.
That was good for Jack.
Because whatever Devourer he was… the system said he had no mana. For now.
So, if he was going to find out what he could devour, he had to get close to real monsters. Close enough to die.
He didn't plan on dying, though.
Dying when you had one life left was scary.
He hadn't gone far from the Sun Hunters' stand when Stiles cut in front of him.
Literally.
One moment, the path was clear. The next, Stiles was there, armour plates not even rattling, blue cloak barely moving.
Jack skidded to a stop, almost bumping into him.
Stiles was always quiet. Jack had thought the man might be mute the first day. Seeing him appear out of nowhere like that, with no mana trail Jack could feel, made his skin crawl just a little.
"You scared me," Jack said, hand over his chest.
Stiles ignored that.
He lifted his hand and reached into the empty air, and space bent from his red mana.
A short sword slid out of nothing and into his grip.
It glowed for a second, then the light faded, leaving a plain steel blade with a simple guard. No jewels or fancy runes.
He held it out, and Jack stared at it.
Then he remembered.
Right. Everyone who had gone down into the arena earlier had a weapon. The Beasts weren't going to just lie down and let him poke them with his bare fingers while he tested devouring.
He took the sword. It was heavier than it looked, but the balance felt fine. His hands remembered how to hold it from some life or another.
"Thank you," Jack said.
He bowed slightly, like the way he had seen other citizens bow in the city. It felt strange, but also… good. Like some human part of him from his old world was still alive here.
Stiles just dipped his chin and vanished.
No smoke. No light.
Just gone.
"Show‑off," Jack muttered with a smile.
He turned and kept going.
It didn't take him long to find the arena doors. One definitely couldn't miss them.
There were two huge slabs of dark metal carved into the side of the stone, with thick chains and strange sigils that made his skin itch if he looked at them too long.
Two guards stood there. They wore armour that tried and failed to look like Stiles'—same shape, cheaper metal.
Their helmets covered their faces.
Jack walked up, sword resting against his shoulder.
"Hello?" he said. "I want to join the Selection Trial."
One of the guards looked down.
His armour was scratched, and his gauntlets were thick.
Without uttering a word, he swung his hand towards Jack.
Jack didn't even see the arm move. His head snapped sideways, and the world tilted.
The sword he had flung until it hit stone.
"Get away from here, brat, before I lose my temper," the guard said, going back to his post as if nothing had happened.
Jack pressed his hand to his cheek to ease the stinging pain.
He tasted a little blood.
The other guard hadn't moved at all, standing like a statue. Only his eyes shifted, narrow slits behind the helmet watching.
Jack pushed himself up. Not even wobbling or passing out due to the level of his constitution.
The still guard finally turned his head fully to look at Jack.
Inside the helmet, his eyes narrowed.
'He didn't get knocked out by Brock's hit. It packed a punch as well,' he thought. 'He passes.'
But he wasn't the one who spoke.
"Oh? You pass the late evaluation," the first guard—Brock—said with a small chuckle. "Go get yourself killed, kid."
"Huh?" Jack said, hand already twitching, halfway to activating Instinct Override.
He stopped himself and tried to process what just happened.
So that was the test? Late entry condition… was "survive a cheap shot from a bored knight"?
The logic of this world was broken.
'What if my Constitution wasn't high?' he thought. 'What if I were just a normal kid?'
The answer was probably that he would be lying on the ground, neck broken, and they would probably just drag his body away.
He suddenly knew why the waiting area outside the arena looked so empty.
A lot of people probably died right here. No funeral. No names. Just a hard lesson for the next batch.
"Go on then," Brock said, gesturing at the door with his thumb.
Jack picked up his sword, dusted off his clothes, and walked through.
The arena's inside chamber opened up around him.
Stone walls. High ceiling. The roar of the crowd above seeping down through gaps in the metal like the sound of angry waves.
He stepped out onto the sand.
Dozens of people were already there.
"They said over fifty," Jack muttered, eyes skimming the crowd. "I bet they didn't even bother to count properly."
Most of the competitors looked young. Around his age. A few older ones, maybe mid‑twenties, faces already hard from some other war.
Some wore leather, others had simple cloth. A few had chainmail. Weapons ranged from rusty spears to shiny axes that screamed "rich dad."
Above, on a raised platform, the VIPs lounged in their fancy seats. Jack's eyes caught the Sun Hunters' corner. He saw their faces watching their pigs and awaiting the slaughter.
Jack didn't look up too long, though.
He had his own problem down here.
Just as he was wondering how long this would take, a voice called out.
"What are you doing here?"
Tom pushed through a cluster of competitors, eyes wide. His hair was a mess, and he wore light armour.
He looked Jack up and down like he'd expected to see him tied up somewhere, not on the killing field.
"Well," Jack said, shrugging. "I thought it wouldn't hurt to try to contest. Plus, I owe you guys for saving me in the Canch."
"Are you crazy?!" Tom's voice shot up.
A few nearby competitors glanced over, then lost interest when they realised it was just drama, not Beasts.
The Selection Trial was dangerous. Jack knew that. But the system also knew that, so it had sent him there after disturbing his peripheral vision with notifications.
As someone who had lived a hundred lives, some of which ended with him dying in much dumber ways than this, he knew how to smell real danger.
This time limit wasn't a bluff.
"Look," Jack said. "I know I just got here, but where I come from, people don't just die for glory. Think about Jane… Won't she miss you?"
Tom raised an eyebrow. "I thought you couldn't remember where you came from."
"I can't," Jack lied. "But I have… vague memories."
Tom huffed out a laugh anyway.
"Thanks, but don't worry about Jane," he said. "She'll actually be the most disappointed if I don't chase glory. She's mental, that one."
He shook his head, smiling for a second.
Then his face went serious.
"Okay, so I don't know what you can do," Tom said, voice lower. "But here's the plan. We stick to the back. Let the idiots rush in first. We watch how the Beasts move. We only attack when there's an opening. You see something weird, you let me know. Understood?"
"Understood," Jack said.
He had to make his own plan, which was to find a way to devour a Beast without dying.
Tom's plan and his weren't that far apart.