Chapter 9— | The Threshold of the Eclipse .
Chapter 9—The Threshold of the Eclipse.
The students were quickly divided into three separate columns facing the eclipse gates. As the system had predicted, Kaelen was sent to the left gate, while Tsubaki and the red-eyed boy headed in opposite directions.
"However", Lyra was standing right behind him in the line, her bow clutched in her trembling hands. Before them, the enormous Shadow Wolves projected waves of residual black mana that made the earth vibrate.
Kaelen, his gaze fixed, took advantage of the last few seconds of respite to question his interface.
"System, target analysis. Give me the mana cost to eliminate them one by one without triggering the king’s alert ".
[ Gling !]
Analysis in progress...
[Target: Shadow Wolves (Rank) A—Quantity: 12]
********
[Recommendation: Use the new skill "Compressed Wind Blade" where "No Shadow" is at a maximum of 35% intensity. Estimated mana cost: 130 mana points per creature.An almost invisible smile touched Kaelen’s lips. 35% was more than enough to clear the field while passing for a mere ordinary genius according to the King’s spies.
" Kaelen... looked at their claws; they shone with dark magic. "Lyra murmured softly beside him, "If one of those monsters touches us, our mana might be affected."
Suddenly the sign, the massive bell of the academy, rang a second time, a heavy sound that abruptly cut through the silence of the court.
"The test begins. Open the doors." shouted the director’s amplified voice.
With a clanking of chains, the cage barriers were suddenly lifted. Freed from the shadows, the wolves let out a collective howl that immediately chilled the blood, and they rushed inside the training ground, which had magically transformed into a maze of steep rocks and black mist.
"Forward!" shouted a nobleman, drawing a flaming sword.
The column of candidates surged through the Eclipse Gate Arch. At the exact moment Kaelen crossed the threshold of the stone, he felt a brief, invisible jolt run through the back of his neck. At the same moment, the black mist enveloped the group, cutting off all visibility beyond three meters.
In the distance, a cry of agony immediately tore through the mist. Barely ten meters from the entrance,The the first candidate had just been thrown against the rocks by a mass of shadow. Blood splattered the stone ground.
"They’re already here." Another student panicked, taking a step back...
Through the thick "dark" fog, two pools of burning red eyes fixed directly on Kaelen. The shadow wolves, altered to hunt the S Rank, ignored the other nearest targets to rush straight at him at lightning speed.
[Alert: Two specimens are approaching at high speed from the left flank.]
Kaelen didn’t back down an inch. He spread his legs slightly, anchoring his feet firmly to the ground, while a divine glow of deep blue began to saturate the atmosphere around with his hands, to do it with precision so as not to arouse the King’s suspicions.
The two shadow wolves leaped simultaneously through the thick fog, their sharp fangs shining with an evil black glow. At the same moment, the Noble with the flaming sword and his small band, seized by panic in the face of the violence of the general assault, retreated in disarray, almost throwing themselves into the path of Kaelen and Lyra.
A cold smile spread across Kaelen’s lips.
"Perfect," he thought.
With a fluid gesture, he pretended to stumble while releasing a brief burst of invisible compressed air beneath the feet of the retreating nobles.
Unbalanced, they were propelled into the path of the first wolf. The monster collided head-on with the Noble wielding the flaming sword in a clash of armor.
Meanwhile, the second wolf took advantage of the chaos to bypass the group, aiming directly for Lyra’s throat.
The young girl, paralyzed by the creature’s speed, barely managed to raise her bow.
"Don’t panic. Shoot now." Kaelen ordered immediately in a dry voice.
Just as the wolf was about to tear Lyra to pieces, Kaelen activated his skill.
[No shadow: intensity limited to 32%]
In the blink of an eye, his silhouette became blurred. He appeared on the beast’s flank and, with a simple flick of his wrist, unleashed a mini gust of wind that diverted the wolf’s trajectory in mid-flight; it forced him to align perfectly with the trajectory of Lyra’s arrow. The young Lyra’s bow vibrated, accompanied by a magical green light that pierced the creature’s eye, who collapsed with a groan.
Without wasting a second, Kaelen immediately slid towards the first wolf, still entangled between the arrogant nobles. To the king and the spectators through the magic mirror, Kaelen seemed to be merely taking advantage of an opportunity.
[Compressed Wind Blade: Intensity 35%.]
A thin line of deep blue energy, almost invisible to the naked eye, springs from the tips of her fingers.
She stepped through the mist and cleanly sliced the mana beast’s neck, stealing the victory point right under the nose of the nobleman who was trying to get up. The wolf instantly vanished into black dust.
"Gling !"
[Targets eliminated: 2/12]
[Mana consumed: 250 points]
[Magic Scan Status: Stable.
No anomalies detected by the sovereign’s artifacts.]
The Noble with the flaming sword, his face covered in dust, turned towards Kaelen, looking furious but still trembling:
"You...you dirty truck driver. What have you done?"
Kaelen put his hands in his pockets, displaying an innocent and breathless face.
Kaelen replied by saying:
"I simply took advantage of your incredible diversionary tactics to finish off the beast, Your Lordship. What teamwork."
Lyra, who was regaining her composure while putting away her bow, immediately understood the Kaelen double game and suppressed a laugh as the black fog thickened, masking the next growls that were approaching them.
The growls multiplied rapidly all around them, echoing against the invisible rock walls. The black mist became so dense that it seemed to absorb the light from the arena.
Suddenly, a desperate cry tore through the fog a few dozen meters to their left.
"Help! Please help me. Get me out of here!" screamed a young girl’s voice distressed, followed by the sound of flesh torn and slabs of broken stone.
Lyra jumped, grabbing Kaelen’s arm, her eyes wide with terror and at the same time with compassion.
"Kaelen... someone is being killed. We have to go save her. We couldn’t leave her like this." Lyra said...
Kaelen didn’t even flinch.
"Gling!"
[New skill unlocked: Evil Eye]Immediately his eyes swept through the darkness; guided by his newfound ability, he saw everything that was happening from afar.
"(Stay calm,)" he replied in a low, cold voice. "It’s a trap. The pack mentality has begun. If we run towards that scream, we’re going straight into a hunting zone. "Kaelen
At that precise moment, four massive figures burst from the mist, completely encircling their position. Four A-rank Shadow Wolves, their claws foaming with black mana.
A frontal attack would require deploying power that would certainly exceed the 35% limit imposed by the system. He had to use the environment to his advantage.
*******
[Eye Evil System: Terrain topography under fog. Finds a nearby structural anomaly.]
"Gling ! "
[Topographical scan of Eye Evil complete.]
[5 meters behind you: A seismic fault masked by mist. Depth: 15 meters. Unstable ground.]
A smile reappeared on his face.
"Lyra, take three steps back now," he suddenly ordered.
Under the combined weight of the falling monsters and the resulting crack, the stone immediately collapsed with a dull rumble.
In a single, panting motion, the three wolves tumbled into the void, carried by the landslide to the bottom of the precipice.
The fourth and last wolf, who had stayed behind, stopped abruptly at the edge of the hole, disoriented.
"To you, Lyra! Her side is exposed!"
Taking advantage of the distraction, Lyra once again drew her bow fully and fired a luminous arrow that pierced the beast’s neck clean through. The wolf collapsed heavily before disappearing.
"Gling !"
[Targets eliminated: 6/12]
[Mana consumed: 80 points.]
[Suspicion alert: 0%. The King has only detected a natural ground collapse.]
Kaelen observed the chasm with satisfaction. Less mana spent, more efficiency, and the King hadn’t seen a thing.
However, on the other side of the rift, the cries of distress from the other candidates continued to fade, becoming weaker and weaker.
As silence temporarily fell over their area, Lyra slowly lowered her bow, her gaze fixed on the gaping hole. She then turned to Kaelen, a mixture of suspicion and pure admiration in her eyes.
’Kaelen!!! How do you do that? The fog is so thick that we can’t see anything from afar, and yet you knew exactly that there was a seismic fault right behind us. It’s impossible without the magic of perception.’
Kaelen kept an innocent face. He knew that the King’s magic mirror was recording the scene; he had to lie tactfully.
He shrugged slightly, adopting a serious expression:
"It’s just the tracking instinct of a commoner, Lyra. In the countryside, when hunting in the misty mountains,We we learn to listen to the echoes of the wind and feel the cold air currents rising from the precipices. The rock sounded hollow under my feet; it’s just my intuition and my training."
Lyra still didn’t believe it; she stared at him for a moment, but she didn’t have time to insist. Suddenly, the air became heavy, almost unbreathable. The remaining black mist began to stir frantically, sucking up the magical residue of wolves already slain. The last six growls echoing through the labyrinth converged into a single and same spot, right in front of them.
Before their horrified eyes, the silhouettes of the six shadow wolves merged in an explosion of purple and green mana....