Without a word, Asher leaped into the air with a calm, effortless ease, his figure slicing through the atmosphere in a clean arc before ascending onto one of the towering beam poles. His landing was feather-light, perfectly balanced upon the narrow surface, and his purple eyes shifted toward Instructor Elowen, who still wore a wide, almost mischievous smile.

"I'm ready," he said, his voice steady and composed.

Her smile widened into a grin, the kind that revealed both her anticipation and her amusement. "I will be setting the timer for thirty minutes," she replied. "I wish you fewer injuries." There was no fear in her tone, no hesitation. If he were to face critical danger, she could simply intervene, swiftly, decisively, without difficulty. That certainty allowed her to smile as though nothing here posed a genuine threat.

Instructor Elowen stepped aside to activate The Killer. As she walked, she spoke to Finch and William, both of whom had yet to move, their bodies stiff with a mixture of fascination and worry. "You two should leave. Stand over there, behind the glass." She pointed to the protected observation zone.

The boys nodded and followed her quietly, their steps small, their eyes never leaving Asher's figure.

Asher remained perched upon the beam pole with a tranquil expression. The belt tied around his waist fluttered in the wind, moving with the same gentle rhythm as the purple strands of hair resting atop his head. He wasn't nervous. He simply existed in that calm space that came before a storm.

Then suddenly, a blaring siren ripped through the air, a harsh metallic sound that reverberated across the massive training field. A mechanical voice followed, cold and unnerving.

"Challenger, survive for thirty minutes. The shift shall start in five seconds."

Asher listened silently as two countdown timers materialized before him, one displaying the thirty-minute survival duration, the other displaying the five-second pre-start countdown. Instantly, the five-second timer began its descent.

5

4

3

2

1

The moment it struck 1, the smaller timer vanished, and the thirty-minute countdown began to roll.

Asher felt the shift immediately. The air itself sharpened, almost literally, its texture distorting as though the atmosphere had transformed into invisible blades ready to tear him apart. But he did not move. This was a survival course, and unless there was immediate danger, dashing around needlessly would be foolish.

Then, he heard it.

A violent ripping of the air, like cloth being torn apart at an impossible speed.

Without a fraction of hesitation, Asher dove forward, abandoning the beam pole entirely. Not a heartbeat later, a colossal jagged earth spike erupted violently from the space where he had stood, large enough to tear his body into scattered pieces had he remained there even one second longer.

Asher's eyes snapped toward the monstrous spike, but it wasn't done. The smaller sharp edges protruding from its sides began to shoot outward in the hundreds, each one moving with deliberate, predatory intent. They swarmed like guided bullets, as though they possessed awareness, locked onto him.

His figure blurred, his body vanishing into a burst of speed so intense it left the air quivering behind him like ripples in water. But even with his thundering velocity, the smaller spikes kept up, their accuracy unrelenting. Each time he dodged and landed on a new beam pole, a spike arrived a heartbeat later and obliterated the pole beneath him, reducing thick, reinforced wood to splinters as if it were nothing more than fragile paper.

But Asher knew better, these poles were anything but flimsy. Their destruction only highlighted the overwhelming power behind the spikes.

He dared not leap too high into the air. Doing so would expose him to attacks from multiple angles while he remained suspended, unable to maneuver properly. With gravity acting against him and the rules forbidding the use of Astra or techniques, he moved like a cat, graceful, low, controlled, springing from one beam pole to the next, each movement as calculated as a heartbeat.

'Left and right.'

Asher's Omni Perception relayed the incoming attack paths before they even fully formed. Acting instantly, he bent backward with preternatural ease, his spine arching until his back was parallel to the ground far below. Two massive spikes clashed together above him, their collision sending a reverberation through the air.

His senses screamed, and he trusted them without question. Still bent backward, still suspended in that unnatural angle, he twisted sideways, tearing through the air like a spinning blade.

The two colossal spikes behind him exploded at that exact moment, disintegrating into a brutal shower of jagged rocks and coarse sand. The explosion tore apart everything within several meters, rebounding violently against every surface. Asher's body spun through the air, flipping gracefully before his feet landed on the next beam pole. But the moment he touched it, it vanished.

Not shattered. Not destroyed. Simply gone. gravity seized him instantly, dragging him downward with merciless speed.

Asher frowned mid-fall.

From the moment the challenge began, he had noticed several poles were illusions. He had avoided them all easily; his senses pierced through their false forms without effort. But the beam pole he had just stepped on… that had been real. Solid. Tangible. Yet it had disappeared the moment he touched it.

'Is this place alive?' he wondered as he plummeted.

'It's as if The Killer realized I wasn't falling for the illusions, so it adapted… changed the rules.'

But he had no time to think further. Another jagged spike shot upward from below, its edge gleaming sharply as it targeted his chest with lethal precision.

Asher didn't panic, his body twisted in a narrow, controlled motion, dodging the spike by mere inches. Using the spike's massive jagged sides as temporary support, he caught himself midair, breaking gravity's pull. His hand gripped one of the smaller protrusions, and without hesitation, he used it like a foothold, launching himself upward toward the nearest intact beam pole.

But the colossal spike seemed enraged at being used so effortlessly, it responded violently. Hundreds of smaller spikes erupted from its body, shooting out in patterns that mimicked homing missiles. Asher dodged every single one, vaulting from the sides of one pole to another, using both as platforms, his movement swift, smooth, and almost animalistic in its instinctive efficiency. His agility rivaled creatures built for climbing, for leaping, for survival.

He reached the top of a pole, and then froze.

The sky had changed.

The once gentle blue sky with drifting white clouds was gone. In its place burned a searing crimson hue, as though the skies themselves had ignited. And descending from that crimson sky was a massive rock engulfed in blazing fire.

'A meteor?' He thought, the disbelief struck him like a shockwave.

He hadn't sensed the shift. Not the change in temperature, not the change in the sky's color or energy, nothing. Only upon reaching the pole's top had he noticed it. The meteor was enormous, dwarfing the pillars below, yet it moved at a speed that defied logic, tearing through the atmosphere like a world-ending spear.

Within seconds, it crossed the distance as if someone had fast-forwarded time. Asher's senses screamed, move or die. He didn't hesitate, not even for a heartbeat. He dove downward, back toward the very ground he had been running from.

His body became a streak of purple as he darted from one side of a pole to the other, his movements rapid and fluid, his stability perfect even at impossible speed. Feline grace would have been clumsy compared to him. Even parkour couldn't achieve such movement.

From below, the smaller earth spikes launched upward again, targeting him for trespassing into their territory. Now he was forced to dodge both the destruction following the meteor and the onslaught from the spikes.

Seconds passed, then the impact came.

A catastrophic explosion tore through the field, shaking the air itself. The colossal beam poles, thick, dense, towering, were shredded instantly, reduced first to flaming splinters, most then to ashes, then to absolute nothingness.

The heat intensified to a monstrous degree, searing enough to warp the space around it.

In that moment, destruction became an art.

Pure, ruinous, overwhelming.

It was calamitous, ruinous in every possible sense of the word. Yet, crimsonly artistic.

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