It was night.
Pathro stood in his room, tightening the straps of his boots as he dressed for the test. The room was simple—two beds, basic coverings, and a pair of lockers where they kept their clothes, notebooks, and gear. The other bed belonged to his roommate: Toshiro.
Toshiro was already dressed, wearing a dark blue keikogi with a black belt around his waist, black boots on his feet, and half-finger gloves. He sat on his bed, solving college algebra problems, a book propped lazily against the wall as he scribbled notes into a notebook.
Pathro looked over at him with a raised brow. "You really think this is the right time to be solving algebra?"
Toshiro didn't even look up. "It's not about the time. It's about using every moment productively."
"I mean, sure," Pathro muttered, finishing the laces on his boots, "but we're about to go into battle. Doesn't math... kill the mood a little?"
Toshiro shrugged. "I'm good. There's no need to stress about a test I already prepared for. If I fail, maybe I was just destined to fail."
"Destined to fail, huh?" Pathro echoed, pulling on his gloves. He paused as a thought crossed his mind.
This is a military academy, but it's not just about fighting. We've got an education that rivals most colleges. They don't just want soldiers—they want diplomats, thinkers, linguists. I've mastered ten languages already: Japanese, Mandarin, English, Portuguese, Hindi, French, Arabic, Russian, Korean, and Indonesian. I can hold my own in a few others too, but those ten... I speak like a native. And I'm not alone. We're expected to interact with the world beyond Japan.
Suddenly, a loud siren blared through the facility.
Toshiro closed his book and stood. "Time to move."
Pathro adjusted the black headband around his forehead. "Yeah. I'm done here."
The two stepped out of the room.
A wide, grassy field stretched before them, dimly lit by military-grade lamps. The moon was hidden behind thick clouds, casting an eerie darkness over the gathering area. Hundreds of cadets stood scattered across the field. After all, their class had 300 members.
Pathro and Toshiro moved through the crowd.
"Ah, Pathro!" a voice called.
Pathro turned toward the familiar sound. A tall boy approached—dressed similarly to Pathro, minus the headband. His crimson-red hair stood out, especially paired with his sharp black eyes.
"Kiligaku," Pathro said. "Where were you all day? Your room was empty."
"I went to the Underwater Realm," Kiligaku replied casually. "Wanted to get some last-minute training in." His tone changed as someone who is pissed but holding it in "actually looked for you so that we can train together... but you weren't there."
Pathro's expression twitched slightly.
"He's pissed I went training without him... can't blame him. But it wasn't personal—Yukihiro and Reina requested a private spar."
He spoke calmly, "The Underwater Realm, huh? Not a fan, honestly. I hate that feeling... being surrounded by water, no sense of up or down."
"But that's what makes it perfect for training," Kiligaku countered.
The Underwater Realm was one of the many artificial realms built by the Japanese Zunan Fighters for elite training. It was a boundless space filled entirely with water—no ground, no sky, no air. No "surface," no "bottom." Just endless liquid in every direction. Gravity didn't exist there. You couldn't tell left from right, up from down. But strangely, the water particles emitted light, giving visibility despite the abyss.
The realm was only survivable because Zunan Fighters didn't need air to live.
"Hey, you two," Toshiro said, snapping their attention back. "Instructor's coming."
Suddenly, the field shifted. All cadets scrambled into formation—twenty columns, fifteen rows.
The instructor approached.
She walked toward the stand in front of the cadets. Her outfit was a sleek black combat suit, layered with a long, sleeveless brown coat. The coat's collar rose up past her chin, giving her a commanding look. Her white hair, barely reaching her shoulders, framed her face—scarred on the left cheek. Despite her beauty, there was nothing soft about her expression. She looked like someone who'd survived hell.
Hands in her pockets, she climbed the stand and gazed at the cadets.
"Looks like your disobedience has finally reached its peak," she said coldly. "You're about to become soldiers. You should've formed lines before I arrived. But you chose not to. I'll let it slide—just this once."
A tense silence followed.
"Let's talk about the real reason you're here. The test."
She paused, her tone dropping.
"I'm not going to stand here reciting what's already been drilled into your skulls. Just know this: if you fail the test, you stay a cadet for another year. Fifteen years already spent in this academy—do you really want to add one more?"
She scanned the faces before her.
"May your hard work bear the fruits you deserve. That is all. Any questions before I send you to your test realm?"
A cadet raised his hand.
She ignored him entirely.
"Of course there are no questions," she said with a smirk. "If I wasn't clear, that's your fault."
Without another word, red energy began to swirl around her right hand. A crackle of power filled the air.
"Now... begone."
She snapped her fingers—and in an instant, the entire platoon vanished.
In the blink of an eye, Pathro reappeared—alone—standing in the middle of a wide road.
Neon signs flickered. Towering skyscrapers loomed. The streets were lined with modern cars, but not a single soul was in sight. Everything felt real—eerily real—but completely devoid of life.
Pathro looked around and muttered, "Just as I expected… They sent us to the Milky Way Realm."
He exhaled, hands on his hips as he scanned the horizon. "Guess no one can complain about gravity or freezing temperatures here. Not like the Ice Realm or the Underwater one. This feels like home… well, almost."
This was also among the many training realms crafted by the Japanese military—a simulated reality of absurd scale. The Milky Way Realm was a like a universe containing infinite galaxies, each one an exact replica of the real Milky Way galaxy, down to every atom. Each galaxy had its own Earth, and every cadet had been individually transported to a different one.
Though humanity had never existed here, the realm mimicked the real world with chilling precision. Cities stood fully intact—skyscrapers, stores, even traffic lights and advertisements were in place—copied from Earth and updated every 24 hours. No animals. No people. Just silence. A living ghost town designed to test warriors in a world that felt real.
Pathro glanced up at a massive TV billboard flashing over a building front: "Welcome to Tokyo"
He narrowed his eyes. "So this is the Japan of this Earth…"
He paused, sensing the silence. "I don't feel any Zunans nearby. They must be far. Definitely not in Japan."
With a slight bend in his knees, Pathro vanished from the road, launching upward in a blur. In seconds, he landed atop the tallest skyscraper in central Tokyo. He looked across the empty city—too vast, too quiet.
He sighed. "It's a pain trying to track them down across an entire planet. Might as well call them to me."
Without hesitation, Pathro began to release his energy. A low rumble echoed through the air. Black and red energy swirled around him like a storm brewing in reverse. Then, it exploded outward.
A dome of destructive energy surged from his body—cracking buildings, obliterating roads, vaporizing everything in its expanding radius. The skyscraper he stood on crumbled instantly beneath him, and yet he remained floating midair, surrounded by the chaos of his own making.
The energy surged so violently that it stretched into the clouds, tearing through the city like a firestorm.
Tokyo was gone. Only bare, scorched earth remained where the once-bustling metropolis had stood.
Still hovering, Pathro remained completely calm as the wind howled past him. His eyes focused. His aura flared higher.
"That should get their attention," he said, his voice cold.
His fists glowed red-hot, heat rising from his arms up to the elbow. The crimson energy pulsed like magma beneath his skin. He looked like a blade ready to be drawn.
He cracked his neck and smirked.
"Let the slaughter begin."
Floating in the air above the scorched remains of Tokyo, Pathro took a slow breath, his body radiating a steady pulse of black and red energy. The destruction he had unleashed was absolute—concrete, steel, and asphalt reduced to nothing but dust and molten craters.
He smirked to himself.
"The thing I love about this realm... I can cause as much damage as I want without worrying about consequences. It'll all get repaired in the next update cycle anyway. And even if it didn't... there are infinite earths in this realm hence infinite Tokyo's. One wipeout means nothing."
The violent storm of his aura quieted, compressing until it wrapped tightly around his body like a glowing second skin. He looked like a god of wrath dimming his fury—but only for a moment.
BOOM!
Without warning, a massive beam of fire surged through the sky—dark red and black flames screaming toward him like a cannon shot from hell. The explosion shook the clouds themselves, tearing through the sky like a divine spear.
But when the fire cleared...
Pathro was gone.
The beam had hit nothing but air and vaporized clouds.
Far below, standing atop Mount Takao, was the source of the attack: a Zunan.
It stood nearly four meters tall, its grotesque frame as thin as a starving ghoul. Its skin was a sickly crocodile green, stretched tight over sharp bones. Six long arms, each ending in sickle-like claws, hung at its sides—twitching with hunger. Yellow eyes, bulging with red veins, scanned the sky, full of savage thirst.
Thick black smoke poured from its mouth, which was lined with enormous tusks. Down the line of its spine, bladed horns jutted upward, giving the creature a demonic silhouette against the moonless sky.
Its breath was ragged. It looked ready to lunge.
But then—
"Behind you, dummy."
The voice was casual, almost amused.
The Zunan jerked in panic, trying to turn, but—
Too late.
Pathro's fist, glowing red-hot to the elbow, connected with the back of the Zunan's skull.
BOOOOM!!!
An eruption exploded out in every direction. The force was cataclysmic—Mount Takao, the forest around it, the hills, the rivers—all of it disintegrated in a single instant. The land was annihilated, reduced to fine dust and chunks of shattered rock.
The Zunan was gone. Completely erased.
Amid the flaming aftermath, Pathro was launched into the air by the sheer force of his own punch. But with perfect control, he spun rapidly mid-air, angling his body to counteract the shockwave and reduce the distance it flung him.
He descended slowly—through the haze of smoke and debris—like a shadow returning to earth. The blast cloud parted around him as he landed, crouched, then stood upright.
A silhouette in the smoke.
Then his glowing eyes pierced through the dark veil.
He turned slightly to his left, his voice low but full of hunger:
"Next."
Like a predator aching for the hunt.
Far above the Milky Way Realm, in the heart of the Okinawa military complex, the woman who had dismissed the cadets—Instructor Shiori Arimura—stepped into a dimly lit observation chamber.
The walls were dark, lined with reinforced titanium, and the air hummed with electric tension.
Five massive hologram screens floated in the center of the room, each displaying a live feed of a different cadet's battlefield. The feeds were quiet—no commentary, no noise—just raw, high-resolution surveillance of chaos and power.
Five instructors were already present.
Three were seated casually on large, deep blue sofas, while one man stood leaning against the wall, arms folded. He wore a black umbrella hat, a grey long-sleeve shirt marked with black symbols across the sleeves and collar, baggy black trousers, and a pair of weathered sandals. Despite his relaxed stance, his eyes were sharp.
As Shiori stepped in, she smirked and said casually:
"So... have the brats already begun their slaughter?"
One of the holograms flared red—Pathro was visible, a lone figure hovering in the air above the ruins of what used to be Tokyo, a burning wasteland beneath him.
The man on the wall scoffed lightly.
"You were right," he said, voice deep and dry.
"This was going to be too easy for someone like Pathro."
Shiori walked behind the sofa chair in front of her, leaned forward slightly, and rested her arms along its back, gazing at the screens with casual pride.
"Pathro, Kiligaku, Toshiro, Yukari, and Tomoko…" she said with a grin,
"Those five are miles above their classmates. They'll walk through this test. Killing off the standard Rokude Zunans? That's light work."
The woman seated on the far left, dressed in a sleek military coat with sharp green nails and silver earrings, nodded.
"True," she said.
"At their current power levels, this exam would've just been a warm-up. A spar at best."
The man on the wall raised an eyebrow, turning his head slightly.
"Would've?" he repeated. "What do you mean would?"
The woman smiled, crossing one leg over the other.
"In order for those five to truly feel like this is a final test… the board decided to turn up the heat."
Shiori's eyes narrowed slightly. "Wait… you don't mean—"
"Yes," the woman said.
"While all the other cadets face standard-issue Rokude-types… those five were each assigned a far deadlier opponent. A little surprise to get their hearts racing."
Back to the milky way realm,
lightning danced across Kiligaku's body as he stepped through the wreckage, the rain sizzled as it hit his electrified skin.
"Too easy," he muttered.
"It's barely been a minute, and I've already got four kills. So much for a final test. I wonder-"
Suddenly, he stopped.
His expression shifted.
A chill passed through the air—not from wind, but from something else. Something powerful. He turned around quickly, his senses spiking.
From the fire behind him, a silhouette emerged.
Though not clearly visible due to the fire and smoke, Kiligaku already knew what kind of Zunans this was. He looks at the silhouette figure with close attention. The Zunan let out a loud screech as if trying to deafen it's opponent. Kiligaku stood still unshaken.
Kiligaku narrowed his eyes.
"...That's definitely not a Rokude."
He took a step back making his martial arts stance called the horse stance. Lightning crackling up his arms like warning sirens.
"Looks like this test just dialed up to a hundred."