The first day began before dawn. The cold morning mist clung to the training grounds like a living thing, wrapping itself around the legs of every candidate standing in formation. A single horn echoed through the valley, and the trials began.
The first test was a sprint across uneven, frost-slick ground while carrying weighted packs nearly half their own body mass. The weak ones faltered before they reached the halfway mark. They weren't given second chances. The moment someone dropped to their knees, unable to rise, two instructors in black armor stepped forward, took the number tag from their arm, and motioned them away from the grounds. No words. No sympathy. Just erasure.
By the end of the first day, twenty-three names were already gone from the roster.
The days that followed bled into one another in a haze of exhaustion and strain.
The tests came in no predictable pattern—sometimes running drills, sometimes weapon handling, sometimes grueling endurance exercises that stretched late into the night. Sleep was a luxury. Food was scarce and always earned.
Every morning began with the same sight: the lines thinner, faces more hollow, eyes more desperate.
On the twelfth day, they were made to cross the "Crimson Wall"—a sheer stone barrier twice a man's height, slick with water, while arrows tipped with chalk streaked toward them from above. Any arrow that struck left a mark impossible to hide. Those marked more than twice were pulled out.
By the twentieth day, frostbite and cracked skin were common. Bloodied hands clenched weapons until the knuckles turned white. Breathing became ragged from the constant weight of armor. Even the strongest candidates began to stagger.
Alexander had long since stopped noticing the faces of those eliminated. They came and went like ghosts—one day standing beside him, the next day their place in line empty.
The fortieth day arrived like a storm. A final, relentless gauntlet awaited: a combination of all previous tests chained together with no rest. It was designed to break the mind before the body. The sound of boots pounding dirt, the metallic clash of steel, the sharp whistle of the overseer's horn—it all blurred into a single, endless moment.
When the horn finally blew for the last time, only twelve figures remained standing.
They were pale, bruised, and breathing like dying beasts, but they were upright.
No one cheered. No one smiled.
Because surviving the forty days didn't mean the war was over.
It only meant the real fight was about to begin.