Around the perimeter of the battlefield, panic rippled through the candidates. Witnessing the brutal strike that sent Ren flying, several participants abandoned their posts and bolted toward the exits, fearing for their lives. High above, the Elites watched the chaos in tense silence.
"Are you absolutely certain that beast won't target anyone outside the arena?" Ayumu asked, his gaze fixed on Tsubasa, the Vice Head of Analysis.
"Positively," Tsubasa replied, tapping rapidly on a holographic interface. "The examination suits emit specific biometric codes. I've locked the spider's targeting sensors to the codes of Team 42. It won't see anyone else as a threat."
Raizen chuckled darkly, leaning over the railing. "It would be somewhat funny if the thing malfunctioned and started hunting everyone, wouldn't it?"
Akihito turned a cold, narrow gaze toward him. "Don't tell me that's what you're hoping for."
"Of course not," Raizen dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand. "I'm just saying. And even if it did, I could neutralize it from this distance before it touched a soul. But for now, I want to see how the 'Princess' and her team handle the heat."
On the battlefield, Ren's world was a blur of gray and red. He coughed, a thick metallic taste filling his mouth, his chest heaving as his body fought to keep air moving. Zen started to sprint toward his twin, but Aiko grabbed his arm, her hand trembling violently.
"No! We can't break formation!" she cried, tears brimming in her eyes. "This is a pressure test, Zen! If we fall apart now, we fail the simulation. The only one close enough to help him is Hoshizaki!"
They turned their eyes to Hoshizaki. Covered in Ren's blood and shivering with terror, the boy looked ready to snap. But as the mechanical spider took a predatory step toward the downed Ren, something in Hoshizaki broke. He dropped his heavy claymore and scrambled toward Ren, scooping him up with desperate strength.
"I've got you, buddy! Don't you dare die!" Hoshizaki yelled, backing away as fast as he could. He scanned the edges of the arena. "Where are the medics? Someone is dying and they're just standing there! This exam is insane!"
He turned to run toward Zen and Aiko, but the spider was faster. It lunged. In his frantic haste, Hoshizaki's foot caught on a piece of debris. He went down hard, tumbling across the dirt and losing his grip on Ren. The mechanical nightmare loomed over them, its crimson eyes glowing as it prepared to impale them both.
In the backline, Tsukiko fell to her knees, sobbing as she clung to Aiko's leg. "Please! Save my brother! I'll give you anything, just save them!"
Aiko's knuckles turned white around the grip of her blaster. I'm the one with the highest output on this team, she thought. She stepped forward, unleashing a barrage of Orvex-charged bolts. Impact, impact, impact! But the spider remained unfazed, the shots bouncing off its reinforced chassis like pebbles.
Up on the pillar, Raizen whispered to Ayumu, "She's their strongest, and she's helpless. Just say the word, Ayumu, and I'll end this. What's it going to be?"
Ayumu watched in agonizing silence. Come on, Aiko, he thought. Use what I taught you. Your Orvex is special... channel it!
Aiko continued to fire, her vision blurred by tears. "Work... please, work!" she begged the machine. She pictured Ren—his stupid grin, his reckless dreams of being a hero. She couldn't let those dreams end in a puddle of blood.
Suddenly, a low, rhythmic whispering caught her ear. She turned, her blood running cold. Zen was standing perfectly still. His veins were bulging against his neck, and his eyes had gone dark and hollow.
"Die... die... die..." Zen muttered under his breath.
A flash of memory hit him—the day their father entered a portal and never returned. Then, a softer memory: they were four years old. Ren had fallen on the playground, his knee a bloody mess. Zen had carried his twin all the way home on his back, treating the wound himself and promising, "I'll always protect you, Ren."
Seeing his brother broken on the dirt shattered the last of Zen's logical restraints.
"Zen? Are you okay?" Aiko reached out.
Zen didn't answer. He vanished. He moved with an explosive speed that left a dust cloud in his wake, his Nova Spire blaster hummed with a sound like a jet engine.
High above, Tsubasa's tablet began to shriek with warning pings. "What is that?" Kuro demanded.
Tsubasa stared at the screen, his face pale. "I'm getting a new reading from Zen. The Orvex channeling through his Blaster... it's..."
"What? Ten percent? Fifteen?" Yoruma guessed.
"FIFTY PERCENT!" Tsubasa screamed.
"Impossible!" Ayumu whispered, standing up. No untrained rookie should be able to hold that much density without their heart stopping.
On the battlefield, the spider raised a bladed leg to finish Hoshizaki. Zen skidded to a halt, leveled his blaster, and fired.
The shot didn't just hit the leg—it erased it. Where the metal had been, there was now only a glowing, molten void. The spider screeched as Zen fired five more times in rapid succession, each bolt carving chunks out of the machine's torso, leaving behind pools of white-hot slag.
The spider, sensing its end, opened its "mouth" to fire a desperation beam. Zen was too close to dodge horizontally. He timed the build-up of the monster's energy, and just as the light flared, he leaped twenty feet into the air.
He looked down into the glowing maw of the beast. "Open wide, you bastard."
He fired directly into the Mouth. The explosion blew the spider's head clean off in a fountain of sparks and oil. Zen landed heavily, his lungs burning. Channeling 50% without a stabilized suit was tearing his muscles apart.
The crowd roared, but the headless spider began to twitch, rising back up on its remaining legs. It was a machine; it didn't need a brain to kill.
Aiko saw Zen's strength failing. She turned to Tsukiko. "Give me the lighter! Now!"
She grabbed the special weapon and, with the speed of a pro, began stripping parts from her own blaster. She re-wired the lighter's ignition core to her blaster's power cell, augmenting the "Special Attack" with her own blaster core capacity.
"I remodeled it!" Aiko shoved the device back into Tsukiko's hands. "The output is tripled! Now, send that beast to hell!"
Tsukiko nodded, her face set in grim determination. She clicked the button. A swarm of green nano-spheres coated the headless spider in a thick, flammable fog. Zen, seeing the signal, grabbed Ren and Hoshizaki by their collars and used his last burst of energy to spring away.
Tsukiko threw the ignited lighter.
FROOOM!
A pillar of fire erupted, turning the mechanical spider into a molten skeleton of melting wires and slag.
"TEAM 42 HAS PASSED!" the L.E.C. announced.
Ayumu finally slumped back into his seat, exhaling a breath he felt he'd been holding for an eternity. Below, the medical teams swarmed the field, rushing toward Ren's unconscious body.