As the terrain began to shift, chaos followed like an overexcited dog with no leash.
One second, the ground was still.
The next, it betrayed us. Trees—gnarled, bone-white things with bark like scabbed stone—erupted from the earth with the subtlety of landmines.
They didn't grow.
They launched. Like missiles from the underworld.
Valois, the ever-graceful, ever-infuriating bastard, ascended into the air like some tragic opera bird.
Of course he flew. Of course he did.
Nothing screams aeromancer privilege like dodging a death forest by simply saying
"no thanks" to gravity.
My instincts screamed—left!—and I obeyed.
I dove, rolling across the dirt just as a tree exploded from the spot I'd been standing on.
The trunk tore out of the ground like it had a personal grudge against my ankles.
Bark and soil sprayed everywhere. I was breathing dirt. Dirt was my new oxygen.
A strangled scream to my right.
Some poor kid hadn't been as lucky.
I turned just in time to see him launched skyward by a newly-born tree like a tragic Looney Tune.
The force was almost majestic—graceful, even. A ballet of suffering.
But it got worse.
Because as he flailed midair, arms pinwheeling, a sharp crack rang out.
A sniper round. One of those high-magic, long-barrel things shaped like it was cosplaying a dragon spine.
The bullet didn't kill him. It just corrected his trajectory—straight down.
He slammed into the ground with the hollow thump of dreams dying.
Somewhere in the distance, the kid's orb shattered with a delicate ping, and he was gone, blinked out of the arena in a flash of lights like he'd never existed.
"Well," I muttered, pushing myself to my feet, "that's one way to prune the forest."
All around me, madness bloomed.
One girl tried to use wind magic to float between two sprouting trees.
It worked until one of them grew sideways and clotheslined her mid-air like a professional wrestler who hated optimism.
Her scream faded into the woods as she vanished into the underbrush like a bad idea.
Another student was halfway through casting some flashy summoning spell when a vine wrapped around his leg and yanked him straight into a thornbush with the enthusiasm of a starving python.
His spell fizzled into sparkles. His dignity evaporated.
But none of that really mattered.
Because I was pissed.
Really pissed.
Not because my body felt like it had been used as a chew toy by a werewolf with abandonment issues.
Not because my limbs were trembling or my knees were stained with blood that was probably mine.
Not even because my back had this weird twitch that I was 90% sure wasn't supposed to happen in human anatomy.
No. I could survive all that. Probably.
Okay.
I would be lying if I said I wasn't at least a little pissed about my face.
My face, man.
There was a long, thin cut across my cheekbone, carving through the dried blood like a cruel signature.
A shallow gash curved across my brow, trailing into my hairline.
My lip was swollen. One of my eyebrows was slightly scorched. Scorched.
I looked like a tragic ex-boyfriend from a trashy revenge novel.
The kind who dies halfway through and gets replaced by someone taller with a better jawline.
But that wasn't what really set my blood boiling.
No, what really pissed me off was this:
The terrain was just now changing.
Which meant… everything that had just happened—the savage, soul-crushing battle against that Wulfgan the rampaging mutt and Valois that Dammed demon Prince from hell —had all happened in the first fifteen minutes.
Fifteen. Minutes.
Fifteen minutes that had left my body broken, my clothes torn, and my formerly beautiful face looking like it lost a knife-fight with a blender.
It felt like I'd been fighting for eternity.
And now the arena had the audacity to reset.
A fresh battlefield. A fresh start. A fresh chance to be violently murdered in a new ecosystem.
I fell to one knee, panting. A trickle of sweat cut through the dried blood on my temple.
Trees groaned and shifted around me.
Screams echoed in the distance—some close, some far. Footsteps. Explosions. Howls. Laughter.
Hold on
Laughter?
I turned, slow and suspicious, trying to spot the maniac who thought this battlefield of exploding trees, flying students, and general despair was a good time for giggles.
Whoever it was, they were either completely unhinged or—no, that was it. Just unhinged.
Anyways, fifteen minutes down.
I don't know how many to go
I wiped the blood off my lip and laughed. A low, bitter, broken thing.
"God," I muttered. "Send help. Or at least a mirror that lies."
A shadow suddenly streaked across the canopy.
I couldn't even have a goddamn moment of peace.
I looked up—and there he was.
Valois Laurent.
Descending like a meteor, twin blades angled forward like a crucifix of death.
His crimson eyes locked on me with a focus so sharp it cut straight through thought.
I barely managed to twist away as he landed.
CLANG.
Both his blades slammed into the ground where I'd just been, throwing dirt and shrapnel into the air.
I felt the impact tremble through my ribs.
His landing cracked the earth in a spiderweb pattern, splitting one of the trees nearby.
Bark exploded. Leaves rained down like confetti at a funeral.
I threw myself back, landing in a three-point stance, panting, blood still fresh on my tongue.
He didn't speak.
He didn't need to.
Valois moved again—smooth, precise, inhuman. Like something born from steel and calculation.
The right blade came at my ribs.
I twisted just enough to let it pass, the edge slicing through my jacket and brushing skin.
The left came low, trying to take my leg out from under me.
I jumped, but not fast enough—he caught my ankle mid-air and slammed me into the ground like he was taking out the trash.
My vision blurred.
I rolled.
His blade came down where my skull had been.
I used a chunk of broken bark to block the next strike—not because I thought it would work, but because I didn't have anything else.
The wood exploded, shards digging into my palm, but it gave me half a second.
I used it to move.
Slide. Duck. Step in. Elbow to the ribs—he blocked with his forearm, twisted, and brought his knee up into my stomach.
I flew back, hit a tree hard enough that one last crack bloomed across my orb like ice on glass.
Few more hits and that orb was gone.
I couldn't keep this up. .
I was fast, sure. But Valois didn't waste movement. Every strike was designed to kill or cripple.
No flair this time. No wasted energy. Just cold, trained brutality.
I gasped for breath and staggered behind a thicker trunk, putting space between us.
He didn't follow immediately.
He just stood there—blades dripping with sweat, blood, maybe both.
Head slightly tilted, watching me like I was a puzzle he was bored of solving.
I pressed my back against the tree, heart thudding like a war drum.
Two orbs.
One was cracked to hell.
I didn't have much time.
And that's when it hit me—not his blade, thankfully—but the absurdity of it all.
Just days ago, I'd been a normal guy.
Basement dweller. Gamer. Mom paid the rent.
I drank cereal from the box and stayed up till four AM yelling at strangers online about boss mechanics.
I was a nobody.
And now?
Now I was inside the very game I used to play.
Trapped in the world I once conquered behind a keyboard.
Living as a side-character. A minor villain who died in the first arc before he even got a name card in the wiki.
Who brought me here?
Why?
What purpose could there possibly be in throwing me into this bloodstained world just to die?
I didn't know.
I didn't know anything.
Except one thing:
I was fighting like hell just to get into a school.
Not to graduate.
Not to save the world.
Just to qualify.
To enter.
A school that—if the game's timeline still held true—was the beginning of the end.
The spark that lit the fire.
The prologue to a war that drowned the continent in corpses.
And here I was.
Bleeding.
Broken.
One orb away from elimination.
And facing off against a blood-born noble with the reflexes of a panther and the morality of a knife.
I'm fucked.
Valois finally moved again.
No warning.
No wind-up.
Just vanished—blink-step—and reappeared on my flank, his blade singing toward my face.
I ducked just in time, and the edge shaved off a lock of my hair.
Another inch and I'd be bald. Or headless.
He didn't stop. He pressed the assault—blade after blade, strike after strike.
I moved on instinct, on muscle memory, on desperation. It wasn't elegant. It wasn't clean.
But it was survival.
I caught his wrist.
Just for a moment.
His skin was cold as steel, his grip like a vice, and I felt the bone-deep weight of it even before he moved.
Then he twisted.
My world flipped sideways.
He reversed the grip, locked my arm, and drove the hilt of his blade into my ribs with a sickening CRACK—not a clean one either.
It was the wet, sharp kind that echoed inside your body.
I felt something give. Something important.
Fire tore through my chest. My lungs seized. I couldn't breathe.
I stumbled back, a strangled grunt tearing from my throat.
And then—
SHRRRACK.
My orb shattered.
Bursting into a thousand glowing fragments that spun around me like dying fireflies before flickering into nothingness.
Now I had one left.
One.
I dropped to my knees.
The ground was hard, dry, and it hit my kneecaps like stone.
My vision blurred around the edges, my heartbeat thudding like a war drum in my ears.
Blood trickled from the corner of my mouth, and I coughed thick red into my palm.
Valois stood above me, an immaculate silhouette against the flickering canopy light.
He wasn't even breathing hard.
That was the worst part.
He wasn't showboating. He wasn't trying to humiliate me.
He was just… efficient. Methodical. Like he was checking off a list.
Eliminate the Wulfgan.
Eliminate the classless.
Move on.
"I suppose I should commend you," he said softly, circling me now, blades dragging lazy furrows in the dirt.
"You lasted longer than anyone expected. Even your little fan club up in the stands must be wondering if this is some sort of glitch."
"I'll sign your chest later," I rasped.
He chuckled once. Just once. A quiet, humorless sound.
"I'm curious, Eden," he murmured.
"What are you really? No class. No Allies. No.
No weapon.
And yet you fought me and that Wulfgan like your whole existence depended on it."
"It does," I said, jaw clenched. "To me."
He studied me for a moment longer. Then he straightened.
"Do you have any final words?" he asked, voice like cold wine—smooth, rich, and completely devoid of warmth.
I looked up at him.
And grinned.
Blood on my teeth. Dirt on my face. Body shaking.
But I grinned anyway.
"Yeah," I rasped. "Duck."
His eyes narrowed.
Because here's the thing: I hadn't used much mana this whole fight.
Just once—when I first teleported out of the Wulfgarn's front when he almost cleaved my face off.
Since then, it had been fists, dodges, instincts, pain.
But mana?
I still had some in the tank.
Not a lot.
But just enough.
I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek, felt the copper sting on my tongue, and whispered a plea—not to any god. Not to fate.
Just to whatever cruel force dumped me in this world:
I activated it once again.
"Eyes of Horus."
The rune burned beneath my skin. My irises shimmered gold.
For a split-second, everything around me slowed.
I could see the trail of Valois's heartbeat, the faint twitch of his fingers, the wind rippling through the trees overhead.
And then—
Vwummm.
The world blinked.
And I was gone.
A gust of wind kicked up dust where I had been kneeling.
Valois's blade struck the empty ground with a dull thunk.
I reappeared meters away—behind a thicket of new trees, half-sunk in a pit of moss and broken roots.
My legs gave out instantly.
I hit the ground hard, chest heaving, every muscle screaming.
I gritted my teeth and pressed my palms to the dirt.
It felt like the world was spinning—not the usual dizziness from blood loss or mana drain. No, this was deeper.
Like reality itself didn't know where to place me anymore.
The side effects of "Eyes of Horus" had never felt so brutal.
My bones hummed.
My skull felt full of radio static.
And I could still here silent whispers curled up at the edge of my thoughts like spiders nesting under my scalp—but I shoved them away.
I was alive.
And I had one orb left.
And from here… I could still run.
Maybe I wasn't the strongest.
Maybe I wasn't meant to win.
Maybe I wasn't even supposed to be here.
But I could survive.
And sometimes that's more dangerous than winning.
Because survivors remember.
And they come back.
…But fuck that.
I wasn't going back to fight that monster. Nah. Never.
I don't care how poetic my inner monologue sounded.
What am I, a hero?
Valois could spin-kick a dragon. I just wanted to not die before lunch.
Besides, I'd already donated one rib to his blade collection.
I wasn't about to gift-wrap another orb for him just so he could feel emotionally fulfilled about his superiority complex.
I tried standing up.
Keyword: tried.
The moment I pushed off the ground, my legs wobbled like soggy breadsticks.
I did this majestic half-rise, half-collapse motion that ended with me draped over the roots of a tree like a rejected theatre prop.
Classless. Injured. Probably concussed.
But still here.
That's when I heard it.
The sound of steel striking steel—loud, uneven, fast. Nearby.
I twisted around the trunk and squinted through the chaos.
And then I saw him.
That idiot.
The same disaster of a human who, during the initial briefing, had loudly declared:
"What could possibly go wrong?"
Everything. The answer was everything.
And right now, he was living proof.
He was in the middle of a heated fight—and somehow, by the twisted logic of the gods, he was winning.
His class—Necrozi. You could see it in the jagged black mist that leaked off his body like oil smoke, the way his fingers twitched and left trails of withering air.
He didn't have a weapon in the usual sense—just shifting bone-like constructs that extended from his arms, forming jagged claws and sickles mid-strike.
He fought like entropy incarnate.
Wild, erratic, sloppy—but suffocating. Like a plague in motion.
And his opponent?
A girl.
She was fighting like hell to stay on her feet.
Long, curly brown hair tied up in a high ponytail, bouncing with every dodge.
Her bright green eyes flashed with defiance—burning, alert, beautiful and furious all at once.
Her clothes was scuffed and torn at the knees, but she stood tall.
Dust caked her boots. Her hands were glowing with a soft brown-orange light, fingertips etched with glowing sigils.
Terrakai.
I recognized the class immediately. Earth manipulation.
Durable. Stable. But not exactly built for high-speed panic defense.
She moved with precision—slamming her palm into the ground and raising sharp ridges of stone to block his attacks.
Her steps left cracks in the dirt, her movements controlled but clearly slowing.
She was holding her own—barely.
He lunged again, his claws forming into a black scythe mid-swing.
She blocked with a wall of stone, but it shattered under the pressure. She stumbled back.
He grinned, eyes wide and manic, and raised his hand again—skeletal fingers swirling with that horrible black mist.
"You're fun," he laughed. "Soft eyes, hard punches. Let's see how deep you go when the dirt bites back."
She didn't answer. She just slammed her foot down, and a column of rock shot up to meet his chin.
He dodged—barely. But it knocked him off balance.
Still, he recovered too fast. He rolled, then dashed forward, grinning like the idiot he was.
She raised another wall, but this time he didn't hit it.
He phased through it—his mist turning his body semi-intangible just long enough to slip past.
She didn't see it coming.
He appeared right behind her and hooked his sickle toward her last remaining orb.
My breath caught.
Because I knew that look on his face.
That I win look.
And I hated it.
I stood up.
Not for justice.
Not for glory.
Not to save the girl or prove I had a heart of gold.
No.
Fuck that.
If I were in good shape—if I didn't feel like my ribs had been put through a meat grinder and my brain wasn't holding itself together with duct tape and petty vengeance—I'd have gone in to eliminate them both.
Two-for-one special. Satisfying, efficient, clean.
But I wasn't.
I was limping on fumes, bleeding out mana like a leaky pipe, and down to one orb that was probably held together with false hope and pure spite.
And also—I didn't like that guy.
Didn't know him untill the initial briefing of the battle Royale.
Didn't recognize him.
Back when I played the game, this dude? This edgy little necromancer-wannabe?
Never appeared. Not once.
No quest.
No side story.
Not even an NPC who sells you potions with weird dialogue.
Just another background extra.
I sucked in a breath and forced mana through my body.
It moved like lava—slow, angry, and ready to rupture something.
Still, I called it out:
"Eyes of Horus."
And the world listened.
My irises flared gold. Hot, ancient. Wrong.
And everything bent.
Not time—no, that would've been too kind.
Reality itself twisted. Shards of existence fractured around me like glass under pressure.
I felt myself stretch across those splinters, caught between angles that hadn't happened yet and echoes of what might.
Then—
Silence.
And I was gone.
Not for justice.
Not for glory.
Just because I really, really disliked that guy.