By the second hour of the simulation, the artificial mangrove swamp had turned into an absolute ghost town for the Silver Vanguard.
Julian Vance was still sitting on his dry rock in the center of the clearing. His earlier boredom had slowly morphed into deep, gnawing irritation. He checked the expensive runic watch on his wrist for the fifth time in ten minutes.
"Where the hell are they?" Julian snapped, kicking a pebble into the murky water.
His personal bodyguard detail, consisting of five large, highly trained students, stood in a tight defensive ring around him. They looked equally uncomfortable. The jungle was too quiet.
"Maybe they ran into a B-Rank boss monster," one of the guards suggested nervously, tightening his grip on his heavy broadsword.
"In a Novice Gauntlet? Do not be an idiot," Julian scoffed, standing up and brushing off his crimson armor. He tapped the communication rune embedded in his collar. "Team one, report. Team two, give me your location. Anyone, respond."
He waited. Absolute static echoed back through the earpiece.
Julian’s frown deepened. He tried the emergency broadcast frequency, a channel specifically designed to override all other communications in his squad.
"This is Julian. If you idiots are holding out on my tokens, I am going to have my uncle expel you from the Guild. Answer me."
Nothing.
Just the ambient sound of artificial crickets and distant swamp water.
A heavy, suffocating sense of dread finally began to creep into Julian’s chest. He looked around the dense tree line. The shadows between the mangrove roots suddenly looked a lot darker than they had an hour ago.
"Form up," Julian ordered, his voice losing a bit of its arrogant edge. He summoned a baseball-sized sphere of roaring fire into his palm, casting a flickering orange light over the clearing. "We are moving to the extraction zone. Something is wrong with the simulation."
The five bodyguards immediately closed ranks, forming a protective wall of shields and heavy armor around their Guild heir. They began to slowly back away from the rock, heading toward the designated safe zone at the edge of the map.
They made it exactly twenty feet.
The trailing bodyguard let out a sudden, muffled grunt.
Julian spun around.
The man standing at the back of the diamond formation was simply gone. There was no splash in the water and no sound of a struggle. Just an empty space where a two-hundred-pound armored teenager had been standing a second prior.
"Where is Davis?" Julian yelled, his eyes darting frantically across the tree line. "Show yourself! If this is a rival guild, I will burn you alive!"
He threw the fireball directly into the brush.
The flames exploded against the damp wood, illuminating nothing but empty mud and hanging vines.
While Julian was distracted by his own explosion, a blur of freezing darkness dropped from the canopy directly onto the center of the remaining formation.
Liam landed completely silently. He did not bother with the ’Shadow Veil’ this time.
He wanted them to see him.
The bodyguard to Julian’s left barely had time to register the dark suit before Liam’s palm cracked against his sternum.
Liam used a tiny fraction of his newly expanded mana pool, sending a localized shockwave of dense starlight and shadow directly through the boy’s heavy armor. The kinetic force bypassed the metal entirely, knocking the wind completely out of his lungs and sending him collapsing into the mud.
The two guards in front of Julian roared, raising their weapons and charging at the intruder.
Liam merely side-stepped the clumsy attacks.
His movements were incredibly fluid, a stark contrast to their rigid, heavy combat styles. He grabbed the wrist of the first attacker, using the boy’s own momentum to throw him directly into his partner. Their armored heads collided with a sickening crack, dropping them both instantly.
In less than ten seconds, Julian’s elite defensive ring was completely dismantled.
Liam stood in the center of the clearing, surrounded by groaning, unconscious bodies. He brushed a speck of mud off the sleeve of his pristine spidersilk jacket. He looked up, locking his dark, crimson-flecked eyes directly onto Julian Vance.
Julian was trembling.
The fireball in his hand flickered erratically, mirroring his rapidly failing courage. He looked at the bodies of his friends, then at the boy he had mocked just a few hours ago.
"You," Julian breathed out, stepping backward until his boots hit the edge of the swamp water. "How did you do this? You are E-Rank garbage!"
"The ranking system measures volume, not lethality," Liam explained calmly, slowly walking toward the terrified Guild heir.
He reached into his pocket and casually tossed a handful of golden tokens onto the mud at Julian’s feet. They clinked loudly in the quiet clearing.
"I believe you were waiting for your team to bring you these," Liam noted dryly.
Up in the VIP box, the camera drones had finally found the action.
The massive screens projected Liam’s face in high definition to the entire arena. The crowd was completely silent, entirely captivated by the absolutely chilling display of dominance.
Director Vance was completely frozen, his mouth hanging open as he watched his nephew backing away from the supposedly weak boy.
Vespera leaned forward in her chair, her icy blue eyes locked onto Liam. Her heart was beating entirely too fast. He looked like a literal villain walking out of a nightmare, and she found it profoundly, infuriatingly attractive.
Julian desperately summoned two massive, roaring spheres of fire into his hands, the heat evaporating the water around his boots.
"I am the heir to the Silver Vanguard!" Julian screamed, his voice cracking with panic. He thrust both hands forward, unleashing a massive, blinding torrent of flames directly at Liam.
"Burn!"
The fire consumed the entire center of the clearing, scorching the mud solid and incinerating the surrounding bushes. Julian kept the flames going for five full seconds, pouring every ounce of his mana into the attack.
When he finally cut off the magic, gasping for air, the area was covered in thick, dark smoke.
Julian let out a breathless, hysterical laugh. "That is what happens when you mess with a Vanguard, you street rat."
"Your combustion ratio is pathethic," a voice whispered directly into Julian’s right ear.
Julian’s blood ran entirely cold.
He slowly turned his head.
Liam was standing right beside him, completely untouched by the flames. The ’Shadow Step’ had allowed him to simply bypass the explosion entirely.
Liam raised his hand, the freezing black mist of his shadow magic swirling around his knuckles.
"Class is in session, Julian," Liam stated.
The entire arena held its breath.