The crimson warning messages lingered before everyone’s eyes for several long seconds, hovering in the air like bloodstains, before slowly fading into nothingness.
Silence.
A suffocating, heavy silence settled over the vast stone plaza.
No one moved.
No one even dared to breathe too loudly, as if the slightest noise might break whatever fragile reality remained.
Then—
“What… what was that?” a trembling voice finally squeaked out from the middle of the crowd.
A young noble girl clutched her head, her entire body shaking uncontrollably as her Beast Soul dissolved involuntarily.
“Did it just say… Forbidden Realm?”
“Fuck, it has to be another part of the examination…” someone muttered, though his voice cracked halfway through.
“…Right?”
“There’s no way this wasn’t planned… It’s just a fear test!”
The hopeful words sounded pathetic and weak, even to the people saying them.
Across the shattered battlefield, the surviving trial beasts had completely vanished into the dense undergrowth.
Not a single monster remained on the stone plaza.
Even the terrifying Stone Wolves and Shadow Panthers that had been trying to tear them apart mere moments ago had fled into the thicket without looking back.
It was as though something sleeping deep inside the core of the forest frightened even the wild, bloodthirsty beasts.
The chief examiner stood frozen where he was.
His weathered, stern face had turned a frightening, deathly pale.
One of the senior instructors hurried to his side, his hands glowing with diagnostic magic.
“Sir!”
The old man didn’t answer.
His sharp eyes remained fixed on the sky above, where jagged, crimson cracks continued to bleed light across the violet clouds.
“…Impossible,” the chief examiner whispered, his voice stripped of all its former authority.
Another instructor quickly snapped a communication talisman between his fingers, trying to burn the paper to send an emergency message to Astral Academy’s main spire.
Nothing happened.
The paper turned to ash, but no spatial ripple formed.
He tried again, his fingers trembling as he drew out three more talismans.
Still nothing.
His expression darkened instantly.
“The communication network is gone. The spatial anchor was cut.”
A third instructor attempted to summon a high-tier emergency teleportation array, slamming her hands onto the flagstones. Visit g.com for the full chapter.
Golden runes flared beneath her palms— and shattered instantly into countless, useless particles of light.
Her breathing became harsh and uneven.
“It won’t connect… The realm’s spatial laws have shifted!”
“The realm has sealed itself,” a fourth voice concluded softly.
The words spread through the instructors like a silent plague.
Students standing near the edge of the dais heard every single word.
“What do you mean ‘Sealed’ ?!” a boy shouted, his composure breaking entirely.
“We can’t leave?”
“No… no, that’s impossible! This is an official exam!”
Panic exploded across the plaza like a shattered dam.
Some weaker minded students broke into a sprint, rushing wildly toward the high stone archway where the entrance gates had stood just an hour ago.
There was nothing there.
Where the old stone bridge had once connected to the train platform, there was now only an endless, yawning cliff disappearing into swirling, toxic white mist.
“The bridge!”
“Where’s the bridge?!”
“It was right here!”
A noble boy frantically searched the cliff’s edge, his boots skidding dangerously close to the drop before he stumbled backward into the dirt.
“It’s gone…” he choked out, staring down into the abyss.
“It actually disappeared…”
Desperate to find a way out, another student summoned a flying type Beast Soul.
A large, brown feathered Wind Hawk materialized above him with a piercing cry before soaring straight toward the fog line, searching for an exit route.
Hundreds of wide, terrified eyes followed its ascent.
The hawk had barely flown fifty meters past the plaza’s boundary when space itself violently rippled like disturbed water.
The beast vanished.
Not exploded.
Not burned to ash.
Simply… gone.
Its bond with its master was severed so violently and instantaneously that the student screamed in agonizing pain, dropping straight to his knees and clutching his chest as he coughed up blood.
“My beast!” he sobbed, his voice raw.
“My soul connection… it vanished!”
Fear swept through the crowd even faster after that.
Nobody attempted to summon a flying beast or any other kind again.
She kept her head down, her heart hammering against her ribs.
…Myrmor.
“I am here, ” Myrmor rasped on her collarbone, his antennae twitching periodically.
What just happened?
Is this part of the realm’s corruption?
“…I do not know.”
Lyra’s breath hitched.
That answer terrified her more than the shattered sky.
Even Myrmor… a knowledgeable entity…. didn’t know?
Before she could ask anything else, the chief examiner stepped forward to the very edge of the stone platform.
Channeling his mana through his throat, making his voice to boom across the chaotic plaza like thunder.
“EVERYONE!”
The panicked screams and frantic shouting slowly died down, replaced by terrified, breathless silence.
The old man’s calm, imposing expression had returned, though the deep lines around his eyes seemed far more pronounced than before.
He looked ten years older than he had when the morning began.
“Listen to me carefully,” the chief examiner commanded, his eyes scanning the hundreds of young faces.
“The examination has officially been suspended.”
A heavy ripple swept through the crowd, though no one interrupted.
“The situation within the Forgotten Realm has changed far beyond our expectations and security protocols,” he continued solemnly.
He paused, inhaling the heavy, iron-scented air.
“I will not lie to you. I do not know why this Forbidden realm has awakened. I do not know who or what triggered this seal. And I do not know how long we will remain trapped here.”
Those words struck the students like a physical blow.
Trapped.
The horrific word echoed inside countless young minds, shattering whatever illusions of safety they still held.
One student immediately snapped, shouting up at the dais, “Then get us out of here! You’re the examiners!”
Another joined him, tears streaming down his face.
“You’re a high ranking instructors! Do something! You’re supposed to protect us!”
The old man closed his eyes briefly, absorbing their anger and terror without deflection, before opening them again.
“If opening an exit array were still possible with our combined strength… we would have already done so. We are cut off from the main world.”