The magical aptitude exam moved at the speed of a bureaucratic colonoscopy, choked with the nauseating stench of cheap lavender incense and sweat.
Students shuffled into a pathetic little line before a silver pedestal holding a glowing crystal sphere. Touch it, get a light show. One kid produced a sad green pulse. Another slapped it and got nothing, earning an instant ticket to the "future disappointment" queue.
Then the proctor blew his brass whistle, a sharp PEEE-EEET that set my teeth on edge. “Lady Tiara Carter!”
I strutted up to the pedestal. Three steps away, my internal alarms went off like air-raid sirens. The metallic bite of burnt copper and ozone hit my nose. A hairline fracture spiderwebbed across the crystal with a sickening, microscopic skrrrch—tracking straight toward me like a heat-seeking missile.
Trap.
I spun on the proctor. “When was this piece of junk calibrated?” I demanded, my voice cutting through the chatter like a razor.
“T-this morning!” he stammered, eyes wide with sudden panic as he sprayed spit.
“Clear the room, you absolute donkey,” I spat, my eyes narrowing into a deadly glare.
The proctor blinked, buffering. “Lady Tiara, this is a mandatory—”
“Clear the room. Now.” I leaned in, giving him the dead-eyed stare that had historically dissolved cartel empires, my tone dropping into a lethal, terrifying whisper. “You have five seconds to decide if your pension is more important than your pulse.”
That snapped him out of it. He scrambled backward, screaming in sheer, unadulterated terror for an evacuation.
Students stampeded for the doors, boots thundering on the stone. A scholarship kid named Sarah froze like a deer in headlights, her face pale with horror. “Tiara, what are you doing?!”
“Saving your skin, kid. Run!” I barked, fierce and impatient.
CRACK.
The sphere imploded. I stepped directly onto the platform as an icy blast hit my face, cold enough to freeze my breath into clouds. Sarah stared back, hysterical. “You're staying?!”
“I don't run from targets,” I called back, a dark, thrilled edge in my voice.
I slammed my palm flat against the collapsing sphere. Darkness detonated, and a shockwave hit the room like a tactical nuke, rattling my teeth and blowing out the stained-glass windows with a chorus of shattering glass.
From the wreckage, a towering, jet-black skeletal monstrosity clawed into the air, reeking of wet rot and sulfur. It shrieked—a high-pitched frequency that vibrated straight through my skull—and swung a massive claw at my face.
I didn't flinch. I flicked two fingers. Space folded around its wrist with a sickening SNAP, shattering bone like dry twigs. Before it could recover, a razor-thin line of distorted air sliced through its neck. The beast’s head popped clean off, dissolving into a cloud of hot, acrid black smoke.
Whoosh.
A jagged black shard floated up from the ash, a burning demonic rune pulsing inside it, humming with static electricity. A synthetic voice hissed directly into my skull, dripping with malicious triumph: “We found you.”
Pop. The shard shattered into dust.
The proctor was cowering under a bench, hyperventilating. I grabbed him by the stiff collar, dragging him up until his feet dangled. “Start talking, pencil-pusher,” I growled, raw fury vibrating in my throat. “What was that?”
“A signature test!” he sobbed, squeaking in pathetic desperation as he clutched his wet clipboard. “For... for anomalies!”
Before I could press a knife into his throat, the stone floor violently gave way with a deafening groan.
We plunged thirty feet, crashing into a cavernous basement dripping with icy slime and smelling of age-old mold. Thousands of names were carved into the damp walls—half slashed out in blood-red, others marked with the exact same black rune. At the center stood a bone-carved altar, slick with moisture.
The proctor stared into the dark, his voice a paralyzed, awe-struck whisper. “They're hunting people who don't belong in this world. Transmigrants.”
Names burned into the stone one after another, searing with the sound of sizzling meat. Then, right at the bottom, glowing in crimson:
TIARA CARTER
STATUS: REAWAKENED
A cold rage ignited in my chest. This wasn't an accident; it was a global purge. Somebody built a radar to sniff us out, and right beside my name, another one flickered to life—the original Tiara from room 115.
Whoever built this cage made one fatal mistake: they gave their lab rats their memories.
I raised my hand. Spatial energy screamed around my fingers, crackling like static, while hyper-regeneration thrummed hot and heavy beneath my skin. In my past life, I was just a woman with a blade and four bullets. Now, I could rewrite physics and biology for fun.
Overhead, the academy alarm bells began to toll, a heavy iron ringing that vibrated through the floorboards. A wicked, bloodthirsty grin spread across my face.
“If this is a hunting ground...” I purred, my voice laced with dark, unhinged excitement. “...let's see who’s hunting whom.”