“Ethan Blake is currently ranked first with a score of 412.
It looks like he has already started a killing spree in the Core Region.”
“His Wind Spirit Gale is perfect for rapid movement.
Even among the candidates taking the Combat Examination across the province, his speed is probably among the best.”
“Speaking of which, Principal Harris is still the most impressive.
Almost the entire top ten is made up of students from Rivergate First High School.”
The discussion continued beneath the enormous projection screens.
Outside Grayridge Town, the military had established a temporary viewing area for the examination.
Ten enormous projection screens stood in the open space, each displaying footage from military drones following the ten highest-scoring candidates.
Beneath those screens were thousands of smaller displays.
Those showed footage captured by fixed cameras scattered throughout Grayridge Town.
Whenever necessary, footage from one of those cameras could be enlarged onto one of the main screens.
Beside the screens was a constantly updating ranking board displaying every candidate’s current score and position.
Hundreds of teachers, principals, Education Department officials, and military personnel sat in the temporary auditorium below.
Their attention was almost entirely focused on the rankings.
At the center of the discussion was a middle-aged man in a dark suit with neatly trimmed hair.
His name was Richard Harris, the principal of Rivergate First High School.
Among the top ten candidates, all but one came from Rivergate First High School.
“Ethan Blake is our strongest candidate this year,” Richard Harris said with a satisfied smile.
“If he maintains this pace, he should have a real chance of breaking into the provincial top hundred.”
Sitting beside him was a short, broad middle-aged man.
He was Victor Mason, director of the Redhaven City Education Department.
Victor watched Ethan’s footage on the first projection screen and nodded approvingly.
“Redhaven City hasn’t had a candidate break into the provincial top hundred for several years.”
There was a hint of emotion in his voice.
Redhaven City was located in the northern part of Westhaven Province.
Although Westhaven was one of the most populated provinces on Blue Star, Redhaven City was relatively remote and lacked many of the resources available to the larger cities.
Its economy was also among the weaker ones in the province.
Naturally, its education budget was limited.
That disadvantage became especially obvious during the annual Combat Examination.
Every year, countless talented students from wealthy cities competed for the top positions.
Redhaven simply didn’t have the same resources.
The city’s best historical result had come nearly a decade earlier, when an A-rank Ability User had managed to break into the provincial top hundred.
Since then, several A-rank Ability Users had emerged from Redhaven City.
But none had managed to repeat that achievement.
This year, however, Ethan Blake had given everyone renewed hope.
Victor smiled.
“Your Rivergate First High School has always performed exceptionally well.
And Rivergate Third High School isn’t bad either.
One of their students has finally made it into the top ten.”
The principal of Rivergate Third High School immediately smiled.
He was clearly pleased with himself.
The principal sitting nearby, however, looked considerably less comfortable.
That was Martin Cole, principal of Rivergate Second High School.
For years, Rivergate Second High School had consistently performed better than Rivergate Third High School.
This year, however, the situation had apparently reversed.
Martin couldn’t help feeling frustrated.
Victor glanced toward him.
“Rivergate Second High School is somewhat disappointing this year.
Your highest-ranked student is only eighteenth.”
Martin forced a smile.
“It’s still early.
The rankings can change quickly.”
Victor didn’t respond.
Everyone knew that Rivergate First High School was the strongest school in the city.
Compared with it, the second and third schools were clearly weaker.
In previous years, the top ten had almost always been dominated by students from Rivergate First.
Students from the other two schools rarely appeared near the top.
But this year, Rivergate Third had finally managed to produce a promising candidate.
Martin remained silent as he studied the ranking board.
He searched through the names of the candidates from his own school.
Eight students from Rivergate Second High School had made it into the top fifty.
Most of them were familiar.
Daniel Foster.
Ryan Brooks.
Michael Turner.
All of them were students from Class One—the school’s elite class.
Then Martin noticed another name.
Kael Veyron.
His eyebrows immediately tightened.
Who is this?
He searched his memory.
He knew most of the outstanding students in his school.
After all, the results of the Combat Examination directly affected the educational funding each school received.
The better the students performed, the more resources the school could obtain the following year.
A student suddenly appearing in the top fifty was therefore extremely important.
But Martin had never heard of Kael Veyron.
“Perhaps he’s from one of the ordinary classes,” he muttered.
With so many students in the school, it wasn’t impossible for one or two of them to have hidden their abilities.
Martin didn’t think much more about it.
But several rows behind him, one teacher had already frozen in his seat.
Daniel Carter.
The head teacher of Grade 12, Class Five.
His eyes were fixed on the ranking board.
His expression was one of complete disbelief.
Kael Veyron?
Top fifty?
Daniel knew Kael very well.
Or at least, he thought he did.
Kael had awakened an E-rank ability.
That was something Daniel had personally recorded.
And yet that same student was now ranked above almost every other candidate from their school.
In fact, he was currently the highest-ranked student in Class Five.
Daniel stared at the number beside Kael’s name.
Rank: 46
Score: 256
His mouth opened slightly.
“How is that possible?”
He quickly tried to find an explanation.
Could Kael have hidden his strength?
But the thought didn’t make sense.
An E-rank ability was still an E-rank ability.
Even if Kael had trained his physical body harder than expected, there should have been a limit.
Could an E-rank Ability User suddenly perform like an A-rank?
Obviously not.
Then how had he accumulated 256 points?
Daniel rubbed his forehead.
The Combat Examination involved genuine combat against Ferocious Beasts.
There was no way to fake those results.
Every kill was recorded by the examination system.
Every candidate carried a smart watch that transmitted their information.
The military also had countless cameras and drones monitoring the examination area.
There was no possibility of cheating.
But that only made the situation more confusing.
Daniel looked toward the main screens.
Unfortunately, only the top ten candidates were being tracked by the military drones.
Kael wasn’t among them.
The thousands of smaller screens displayed footage from fixed cameras throughout Grayridge Town, but there were simply too many.
Finding Kael among them was practically impossible.
Daniel could only stare at the ranking board.
He knew Kael had entered the Combat Examination alone.
He knew Kael had an E-rank ability.
And yet the boy was somehow ranked forty-sixth.
Daniel’s curiosity grew until it became almost unbearable.
It was like knowing that something incredibly interesting was happening behind a locked door while having no way to open it.
“What exactly is Kael doing in there?”
Daniel muttered under his breath.
He wanted to see Kael’s footage.
More than anything, he wanted to know how an E-rank Ability User had managed to achieve such a result.
But he could only wait.
Inside Grayridge Town.
Kael had spent nearly half an hour moving at full speed.
Finally, the color of the area on his smart watch changed.
He had entered the Core Region.
Kael slowed down slightly.
“Finally.”
He glanced at the map.
The danger level here was completely different from the Outer Region.
Even compared with the Middle Region, the number of Ferocious Beasts was noticeably higher.
The moment Kael entered the area, he could already hear distant roars.
“Roar!”
“Awooooo!”
One after another, the sounds echoed through the ruined streets.
The atmosphere seemed to change with them.
The air carried a faint smell of blood.
There was also something else.
A violent presence.
The ferocious aura of countless beasts.
But Kael remained completely calm.
He walked down the abandoned street with his Obsidian Spear resting casually in one hand.
A compressed nutrition bar was clamped between his teeth.
Crack.
His combat boot came down on an old plastic basin lying beside the road.
The basin shattered instantly.
Decades of exposure to wind, rain, heat, and cold had left the plastic incredibly brittle.
Kael glanced down at the fragments.
Then he continued walking.
His eyes constantly scanned his surroundings.
Every building.
Every alley.
Every broken vehicle.
Every possible blind spot.
He had already learned an important lesson during the examination.
The moment he relaxed, a Ferocious Beast could appear from almost anywhere.
Grayridge Town had once been a normal city.
Decades ago, before it became a military training ground, it had been known as Grayridge.
Nearly one hundred thousand people had lived here.
Then the Beast Tide came.
The city’s defensive line collapsed.
The evacuation was incomplete.
Tens of thousands of people never made it out.
Nearly fifty or sixty thousand lives were lost during that catastrophe.
Kael had heard about the event before.
But now he was seeing its remains with his own eyes.
The outer suburbs didn’t contain many obvious traces.
Most of the area had been reclaimed by nature.
Grass grew through cracks in the roads.
Trees had pushed through broken concrete.
Collapsed buildings had been reduced to piles of stone and twisted metal.
But the deeper Kael went into the former urban district, the more obvious the scars became.
Abandoned cars still sat along the roads.
Some had crashed into one another.
Others had simply been left where their owners had abandoned them.
Their metal bodies were covered in rust.
Windows were shattered.
Doors hung open.
And beneath the dirt and weeds, Kael could still see dark-red stains on the cracked pavement.
Blood.
Blood that had dried decades ago.
Kael’s expression slowly became serious.
Then he noticed something near the remains of a collapsed building.
Bones.
Human bones.
Some were little more than fragments.
Others were still recognizable as parts of a human skeleton.
Time had erased much of the evidence.
But it hadn’t erased everything.
Kael stopped for a moment.
He stared silently at the remains.
The Beast Tide had happened decades ago.
Yet standing here, he could almost imagine the chaos of that day.
People running.
Vehicles crashing.
Beasts roaring through the streets.
Families desperately searching for one another.
And thousands of people realizing that they had nowhere left to run.
Kael tightened his grip on the Obsidian Spear.
His expression became cold.
This was the true face of the world they lived in.
Humanity had survived.
But the price had been enormous.
And outside the walls of the cities, the threat had never disappeared.
A low growl suddenly came from somewhere nearby.
Kael’s eyes narrowed.
His head turned toward the sound.
The peaceful silence of the ruined street vanished instantly.
Something was moving.
Fast.
Kael lowered his spear.
The next battle was about to begin.