The water pressed cold against their backs as they hovered just beneath the surface. Filth clung like oil, muffling their movements, turning their armor slick and black in the dim light filtering down from the shattered grates above. The cistern's water barely rippled around them, a still mirror broken only by the faint pulses of their rebreathers. Through the warped blur of the surface, Vaeliyan counted them: fourteen, maybe fifteen Neuman, gliding into the cistern on silent limbs. Their bodies folded and unfolded like knives wrapped in skin, membranous sails half-spread for balance in the damp air. Bone-white bows hung from their backs like extra ribs, drawn with inhuman stillness. The sight of them moving so carefully in this filth almost made it worse. They didn't belong here, and they knew it.

A whistle rippled through the chamber, high and lilted. Commanding.

The Neuman fanned out across the causeway, thin limbs tapping the stone in delicate, testing beats. Searching. Listening. Hunting. They carried almost no scent at all, just the faint suggestion of something that wasn't there, like cold glass or distant rain. But beneath that nothingness, Vaeliyan could feel it: a thread of wrongness in the air. The lingering trace of their dead. Humans couldn't name the smell, but it stuck to the back of the teeth like a memory, subtle and certain. It wasn't sharp, not strong, just present. A reminder that something had been taken here. Something that should have screamed.

Fen's eyes met his through the dark, wide and steady. Every motion of his body was restrained, like a predator coiled in the grass. Even underwater, he could feel the thrum of Fenn's heartbeat through the bond. Fast. Controlled. Hungry.

Vaeliyan tapped two fingers to his helm, slow. Now.

They rose as one. The water broke in silence around their helmets, black sheets sliding off them as they rose like ghosts from the deep. Fen and Vaeliyan loosed in the same instant, twin threads of bone slicing through the stillness. The first two Neuman jerked, paralyzed mid-step, collapsing bonelessly to the stone. Before the others could cry out, they loosed again, arms already drawing the next arrows. Two more dropped like marionettes with their strings cut, collapsing into the shallow film of water across the floor.

Four down before the enemy even screamed.

Then the screaming started.

A sharp whistle-cry ripped through the cistern, echoing like steel drawn across glass, and the remaining Neuman snapped into motion. Their limbs blurred, bows ripping from their backs with fluid violence. The chamber filled with pale streaks of bone-tipped death, cutting the air with a whispering hiss.

"Now!" Vaeliyan barked, and the cistern erupted.

Flechette fire tore the air apart, shards of metal whispering through the haze. The other fourteen cadets breached the surface in a ragged line, shoulder to shoulder, rising like revenants from the black water. Their lances fired in rapid rhythm, quiet but relentless, the recoil shivering up their arms. The hiss of compressed air, the soft metallic sigh of each flechette release, overlapped into a deadly murmur. Neuman staggered mid-flight as their wings shredded, spinning into the muck. The cistern became a slaughterhouse in seconds—water thrashing, stone walls streaked with bone fragments and pale blood like spilled light.

One of the Neuman vaulted clear, limbs flaring like sails as it lunged for the tunnel mouth, almost gliding across the air.

"Left!" Fen shouted. Three cadets swung their lances in unison, shredding it midair. The corpse hit the wall with a wet crack and slid down like a gutted fish, leaving a smear of something faint and shimmering in its wake.

But two got through.

Vaeliyan saw them flash past the kill zone, arrows snapping from their spines as they dove into the tunnel, their limbs folding like razors as they vanished into the dark. He swore silently. That would be enough. They'd carry word. The swarm would know. There would be no stealth anymore. The plant would become a tomb.

"Cut the gate!" he roared.

Torman was already there. Sparks shrieked into the dark as his blade screeched across the rusted grate. Metal screamed like a dying thing, flecks of rust spitting into the black water below. The sound bounced through the tunnels, a ringing beacon for anything that still lived. There was no hiding now.

The grate sagged. One last strike sheared it loose. It crashed into the water with a teeth-rattling clang that reverberated through the basin like a gong.

"Move!" Vaeliyan shoved the first cadet through the breach, sending them vanishing into the black current. One after another, they plunged into the drainage conduit, vanishing into the dark. The water grabbed them like claws, yanking them down the slick throat of the city. The current spun them like rag dolls, battering shoulders against the walls as the tunnel narrowed.

Behind them, whistles rose like knives on wind. Furious. Hunting. Closing.

The last cadet vanished through the breach. Vaeliyan and Fen were the last to go. They paused only long enough to see the far end of the cistern flood with movement, dozens of Neuman pouring into the chamber, wings snapping open like sails. Their bodies glimmered faintly in the dark as they surged forward, silent as blades.

Then they dove.

As soon as they crossed the threshold of the power plant, the simulation cut out.

The world collapsed to black.

For a heartbeat, there was only the sound of their own ragged breathing in their helmets, a faint chorus of static and exhaustion. The ground under their boots was gone, the air was gone, the stink of the sewers and the brine of Neuman blood, gone. All that remained was the sensation of motion cut short, like their bodies were still falling but the world had stopped catching them.

Theramoor's voice rose out of the darkness, smooth and cold as glass. "Very well done," she said, and the words carried no warmth despite their shape. "You would have all died after that assault. The Neuman would have hunted you down endlessly for taking out their own. They do not forgive. Not truly. Not ever. But that is not the point. You made it to the point where the simulation ended."

Her voice echoed with that crystalline edge she always carried, slicing cleanly through the void. "Do not mistake this for victory. Do not make the error of believing this was survival. It was not. This was the edge of the knife, and you stopped walking before it cut all the way through. The only reason you still stand is because the world around you ceased to exist before the hunt began."

A pause. No sound but their breathing, quick and uneven, echoing back from the nothing.

"Once again," she continued, "you've managed to do the impossible and all survive… even if that survival was predicated on the fact that the sim ended early. Ended before the Neuman would have inevitably ripped you apart and eaten you alive. Before your lungs failed. Before your legs gave out. Before despair settled in and slowed your hands just long enough to die."

She let that hang, sharp and heavy. "But, good job."

Isol's voice cut in, calm and matter-of-fact, like a scalpel after the hammer. "I suppose there is something to be said about the goal of this lesson being only to escape to a point. If we really wanted to be thorough, we should have made you run from here into the Wilds and then try to reach another city. Perhaps even forced you to survive the days that followed with nothing but your rations, while the Neuman tracked you through broken country. That would have been… authentic."

A soft exhale that could almost be a sigh. "But the sim would not have lasted that long. It is built for history, not endurance. So, we are content to say this is done. You've passed this trial. This test of history."

His tone sharpened, just for a moment. "Do not forget what that means. You walked through the corpse of a city and made it out the other side. You walked the steps of the dead and came back. That is not nothing."

Silence stretched. Someone shifted, their armor faintly clicking in the dark.

A dry exhale followed, that might have been the ghost of a laugh. "Good job," Isol said finally. "Now, let's just get out of here. You've got a long semester ahead of you… and this is only the beginning."

Several weeks passed in much the same manner as those first two days of their new curriculum. They were beaten, broken, and rebuilt over and over again. Each day blurred into the next until they stopped thinking of themselves as people and more as pieces being reforged. The classes ground them down to the bone, only to fuse them back together sharper, colder, and hungrier than before. They learned tactics until instinct became irrelevant. They sparred until they forgot how not to fight. Every hour was noise, blood, exhaustion, and the slow erasure of who they had been, replaced by something sharper that didn't flinch.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

The four new classes consumed them whole. Hunt and Don't Die stripped them to their survival instincts and remade them as predators, dragging them through kill-mazes until sleep became optional and trust became a currency too expensive to spend. Adaptive War Crimes rewired their morals until they stopped thinking about rules entirely and started thinking only about results, drilling them in sabotage, deception, and psychological warfare until nothing was sacred. Fist of the Legion shattered their bodies and reforged them through endless bare-handed war, until pain became background noise and every muscle learned to move like a weapon. Historical Combat Analysis buried them in the corpses of past failures and demanded they dig their way out, over and over, until they learned to see death coming before it ever arrived, to taste the shape of defeat and choose where it landed.

They drank it all in as fast as they could. There was no other way to survive it. They weren't sleeping. Not really. Not when they were not only dragging themselves through class after class, but also forcing themselves to keep up with every other requirement layered on top of the curriculum. And when the instructors were done with them, Vaeliyan wasn't. Everything they learned in class, he made them run again in the sims. If they failed a scenario, they would repeat it until they didn't. If they hesitated, he would make them start over. If they made a mistake, he would not allow them to walk away from it. He would burn the flaw out of them until it never appeared again.

They started to hate him for it. Quietly. Resentment simmering in the corners of their eyes and the tautness of their jaws when he ordered another run. But they also knew it was the only way they would survive. That if they wanted to rise, if they wanted to stand at the top of this place, this was the cost. He made no excuses, offered no apologies. He didn't pretend it was fair. He simply demanded they endure it, and they did. Because they had no choice. They stumbled to classes half-awake, sat through lectures trembling, then dragged themselves back into the sims where he waited like a blade. No one spoke much anymore. Words had been replaced by looks, sharp nods, flat glares, faint flickers through the bond. Silence had become their language, forged from shared exhaustion.

Fenn completed his tasks for Gwen, who watched him with thinly veiled surprise as he surpassed every target. Jurpat finished his for Isol, dragging himself back to class more exhausted than alive. Sylen never stopped moving, even when her hands shook. Lessa stopped smiling entirely. The twins spoke less and less, their eerie unity fraying only in private where they collapsed and didn't get up until someone forced them. They pushed through the brutal pace like it was a dare. The first few months came to an end without anyone realizing how much time had passed, like a blade sliding between ribs.

By then, Class One had forced their way to the front of the Citadel.

They had convinced Merigold and her entire class to give up their seats without ever fighting them. Merigold had folded during the challenge negotiations, agreeing to surrender the positions for the rest of the year. The deal came with a promise that she would get them back afterward, and she had taken it. Even Thomas had agreed to step aside, though he had clearly wanted to test his limits. He'd accepted the same deal, knowing this was better than risking everything and losing outright. Class One had turned politics into pressure points and exploited them until everyone broke. Their methods weren't subtle, intimidation, relentless pressure, and precision strikes at reputation, but they worked. No one wanted to fight them anymore. They had made themselves too costly to touch. Behind their backs, other cadets muttered about arrogance, about overreach. None of them said it to their faces. No one dared.

It was ugly. It worked.

Bullying was the only way to get what they needed, so they took every opportunity to play dirty as long as it got results. The rest of the Citadel resented them. The 90th didn't care. They were done asking permission. They had clawed their way to the summit and now stood daring anyone to drag them down.

And now they were watching Vaeliyan.

They stood in silence above the ninth layer, high in the observation platform, as he stepped through the gates for the final time. Not as Vaeliyan. As Warren.

The gates closed behind him like the mouth of a beast.

It was a kill night, of course it was. That was his way. He had already completed two others during the time skip, carving through the ninth layer with methodical violence, refusing to take the safer route or wait for recovery. He had decided to finish it, and when Warren decided something, he finished it. The pit seemed to dim around him as he walked, the noise of the crowd fading to a distant pulse, as though even the simulation itself was holding its breath. His shadow stretched long across the sand. His movements were precise, almost delicate, as if the entire fight had already been written in his head.

They watched as he fought like a storm wrapped in human skin, tearing through everything left standing in the layer. His movements were brutal and elegant all at once, fluid arcs that ended in shattered bone and collapsed lungs, sudden violence blooming like thunderclaps. Blood streaked his arms. His breath fogged the air. The last opponent staggered back from him, bleeding and defiant, and Warren simply closed the distance, caught their throat in his hand, and crushed. The sound was wet and final. The combatant's legs kicked once before going slack. He dropped them like garbage, the body hitting the ground with a hollow, ringing thud.

The crowd erupted.

Warren stood alone in the blood-mist, breathing steady, visor dark. Not triumphant. Just finished. He didn't even look at the stands. He just stood there, shoulders rising and falling like distant machinery, waiting for the simulation to decide he was done.

The ninth layer was finally done.

And as the roar of the pit rolled around them, shaking the glass under their feet, every one of them wondered the same thing.

What would happen next.

Vaeliyan stepped out of the pit, soaked in blood. It streaked his arms, his throat, and spattered his jaw like warpaint. His breaths were steady, but only because he forced them to be. The roar of the crowd dulled behind the glass as the world went quiet around him. The air outside the pit felt thin, like the world wasn't meant to contain what had just walked out of it. He felt heavier than he had when he went in, like gravity had remembered him again. Every motion left a faint trail of red, drops rolling from his fingertips to splatter across the white stone floor. His eyes still burned with the echo of the pit's heat, his skin slick with the last remnants of someone else's life.

Ruby was waiting.

She stood just beyond the gate, hands folded neatly behind her back, eyes bright with that fixed, crystalline smile she always wore. It never reached her eyes. The lights caught her ruby-polished nails as she tapped them together in a slow, theatrical rhythm, like she was marking the beats of a performance only she could hear. Her poise was immaculate, not a hair out of place, as if she were standing at an opera instead of ankle-deep in the aftermath of slaughter.

"All right," she said. "So. You've completed your five challenges. And only one of them wasn't a kill night." Her head tilted slightly, like a bird watching something twitch. "Somehow that one was the most dangerous. I think that says more about you than the others."

Vaeliyan exhaled, voice flat. "Who the hells is Lord B?"

Ruby's eyes lit up like he had given her a gift. "Oh, darling." She clapped her perfectly manicured hands, ruby nails catching the light like sparks. "Lord B is the reigning champion of the final test. The highest scoring cadet in history. He became a High Imperator, of course, but when he was here... he was unstoppable. Sort of like someone else I know."

She took a step closer, voice soft and sweet and utterly rehearsed. "Lord B is short for Lord Barcus. Every cadet who has ever wanted to command their squad has had to face him. Not him exactly," her smile sharpened, "a perfect reconstruction of him, as he was back then. The last challenge for a squad leader candidate isn't really a challenge at all. It's a limit test."

She paced slowly around him as she spoke, like she was inspecting him for cracks. "We run your performance alongside Barcus's original run. Every strike, every kill, every move is compared live. The sim places his shadow over your shoulder so you can feel how far behind you are. We want to see how long you can last. Because by this point, darling, you've hidden what you are. You all do. So, we pull it out of you. Completely. We make sure nothing is left buried. We burn the mask off."

Vaeliyan just stared at her. "So, what happens if I win?"

Her smile brightened, thrilled, a spark of something hungry flickering behind her eyes. "Then we stop using the Barcus program as our standard... and we start using you. Instead of Lord Barcus, the next generation of High Imperator candidates will train against Lord Vaeliyan. Imagine it, darling. You, immortalized as the new standard. A living storm in their curriculum. The baseline for monsters."

He frowned faintly. "Lord Verdance, you mean."

Ruby laughed softly, a chiming sound that was too smooth to be real. "No, dear. Verdance is your House. Barcus is his name. If you win, you'll be Lord Vaeliyan. A title of your own. No House before it. Only you."

He dragged a hand down his face, smearing dried blood in dark streaks. "Are there actual prizes or something?"

"Oh, yes," Ruby said, eyes sparkling. "There are rewards in brackets depending on how far you get. Commendations, access, resources... and of course, the glory of being mine to show off to my sisters and rub it in their stupid faces. I am so excited to finally get to present you properly. I've been waiting for this moment since I first saw you. You have been such a delight to watch, a perfect little nightmare. My King in Yellow. Every kill night you survived made my heart sing."

"Ruby," he said tiredly. "I'm not down here for that. I've been doing this for a month and a half. Can we move on to what actually matters?"

Ruby only smiled, unfazed, her head canting gently like she was listening to music only she could hear. "Of course, darling. This run will be private. No crowds. Just you, Barcus, and the sim. If you want your friends to come watch, that can be arranged. They deserve to see what you've become. They deserve to see what might lead them one day."

"I'll have them bring my gear," Vaeliyan said. "If Command says no to them watching, fine. If not, I don't care if they do."

"That's fine," she said warmly. "This is your final test. After this, I would not expect to see you again... unless you come to visit me. If you ever do, just tell the doorman you're here to see Ruby. He will let you through. He knows better than to stop you."

"Fair enough," Vaeliyan muttered. "I'll be back soon."

As he walked past her, Ruby's voice followed, sing-song and delighted, warm as sugar and sharp as glass. "Do try to impress me, Lord Vaeliyan. I have such high hopes. You may be the first to ever outshine him. The first to end the shadow of Lord Barcus."

Vaeliyan said nothing. But deep in his chest, he knew: if he did this, Steel would notice. If he surpassed Barcus, his god would give him another major boon. And this time, he would not hold back. He would bring Bastard. He would bring Styll. He would bring everything. He would pour every fragment of himself into this trial until nothing of Barcus remained.

He would burn Barcus out of the record books and take the throne they had built.

And then nothing could stop him.

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