Azrael’s body moved as though it were acting on its own, weaving through blow after blow from the four human sized mantis constructs attacking him simultaneously.

His eyes carried a sharp blue glint.

To his aura enhanced sight, the mantises had no outer layer at all. He could see straight into their inner bodies, watching the essence flow shift before each attack arrived.

A pincer shot toward his neck, the whistling air sharp enough to threaten his hearing.

Azrael had already ducked beneath it before it arrived.

Another was already descending from above, its tip gleaming under the dungeon’s light as it closed in on his bare chest.

He straightened and rolled sideways, letting the pincer drive into the earth beside him.

A horizontal strike came next, aimed at cleaving his torso clean through.

Azrael launched upward, flipping backward through the air.

As he rose, he spoke.

"Alright. I have a core to find," he said, two fingers raised in a brief salute.

One foot had barely touched the ground before he was gone, his body a blur of blue streaking forward.

Swoosh.

As though all that momentum had never existed, he stopped dead, his body bending backward until his spine was nearly parallel to the floor.

A sharp vine pierced through the air where his chest had been a moment before.

Azrael watched it retract.

"Even the forest is joining in," he muttered, already sprinting again.

"He appears to have an Infernal core, though I have not confirmed it yet," Sylvester said from the branch behind them.

"How long have you been there?" Yvonne asked, head snapping back to find him already seated.

’Unsettling,’ Aiden thought, keeping the smile off his face.

"An Infernal core? Is that not supposed to be the stuff of legend among your kind?" Aiden asked with furrowed brows.

"It is. But without confirmation I can only wait and see," Sylvester replied.

"Ymir, you are joining us this year?" Yvonne asked, shifting to make room on the branch.

Ymir nodded and settled in without a word.

’Even more unsettling,’ Aiden thought, glancing sideways at Ymir before looking back at the screen.

’These students are being treated as exceptional,’ Ymir thought, watching the display with an expression that suggested she found the whole thing mildly beneath her attention.

On screen, Zephyr leapt back from a magma fireball that detonated where he had been standing.

He did not pause, launching forward faster than before.

The fireballs did not lose interest.

They followed, landing in his wake and spraying magma in wide arcs.

Zephyr glanced back at them.

It was a mistake.

A magma ball had already been hurled at his position the moment his attention shifted, as though the construct had been waiting for exactly that.

His head snapped forward just in time to see it.

Without thinking, he redirected the wind, sweeping the projectile off course before it could close the distance.

’That was too close,’ he thought, dragging the back of his hand across his forehead.

Sirris landed sideways against the trunk of a tree, feet planted against the bark.

She looked out beyond the dense canopy.

There, past the overgrowth, was a clearing.

No lava. No ice. No wind currents tearing through the space.

Just open ground.

’That has to be the center. Where all the ecosystems converge,’ she thought.

It was a basic dungeon principle. The point where every distinct region met was always the heart.

She pushed off the trunk and leapt to the next tree without hesitation.

The moment she landed, her perception tilted.

The tree was falling.

She jumped to another before it hit the ground, watching it collapse behind her.

"What caused that?" She murmured, scanning the area.

Nothing visible. No construct large enough to topple a tree, no impact site, nothing.

She exhaled and leapt again.

Meters from landing, the next tree shuddered.

Sirris’s eyes widened as the ground rushed up toward her.

’Do not panic,’ she told herself, closing her eyes for one controlled breath.

They snapped open immediately after.

She stopped fighting the fall, letting her body read it instead.

She hit the ground cleanly, one hand between her feet, legs spread to absorb the impact.

Her eyes swept upward immediately.

Still nothing.

Then the memory came back.

’The first day. The trees were rearranging themselves,’ she thought.

It was the only explanation that fit. No visible cause, no construct responsible. The dungeon itself was moving around her.

She rose and launched forward again, body wrapped in essence as she moved in short rapid bursts.

Outside on the branch, the four instructors watched.

"Do not tell me she never figured out what was causing the trees to fall," Aiden said, frowning at the screen.

"She got close enough. Besides, I only placed that mechanic in as a surprise for whoever noticed it. It was not designed for her specifically," Yvonne said with a shrug.

"That one has finally started moving," Aiden said, shifting toward Malaric’s screen.

He studied the display for a moment.

"Do not tell me he is afraid of lightning now," he said.

"After what he went through in bloodline training yesterday, maybe ease up on the judgment," Yvonne replied.

"You are far too soft for a demon," Aiden said, shaking his head.

Yvonne exhaled slowly.

"The last person who said that to me was about two thousand years ago. He is long dead."

"You genuinely cannot take a joke," Aiden muttered.

Ymir and Sylvester said nothing throughout the exchange, eyes fixed on the screens.

Valdren ran across the ice, his body fully encased in a solid shell of essence that kept the cold from reaching him.

’At least since that first moment when my foot froze, nothing else has come at me in this area,’ he thought.

As if the thought itself had been heard, an ice spike erupted from the ground directly beneath him.

He barely twisted away in time.

"Did I just jinx myself?" He wondered, scanning the terrain around him.

The ice that had felt manageable a moment ago no longer looked safe at all.