To truly understand how Julia Moss found herself trapped in a damp rock crevice, watching a high princess and a chaotic swordswoman argue over the offensive capabilities of the word potato, one had to look back a few days.

Specifically, to the moment Julia was dropped into the Forbidden Zone.

When the random teleportation dropped her into the valley, she landed in a dense thicket of thorned vines and twisted roots, her staff clutched to her chest, her heart hammering so hard she could feel it in her throat.

She had no idea where she was.

The map on her bracer showed nothing but trees and more trees, and the emergency teleport button mocked her with its uselessness. She had immediately done what she did best: panicked, tripped over a root, and scrambled up a massive tree.

For the first two days, she survived by hiding, running, and using her Spatial Pressure to sense enemies before they saw her and slipping away into the shadows like a ghost.

She killed a few monsters, small ones, Grade 1 and 2, nothing she couldn’t handle with a well-placed blast of compressed air, but mostly, she just tried not to die.

It was lonely. It was terrifying.

She talked to herself just to hear a human voice.

Her peaceful isolation had ended abruptly when Princess Cordelia Valerion had strolled into her sector.

Cordelia had been a vision of royal perfection — her combat robes spotless, her rapier moving in precise, textbook arcs as she elegantly dispatched wild beasts.

Realizing that a high princess was essentially a walking cheat-code for survival, Julia had practically fallen out of her tree to beg for a temporary party formation. Cordelia, recognizing Julia’s utility as a support mage, had gracefully accepted.

For a while, it worked. They moved seamlessly through the areas, accumulating points.

But about a day ago, the atmosphere of the exam shifted.

The first sign of trouble was a group of students they encountered near a cave. Their eyes were bloodshot, glowing with an unnatural, sickly violet hue, and they weren’t talking.

They were snarling.

Before Cordelia could even offer a standard aristocratic greeting, the students had lunged at them with terrifying, mindless ferocity.

They managed to beat them back, but the attacks didn’t stop.

It was as if a switch had been flipped inside the valley. More and more candidates were acting like rabid animals, hunting in packs, completely ignoring the exam rules. Cordelia and Julia were forced into a continuous, exhausting retreat.

...And then, they ran into Alice Scarlet.

They didn’t hear her coming; they heard her shouting.

"Is that all you got, you absolute pieces of garbage?!" a loud, booming voice had echoed through the canopy. "My grandmother swings a sword faster than you, and she’s been dead for ten years!"

When Cordelia and Julia burst through the treeline, they found a girl wielding a massive longsword, surrounded by five purple-eyed candidates. Her crimson hair was wild, her amber eyes were blazing, and she was cursing so creatively that Julia felt her ears burn.

"Hey, blue-shirt!" Alice yelled, parrying a spear strike. "Your stance is so garbage it’s giving me a literal headache! Go back to the academy and learn how to hold a stick!"

Cordelia had frozen in sheer shock. "What... what a terribly unrefined individual."

"Princess, I think she’s winning!" Julia had squeaked.

Without waiting for permission, Alice had cleaved through the final opponent’s weapon, sending him staggering back. She wiped her brow, noticed Cordelia’s pristine royal robes, and immediately grinned. "Well, well. What do we have here? A lost lamb and a walking talking porcelain doll."

"I am Princess Cordelia Valerion," Cordelia had snapped, her emerald eyes narrowing. "And your language is a disgrace to the Academy."

"Great to meet you, Princess Porcelain," Alice mocked, sheathing her sword with a flourish. "I’m Alice."

Julia stepped forward. "We were wondering if you wanted to join us."

Alice looked at her, then at Cordelia, then at the forest behind them. "For how long, you two have been surviving together."

"Three days."

Alice snorted. "And you haven’t killed each other yet?"

"...Its been close," Cordelia muttered.

Alice laughed — a real laugh, loud and rough. "Fine. I’m in. But I’m not carrying anyone’s bags."

And just like that.

Out of pure necessity, a temporary trio was forged. It was a disaster from the first minute.

Alice was loud. Incredibly loud. Every time they tried to sneak past a group of corrupted candidates, Alice would spot someone she didn’t like and hurl a barrage of insults, instantly drawing the entire crowd right to their position.

"It’s called psychological warfare!" Alice had argued when Cordelia threatened to impale her.

"It is called suicide!" Cordelia had shouted back.

The tipping point had happened just a few hours ago. They had been successfully hiding in a dense thicket, waiting out a massive roaming squad, when a giant spider monster, corrupted with the same violet energy — had dropped from the sky right behind them.

Alice, startled by the giant arachnid, had let out a battle cry that could have woken the dead, swung her sword, and accidentally detonated a nearby explosive fire crystal they had set as a trap.

The explosion didn’t kill the spider, but it did illuminate their position like a firework show, alerting both the monster and the thirty corrupted candidates nearby.

"Run!" Alice had cheered cheerfully as a wave of purple-eyed students and a screeching multi-legged horror began chasing them down.

Which brought them exactly to the present.

Inside the dark, cramped crevice, Julia stared at Alice and Cordelia as the argument over the word potato finally subsided under the terror of the heavy footsteps outside.

The massive shadow cast over the rock opening slowly shifted. The hand reaching through the purple bushes paused, just inches from brushing against Alice’s shoulder.

Julia shut her eyes tight, braced for impact.

"Lose them?" a gruff, heavily distorted voice muttered outside.

"Yeah. The tracks split near the creek. Let’s check the eastern ridge," another voice answered.

The shadow slowly receded. The heavy crunch of boots began to fade into the distance, growing fainter and fainter until the oppressive silence of the forest returned.

Alice slowly let go of the hilt of her longsword, letting out a breath she had been holding for a solid two minutes. "Alright," she whispered, her usual smug grin creeping back onto her face. "See? Perfectly calculated. They didn’t see a thing."

"You almost cost us our lives," Cordelia hissed, her voice trembling as she lowered her rapier. "Again. If you shout like a tavern drunkard one more time, I will personally ensure you do not make it to the final area."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, Princess," Alice waved her off carelessly, squeezing her way slightly forward to peek through the gap.

"But look, we have a bigger problem. The communication lines are totally fried, the bracers aren’t working, and half the student body has gone completely homicidal. We can’t just keep running and hiding in holes."

Julia let out a shaky breath, hugging her staff tightly. "Alice is right... even if she’s the reason they were chasing us. Those students... their souls felt wrong. It wasn’t just madness. It felt like something was pulling their strings."

Cordelia adjusted her torn robes, her royal composure slowly returning, though her face was still streaked with dirt. "If the Academy monitors aren’t intervening, it means one of two things. Either they are incapable of reaching us due to a barrier, or... they are allowing this to happen."

"Knowing those old bastards in charge? They’re probably watching us with a bowl of popcorn," Alice snorted. "Which means we need a real plan. We three are strong, but against a whole valley of brainwashed freaks and Grade 5 bosses? We’re going to get overwhelmed."

Julia blinked, looking between them. "So... what do we do?"

"...We gather people," Cordelia stated firmly, her emerald eyes flashing with resolve. "The strongest. The ones whose minds haven’t been twisted. If we can form a core group of capable fighters, we can establish a secure perimeter and figure out where this corruption is leaking from."

"I like the sound of that," Alice grinned, cracking her knuckles.

Cordelia nodded in agreement. "Then, we move quickly, we stay hidden, and—" she glared pointedly at the crimson-haired girl, "—we do not shout at the local wildlife."

"No promises," Alice winked.

With a coordinated nod, the three of them quietly squeezed out of the narrow crevice, slipping back into the thin morning light of the dangerous valley, focused on a single goal: find the others, or die trying.

_

Elsewhere, someone was having an even worse day...

The damp forest air did absolutely nothing to cool Riven Ashford’s boiling temper as his boots crunched heavily on fallen leaves and broken branches. His steel-red eyes restlessly scanned the trees for threats that never came, his ash-blonde hair matted with sweat and dirt.

Dual daggers hung at his hips, still stained dark with the blood of the last monster he had killed.

It had been days of fighting, running, hiding, and killing. He had lost count of the monsters, lost track of the candidates trying to jump him, and lost all feeling in his left shoulder somewhere around the fourth hour of day one.

But none of that bothered him. What bothered him was that bastard elf.

Roan Sol-Valis.

Riven’s jaw tightened just thinking about the name. That silver-haired, spear-twirling, annoyingly grinning piece of elven royalty had beaten him. Not just beaten him — toyed with him. They had the exact same rank: Expert Mid.

And yet that bastard had danced around Riven’s daggers like they were moving through water, his spear always exactly where Riven didn’t want it to be.

And the worst part?

Roan never once used his affinity.

Riven had heard the rumors. Everyone had.

A Time affinity — the most broken ability in existence. The elf could slow time, freeze moments, or rewind seconds with a thought. Yet he never used it. Not even when Riven had managed to land a grazing cut on his arm — the only hit he had gotten in the entire fight.

Roan had simply looked at the blood on his sleeve, then back at Riven, his stupid grin only growing wider. "Not bad, Ashford. You made me bleed. That’s more than most."

Then he had disarmed Riven in the next three moves. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

The fight had ended with Roan’s spear pressed against his throat, those storm-silver eyes looking down at him like he was a child throwing a tantrum.

"I won’t kill you," Roan had said, pulling his weapon back with an infuriating chuckle. "You’re too entertaining for that. Let’s spar again soon, Ashford. I’m curious to see if you can actually surprise me."

Then he had walked away, whistling some elven tune, leaving Riven on his knees in the dirt with his pride in pieces.

Riven genuinely hated that elf.

Not because Roan was cruel or had cheated, but because Roan looked at him like he wasn’t a threat. Riven Ashford was the grandson of a legendary Sovereign. He had an SSS-rank core, a high rank core and a SS rank Path. He was supposed to be the one looking down at others.

But that elf had made him feel small.

...And Riven hated being small.

He kicked a rock out of his path and watched it bounce into the trees. His mind was so consumed with thoughts of Roan — that stupid grin, that annoying laugh, that infuriatingly perfect hair — that he didn’t realize where he was going.

He was so deeply lost in his thoughts that he almost didn’t hear the frantic rustling up ahead. His head snapped up, his hand flying straight to his dagger. Someone was sprinting down the dirt path at full speed.

Riven tensed, ready to fight, ready to kill, ready to—

A figure burst out of the treeline. He was short, shorter than Riven, anyway, built like a sturdy barrel with broad shoulders and arms that looked capable of bending steel.

A heavy hammer and shield were strapped to his back, bouncing wildly. His messy brown hair stuck up in every direction like he had been electrocuted, and his hazel eyes were wide with terror.

He was also crying. Full-on, tears-streaming, nose-running, hysterical sobbing.

He spotted Riven. His lips moved. He was trying to say something. But he was too far away, and his voice was too weak, and the wind was blowing the wrong direction, and all Riven heard was a faint, desperate squeak.

The kid pointed frantically behind himself, didn’t slow down, and shot straight past Riven like a human streak of lightning, the wind pressure whipping Riven’s hair across his face.

Riven stood there, completely paralyzed by the sheer absurdity of the moment. He slowly blinked, turning his head to watch the boy’s retreating back.

"...What the fuck was that?"

Then, the ground began to vibrate.

A low, thunderous rumble echoed from the thick bushes the half-dwarf had just fled. Riven turned back around, and his heart violently skipped a beat.

Bursting through the trees was a literal sea of students.

At least three hundred to four hundred candidates were stampeding in a massive, chaotic horde. Their faces were completely blank, their eyes glowing with a sickening, unnatural violet hue, and they were snarling like wild beasts with weapons raised.

They were chasing the crying half-dwarf.

Riven’s instincts kicked in instantly.

"Oh, fuck this!" he cursed at the top of his lungs.

He spun on his heel and took off at a desperate sprint, his previous pride completely evaporating. He channeled every single drop of mana into his legs, tearing down the path. Within a minute, his superior physical stats allowed him to catch up to the kid.

"Hey!" Riven roared, pulling up right beside him. "Are you completely insane?! Why the fuck didn’t you warn me?! You just ran past me like a fucking lunatic!"

The half-dwarf’s face was bright red, gasping frantically for air as tears flew from his eyes. "I... I... was—"

"What?!" Riven snapped, glancing back as a stray fireball exploded just a few yards behind them.

"I was saying, ’RUN, YOU CRAZY BASTARD!’" the half-dwarf wheezed, sobbing through the wind. "You were just standing there like a statue!"

"You could have waved your arms!" Riven yelled back.

Another wave of candidates burst out of the trees behind them. Closer now.

Riven cursed. He grabbed the half-dwarf’s collar and dragged him off the main path, veering sharply to the left, toward a cluster of ruins he had spotted earlier — a crumbling tower, half-swallowed by vines, with a narrow entrance that only one person could fit through at a time.

"Where are you going?!" the half-dwarf shrieked.

"Shut up if you want to keep your head!" Riven hissed.

He dragged the screaming kid off the path, veering sharply into a hidden rocky ravine. The half-dwarf tripped over a root, but Riven hauled him back up by his shirt without stopping, navigating the steep slope until they reached the base of a crumbling, ancient stone tower.

Riven shoved the boy through the narrow entrance, dove in after him, and slammed the heavy door shut, bolting the iron latch.

A split second later, the candidates slammed into the outer wall, their claws scraping frantically against the stone as their purple eyes glowed through the narrow cracks.

The two of them collapsed against the damp floor, panting heavily. For a long time, the only sound inside the dark tower was their ragged, desperate breathing.

Once his heart rate finally dropped, Riven pushed himself up and glared at the trembling boy. "Alright," Riven demanded, his voice dropping into a sharp, serious tone.

"What the hell is happening out there? Why are they acting like that? Did you do something to cause this?"

"Me?!" the half-dwarf squeaked, waving his hands defensively. "I didn’t do anything! I was just walking, trying to find a good spot to set up my equipment. And then I noticed something strange about the bracers!"

Riven’s eyes narrowed. "The bracers?"

"The teleport function! It’s completely offline," the boy stammered, frantically wiping his nose on his sleeve. "Something is blocking the signal. The entire valley is sealed. And those candidates chasing us? Their structures are all wrong. Twisted."

"You can sense that?"

"Yeah, it’s my affinity. Structure. I can see how things are built, how they’re put together through systems and circuits. When I look at those students, I can sense a foreign, highly restrictive mana signature deeply embedded in their cores. Something else is holding them together and controlling them like programmed puppets."

Riven processed the information in grim silence. If the bracers were down, this was no longer an exam — it was a war zone. And looking at this weeping engineer, Riven saw a weak non-combatant who would only slow him down.

He needed to find fighters.

"Great. Glad you survived," Riven said coldly, turning back toward the door. "But I’m moving out. A horde that size will realize they lost us eventually. I’m better off alone."

He took a step forward, but before his boot could hit the floor, something heavy slammed into his shin. Riven froze. He slowly looked down.

The half-dwarf had thrown himself entirely onto the floor, his arms wrapped in a desperate death-grip around Riven’s left leg, his lower lip violently twitching.

"Please don’t leave me alone!" he wailed, squeezing Riven’s ankle like a lifeline. "I will literally die in five minutes! A giant squirrel could probably take me out right now! Don’t do this, man!"

Riven’s left eyebrow twitched violently in pure disgust. "Let go of my leg, you pathetic coward."

"No! If I let go, you’ll leave!"

"I am going to count to three," Riven hissed, his mana flaring. "One. Two—"

"Wait! Don’t kick! I’m actually useful, I swear!" the boy yelled, quickly looking up while keeping one arm tightly locked around Riven’s knee. "I... I am Caster! Caster Ironwell! And I have the full map of the valley!"

With his free hand, Caster frantically pulled a small device from his pocket and slapped it onto the stone floor.

A holographic projection flickered to life. It wasn’t a perfect, omniscient map — large sections of the display were gray, blurry, and marked only with rough terrain lines.

"It’s not perfect," Caster admitted quickly, tapping the screen to stabilize the image.

"I’ve been recording data since the exam started. The map only shows where I’ve personally been and what my device has scanned. The rest of the blurry parts are just basic Academy baseline data — the general layout and major landmarks they gave us before we dropped in."

Riven stared at the partial map, then back down at him. "How does a broken map help us track a literal army?"

"Because of the bracers!" Caster explained, his voice gaining a bit of confidence as he talked shop.

"Every single candidate wears an Academy bracer, right? They broadcast a unique mana frequency so the instructors can track us. My Structure affinity lets me hook my device into those frequencies and read them, but only if I’m close enough. A few miles at most. I can’t scan the whole valley at once, and I have to actively focus my mana to sweep one specific area at a time."

Riven’s steel-red eyes narrowed as he caught on. "So you’re telling me you can see where people are? Who’s corrupted and who’s not?"

"Only if they are wearing their bracers, and only if they’re within my immediate range," Caster said.

"The corrupted ones show up with a completely different frequency. Twisted. Like something is screaming under their skin on a loop. And there’s a massive, pulsing source of that corruption deeper in the valley, but it’s too far away for my device to pinpoint."

Caster instantly let go of Riven’s leg, scrambling to his feet with a massive, relieved grin.

He tapped the device, forcing a localized mana sweep to zoom in on a cluster of ruins on the holographic projection, the same ruins where the Weeping Knight had been rumored to roam, and where a white-haired boy and a silver-violet-eyed girl had been seen heading hours ago.

"The map shows stable survivors in the eastern ruins," Caster said, wiping his nose on his sleeve. "A small group. If we hurry, we can reach them by nightfall."

Riven studied the projection. "How do you know they aren’t corrupted?"

"Their frequencies are steady. Clean. No distortion," Caster noted, pointing at the glowing dots. "I’ve been tracking them for the past hour. They haven’t moved much, probably resting or healing."

The ruins were a few miles east, past the ravine and cutting through the dense forest. A powerhouse fighter and a short-range sensor. It was a solid tactical setup, even if his new partner was a complete mess.

Riven let out a long, deeply defeated sigh. "Fine. We move. But if you slow me down—"

"You’re stuck with me, I know," Caster grinned.

Riven’s left eye twitched. "I will literally push you off a cliff."

"No, you won’t."

Riven turned on his heel and marched toward the tower’s broken rear exit. "Shut up and move."

Caster followed immediately, keeping the holographic display low as they slipped out into the fading light, disappearing into the dense trees.