Five golden flames floated, suspended in the void.

Inside the wooden hall, a month had passed since those flames had come to life.

Beneath their closed eyelids, their gazes remained resolute. Every night, they had tried again and again, never once managing to overcome the flames.

And tonight was their final chance.

Gramm, absent throughout the entire month while occupied with preparations for the next phases of Gungnir, had finally returned.

The deadline he had given them had come to an end.

Failure?

None of them wanted to imagine the price he would make them pay.

"Go ahead."

Sirius and Kritos were the first pair to step forward.

They exchanged a brief glance.

They no longer needed words.

Iris and Ronel followed. Over time, a rivalry had formed between them, but faced with the challenge before them, they seemed to silently agree to set it aside.

Gracia and Lucy advanced in unison. Their duo had always been the most harmonious.

"Rock, paper, scissors." "Rock, paper, scissors."

As usual, Elizir and Fidri settled their turn with a bet. Fidri won and took the first step toward the flame, while Elizir followed with a displeased expression.

"Come on, we’re doing it this time," Elizir said, trying to forget his small defeat.

Fidri nodded, a newfound determination shining in their eyes.

"Leeet’s fiiinish... I waaanna sleeeep..." Rana muttered with a sigh. She had been the one most affected by the lack of sleep.

"Here, this should help a little."

Ana handed her a thermos.

Rana grimaced as she opened the bottle.

The aroma of coffee immediately assaulted her nose.

The taste was bitter. She already hated coffee, but this one reached a level of bitterness rarely matched.

Even so, she knew she could not allow her exhaustion to become a burden to her teammate, who had gradually become a dear friend.

Her face twisted even further as she swallowed it in one gulp.

Sitting in the corner of the room, Ereis clasped his fingers together. Even with the hood hiding his face, his concern remained obvious.

He had witnessed all the efforts his friends had made throughout the month, silently praying for their success.

Each pair then took a sheet of paper and held it with both hands before the flame assigned to them.

---

Sirius looked from left to right before sighing, recalling everything they had learned from their failures, the sweat they had shed, those sleepless nights.

For an entire month, they had barely closed their eyes, torn between their enforcer training during the day and willpower training at night.

A silent understanding had now formed between them, the kind that exists only between those who have endured the same trial together, like comrades-in-arms.

At that moment, they all shared the same thought.

("It’s all or nothing.")

---

All of them stared at the flames.

Their minds immersed themselves within them, and they felt it once more.

Destruction.

Those flames were imbued with a will.

Burn. Destroy. Consume.

None of them doubted that if Gramm had not restricted his will to consuming only paper, they would already have been reduced to ashes.

And yet, no one trembled.

Iron against iron.

Steel against steel.

Will against will.

It had taken them an entire week to understand that truth.

And it would have taken far longer without Iris’s Soul’s Eyes, which had revealed the true nature of the flames.

During that month, Iris had also silently established herself as a leader. She had pushed everyone to share their ideas, methods, and progress so they could find a way to overcome the flames together.

So before even bringing the paper close to the fire, they only had one option.

To do as Gramm did.

To cloak what was meant to be destroyed in a will.

Their will.

Sirius closed his eyes.

In his mind, the sheet was no longer paper, but tungsten, a metal that not even the flames of hell could consume.

And once that image fully imposed itself within his mind, he poured as much ether into it as he could.

Instantly, the paper seemed to stiffen, as though it had truly acquired the properties of metal.

Sirius had successfully imposed his will.

However, the will Gramm had infused into the flames remained far more powerful than anything any of them could match individually, even with all their determination.

But then Sirius remembered something.

("I’m not alone.")

Kritos stood beside him.

This was neither their first attempt nor even their hundredth.

The moment he felt Sirius’s will covering the sheet, Kritos did not oppose it.

On the contrary.

He focused his entire will onto his partner’s.

In his mind, he imagined a protective coating.

If Sirius’s will transformed the sheet into tungsten, then his own wrapped around it like a wave cooling white-hot metal.

The paper, initially rigid like steel, now seemed to take on a crimson hue.

At that moment, Sirius and Kritos’s wills became one.

A will that not even the flames of hell could erode.

They took a deep breath before confronting their will against that of the flames.

The fire immediately engulfed one edge of the paper.

Their hearts skipped a beat.

Then they realized something.

The flames were merely covering the sheet without managing to burn it.

At the same moment, Iris and Ronel did the same, envisioning their paper as a shield no flame could pierce.

Gracia and Lucy projected the image of ice impossible to melt.

As for Fidri and Elizir, they imagined their will as a luminous veil beneath which the sheet was protected.

Meanwhile, Rana and Ana covered the paper with a warm and comforting blanket, as though it continuously healed the damage caused by the flames.

---

Gramm observed them with a concealed gleam in his eyes.

All of them had succeeded in combining their wills, and simultaneously at that.

Though the images they projected differed, the method remained fundamentally the same.

That realization made Gramm understand they had displayed remarkable teamwork, sharing their ideas and experiences to overcome this trial.

("Not bad. But how long can your will endure?")

As though that thought alone had triggered a new phase of the trial, the intensity of the flames suddenly increased.

They completely engulfed the sheets, no longer content with gnawing at the paper, but now directly attacking the will protecting it.

And for the first time, those flames that had previously seemed devoid of heat became scorching.

They did not feel the pain of fire burning their skin.

But that of an inferno devouring their minds.

It did not take long before all of them felt their will beginning to waver.

The edges of the sheets started blackening as panic spread.

"Pour all your ether into it! Stop focusing on the paper, target the flames instead!" Iris shouted.

Without hesitation, they all drew as much ether from their reserves as possible.

Will was the engine.

Ether was the fuel.

They unleashed it like a raging bull.

The confrontation immediately intensified.

Two wills were now clashing in a true battle of egos.

Ereis lost his breath. There was no need to be awakened to feel the ferocity of that silent battle.

None of them yielded.

Until the flames began to flicker.

Once.

Twice.

Then they went out.

Silence settled over the room.

Before all the tension suddenly collapsed.

"We... did it?"

Victory seemed certain.

Then, suddenly, the flames reignited.

But this time, they no longer sought to consume the paper.

They wanted to devour everything.

As though their restriction had just been broken.

In a fraction of a second, Sirius and the others were swallowed by a torrent of fire.

Their will had become meaningless before the fury of the flames.

"That’s enough."

Gramm snapped his fingers.

As though suppressed by an order, the flames instantly disappeared.

Exhausted, drained of all ether and willpower, Sirius and the others collapsed onto the ground.

Gramm’s voice reached them just before they lost consciousness.

"Well done."