Chapter 60: A Catastrophe

Two days had passed since Leon began traveling with Caelus, and in that time he had learned that the phrase keep moving could mean something far more literal than he had ever imagined.

They hunted whenever they found Corrupt creatures, stopped only when they needed food, water, or enough rest to keep their bodies functioning, and resumed the moment those necessities had been dealt with. Leon could no longer remember the last time he had slept properly. The dark circles beneath his eyes had become impossible to hide, and his legs felt permanently heavy, but Caelus never seemed interested in slowing down for long.

At least he did not make Leon fight alone.

Mist covered the forest ahead, dense enough to obscure the trees beyond a few meters. Leon could barely distinguish the ground beneath his feet, yet Caelus moved through it with the confidence of someone who could see every creature hiding inside.

A pack of Corrupt beasts burst from the fog.

Leon braced himself as the first slammed into him.

The impact drove him backward several meters, but he absorbed it before his heels left the ground, drawing the force inward until the violent momentum that should have shattered his ribs instead settled inside his body.

"Two on the right," Caelus called.

Leon pivoted immediately.

Two more creatures emerged through the mist.

He stepped toward them instead of retreating, allowing one to strike his shoulder while he caught the other attack with his forearm. The impacts accumulated rapidly, pressure building within his body until his muscles strained beneath it.

He waited for the opening.

A streak of blue flashed through the fog.

Caelus appeared behind one of the creatures, his sword coated in the compressed edge of Water Sheathe. He cut across its hind leg and moved away before the creature could react.

The wounded beast turned after him.

Leon saw the opening.

He drove his fist into its chest.

Everything he had stored erupted at once.

The creature exploded backward with such force that its body struck a tree and bent around the trunk before collapsing into the undergrowth.

Leon barely had time to breathe before another attacked.

He caught the blow.

Caelus’s voice came through the fog.

"Hold it."

Leon gritted his teeth and caught another claw against his arm.

He absorbed the impact.

The creature tried to pull back, but Leon grabbed its wrist and held it in place.

A silhouette appeared behind the monster.

Caelus stepped through the mist.

Water Sheathe flashed, and the blade cut into the creature’s exposed side.

Blood sprayed across the ground. The creature tore itself free and turned toward Caelus, only for a second cut to strike the opposite shoulder.

It tried to charge.

Death Stalker caught the blood.

The creature convulsed as the spell struck the wound, forcing it off balance.

Leon released the strength stored in his body.

His fist smashed into the creature’s torso.

The impact folded it inward and sent it skidding across the ground.

Caelus followed immediately, crossing the distance before it could recover.

His sword came down.

The creature stopped moving.

The remaining beasts attacked together.

Leon stepped into their path. He took the first strike against his chest, absorbed the force, then caught the second across his back and staggered under the combined impact. His knees nearly gave out.

He forced them straight.

The accumulated strength within him had become almost painful to contain.

One of the creatures lunged again, and Leon welcomed it.

He caught the attack with both hands and held the creature’s claws away from his face while its momentum continued pressing against him.

"Now," Caelus said.

Leon released everything.

The creature disappeared into the fog with a thunderous impact.

Before the sound had finished echoing, Caelus was already moving.

A blue line cut through the mist.

The second creature’s throat opened, and its body collapsed.

Silence returned to the forest.

Leon bent forward, breathing heavily as the remaining pressure slowly left his body.

He had become stronger over the last two days.

Not enough to make the exhaustion disappear, but enough to understand what Caelus had seen when he’d first offered himself as a tank.

Leon could absorb punishment and force enemies to commit, while Caelus exploited the smallest opening those commitments created.

That realization was almost immediately overshadowed by the sight of Caelus emerging from the mist.

Caelus wiped his sword clean on a corpse before storing it inside the Eclipse Ring.

Leon was still catching his breath when Caelus looked down at himself.

His clothes were covered in blood.

He sighed and raised a hand.

"Cleanse."

The stains disappeared.

Caelus glanced over his sleeve, seemingly more annoyed by the mess than the fight itself.

The forest had changed considerably since they first entered the island.

Broken trees covered the ground in every direction. Entire sections of the woodland had been crushed or burned, and the bodies of Corrupt creatures were scattered between the roots. Human corpses were becoming increasingly common as well, some still carrying usable equipment and unopened potions.

Caelus slowed.

Something about the scene was wrong.

He looked at the nearest body.

The candidate had fallen facing away from the center.

Caelus’s eyes shifted to another corpse farther ahead.

It too had fallen with its back toward the center.

His gaze moved from body to body, following the pattern through the ruined forest.

The dead students were scattered throughout the forest, but almost all of them had been moving in the same direction when they died.

Away from the center.

Caelus’s gaze shifted to the other corpses.

The Corrupt creatures were different. Most lay facing toward the center.

He remembered the creatures they’d encountered over the last two days. Some had ignored them completely and continued deeper toward the center. Others had attacked only after their path had been blocked. He had assumed they were simply being drawn toward whatever waited there.

That wasn’t the whole picture.

The monsters weren’t merely moving toward the center.

They were boxing the candidates in.

His skin prickled.

If the creature in the center had already recognized the candidates as prey, then this behavior wasn’t simple instinct anymore.

It was directing the creatures around it to consume them.

Caelus’s thoughts moved immediately to the weakening seal.

In the original story, the A+ Corrupt creature had begun displaying signs of higher reasoning much later.

If it had already reached that stage now, then its progression was accelerating as well.

That meant the seal could fail sooner than he remembered.

Much sooner.

Caelus turned toward Leon.

"We need to move. Now."

The urgency in his voice made Leon straighten despite his exhaustion. Caelus had spent the last two days moving as though nothing on the island could force him to hurry. Hearing that tone from him made Leon’s fatigue momentarily disappear beneath a surge of unease.

They moved.

---

Lucian felt the tremor before anyone else understood what it was.

A faint vibration passed through the ground beneath his feet, subtle enough at first to be mistaken for distant movement. Then the earth shifted again, harder this time, and the trees around them shuddered as loose stones rolled down the slope.

Lucian’s grip tightened around his sword.

The corrupted mana hanging in the air had changed.

It was no longer merely dense. It had become oppressive, pressing against his skin and creeping through his senses until even the Sacred Light within his blade began to tremble in response.

One of his companions staggered.

Fiona dropped to a knee, catching herself against the ground, while Mark braced a hand against a tree to keep his balance.

Lucian turned toward the center, his face going pale.

A wave of corrupted pressure swept across the clearing.

Beyond the trees, the earth collapsed inward with a roar that drowned out every other sound. A massive hole tore open where the center of the island had once stood, its edges splintering apart as though something beneath the earth had forced its way upward.

Dense corrupted mana poured from the depths, rising into the sky like black smoke before spreading through the surrounding forest.

Lucian stared at it, unable to look away.

Whatever was below them had crossed a threshold.

Kyla stepped closer, her voice quieter than usual.

"Lucian..."

He barely heard her.

"We need to move," he said.

His voice remained controlled, but there was something underneath it that his companions had never heard before.

Fear.

---

Eve reached the clearing from the opposite side.

She stepped onto a raised section of broken earth and looked down.

The center had collapsed into a vast hole.

Corrupted mana billowed from the depths, thick enough to distort the air above it and obscure the ruins beneath.

Eve stared into the emptiness.

The corners of her lips slowly lifted, her face flushed red with excitement.

The pressure coming from below was different now.

Far stronger than anything she had encountered on the island.

Her fingers curled around the hilts of her blades.

Finally.

---

Toren felt the tremor while walking through the forest.

He stopped.

Another tremor was strong enough to shake the ground beneath his feet.

Toren’s spear lowered slightly as a pulse of corrupted mana rolled across the island. The pressure was so immense that the air itself seemed to grow heavier around him.

His expression hardened.

Then the center erupted.

Earth collapsed somewhere beyond the trees, followed by a wave of corrupted mana that rose above the forest like a storm.

Toren stared toward the distant hole.

For the first time since the examination began, the confidence in his eyes faltered.

Toren tightened his grip around his spear.

"Is that a..."

---

Caelus felt the tremor through the ground before the sound reached him.

A pulse of corrupted mana swept across the forest, and Leon’s breathing caught beside him.

Caelus stared toward the center.

He knew this scene.

He knew what was supposed to happen.

But this was too early.

Far too early.

Caelus and Leon pushed through the final line of trees and emerged onto a high section of broken ground overlooking the center.

Below them lay a massive hole.

The earth had collapsed inward, forming a vast hollow where the central forest had once stood. Corrupted mana poured from its depths in dense waves, spreading outward across the island and swallowing the surrounding landscape in darkness.

Leon swallowed hard.

"Is that a..."

Caelus barely heard him.

His face had gone pale.

The sight in front of him didn’t belong here, and it had never existed at this point in the story.

The creature had completed its ascent.

Caelus’s stomach sank.

"It reached S-rank."