Chapter 73: Cave-In, The Collapsing Floor

"Move!" Saile shouted.

The cavern ceiling tore open. The explosive roar ripped the oxygen directly out of the tunnel, popping the students’ eardrums. This was no natural cave-in.

High above them, a concentrated array of S-Rank fire magic detonated against the bedrock. The heat flashed bright orange through the expanding cracks in the stone. The wealthy nobles of House Vance had not just bribed a proctor to drop Class F off the map. They had actively planted a magical demolition charge to bury the evidence.

A boulder the size of a merchant’s wagon plummeted from the dark.

It crashed into the center of the cavern floor. The kinetic impact hit like a cannonball. The ground buckled violently, throwing the twelve students off their feet. Jagged splinters of rock flew through the air like shrapnel.

"The floor is breaking!" Elian screamed.

The blind runecrafter dropped his wooden staff. He crawled backward, his hands bleeding as he scraped them against the sharp stone.

A deep, jagged fault line split the cavern in half. The narrow tunnel the students had used as a chokepoint against the arachnids was the only stable ground left. Everything else—the center of the cavern, the dead monsters, and the very rock beneath Saile’s boots—began to tilt downward into an endless, howling abyss.

"We are falling!" Riya yelled, sliding down the shifting incline. She clawed desperately at the dirt, but there was nothing to hold onto.

Saile stood near the widening chasm.

His mind processed the collapsing geometry in a fraction of a second. If he did

nothing, the twelve misfits would drop into the dark and shatter against whatever lay at the bottom.

"Let them drop," Naicul whispered coldly in his mind. "They served their purpose. Save your own energy."

"No," Saile replied.

He bent his knees. The silver elven choker burned fiercely against his throat. He could not activate his Domain of the Fallen to freeze the falling rocks. If he unleashed his dark aura, the illusion would break. He had to rely entirely on his Diamond-Tier physical stats.

He funneled kinetic energy into his calves.

[Skill Activated: Phantom Step (C-Grade)]

The air snapped. Saile became a violent blur of motion, riding the collapsing, shifting boulders like stepping stones.

He reached the injured boy first. The student was sliding toward the edge, crying out in terror. Saile did not gently pick him up. He grabbed the boy by the thick collar of his tunic. ℴ

Saile calculated the arc. He used a precise fraction of his raw strength and hurled the boy across the twenty-foot gap.

The boy flew through the dusty air. He crashed hard into the stable tunnel entrance, bruising his ribs against the stone, but he was safe.

Saile rebounded off a falling rock. He shot toward the four shield-bearers.

He didn’t have time to throw them individually. He drove his boot into the nearest boy’s chest, kicking him backward. The kinetic force pushed all four students in a tangled heap onto the solid ledge. They gasped for air, their armor dented, but alive.

The cavern was disintegrating faster now. The deafening screech of grinding stone drowned out all other sound.

Saile spotted Riya. The beast tamer was slipping over the absolute edge of the fault line. Her fingers bled as she lost her grip on the wet rock.

Saile dove. He slid on his stomach across the tilting floor, catching Riya by the wrist just as her legs dangled over the black void.

The sudden stop jerked her shoulder hard. She let out a sharp cry of pain.

Saile planted his boots into the crumbling dirt. He hauled her upward, pulling her over his own body. With a sharp twist of his hips, he threw her toward the tunnel entrance. She rolled across the stone, crashing into the shield-bearers.

"Gabriel!" Elian shrieked.

The blind boy was isolated on a small, freestanding pillar of rock near the center of the collapse. The pillar cracked loudly, tipping forward into the abyss.

Saile pushed himself up. The ground beneath his feet was completely giving way.

He had no solid footing left.

He lunged forward, jumping off the falling floor.

He soared across the empty space, tackling Elian around the waist just as the blind boy’s pillar disintegrated.

Saile twisted his body in mid-air. He absorbed the brunt of the collision, ensuring his own dense bones took the impact instead of Elian’s fragile frame. Saile grabbed the blind runecrafter by the belt and violently hurled him toward the safety of the tunnel.

Elian sailed over the gap. He landed on top of Riya, knocking the wind out of both of them.

All twelve students were safe on the ledge.

But Saile had sacrificed his own momentum.

He hung in the empty air, suspended above the dark for a single, fleeting heartbeat. Gravity took hold.

Saile began to fall.

He looked up. Through the thick clouds of dust and falling rock, he saw the terrified faces of his classmates looking over the edge of the stable tunnel. Riya reached her hand out, screaming his fake name. The sound faded quickly as the distance between them expanded.

The darkness swallowed him.

The rushing wind tore at his cheap linen clothes. The air grew freezing cold. Pieces of broken stone and dead Cave Crawlers plummeted past him in the pitch-black void.

"Down we go," Naicul stated. The God did not sound afraid. He sounded like a king returning to his castle. "The nobles just handed us a direct ticket to the basement. Brace your legs, kid."

Saile did not flail. He did not scream.

He pulled his arms close to his chest, making his body aerodynamic. He focused

his bright blue eyes on the shrinking circle of faint light far above him. He needed to track his descent, waiting for the exact moment to activate Phantom Step and break his fall against the tunnel walls.

Suddenly, a bright flash of silver caught his attention.

Something else was falling into the hole.

High above, at the very edge of the collapsing cavern ceiling, a figure stood on

the fractured rock.

It was a girl wearing pristine silver armor. Her long white hair whipped wildly in the updraft.

Aira.

The Holy Saintess had not been part of the exam. She had bypassed the proctors, using her high-level clearance to secretly track the corrupted mana signatures the nobles had used to sabotage the array. She had followed the trail of explosives down into the dark.

Aira looked down into the massive, crumbling abyss.

Her golden eyes burned with SSS-Rank light, piercing the thick dust. She saw the twelve students huddled on the safe ledge. Then, her glowing gaze shifted downward.

She saw the blonde-haired boy falling into the void.

She saw Gabriel.

Aira did not hesitate. She did not stop to think about the lethal drop or the unmapped horrors waiting at the bottom of the labyrinth.

This boy was an anomaly. He had broken Julian Vance with a wooden scabbard. He

had challenged her religious worldview with cold, undeniable logic. Her Eyes of Truth bled when she looked at his core. He was the most dangerous puzzle she had ever encountered, and she refused to let her only lead die in the dark.

Aira stepped off the broken ledge.

She dove headfirst into the abyss.

Saile watched her fall toward him. The glowing golden light of her eyes cut through the shadows like twin stars.

"She is entirely too stubborn for her own good," Naicul muttered.

"She is going to see us hit the bottom," Saile thought back. His mind raced, calculating the variables.

If they crashed into the unmapped depths, Aira would expect a C-Rank Light user to shatter his legs. If Saile used his Diamond-Tier strength to survive the fall, or if he drew the Calamity Fang to slow his descent, she would witness his true power.

The disguise was reaching its absolute breaking point.

The wind shrieked in Saile’s ears. The walls of the abyss blurred past him. The temperature plummeted further, chilling his blood.

He reached behind his back, wrapping his fingers around the canvas-covered hilt of his epic-grade sword. He prepared to draw the blade.

Above him, Aira angled her body, closing the distance between them in the free-fall.

They were plunging together into the deepest, darkest forgotten zone of the Holy

Vanguard Academy.

"Get ready," Saile whispered into the rushing wind.