Chapter 319: Shadow Trials[2]

Kaelen was engaged in a desperate, white-knuckled war against the course.

Where Xander glided and Edmund froze, Kaelen stumbled, scrambled, and barely kept his head above the void.

​A shifting platform suddenly dropped three feet earlier than expected, catching Kaelen completely off guard.

He lurched wildly, his arms helicoptering in the air before he awkwardly threw his entire upper body onto the next ledge, scraping his ribs against the jagged stone.

Kaelen reached the central choke point—a massive, rotating sphere of jagged stone guarded by four heavy kinetic constructs.

He charged forward, unleashing a massive wave of force that crushed two of the droids, but the remaining two caught him in a crossfire of shockwaves, blasting him off his feet and forcing him to waste precious seconds recovering his footing on a slippery, tilting ledge.

"Ouch! That’s gotta hurt!" Jax winced, leaning back from his screen.

"Sorel is taking an absolute beating out there! Every single obstacle seems to have his personal home address!"

He scrambled up on all fours, gasping for air, his uniform torn up and caked in stone dust.

He made it!" Jax cheered, half-laughing.

"It wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t stylish, and I’m pretty sure he left half his skin back in third sector, but Kaelen Sorel locks in a top slot!"

​Across the arena, the main leaderboard stabilized, flaring brightly above the roaring crowd:

​1. Warren Frost — 1m 40.1s

2. Xander Gray — 1m 41.5s

3. Lucian Ash — 1m 42.8s

6. Kaelen Sorel — 1m 44.0s

​Edmund, on the other hand, didn’t play by the course’s rules—he crushed them with surgical precision.

While the shifting labyrinth attempted to force him into its lethal rhythm, he refused to let the arena dictate his route.

With rapid, precise taps of his cryogenic ability, frost bloomed outward from his heels in blinding, flash-frozen bursts.

As the stone terrain dissolved into a terrifying drop beneath him, instantaneous, razor-thin bridges of glass-hard ice crystallized over the empty air a fraction of a second before his boots touched down.

He moved with terrifying speed, leaning heavily into low, dangerous turns to slide across the slick, suspended spans at breakneck speeds.

The sheer friction of his momentum sprayed a veil of sparkling ice dust into the air, obscuring his path to anyone watching from behind.

"Look at those glass-slick angles! One slip and it’s goodnight, folks! But no! He’s carving through the turns like an Olympic skater!"

​Across the arena, the leaderboard flickered rapidly as times were finalized:

​Warren Frost — 1m 40.1s

​Xander Gray — 1m 41.5s

​Lucian Ash— 1m 42.8s

​Edmund Brewer — 1m 43.2s

​Kaelen Sorel — 1m 44.0s

Finally, Samantha stepped up to the opening gate, staring straight ahead, her posture entirely unyielding.

​The stadium’s electric chatter dropped into a heavy, expectant buzz as thousands of eyes locked onto her.

It wasn’t just her presence that commanded the silence, but the weapon resting in her right hand: a dark, light-absorbing spear forged from an unearthly black alloy that seemed to drink the harsh glare of the arena’s spotlights, casting a faint, warping distortion around its tip.

High above the track, in the exclusive VIP enclaves, several high-ranking noble delegates and house lords leaned out over the gilded railings of the upper balconies.

Whispers rippled through their ranks, opera glasses and private scanners centering on her solitary figure.

Well, well, well," Jax whispered into his headset, his usual theatrical bombast softening into genuine intrigue.

"Look who’s taking the block, Nadia. The atmosphere in the stadium just completely shifted."

Nadia leaned forward, her sharp eyes tracking the tendrils of tenebrous shadow that curled lazily around Samantha’s fingers, clinging to the dark shaft of her spear like cold smoke.

​BEEP.

BEEP.

BEEP.

​Samantha exploded out of the gate.

​The adaptive array targeted her instantly. Recognizing her rapid acceleration, the floor beneath her disintegrated into a maze of rising and falling stone pillars, snapping violently to throw off her rhythm.

Instead of relying on speed, Samantha relied on raw, primal environmental awareness.

​Without glancing at the floor, she felt the spatial displacement in the air milliseconds before the terrain changed.

When a massive wall shifted forward to cut off her line, she drove the butt of her Tenebris spear into the stone.

The dark, light-absorbing mineral consumed the violent shock entirely, discharging the stored energy in a concussive pulse of umbralis that launched her skyward.

A moment later, she landed on a descending platform without losing any of her momentum.

"Faster...faster!"She muttered under her breath.

Look at that acceleration!" Jax yelled, leaning out of his booth. "She didn’t even check the height of the ledge—she’s navigating on pure instinct!"

​A false route opened to her right, designed to trick contestants into a dead-end trap.

Samantha’s eyes flashed, turning dark for a split second with a burst of Umbralis.

With the nebulous energy coursing through her, she instantly sensed the hollow spatial field ahead.

She ignored the opening entirely, throwing herself sideways off the edge and catching the lip of a moving ledge below.

Up in the observation stands, Headmaster Whizen and Maestro Vincent Varas sat side by side.

​"Look at her," Maestro Varas remarked, with an unreadable expression on his face.

"She’s reading the structure of the course like an open book."

A moment later, a hidden trap erupted from the right wall, firing three high-speed dark spikes directly at her; she simply leaned her body three inches to the left.

​The spikes whistled past her cheek, missing her by a hair’s breadth.

As the platform tilted further, she unslung the Tenebris spear with a single, dark-blur motion and jabbed its dark tip into a narrow seam in the stone floor.

"Look at the clock! She’s closing in on Frost’s time!" Jax screamed, his voice cracking with excitement. "Can she take the crown?!"

​She surged across the finish pad, her breath steady, her dark eyes glowing with focused intensity.

​The arena timer chimed loudly, locking in her score.

"WHAT A FINISH! She missed first place by a fraction of a second!" Jax hollered as the crowd erupted into a deafening sound of applause. "Samantha Drake puts on a masterclass performance."

"Absolute perfection," Nadia added, nodding in genuine admiration. "She didn’t waste a single second second-guessing the course."

Rank

[1st —Warren Frost— Talented—1m 40.1s

(100 pts)]

[2nd—Samantha Drake—Talented —1m 40.8s (95 pts)]

[3rd—Xander Gray—Assassin—1m 41.5s

(90 pts)]

[4th—Lucian Ash—Assassin—1m 42.8s

(85 pts)]

[5th—Edmund Brewer— Talented—1m 43.2s (80 pts)]

[6th—Kaelen Sorel—Talented—1m 44.0s

(75 pts)]

[7th—Cassius Wulfric —Talented—1m 44.6s

(70 pts)]

"Talk about a stacked top five, folks!" Jax’s voice echoed through the stadium as the wave of competitors slowed.

"The Talented and Assassin factions are virtually neck and neck!

Jax gripped the edge of the commentary desk, staring down at the finalized numbers with wide eyes. "

"Ladies and gentlemen, we have an absolute UPSET on our hands! Everyone in the upper balconies had their money on the golden boy, Xander Gray, taking the crown today!"

"The youngest Novice in history, the crowd favorite, gets knocked all the way down to THIRD!"

​"That’s the danger of prioritizing flair over precision, Jax," Nadia pointed out with a sharp smile. "Xander gave the crowd a show, but Samantha Drake gave us a memory we won’t soon forget."

"Unbelievable!" Jax roared into the amplification arrays.

"Samantha Drake comes out of nowhere—or should I say, straight out of Tenebris—to steal second place! The ultimate dark horse just shattered all the betting lines in the upper tiers! What a legendary start to the Shadow Trials!"

A wave of loud cheers and energetic chatter erupted across the spectator stands.

Down at the exit bay, the group gathered as the holographic rankings stabilized overhead.

​Xander stared at the board, crossing his arms with a dramatic sigh.

"Third? Third?

You lost time on the second sector," Lucian noted with a dry grin, wiping sweat from his forehead.

I was being stylish," Xander shot back, though he couldn’t hide his grin as he looked at Warren.

"Enjoy the top spot while you can, Frost.

Warren offered a calm acknowledgment, nodding.

"Very well then. I’ll take you up on that offer."