Chapter 322: Shadow trials[5]

"Welcome back to the Festival of Shadows, live from the Grand Colosseum!" Jax Sterling’s voice thundered through the spatial arrays, practically vibrating the atmospheric shields over the lower abyssal sectors.

"If you tuned in for Trial One, you know we had a absolute shake-up on the leaderboard! But if you thought the Shattered Path was brutal, Trial Two is where the real mind games begin! "

"We are talking about the Subterranean Abyssal Vaults, folks! Pitch black, suffocating depth, and zero room for second chances!"

"The shift in strategy down here is fascinating, Jax," Nadia Varas chimed in, leaning over her console as streams of biometric data and thermal feeds illuminated her face.

"The upper tiers are a absolute bloodbath right now—dozens of contestants throwing themselves at ten-point Copper Seals just to stay on the board. It’s high-density, high-risk chaos. But if you look at our top contenders? They aren’t interested in table scraps."

"You aren’t kidding, Maestro!" Jax hollered, zooming in on the live VIP feed monitoring the third sub-level.

"Look at Warren Frost and Samantha Drake! While the crowd in the upper vaults is playing bumper cars over pennies, these two dropped straight into the dark! Three hundred feet down! No light, no backup, going straight for the crown jewel—the 75-point Obsidian Seals!"

"And what a display of forced cooperation," Nadia noted with a dry, approving chuckle.

"The system tried to force a total lockdown with that dual-node override and the adaptive pulse-sentinel. Most duos would have panicked or turned on each other. Instead? Absolute poetry in motion. Warren constructs a reinforced earth barrier and redirects the arc-cannons with a micro-tornado, while Samantha uses that Tenebris spear of hers to literally swallow the kinetic recoil of the security pulse!"

"Seventy-five points locked in for Drake, and not a single microsecond wasted on hesitation."

"A seventy-five point payday for Samantha Drake!" Jax roared, slapping the desk.

"She is solidifying that dark horse status in real-time! The upper balcony lords are practically throwing their wine glasses! But let’s not overlook what’s happening two tiers above them in the Middle Vaults, folks!"

The central holographic projection shifted, displaying a pristine, silent chamber filled with neutralized mechanical sentinels.

"Enter Lucian Ash!" Jax shouted, his voice dropping into a tone of pure awe.

"Talk about a stark contrast! While Frost and Drake are pulling off high-intensity extraction ops in the deep dark, Ash is moving through the Middle Tier like an invisible scalpel! Three Silver Seals secured, sixty points on the board, four sentinels taken out at their exact power relays, and his heart rate? Folks, his heart rate is lower than mine when I’m taking a nap! Zero damage, zero energy—just pure, cold efficiency!"

"He’s playing the long game, Jax," Nadia added smoothly, her eyes narrowing as a shadow detached itself from the ceiling rafters on screen.

"Lucian knows the trial isn’t just about single big scores; it’s about resource management. But it looks like his quiet afternoon in the Middle Tiers is about to get very noisy. Xander Gray just dropped in from the rafters... and you know Gray never lets a leaderboard rival rest for long.

*****

Xander held two Crimson Seals in his palm, tossing them idly before catching them.

"Eighty points already. And I didn’t have to fill out a checklist to get them."

?"You tripped two alarms in the second sector," Lucian said coldly. "The system deducted five points from your total for collateral structural damage."

?Xander shrugged, a lazy smirk on his face. "Seventy-five net points is still higher than sixty. And the lower tier is where the real game is happening. Samantha and Warren are already down there."

The lower tier is an inefficient risk environment," Lucian replied, turning toward the next corridor. "The security increases exponentially. One miscalculation in the Abyssal tier results in a total node lock or medical extraction. Slow, controlled accumulation guarantees a top-five placement."

?"Guarantees?" Xander chuckled, slipping his shadow blade into his sleeve.

"Safe doesn’t win the Festival, Lucian. It just keeps you from losing."

?Before Lucian could answer, the floor beneath them vibrated violently. A deep, mechanical groan echoed through the structural pillars of the complex.

[SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT: ABYSSAL DEEPENING INITIATED]

[ALL UNCLAIMED SILVER SEALS ARE NOW PURGED]

[LOWER TIER SECURITY INCREASED BY 50%]

[NEW OBJECTIVE UNLOCKED IN DEEPEST CHAMBER: ABYSSAL PRIME]

Xander’s eyes lit up.

"Well, look at that. The system just killed your safe strategy."

?Lucian’s expression didn’t change, but his eyes narrowed as he checked his updating display. The remaining Silver nodes across the map were turning gray—deactivated. The trial was deliberately forcing the remaining contestants downward, condensing the field into the most dangerous sector.

?In the western corridor of the Lower Tier, Edmund Brewer stood before a heavily fortified security gate blocking access to a Crimson vault.

?A heavy, flame-throwing defense turret was mounted above the door, sweeping the narrow hallway with continuous blasts of high-temperature fire.

A physical assault through the fire corridor would severely burn any contestant and drain their stamina.

Instead of overpowering the flames, Edmund knelt, placing his palm flat on the stone floor. Cold vapor surged from his skin, rapidly absorbing the heat from the air.

?"Frost Anchor," Edmund whispered.

?Instead of creating a simple ice wall—which would melt instantly under the sustained flame—he targeted the thermal sensors inside the turret’s mounting assembly.

A dense, concentrated lattice of crystalline ice formed directly inside the internal housing of the turret, freezing its rotational gears and short-circuiting its thermal core.

?The flame died with a sputtering cough.

?Edmund stood up, casually walking past the frozen turret. He reached the control pedestal, placed his hand on the verification plate, and quietly waited out the ten-second timer as a Crimson Seal rose from the altar.

?[40 POINTS AWARDED TO CONTESTANT: EDMUND BREWER]

"Not bad," a gruff voice called out.

?Cassius Wulfric emerged from the far end of the hall, his massive iron-reinforced gauntlets dripping with the residue of two destroyed tracking droids. He looked at Edmund, then at the frozen turret.

?"You’re wasting time playing surgeon," Cassius grunted, stepping toward the deeper shaft that led toward the Abyssal Tier.

"The lower vaults are opening up. If you want to keep your name on that board, you’d better stop picking flowers."

?"Precision saves energy, Cassius," Edmund replied softly, securing the Crimson Seal.

"You’ll need yours when we reach the bottom."

?Cassius let out a low laugh.

"I’ll smash through whatever they put in front of me. See you at the bottom, frost-boy."

*****

Samantha and Warren navigated the rapidly closing ventilation shaft as the vault behind them underwent its automated purge cycle.

?They emerged onto a narrow stone ledge overlooking a colossal subterranean canyon—the Abyssal Basin.

?Down below, shrouded in a dense, swirling mist of dark energy and heavy security fields, lay the absolute lowest chamber of the trial.

?At the center of that chamber, mounted on a massive pedestal surrounding a pool of liquid obsidian, floated a single, blinding crimson-and-gold sphere.

?The Abyssal Prime Seal. 150 points

Warren stood beside Samantha, his wind Talent holding the toxic gases of the canyon away from them.

He looked down at the 150-point objective, his usual calm demeanor sharpening into intense focus.

?"That’s it," Warren said softly.

"The objective that decides the trial."

?He turned his head to look at Samantha.

?"Only one person can extract it," he said. "And every surviving contestant in this canyon is heading down there right now."

?Samantha looked down into the dark abyss, her fingers tightening around the tenebrous spear as its leaf shaped blade glinted in the faint crimson light.

?"Then we’d better get down there first."

The descent into the Abyssal Basin was not a simple climb down; it was a gauntlet of adaptive mesh similar but less difficult than the Shattered Path and shifting terrain.

?As Samantha and Warren bounded down the staggered basalt pillars lining the canyon wall, the trial system’s voice echoed across the entire subterranean complex.

?[ALERT: ABYSSAL PRIME CHAMBER NOW ACCESSIBLE]

[CURRENT LEADERBOARD TOP 5:]

1. XANDER GRAY - 115 PTS

2. LUCIAN - 100 PTS

3. SAMANTHA - 75 PTS

4. CASSIUS WULFRIC - 70 PTS

5. WARREN - 60 PTS

?The scoreboard was agonizingly tight. Xander had managed to secure another high-value Crimson node while slipping past the middle-tier purges, placing him firmly in first place.

Lucian’s methodical clearing of lower-tier Crimson objectives had bumped him into second.

If an assassin claimed the 150-point Abyssal Prime Seal, the Talented score representation on the cumulative Festival board would take a catastrophic hit.

?"We have company," Warren warned, dropping his hands as a gust of wind lifted them over a wide, yawning chasm.