Chapter 332: No One Else

Miles away from the hot desert canyon, inside their own virtual reality pod simulation, Class Audax faced a completely different nightmare.

Unlike Fortis’s tight desert trench, Audax’s area was a maze of black stone pillars — tall, jagged towers rising out of a mist-filled valley, connected only by crumbling natural bridges and hanging walkways.

At the center of the main platform, Julia stood with her feet planted wide, her small body shaking under the strain as her Spatial Pressure tracked every shake in the empty space around her. Sweat ran down her temple and stung her eye, but she didn’t dare blink

"Upper left bridge!" Julia yelled, her hands pressed tight against her temples. Her voice cracked from the dry wind. "Three Ridge-Crawlers coming through the fog! Thomas, right above you!"

Thomas ward didn’t look up to check. Trusting her call, he set his heels into the slick stone, pulled his broadsword back, and swung upward with everything he had.

Clang!

The steel edge smashed into the lead crawler’s belly, cracking the black shell and spraying thick, dark fluid across the bridge.

Before the beast could thrash, Elena Ross stepped past his shoulder, her boots sliding an inch on the blood-slick rock. She thrust both hands forward, letting out a short stream of fire straight into the crack in the shell.

The heat cooked the monster’s insides in seconds, filling the narrow bridge with a thick, burning smell.

"Keep the line tight!" Elena called out, wiping her forehead with her sleeve. "Support mages, watch the rear bridges!"

Across the platform, four students planted their boots into the ground, crossing their broadswords together to block a pair of winged beasts crashing against their line.

Right behind them, two close-combat swordsmen darted forward, driving their blades straight through the beasts’ exposed neck joints until the thrashing stopped. Everyone was breathing hard, their clothes torn and stained with dark fluid.

To their right, Cordelia moved through the damp mist without a word.

Her short, strawberry-blonde hair whipped around her face as a thick coil of Sovereign Wind wrapped around her ankles. When a beast lunged over the low stone railing, her rapier flicked out, a single, clean line of steel that bit straight through the creature’s eye.

She didn’t pause to watch it drop. Twisting her hips, she snapped her left palm outward, releasing a sharp air blast that shoved two following beasts off the narrow edge, sending them falling into the fog below.

Beside her, Elisabeth held the main narrow point with terrifying efficiency. Her longsword carved through shell and bone in quiet, practiced sweeps, while short needles of crimson blood pinned stray beasts to the pillars, holding them still just long enough for the backline to finish them off.

For ten grueling minutes, Class Audax held their ground.

Every student moved because they had to, filling gaps, swapping out tired shield users, and keeping the swarm off the main platform.

Slowly, the screeching in the fog began to fade. The heavy thuds against the barrier stopped.

"Left side clear!" a student gasped, dropping his spear and sliding down against the stone rail, his chest heaving.

"Bridge two is held," another panted, leaning heavily on his shield as his arms shook from tiredness. "I think... I think that’s the last of them on my side."

Julia slowly lowered her hands from her head and let out a long, shaky breath as the pressure in her ears eased. Her knees buckled a little, but she caught herself on a pillar. "The rifts... they’re calming down. That should be the end of this wave."

She paused, then frowned. "But there’s still pressure building up top. There’s at least one more wav coming, maybe two."

A heavy silence fell over the platform, broken only by the sound of students trying to catch their breath.

Cordelia stood near the edge of the stone platform, wiping dark monster fluid off the thin length of her rapier with a cloth. Her eyes scanned the mist, but her mind was somewhere else entirely.

We’ve been in this damn pod for almost three hours, she thought, her fingers tightening around the grip until her knuckles turned white.

When the simulation first loaded, Class Audax hadn’t spawned in this neat defensive formation. They had been dropped into the lower ruins in complete chaos, surrounded by jagged rocks and screaming villagers who had scattered in every direction the moment the Gate tore open.

She remembered the opening ten minutes when the simulation first started, the sheer noise, the blind panic, and students throwing wild spells without checking who stood behind them. Because they had hesitated, trying to protect everyone at once without a clear plan, four fake villagers were dragged into the deep gap before Elisabeth could steady the perimeter.

"Elena, move your mages three paces back toward the inner circle," Cordelia commanded, her voice calm, cold, and carrying the natural authority of someone born to lead. "Thomas, change places with Garin on the front line. Let the second line take the heavy shields for the next turn."

The students didn’t argue. They moved quickly, adjusting their footing according to her calls.

Elisabeth stepped up beside her, putting her sword away with a quiet click. Her violet eyes glanced at Cordelia’s profile, taking in the sharp, firm line of her jaw.

"What’s the plan now?" she asked.

"Julia said the Gate pressure is shifting," Cordelia replied, taking a slow, heavy breath to steady her chest. "The next wave... or maybe the one after, is going to be the last one. And I hope it is. After all..."

She looked down the platform at the rest of the students leaning against walls, holding bruised shoulders, and dragging their boots through the wet dirt.

"They’re completely exhausted," Cordelia muttered, her grip tightening on her hilt. "They need some time to rest, and it would be hard for them to keep fighting."

"..."

Elisabeth went quiet for a moment, then said flatly, "...I’ll handle the boss monster."

"What? Can you actually take a Grade 5 on your own?" Cordelia asked, turning her head slightly to look at her. "You’re at Master Low. If that thing is a Mid or High variant, it’ll be dangerous even for you. Are you sure?"

"Yes. I’ll kill it," Elisabeth answered, her tone cold and empty of any doubt. "Just keep the small ones off my back."

Cordelia sighed and nodded, knowing she had no choice.

"I’ll clear the area around us first," she said, stepping up right to the edge of the ground. "Once the monsters are thinned out, I’ll join you. We’re not losing anyone else today."

Before Elisabeth could reply, a sudden, violent shake ran through the floor beneath their boots.

Small pebbles rattled off the edge of the platform and fell into the black darkness below. The quiet resting moment vanished instantly as every student scrambled back to their feet, grabbing their weapons with tired, sweaty hands.

Julia gasped, her eyes flying open as she slammed her hands back against her head. A fresh wave of pain crossed her face as her spatial sense flared wildly.

"Elisabeth! Cordelia!" Julia screamed, her voice cracking in terror as she pointed down into the fog. "The commander monster is coming out... it’s the last wave!"

Deep down in the pitch-black valley, the grey mist didn’t just clear, it was violently blasted apart by a thick, choking wave of dark mana that shot straight into the sky. The air pressure dropped so fast that several mages fell to their knees, holding their ears as the ground groaned under a crushing weight.

Elisabeth’s hand dropped back to the hilt of her blade, her violet eyes narrowing into sharp, deadly slits. From the depths of the black deep gap, a massive, black-plated claw hooked over the edge of the central pillar, followed by a terrifying, horned shape that rose over the entire platform.

The Grade 5 Commander had arrived.

Meanwhile, inside the frozen mountain village simulation, the blizzard howled with endless cruelty.

Malva stood fifty paces in front of the village elder’s house, her boots buried deep in the snow. Her hands held the heavy iron mace in a low, steady guard. Around her, six fighters and four mages formed a tight ring around the building where twenty-seven terrified villagers were packed inside.

Two Grade 3 Spine-Back Crawlers, having slipped past the upper mountain trail during a blinding gust of wind, came skittering frantically down the narrow alley between the frost-bitten houses.

Malva didn’t flinch. Her Void affinity flared silently around the head of her weapon. She stepped into the lead crawler’s path, ducked under a snapping pincer, and brought the mace down in a short line.

"Hold the line," Malva muttered through gritted teeth.

As the lead crawler lunged, its massive jaws snapping open, Malva dropped her weight, ducked beneath the sweeping pincer, and brought her mace crashing downward with all her strength behind it. The heavy impact shattered the beast’s skull into a pulp of grey matter and broken bone.

Crack!

Before the second crawler could turn, the two support mages beside her let loose a matched volley of ice spikes, pinning the second monster to the frozen wall where Malva finished it off with a single, brutal stomp.

Up on the high northern ridge, the situation was far worse.

Class Ascendant had been holding the main mountain pass for over an hour. The snow was churned into a frozen, dark slush of blood, broken shell, and dead bodies of monsters.

Leo stood at the center of the defensive formation.

The wind was a howling wall of biting frost that tore at his collar, but he didn’t blink. His eyes were locked on the thirty-meter-wide tear in space hanging above them, a bruised, rotting wound in the sky that pulsed with sickening regularity.

Behind him, the limits of the class were starting to crack.

The ordinary students in the center of the line were breaking under the endless strain. Their stances widened, their reaction times dropping as tiredness poisoned their limbs. Jarek slumped against a jagged wall, his hands shaking badly while trying to force mana back into his empty core.

Behind his tower shield, Damon’s arms shook from taking dozens of bone-rattling hits, his shoulders bruised dark purple. Even Garret rested his massive battleaxe on the trampled snow between his boots, breathing through gritted teeth as he forced his aching muscles to hold the line.

Only Roan and Alice remained at the front.

Roan’s hair was matted with ice and black blood. He swung his spear in heavy sweeps, his eyes burning with wild, tired energy. Ten paces to his left, Alice fought like a wild animal, her longsword carving through armor plates as her Reave affinity drank the leftover energy of every creature she killed.

Leo clicked his tongue. Damn Morgana. The old witch didn’t make the test easy. These fuckass monsters keep coming!

In a normal Gate, monster waves followed a predictable pattern, an initial surge, a steady middle phase, and a slow finish before the boss.

But Morgana’s simulation wasn’t like that. The monsters kept coming from the Gate as if they were endless, and that’s why it was taking so long on the students’ side. The Gate wasn’t too much for them... it was the constant pressure.

At the rate things were going, if he didn’t step in to break the monster momentum right now, half the class would die from exhaustion before the boss even crawled out of the rift.

He didn’t hesitate. He dug his left heel into the frozen ridge, pushed off the ice, and flooded his legs with black lightning.

Crack!

The air snapped as Leo shot forward, his boots shattering the sheet of ice beneath him.

A Grade 4 Stalker lunged from the blinding snow, its barbed front legs aimed straight at a terrified student whose sword arm was too slow to react.

Leo snapped his right wrist, using Spatial Slip.

His katana, Tempest, vanished from his grip, folded through three inches of empty air, and appeared directly inside the Stalker’s neck joint. At the exact same moment, he used the Soul Flame, wrapping the black blade in a cold, hollow purple aura that hissed violently against the freezing air.

He twisted his hips, dragging the sword upward in a sharp, mechanical curve. The soul-eating fire didn’t just cut through flesh, it broke the monster’s core stability, turning its armored neck into drifting ash before the steel even finished cutting through the armor plates.

Before the headless body could hit the snow, Leo shifted his weight to his right foot and stepped into a tight side-step.

His left elbow drove backward to clear an incoming claw, while his right hand formed a quick seal, firing a second bolt of black lightning straight into the open mouth of a charging beast. The lightning fried the creature’s brain in a flash that blew smoking black ooze out of both ears.

In three seconds, five monsters dead.

The ridge fell momentarily silent except for the howling wind and the ragged, desperate breathing of the students. Leo stood motionless, his chest rising and falling as he let the lightning drain back into his core.

Roan walked over to Leo, wiping monster blood off his forehead with a rough laugh.

"Fucking hell, Leo!" Roan wheezed, shaking his head. "Didn’t I tell you to leave some for me? Those bastards were mine to take, and you took all the fun, damn you!"

Leo let out a low sigh, the cold air burning his throat as he turned toward him. "I’m not doing this for your fun, Roan. Look behind you, the others can barely keep up. If you keep playing around, they’re going to get overwhelmed."

Roan didn’t argue. He looked around the ridge. The ground was filled with the bodies of dozens of dead beasts. Across the line, students were leaning against rock faces, chests heaving as they rested.

"Hey, guys... the monster wave isn’t stopping," Alice muttered, walking over from the left side. Her hair was matted with frost and sweat as she looked up at the tearing sky. "The mana density... it’s climbing again."

Leo didn’t answer. He also felt the rising mana, and he knew what was coming. High above them, the sky flared violently, the light swallowing the pale winter sun entirely as the mountain ridge groaned beneath their boots.