Chapter 167: The Cost of Victory

The world outside the inner sanctum was a nightmare of ash, screaming steel, and thick purple fog.

While the strike team fought the deep rot inside the temple, the outside had turned into a desperate fight for survival. The remaining candidates weren’t fighting for points anymore. They were fighting to take another breath.

The air was thick with the smell of burned flesh, ozone, and the sharp, copper taste of blood.

Riven Ashford stepped in front of a tall, many-limbed monster crawling out of the mist. His jaw was clenched so tight his teeth ground together. A vein bulged in his temple against his pale skin. He hated this. He hated every second of it.

When are they going to kill in there?Riven thought, his mind a storm of irritation and tiredness.Why aren’t they doing it faster? What is taking those bastards so long?

From his very childhood, Riven had loathed taking commands.

He was an apex predator by nature, a proud, cold, and efficient heir who believed only in his own strength, his own path, and his own ultimate supremacy.

Being left here as just a shield, holding a broken line for a plan he didn’t make, ate at his soul. But he stayed. Because he knew that if this line fell, everyone — including himself, would be swallowed by the darkness.

He pulled his dual daggers straight from his own shadow, sinking into the darkness without a sound. He appeared at a sharp angle beneath a monster, his blades flashing as he cut through its joints.

"Hold the line, you pathetic cowards!" Riven roared, his voice cutting through the noise of the battle. "If you turn your backs now, I’ll personally put a blade through your spine before the mist can touch you! Flank left! Push the vanguard forward!"

Nearby, the others were pushed to their limits. Each of them was a storm of desperate violence.

Alice Scarlet was a blur of loud, wild fury. Her heavy longsword, almost as long as she was tall — cut through the fog with terrible weight.

As a commoner who had clawed her way up, she didn’t get stronger by sitting still. Her Reave affinity demanded blood. Every enemy she killed left something behind for her to take, fueling her attack.

"Die, you pieces of trash!" Alice cursed constantly, her voice completely unfiltered as she smashed a monster’s side. Her face was covered in soot, but her fierce loyalty kept her rooted to the team.

Back to back with her, Nyra Silverfang moved with pure beastkin instincts.

The high wolf warrior pushed her physical abilities to their limit. Her senses, speed, and strength were far beyond any normal human. Using short blades, her claws, and even her teeth, she tore through the corrupted ranks.

She was quiet and loyal, doing her job perfectly even as her arms grew heavy from hours of fighting.

A few meters away, Lyssaria Sol-Valis and Princess Cordelia Valerion held the second choke point.

Lyssaria’s staff glowed with the ancient energy of the World Tree. Drawing from the endless life force of the elf domain, her mana never ran out as she cast defensive and supportive magic. She wasn’t a killer.

She focused on protection. Walls of living bark, shields of vines, and barriers of thorns rose from the ash at her command. A soft healing mist drifted around her allies, closing wounds and restoring tired bodies.

Directly in front of the elven princess stood Cordelia, proud, stubborn, and refusing to hide behind her royal title.

Gripping her rapier, she unleashed the Sovereign Wind — the heavy, royal breath of the Valerion bloodline, proof that she carried the crown’s true weight in her veins. Her wind did not howl or scream; it whispered.

And as it whispered, an immense, crushing pressure descended upon the ruins like the weight of a crown.

The air itself pressed down on the monsters, slowing their movements, making their limbs heavy, and forcing their lungs to struggle for air. She didn’t need flashy, loud spells; she simply commanded the space, demanding the encroaching darkness to kneel before the queen.

Further back, Caster Ironwell and Julia Moss held the command center.

Caster, the half-dwarf engineer, held his hammer and shield tight, talking way too much out of sheer nervousness. Yet his genius mind was entirely focused. Using his Structure affinity, his eyes mapped out the systems and mana flows of the approaching horde, tracking the corrupted signatures on his device to guide the defense.

"Left flank, three meters! They’re bunching up!" Caster shouted.

Beside him, Julia Moss kept a tight grip on her staff. Bound to Leo by a strict mana oath, her Spatial Pressure affinity allowed her to sense even the slightest disturbances in the air and space around them.

Though she was visibly shaking and easily scared, her rare ability allowed her to track corrupted candidates moving through the walls of thick darkness before they could ambush the line.

The battlefield was a scene of pure horror.

Over ninety thousand candidates had been fighting across the zone, but by this point, thousands lay scattered across the grey dirt, either dead, unconscious, or paralyzed by the sheer, unyielding grief of the Statue’s aura.

How much longer do we have to hold?Riven thought, his eyes bloodshot as he deflected three strikes at once, his muscles tearing under the strain.Do it quickly, you bastards.

Then, it happened.

A loud, world-shaking boom echoed from deep inside the temple. A sound so loud it rattled the stone under their boots. It wasn’t the dungeon collapsing. It was the terrifying pressure of aligned power breaking an old curse.

The purple fog began to shake.

Slowly, the thick mist started to pull back, curling toward the temple doors like a dying shadow in the sun. The phantom monsters began to fade into grey dust, their red eyes going out one by one. The heavy weight that had been crushing the candidates’ minds vanished, leaving behind a sudden, sharp silence that hurt to hear.

Riven lowered his daggers, his chest heaving as he stared at the clearing horizon. "Did they... did those madmen actually pull it off?"

Around him, the scene was raw and messy.

Many of the candidates simply collapsed right into the ash, entirely unconscious, their minds and bodies completely spent.

Others, who had been on the verge of to breaking slowly, opened their eyes, blinking away tears of phantom grief, looking around at the carnage in shock. Relief, terror, and confusion rippled through the survivors as they realized the meat grinder had finally stopped.

_

The world outside was holding its breath.

Across every major city, settlement, and border outpost in the world, the glow of holographic screens illuminated pale, exhausted faces.

For days, normal life had ground to an absolute halt.

The Astra Network’s live broadcast was a window into a nightmare, and no one could look away. Families huddled in silence in their living rooms. Workers stood frozen in office lobbies. Crowds packed into public squares, their eyes locked onto the giant floating displays.

They watched their children fight monsters. They watched their children die.

They had seen the legendary Hero’s Apostle, Arthur Vale, move like a golden beacon, leading hundreds of desperate survivors through the crumbling ruins. They had seen Roan Sol-Valis, the elven prince, cut through the suffocating purple fog like a silver blade. They had seen Elisabeth von Noctis stand cold, precise, and entirely untouchable in the middle of the raging storm.

...And they saw Leo.

The white-haired boy with the katana.

They had watched him march straight toward the temple. They watched the thick, violet fog swallow his figure whole. And then, they watched nothing.

The Astra Union had cut the feed.

"Too dangerous,"the official statement flashed across the bottom of the screens."Extreme mana interference in the inner sanctum prevents clear transmission. Feeds will resume once the area is secure."

But everyone knew the truth.

The high officials didn’t want the world to see what happened next. They didn’t want the public watching their perfect golden boy fall — watching Arthur Vale, the hero they had put on every screen, lose his mind and turn on the very people trying to save him.

With no answers from the officials, the Astra-net went crazy with rumors. The forums were filled with panic, denial, and sick curiosity.

Threads popped up faster than the system could keep up:

@RoyalWatcher:"What’s happening inside the temple? Why won’t they show us? This is censorship! Our children are in there!"

@CommonerCrier:"The hero went in. That’s all I know. Arthur Vale will save them. The Goddess would never let her Apostle fall in a place like this."

@SwordsAndSarcasm:"The white-haired guy — Leo, he went in too. The failure? The scum? What the hell is he even doing alongside the hero? He’s going to drag them down."

@TruthSeeker:"I’ve been watching his fights closely since the second stage. He’s not a failure anymore. Something fundamentally changed in him. His movements are terrifying."

@NobleWatcher_99:"The Celestial boy? Don’t make me laugh. He’s probably hiding behind Arthur’s shield, crying for his life right now. Bloodlines don’t lie. He’s trash."

@SilentReader:"He killed a Grade 5 monster alone, while being an Elite rank. I saw it before the feed cut. What more do you all want from him, you bastards! If you hate him that much, try killing a Grade 5 monster yourselves. Leave him alone, fuckers!"

The arguments grew louder. The threads multiplied into the millions. The whole world watched the dark doors of the temple, waiting for a sign.

Then, the feed flickered.

The purple fog on the screens began to thin, pulling back like a dying animal. On the outer wall, the surviving candidates stopped fighting, their weapons slipping from numb fingers. One by one, by the thousands, they collapsed into the dirt from pure exhaustion.

The viewers held their breath. The silence across the Human Domain was absolute.

_

High above the observation decks, away from the panicked voices of the officials, Professor Helene Draven stood alone against the tall glass window.

Her warm, dark skin stood out against her short silver hair. Tall and lean with a strong, commanding build, the Vice President of Aegis Academy held her arms crossed tightly over her fitted black jacket. Her sharp, cold grey eyes reflected the distant, fading glow of the temple ruins.

She didn’t blink often. Her steady, unmoving gaze carried the weight of a Grandmaster Mid-rank powerhouse. The readouts on her personal screen were still jumping wildly, showing the sudden spike of power that had ended the trial.

A slow look crossed her sharp features, cold calculation, deep curiosity and a rare trace of real wonder. Her lips pressed into a thin line.

"Expert Low..." Helene murmured to herself, her low voice barely a whisper. "To think you’d break through after killing that thing. And not just one — two Grade 5 monsters. While being an Elite High rank."

She paused, her grey eyes narrowing.

The Weeping Knight. The Statue of Unforgotten Sorrow. Two ancient horrors that should have required a full squad of Master-rank fighters. And he walked in there with a katana and a death wish.

...And won.

She had read his file before the exam. Leo von Celestial. B-rank core. The disappointment of the Celestial house. The drunk who stumbled through noble parties with empty eyes and a bottle in his hand, too numb to care what anyone thought of him.

That information was wrong.

...Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe he really was all those things. And maybe something changed.

Her fingers tightened around her arm.

Seven months in that trial. Everyone thought he was dead. Then he came back. A miracle no one had ever seen before.

And now this.

She had watched him fight.

Her eyes tracked him as he cut through the brainwashed candidates without killing them. She monitored the way he faced the Weeping Knight alone, his black lightning screaming against the monster’s stone armor. She observed the final moment he burned the thing with black fire.

Black fire,she thought.The boy is wielding a strange black fire. And he’s not dead. He’s not insane. He’s just... standing there.

How...?

She had asked herself that question a hundred times since the exam began. Every time she thought she understood him, he did something else. Something impossible, that broke the rules she had spent her whole career learning.

First he survives the trial. Then he kills a Master-rank monster. Then he breaks through to Expert in the middle of a mental trap.

What’s next...?

The heavy doors of her private room hissed open. An assistant instructor hurried in, his face pale, his forehead wet with sweat, a glowing tablet clutched to his chest.

"Professor Helene!" he gasped, trying to steady his voice. "The main core... it’s completely dead. The Statue of Unforgotten Sorrow has been removed from the system. The fog is gone."

Helene didn’t turn around. Her grey eyes stayed fixed on the distant temple entrance, where the dust was finally settling. "I am aware."

"The Board of Directors is in a panic," the assistant continued, his fingers shaking against the tablet. "The public is demanding answers about the feed cut. The noble houses are already sending messages. But worse than that... the first casualty reports just came in from the barrier."

Helene’s back straightened slightly.

The cost, she thought.Now we see the cost.

She had known this moment would come. From the second the Union changed the exam parameters, from the second they announced the Sealed Valley as the trial grounds, she had known.

Children would die. And she would have to count them.

The original plan had been clear. Over one hundred thousand hopeful candidates had stepped into the trial grounds, expecting a hard, elite test where only the top two hundred would pass. It was supposed to be a harsh filter for the Astra Union’s next generation of fighters.

Instead, it had become a slaughterhouse.

And I did nothing, she thought.I stood here. I watched. I counted. And I did nothing.

Her jaw tightened.

No. That’s not true. I couldn’t do anything. The Union made that clear. The exam would happen whether I agreed or not. My only job was to watch and report.

But that’s just an excuse, isn’t it?

I should have screamed louder. I should have gone to the families. I should have done something.

But I didn’t.Because I’m arankerwho follows orders.

Even when those orders get children killed.

Slowly, Helene turned her head. Her cold, eyes pinned the assistant to the floor. The air in the room grew heavy, filled with the quiet weight of a Grandmaster.

No more excuses, she told herself.No more hiding behind duty. I will read the numbers. I will remember every single one. And I will make sure their deaths mean something.

"Give me the final numbers," Helene said. Her voice dropped low and cold. "How many survived and how many died?"

The assistant swallowed hard. His eyes dropped to the glowing red data on his tablet as he prepared to read the devastating toll.

"Professor... out of the one hundred thousand who entered..."