Chapter 58: Aptitude Test (10)
The atmosphere was tense.
A rhythm had taken hold among the examinees as they advanced along the yellow brick road, their cohesion hard-earned, their spirits high from the consecutive victories over the previous guardian statues.
One by one, they had felled the monstrous constructs, stone behemoths that once seemed unbeatable, through sheer coordination, grit, and faith in one another.
They had started to believe.
Now, just ahead, flanking either side of the road like the final gatekeepers to some ancient throne, stood two massive statues, winged lions carved from black-veined marble.
Unlike the guardians before, these weren’t simply humanoid warriors, there was something ancient about them.
Their eyes glinted with an unnatural sheen, their wings unfurled wide, casting jagged shadows under the sunlight like falling guillotines.
Lucien could feel it in his gut.
Something was wrong.
But it was too late to hesitate now.
“Go!” he shouted, tightening the grip on Balt, still strapped to his back.
The barrier dome surged outward like a living thing, expanding around the eighteen of them.
The air shimmered.
Mana crackled.
And the plan that had brought them this far was once again set into motion.
The dome rolled forward, its mana surface like taut fabric against the earth.
As it neared the first lion statue, it shimmered with resistance but eventually absorbed the creature within.
Just like before.
Corin and the other melee fighters, seven in total, rushed forward without hesitation.
They had done this time and time again: draw first blood, stagger the guardian, and then let the bombardment rain down.
Corin’s axe swung first, roaring through the air with the force of a hurricane.
It never connected.
There was a thud.
And then silence.
Corin’s eyes widened as he flew backwards, his axe arm numb, his feet dragging a trench into the yellow brick road.
The others followed behind him, hurled like dolls across the battlefield by a translucent wave of force that had pulsed from the lion statue’s form.
A barrier.
But not like Balt’s.
This one wasn’t a dome or a wall.
It clung to the lion statue’s body like armor, gleaming with pale runes etched along its ribs and paws.
Its eyes flared with crimson light.
And then it roared.
The sound wasn’t like anything they had heard before.
It wasn’t even sound, it was pressure.
Raw force.
It slammed into the barrier dome from the inside, spiderwebbing the mana shell with fractures.
Lucien’s breath caught.
“Balt-!”
“I’m holding-!”
Balt gritted through clenched teeth, mana flooding from his chest into the dome, but it was already too late.
From above, the second lion statue had taken flight.
Its obsidian wings beat once, twice, then it dove like a javelin from the sky.
Its claws met the weakened dome with perfect precision.
And the dome, once their shield, their home, their sanctuary, shattered like glass.
The sound was deafening.
The explosion of mana sent Lucien flying backward, Balt’s body still strapped to him.
Dust filled the air.
Screams followed.
Corin rolled to his feet, weapon raised, eyes scanning.
But nothing was the same anymore.
They weren’t fighting statues.
They were facing something else entirely.
These were predators.
One of the examinees, a boy with a hammer almost as big as himself, let out a yell and charged the grounded lion statue.
It didn’t even turn its head.
Its paw rose and, with a blur of motion, swatted him like a fly.
He spun midair and landed with a crunch ten feet away.
He didn’t get up.
Another, a flame mage, raised her wand to cast, only for the airborne lion to swoop past and send a gust of wind so strong it ripped the wand from her fingers.
Panic surged like a sickness through the group.
“This- this wasn’t supposed to happen!”
“We did it right-! We’ve done this before!”
“They’re different! They’re not the same!”
Lucien stumbled to his feet, eyes wide, lips trembling.
Balt groaned weakly against his back, his mana reserves in shambles.
The others had formed a loose defensive line, but it was already falling apart.
Some were backing away.
One girl was crying.
Corin stood at the front, axe shaking in his hands.
And the two lions?
They didn’t chase.
They didn’t roar.
They just watched.
One on the ground, armored in barriers.
The other in the air, circling like a vulture.
Like they knew.
Like they understood.
This wasn’t a test of strength.
This was punishment for daring to reach the end.
Lucien clenched his fists, heart pounding.
He had gambled.
He had pulled them all together, strapped his friend to his back, marched them across a cursed road, and promised a miracle.
And now…
Now, fate had betrayed them.
His legs shook.
His ears rang.
All around him, examinees were spiraling into panic.
Everything was slipping through his fingers.
And in the looming shadow of those winged lions, for the first time, Lucien Crowley did not know what to do.
***
The twin winged lions had not moved since the barrier dome shattered.
They stood with the poise of executioners, backs straight, wings spread wide, muscles coiled with power.
The examinees, now scattered and disorganized, scrambled into something resembling formation, though their hearts beat too fast, their legs were too shaky, and their confidence had burned away with the last of the barrier.
Lucien stumbled through the smoke and dust, coughing violently, half from the ash and half from the realization clawing up his throat.
‘We can’t win this.’
He could see it in their eyes, every single one of them.
The disbelief.
The hesitation.
The slow-dawning terror that this time, they weren’t just up against a challenge.
They were prey.
Without warning, both lions opened their mouths.
Lucien shouted, “Brace yourselves! They’re going to roar again!”
But no sound came.
Instead, ice.
A blizzard scream, a stream of pale-blue frost and hail, burst from the maw of the grounded lion, sweeping across the yellow brick road like a winter tempest loosed from hell itself.
It raced toward them, consuming the warmth of the jungle air, extinguishing embers, freezing sweat on their brows into a lattice of brittle frost.
Everything turned cold.
Lucien instinctively twisted his body to shield Balt, throwing them both down.
The breath wasn’t strong enough to shatter bones, but it wasn’t meant to.
It painted the battlefield instead.
Ice coiled around their boots, clamped ankles to the road.
Spikes of jagged frost jutted up from the earth like crystalline teeth, frost crept into the seams of their clothes, and the air snapped with sudden cold.
For a moment, just a heartbeat, everything was silent.
Then the second lion leapt.
Wings unfurled like great sails, it surged upward, high enough to blot the sun.
Its jaw unhinged.
Lucien’s eyes widened as he saw the flickering glow in the beast’s throat.
“No… no, no, no- MOVE!”
Too late.
The fire came down in a cone of molten fury, bathing the ground in crimson death.
Where the ice had landed moments ago, the flames now kissed the stone, turning the frost to mist, then steam, then boiling water.
Screams erupted across the line.
Not from burning, but from scalding.
The ice breath hadn’t been an attack.
It had been bait.
Boots, frozen to the earth, refused to come free.
Some examinees tripped in panic, falling knees-first into puddles of boiling runoff.
The very air around them steamed with agony.
Faces turned red.
Blisters bubbled along forearms and shins.
One boy howled as his soaked tunic clung to his skin like a second, burning layer.
Corin roared as he leapt forward, trying to use his body and his axe as a makeshift shield to block the fire from reaching the backline casters, but even he couldn’t stop it all.
The roaring fire curved like it had intelligence, curling around him to lick at the others.
Balt, still strapped to Lucien’s back, clenched his teeth through the pain, eyes glowing, mana flaring wildly in desperate bursts.
Where the lions lunged next, Balt preempted them with emergency barriers, slabs of glowing blue mana appearing just as a paw or a wing lashed out, catching the blows in the nick of time.
“Can’t… hold them all…”
Balt croaked.
“I know!”
Lucien shouted, eyes darting wildly, skin blistered from the blast.
The ropes binding Balt to him were nearly burned through.
Half his back stung with pain, the remnants of his shirt charred black, steam curling from his shoulders.
But his mind refused to stop.
There had to be a way.
The lions advanced again, slower now, methodical.
They didn’t roar.
They didn’t run.
They moved like soldiers delivering punishment, assured of their superiority.
The grounded lion stalked the frontlines, pushing Corin and the others back with heavy swipes and bursts of frost.
The airborne one circled and dived, alternating between flame jets and claw strikes, turning the field into a dance of death.
One examinee, a girl with a polearm, collapsed.
Her skin was raw, peeling.
Her staff cracked from heat and frostshock.
She lay motionless beside a boiling puddle, her partner trying to drag her out.
Another attempted to cast a lightning spell, but his mana circuits were so scrambled by pain and fear that the spell misfired, bursting in his hand.
He fell screaming, clutching his arm.
Lucien’s thoughts were spiraling.
This wasn’t just a setback.
It was a slaughter.
‘What do I do?’
They had done everything right.
Every fight had been perfect, efficient.
They had innovated.
Adapted.
Overcome.
But these two?
They weren’t guardians.
They were judgement incarnate.
And they had learned.
Lucien’s legs quivered.
He fell to a knee, teeth clenched against the sting of boiling water.
Balt trembled against his back, his breathing shallow.
The others were barely standing.
Corin was bleeding from the scalp now.
This wasn’t like before.
This wasn’t the kind of fight where clever tactics and determination could win.
This was war.
And they were losing.
The winged lions, twin statues of ancient judgment, reared back for another combined breath.
Fire and ice shimmered in their maws.
Lucien could feel the heat and cold licking at his skin already.
And still, he searched for something.
Anything.
A miracle.
***
The grand marble arches of the Twilight Crown Academy shone like polished bone, catching the last golden fingers of sunlight filtering through the stained glass windows.
Light spilled in hues of violet, gold, and aquamarine, painting the checkered floors in regal tones.
Crystal chandeliers hung like frozen constellations above, swaying ever so slightly with the breeze that whispered through the tall, curtained corridors.
Vaelira walked those hallowed halls with the silence of someone who didn’t belong.
Her footsteps were delicate, but her heart was far less composed.
She had been told to be punctual for her scheduled etiquette seminar, something about posture, address, and partner rotation during the ceremonial ball that preceded the formal opening of the academy year.
It was all so refined, so mannered, so calculated.
So different from the home she had found in the D’Claire estate.
A servant in academy livery, a prim woman with silver-threaded cuffs, gently guided her toward a tall set of doors that opened into a polished ballroom, its floor so immaculate it reflected the well-practiced smiles of its occupants.
The chamber echoed with the rustle of silks, the occasional titter of laughter, and the gentle thrum of a harp being tuned in the corner.
Students from noble and influential houses practiced their bows and curtsies in mirrored pairs.
There were dukes’ sons and merchant heirs, viscount daughters and foreign prodigies, all radiant, all rehearsed.
Vaelira stood at the threshold, not quite stepping in.
She could already feel it, the isolation curling around her like frost.
Despite the grandeur, the polish, the whispered promises of future power that echoed through the halls, her mind wandered… far away from this place.
To a boy who once brewed her tea too hot.
Who awkwardly bowed when nervous.
Who accidentally dropped jam on her favorite book and tried to blame it on the wind.
‘Lucien.’
She clenched the lace hem of her glove, her heart flickering like a lantern in the fog.
She wondered if he was okay.
If he was eating.
If he was safe.
If he had gotten hurt.
If he had smiled today.
He wasn’t made for battlefields.
Not the kind the Academy demanded, anyway.
He didn’t carry himself like a noble’s son.
He didn’t bark orders or draw steel at every disagreement.
But he made people feel seen.
Understood.
Valued.
For better or worse, the D’Claire estate had grown on her.
So had its people.
So had he.
She inhaled deeply and stepped forward into the ballroom, the doors closing softly behind her.
***
The postman was done.
He had cycled through storm, dust, and the occasional wild boar for nearly a decade, but nothing could prepare a man for being mobbed by a desperate seaside town every single morning.
As his tired bicycle squeaked into the town square, a sea of faces awaited him, wrinkled elders, barefoot children, salty fishermen, and anxious neighbours.
The moment his satchel rustled, they swarmed.
“Any letter from Balt?”
“Did he send anything?”
“Was there a seal? What color? Any note?”
He lifted the pouch and shouted over their worried murmurs.
“NOTHING TODAY!”
A disappointed groan swept over the crowd like a tide, and they slowly dispersed, a few lingering behind with furrowed brows and hands clenched tightly around prayer beads.
But one remained, as she always did.
A gentle woman in a hand-stitched blue apron, her gray-streaked hair tied in a simple braid. Balt’s mother.
She approached the postman with soft steps, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Was there… maybe something small? A secret letter, perhaps? Just for me?”
The postman, now used to this ritual, shook his head gently.
“Sorry, ma’am. Nothing today either. But… he’ll write. I feel it.”
She nodded with a brittle smile and walked back slowly, basket in hand.
That night, in the modest home at the edge of the docks, she served stew in silence.
Balt’s father, a thick-armed fisherman with a back like a cliffside, sat quietly across the table, his hands calloused and still smelling of salt.
As she ladled a portion into his bowl, her voice cracked.
“Do you think… we put too much weight on him?”
She asked, eyes moist.
“What if he fails? What if we made it too important? What if- what if he can’t bear it?”
He looked up from his bowl.
And then he stood.
He walked around the table, reached for her trembling shoulders, and pulled her into a hug.
His chin rested on her head, his embrace firm.
“He’s our son,” he said simply.
“Whether he passes or not. Whether he becomes a Crown student or comes back empty-handed. He’s still our boy. This village will always be his home.”
She wept into his shirt, soft warm tears for the son she couldn’t see.
“He knows that,” the father continued, voice steady.
“He believes that. That’s why he’s still going. That’s why he hasn’t given up.”
Outside, the waves crashed gently against the shore.
Inside, a mother and father held each other close, bound by love, worry, and the steadfast belief that their boy, no matter what fate decided, would find his way home.
***
Back at Twilight Crown Academy Vaelira looked up from her curtsy, her eyes catching a beam of fading light glinting off the ballroom chandeliers.
And though she didn’t know it, at that very moment, a boy with singed skin and cracked lips was carrying another boy on his back down a yellow brick road.
Fighting for something more than glory.
Fighting for something more than rank.
Fighting for the dreams of every person who loved them from afar.
