Chapter 60: Aptitude Test (12)
The air was thick with smoke and steam, the battlefield a brutal scar carved into the once pristine yellow brick road.
Cracks ran like lightning veins through the golden stone.
The twin winged lion statues still loomed ahead, unscathed, unmoved, and unrelenting.
Their eyes glowed like furnaces.
And yet…
A cry of defiance cut through the smog.
“FORWARD!”
Corin surged ahead, blood still trailing from the cut above his eye.
His axe was raised high, its head wrapped in glowing runes.
Behind him, the other melee fighters followed, a motley force of students wielding swords, spears, and clubs.
Each weapon had been carefully marked by Lucien earlier, their handles faintly pulsing with crimson glyphs, dormant trap spells ready to awaken.
Behind them, the spellcasters raised their arms in unison, barriers flaring to life like crystalline shields of colored light.
Others cast spells of wind, force, and light to counteract the frost and fire storm that roared from the lions' jaws.
The flames met walls of wind; the ice collided with radiant heat; the boiling water hissed into steam against counter-castings of reverse thermals.
It wasn’t perfect.
It wasn’t even close to safe.
But it was working.
Barely.
Lucien sprinted through the chaos, smoke biting his throat, lungs burning as he slid down beside Balt, who was huddled behind a fallen slab of stone, still casting thread-thin barriers to protect those too weak to stand.
His legs were still limp, bound, and useless, but his eyes snapped toward Lucien as he skidded into place.
He leaned in, lowering his voice.
“I embedded trap spells into the melee team's weapons. Delayed activation. Not in the air, not as ranged spells, but in the strike itself. If those lion bastards are using reflexive barriers, ones that only respond to incoming threats, we can slip the trap in underneath their reflex window. If it’s kinetic enough, it’ll read it as a simple physical strike. And then the trap spell goes off right as the barrier forms.”
Balt blinked.
“You’re betting on lag time in magic. Are you insane?”
Lucien exhaled shakily.
“Yes.”
“That’s not a barrier spell,” Balt growled, “that’s a bloody dice roll with lives on the table!”
Lucien’s eyes didn’t waver.
“It’s the only way left. You saw it, Corin bounced off. If they’re constant barriers, we’re dead. If they’re reflexive, we’ve got a gap. Just a sliver of one.”
“And if you’re wrong?”
Lucien’s hands trembled.
“Then I’ve sent Corin and the others into a meat grinder with rocks for teeth.”
“If you’re wrong, you’re sending Corin and the others to their deaths!”
Lucien didn’t respond at first.
His jaw tightened.
His hands clenched.
He couldn’t even meet Balt’s gaze.
“I know,” he said finally, voice quiet.
“That’s why I’m going too.”
And with that, he turned and sprinted after the melee fighters, slipping and nearly falling on a slick patch of half-frozen water.
His lungs burned.
Every part of him screamed to turn back, to call it off, but he couldn’t.
He wouldn’t.
The frontline was already in motion.
Corin, with his cracked axe; the sword-and-shield girl beside him; the hammer-wielding boy who limped with every step.
They all screamed as one as they charged the lion closest to them.
Ten meters.
Seven.
Four.
The statue’s head twitched.
Lucien’s voice ripped across the battlefield like lightning.
“NOW!”
The weapons glowed red.
Thoom.
The beast’s eyes glinted.
It’s jaw opened.
The barrier began to form.
Lucien’s glyphs flared.
The trap spells ignited.
BOOM!
CRACK!
THOOM!
A shockwave erupted from the impact site, magic blooming like a flower of light and chaos just milliseconds before the statue’s reactive barrier had fully closed.
The explosion slammed against raw stone.
Chunks of marble-like hide were shorn off in the blast.
One wing of the guardian twitched, as fractures raced up its chest.
The examinees gasped.
They had hurt it.
They had cracked the guardian.
Lucien let out a breathless, disbelieving laugh.
“It worked... It worked!”
All around him, cries of triumph rang out.
Corin howled like a madman.
The casters in the rear let out shaky cheers.
For a moment, just a moment, they could feel it, victory.
And then the lion moved.
Its head turned slowly, almost mechanically, toward Lucien and the others who had dared mar its flesh.
The glow in its eyes pulsed once, like a heartbeat of rage.
The second lion took to the skies.
Lucien’s breath hitched in his throat.
“Oh no…”
Corin’s eyes narrowed.
“We just pissed ‘em off, didn’t we?”
Lucien didn’t answer.
The roar that followed was not one of warning, but of wrath.
***
A thunderous gust swept the road as the winged lion statue took to the air once again, its massive stony wings scattering dust, ash, and shards of ice in all directions.
Its mane seemed to shimmer in the eerie twilight above the forest canopy, flame twirling within its gaping maw.
And then.
FWOOSH.
A torrent of fire hurtled downward.
But it never reached the examinees.
Balt's barrier slammed into place just in time.
The dome of shimmering blue light flared to life, stopping the inferno inches from their faces.
The flames washed over the shield harmlessly, and yet behind the light, Balt's body trembled like a withered leaf in a storm.
He was still on the ground, half-buried in ice, his lips pale, knuckles white as he poured the last dregs of his strength into the spell.
Blood trickled from his nose and the corners of his mouth, but he held.
Only for his panic to spike when he saw what came next.
The grounded lion statue, jaws parted, eyes burning with animosity, was charging.
It barreled down the yellow brick road like a living mountain of wrath, straight toward the examinees clustered near the barrier’s edge.
And yet...
“HAAAAAH!”
Corin met it.
With a savage roar of his own, Corin surged forward, slamming into the beast mid-charge.
His axe met the lion’s gaping maw, handle jammed horizontally between the upper and lower jaw.
Sparks flew.
Stone ground against enchanted steel.
The two forces, man and monster, clashed like opposing gods.
Behind him, the melee fighters were already flanking, doing their best to back Corin up.
The casters redirected their focus to the flying lion, now soaring high and circling.
Dozens of spells lanced up, arrows of light, bolts of flame, spiraling darts of water and force.
Most of them fizzled against the lion's barrier.
Balt’s eyes widened.
‘They're outside the barrier's range…’
Lucien and Corin, and all the melee fighters, were exposed.
They had no protection.
No shields.
No time.
And the worst part?
Balt could see it, clear as day:
The flying lion, still above them, wings beating slow and ominous, was charging another breath attack.
Balt’s breath caught in his throat.
“No… No, no, no-!”
He pushed himself forward.
The ice beneath him bit into his skin.
His legs wouldn’t respond.
Pain like lightning bolted through every nerve as he tried to crawl.
The ice made it near impossible.
He clawed forward anyway.
His fingers scraped the frozen surface until they bled.
His arms trembled with exertion.
Inch by inch, he tried to drag himself toward them.
Just a little closer.
Just a little.
A flash of heat washed over him from the distant flames.
Screams echoed.
The roar of the statues split the heavens.
Balt screamed back, not from pain, but from sheer helplessness.
‘I need to move. I need to protect them. I can’t let it end like this!’
But the world refused to yield.
And then, suddenly, Lucien made his move, sliding under the Lion that was busy playing tug-of-war with Corin’s Axe.
Corin had just barely shouted out, “LUCIEN, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!” before Lucien dove beneath the grounded lion’s torso in the chaos, vanishing beneath its massive bulk.
No one had seen it clearly.
A blur of movement.
A shadow under the beast.
A flicker of fabric.
And then.
The lion statue lifted.
Its wings unfurled in one massive motion, and with a gust of air that blew back several stunned examinees, it took flight, rising up alongside its fire-breathing twin.
But Lucien...
Lucien wasn’t there.
“WHERE IS HE?!”
Corin barked.
“WHERE THE HELL IS-?!”
“L-Look!”
One of the sword wielders shouted.
The flying lion, hovering high in the air, spread its maw wide.
A cold radiance bloomed in its throat, swirling, coalescing into a spiral of jagged light-blue energy.
It was ice.
A breath of pure winter, laced with lethal precision.
The mages were already overextended, too busy trying to pin down the fire-breathing guardian.
They had no mana left to spare.
No shields to offer.
And the barrier dome?
Still flickering.
Still out of reach.
The melee fighters, exposed and exhausted, turned to see the glowing mouth above them.
None of them could move fast enough.
Their boots skidded uselessly on the frozen road.
Corin turned, back straight, axe raised.
The others did the same.
They were going to take it head-on.
No Lucien.
No protection.
No escape.
Above them, the lion opened its jaws fully.
The glow in its throat peaked.
And then.
Silence.
Breath held.
Time suspended.
Impact imminent.
***
The flying lion’s jaw widened, the blue glow in its throat reaching a luminous crescendo.
Frost-laced steam bled from the edges of its fangs as the breath attack neared completion, an avalanche of death ready to be unleashed upon the exposed melee fighters below.
Corin braced.
The others did too.
No shield.
No magic.
No time.
The light in the lion’s throat peaked, and then.
SHHHHRRRRRHHHHK!!
A shimmering sphere of translucent blue snapped into existence around the flying lion’s body.
The sudden conjuration of pure, crystalline mana encased it midair, enveloping the beast in a dome of radiant light.
For a split second, confusion reigned.
And then.
FWWWHHHOOOOOOM!
The lion’s own icy breath, caught within the confines of the barrier, backfired.
The energy had nowhere to go.
It twisted in on itself, bouncing off the inner layer of the mana sphere.
The interior of the dome froze instantly, white frost racing across the surface in jagged spiderwebs.
The lion roared in confusion and agony as its wings froze solid, its body coated in rime.
It dropped like a stone.
BOOM!!
The massive body slammed into the courtyard road, cracking brick and stone beneath it.
The sheer force of its crash sent a shockwave racing through the entire arena.
Chunks of shattered frost scattered like shrapnel.
Corin and the other melee fighters stood frozen, stunned, eyes wide as the reality of what just happened caught up to them.
And then.
All their heads turned.
Behind them.
He stood there.
Barely.
Balt.
Panting.
Shaking.
Blood running in rivulets from his scalp and his arms.
And yet, standing.
Both of his legs were covered in shimmering, angular light, barrier mana, shaped not into shields, but into something wholly new.
Casts.
Support frames of glowing blue energy wrapped around his thighs and calves, stabilizing the muscles that no longer responded, bracing joints that had long since failed.
The magic hummed with strain, his entire body screaming under the weight of the spellwork.
But he stood.
A student who had never even seen advanced barrier manipulation, who’d barely been able to walk an hour ago, had turned his pain into invention.
He made his own legs.
"HAHAHAHA!!"
Balt let out a broken, exhausted laugh.
“YOU SEE THAT?! YOU SEE THAT?!”
He yelled toward the others, his voice cracking, triumphant.
Corin barked out a stunned laugh.
“You lunatic-!”
The others followed suit.
A wave of euphoria tore through the examinees.
Cheers erupted across the battlefield, voices raw, giddy with disbelief and pride.
Some wept.
Some screamed.
Some just slumped in place, too shocked to do anything at all.
They hadn’t expected it.
But Balt.
Balt had changed the course of the battle.
Without missing a beat, Corin’s war cry rang out again.
“It’s down! Go, GO!”
They charged the fallen ice lion statue, boots slamming into cracked stone as they surged forward with renewed fury.
The mages, still embroiled in a contest of power with the fire lion, renewed their efforts, hurling spell after spell into the air.
The grounded lion statue, encased in frost and struggling to move, let out a garbled roar as Corin’s group closed the distance.
Axes raised.
Blades drawn.
The finishing blow was coming.
And then.
ROOOAAAAAAAARRRRR!!!
A blast of searing flame exploded across the field.
The fire-breathing lion dived, wings folded, and landed with earth-shattering force between the examinees and its injured twin.
Dust and flame spiraled outward like a miniature storm.
Its body flared with furious heat.
Its wings were cracked, its body clearly showing signs of damage from the relentless attacks of the examinees, but still it stood-defiant.
Protective.
It had come to defend its counterpart.
Just as the examinees had done for each other.
Corin and the others were thrown back, forced to raise weapons and shields once again.
Their muscles burned.
Their mana reserves were thinning.
But they knew.
One more.
Just one more.
If they could bring this one down too, they might, might, just reach the end.
The fire lion raised its head, eyes glowing molten gold, and drew in a deep breath.
Flames coiled within its chest, its throat, its jaw.
Corin cursed.
“Damn it, not again-!!”
Balt tried to stagger forward, but he had already burned too much mana to reach another barrier range in time.
The fire was coming.
Everyone knew it.
Until.
CRACK!
A jagged spear of ice came flying from the left, whistling through the air like a missile.
BOOM!!
It slammed into the fire lion’s back, erupting in a blast of subzero frost and shards of frozen mana.
The lion screeched, stumbling forward, its flames sputtering.
