Wor-en stood at the center of the third-years, their circle tight, faces pale in the sunlight. His own expression had hardened to stone, though his chest churned. The copper-class students were on the other side of that cursed wall. His student with detection confirmed it—bursts of skills were flaring in the muddy walls beyond. Someone was attacking them.

  If something happened to them—if even one of those kids died under his watch—the Academy wouldn’t just blame him. It would destroy him. Maybe not just him but the academy’s reputation itself.

  A support student broke the silence, pointing with a trembling hand at a thin section of the mudlike wall. “We could… focus here. Hit one point. See if it weakens.”

  Wor-en’s gaze swept over them. They were the Academy’s chosen. Yet they were waiting—for him. His call. His command. He clenched his jaw.

  “Anyone else? Better idea?” His voice cut sharper than he meant, but no one answered. Only fear-stiff shoulders and white knuckles gripping weapons.

  “Fine.” He exhaled. “We’ll do it. Everyone with an attack skill—strike there. Together. On my mark.”

  They obeyed. Blades flared, spells lit the air, arrows loosed in tandem. The muddy surface trembled beneath the onslaught, ripples running like cracks in glass. Dust rained down.

  Then—snap. A fissure spread, jagged and deep, right where the student had pointed.

  A collective gasp swept the circle. Hope—raw and fleeting—cut through the fear.

  “Again!” Wor-en barked, desperation breaking through his control. “Harder this time! We will break it!”

  Around him, students raised weapons once more, resolve hardening. The wall would fall, or they would.

  …..

  Balt’s face hardened into a grim mask. They had been caught off guard—and that was something he despised more than anything. If he had known the brats had a strong [Bowman] among them, he would have ordered the [Mage] to raise a physical barrier the moment the fight began. One arrow, and already they had lost a man. Just their damned luck.

  His gaze swept across the battlefield. The students were stiff, tense, their movements jerky. Most of them had likely never seen someone cut down before their eyes. Death had rattled them—but not enough. The academy lived up to its reputation; even shaken, they still moved with a kind of instinct born of training. He cursed under his breath. He had underestimated them.

  That wouldn’t happen again.

  “New orders!” His voice cracked through the din, sharp and commanding. “We need to cut down their [Bowman]. Mirk, Jugg, Rol—you’re with me. The rest, keep their frontline busy.”

  His eyes flicked to the backline—he could make out support types clustered there. “[Mage],” he barked, “throw your best skills at the rear! Don’t waste mana on the targets, we need them alive.”

  The shift was immediate. Men straightened, blades angled, the disorganized clash tightening into coordinated aggression. They had been in situations like this countless times before, where things turned messy, where plans didn’t go as intended. But unlike these children, Balt and his crew knew how to adapt.

  A grim smile tugged at the corner of his lips. This wasn’t over. Far from it. They had danced in the blood and fire of real battle too many times. They would be come out on top.

  ….

  Balt ducked low, daggers still sheathed, eyes cutting across the chaos of steel and shouting. His men could have smashed through the students’ frontline already—two strikes, maybe three—but the damned restrictions bound them like chains. The targets were intermingled, fragile little nobles among the frontlines, and a wrong kill would result in failing the mission. So instead of cutting loose, his [Swordsman] toyed with the students, blades sparking against shields, pressure without death.

  It was working. Until the shadows moved.

  Midway through, Balt caught the shimmer—dark stone erupting in his periphery. A wall. No… he squinted. Not stone. Not solid. An illusion. He snarled under his breath. Clever trick. Block their [Mage] vision, sow confusion. The red-haired brat again. I’ll carve her heart out myself.

  Still… he had to give it to them. These whelps were sharp. Raw, nervous, trembling at the sight of blood—but still biting back. That made them dangerous.

  Then Rol screamed.

  The sound snapped Balt’s thoughts like a hammer to glass. His head whipped around. Rol—the quickest knife he had—clawed at his face, pupils rolled white, body collapsing to his knees. The man convulsed, jerking like a puppet on severed strings.

  “Rol!” Balt was beside him in a heartbeat, voice low, sharp. Not pleading—never pleading—but demanding. The [Rogue] only twitched harder, teeth grinding.

  Mind skills! Balt’s jaw locked. He spat, the taste of iron biting his tongue. Damn academy brats. Damn tricks. Every second they wasted here, they gave the students more ground. He wouldn’t allow it. We end this. Now.

  Mirk and Jugg looked at him, unease flickering behind their hardened eyes. They were killers, veterans—yet even they could sense it. Each moment lost was another chance for these students to pull a miracle from out of nowhere.

  Balt swung back to the fight. And froze, fury curling in his gut.

  Mirk and Jugg, his best [Swordsman]—men who had cut through armored knights—were being pressed by a single [Spearman]. One man. The bastard hadn’t even revealed a skill yet. His strikes were controlled, deliberate, not a shred of wasted motion. He fought like a mountain—immovable, patient, waiting to bury them in an avalanche.

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  Balt’s pulse thundered in his ears. Out here, there was no shield. No safety. Every heartbeat was another chance for that damned arrow to take one of them.

  He couldn’t wait. He wouldn’t wait.

  His hands moved. Daggers whispered free of their sheaths, metal flashing like the promise of death. His lips pulled into a grin that wasn’t amusement—it was a blade, sharp and cold.

  [Spearman] were made to fight beasts. To lock horns with [Swordsman]. But against him? Against a [Scout] or [Rogue] type of class. A special class [Clown]? Against a man who lived and killed in the shadows?

  They were prey.

  And he was the predator.

  Balt lunged, low and swift, a streak of steel and intent. The world narrowed to a single target. The [Spearman]. His kill.

  ….

  Boris’s arms burned with the weight of his spear. The two [Swordsman] hammering at him weren’t ordinary—he could feel it in the way their blades moved. Too sharp. Too precise. They read his thrusts like a book, their parries snapping in place before his strikes could land. It didn’t matter. His task wasn’t to kill them. It was to hold. To defend. To wait for the moment when a mistake slipped through and his spear could bite.

  Then—movement.

  The painted man, the one who had lingered back, watching with those damned red-slash lips curved in mockery—vanished. One blink, and he was gone. The next, he was there. At Boris’s side. No warning. No telltale rush of footsteps. Just there.

  Boris’s eyes went wide. He barely had time to register the grin—those red-streaked lips inches away—before steel flashed for his ribs.

  Instinct saved him. His spear was useless at this range; he twisted, snapping the shaft up to intercept. Metal scraped against wood, sparks flicking. Too late. A second blade he hadn’t seen punched low, biting into his forearm. Pain flared white-hot. Two daggers. Damn him—I didn’t see the second!

  Balt pressed in close, suffocating. He gave no room, no pause, no air to breathe. The twin daggers struck like fangs, faster with each blow. Boris fell back a step, then another, his spear shaft whirling desperately to deflect. Sparks. Clangs. His armor shuddered with grazing cuts. Too many. Too close.

  Too fast.

  Boris’s teeth clenched. He couldn’t trigger a skill. Not one. Every attempt, every breath, the painted man’s blades cut it short, breaking focus. Inch by inch, the painted man drove him back, mocking grin unshaken, his strikes a storm of precision.

  Then—motion from the edge of his vision. A shadow leaping, black hair whipping. Fast. Faster than even the painted man.

  A familiar silhouette dropped from above, cutting through the air with impossible speed, aimed straight for the painted man.

  He somehow felt bad. Not him. But for the painted man.

  …..

  Balt blurred forward with [Blink]. One heartbeat, he was ten paces away. The next—breathing down the [Spearman]’s throat. Close enough to taste the panic.

  Except there wasn’t panic.

  Steel shrieked. He was able to react. The brat—big brat—met him head-on, spear shaft snapping into place like a wall of iron. Balt snarled, lashing daggers in a flurry. He had caught him once with surprise, but now? Every strike found a block. Sparks. Wood. Steel. The spearman refused to yield.

  Balt’s teeth clenched. He couldn’t waste time. Not with the professor and third year students pounding on the far side of the wall. Not with their mission dangling by a thread. He raised his blades, breath hissing—

  [Roulette Strike]—

  It slammed into him, faster than thought. Balt twisted, barely catching the strike. The impact hurled him sideways, tumbling him across the dirt. He rolled, boots digging deep furrows, and looked up.

  Her.

  The [Bowman]. Standing where she shouldn’t, dagger in hand. Why a dagger? Why now? His lips curled. Perfect.

  [Blink] was why he’d risen so high in the organization. A short hop, one or two meters at most, but lethal in the hands of someone who knew when to strike. Its cooldown ticked down in his veins like a second heartbeat. And now—it was ready again.

  She was in range.

  Wrong move, girl.

  He grinned, blurred, and reappeared at her throat, dagger lancing forward—

  And froze.

  Cold sweat slicked his back.

  Red eyes. Not wide, not startled. Waiting for him.

  Her dagger snapped up, catching his strike with insulting ease. Then she was on him.

  Fast. Too fast. Balt staggered back, hands a blur just to keep steel between his flesh and her blades. Cuts kissed his cheek, his neck, his armor, shallow but constant, a rhythm of inevitability. She wasn’t just faster—she was better.

  Desperation burned through him. He roared, and his hands spun into [Dagger Roulette]. Twin blades blurred into circles, illusions stacking upon themselves until even Balt couldn’t follow his own hands. Strike after strike fell in a storm designed to overwhelm, to make defense impossible. Every opponent before had faltered. Every opponent before had bled.

  But—

  Her red eyes didn’t waver. Her daggers flashed, precise, controlled. She caught every strike of his skill. Every single one.

  “This—”

  Balt didn’t finish.

  Steel slipped past his guard. A line of fire seared across his cheek. His vision jolted as blood blurred his eye, hot and slick. Then another bite, deeper this time—his collarbone. The edge scraped bone, shoving him back, breath stolen.

  She marked him. She could’ve ended him—but she chose not to.

  Terror gripped him harder than pain ever could.

  A wet crunch behind him. Balt glanced. The last of his [Swordsman] collapsed, chest caved in from the huge student tank’s punch.

  He was alone.

  His gaze snapped toward the rear line. Still shrouded in the black illusion. His [Mage] should have burned through that veil by now, unleashing hellfire. Instead—silence.

  No.

  Balt bolted, every instinct howling. He sprinted for the wall, he used [Blink], and burst through—

  Straight into corpses. His [Mages] sprawled in the dirt, lifeless? And beyond them, a skeleton stood waiting, empty sockets fixed on him.

  Balt’s breath hitched. Not the time. Not the place.

  He turned, feet pounding earth. Run. Survive. That was all that mattered now.

  The mission was over.