Kaiden Grey stood on top of a creature that could have swallowed half the hall, and he looked like he'd come to enjoy himself.
Yuna's legs hadn't moved since the massive doors opened. Her badge hung between numb fingers while five hundred people around her tried to decide whether the man with the red eyes was about to address them or simply let the monster do its work.
He addressed them.
His voice carried across the arena without effort, clean and unhurried, as if the hundreds of terrified applicants below him were a minor detail in his afternoon.
"The test is simple. You versus us. To pass, all you need to do is..."
Five hundred people held their breath.
"Win."
Nobody moved for two full seconds. Then confusion broke across the hall like a wave, loud and formless, and the single word landed on hundreds of faces at once without anyone knowing what to do with it.
"Win WHAT?" someone shouted from the center of the pack.
