The silence that fell after the Canyon Crusher's death was thick and heavy, broken only by the ragged symphony of their breathing. For a long moment, no one moved. Adam's arms trembled with spent effort, the ghost of the blue flame a tingling memory along his nerves. The system notification was a cold, numerical comfort against the very real, very human exhaustion.
[Current Level: 6]
[90/800 EXP to Next Level]
Raven was the first to break the stillness, sagging against a large, sun-warmed boulder. "We stop here," he declared, his voice hoarse but firm. "Five minutes. Maybe ten. Drink. Eat something if you have it. That was a Tier D. We don't move forward until we're functional."
A collective sigh of relief passed through the group. Wren practically melted onto the ground, pulling out a strip of dried meat. "Functional is a high bar," he mumbled around a mouthful. "I feel like I've been run through a rock tumbler. My mana reserves are in the negatives."
Lira leaned back, inspecting the fresh cracks webbing the knuckles of her gauntlets. "Its hide was like forged iron. My hands are going to be feeling that for a week." She looked over at Adam, her expression a mix of curiosity and concern. "That blue fire, though. That was new. And... intense. I could feel the heat from here."
Adam flexed his hand, watching as a tiny wisp of ordinary orange flame sputtered to life and died. His mana felt hollowed out. "It's... harder to maintain than the raw flame," he admitted, his voice low. "It condenses the heat, focuses it. But it consumes mana faster than anything I've tried before. It pulled everything I had left in that last strike." He glanced at the notification again. The significant EXP gain was a stark reminder that such power came at a cost, and that growth was often born from near-disaster.
Kael, ever pragmatic, was already methodically checking their surroundings, though he too moved with a slight stiffness that betrayed his fatigue. "The Academy's methodology is clear," he stated, his gaze scanning the high, arid canyon walls. "They do not place tokens in safe locations. They bait them with high-level threats. This is not a test of simple combat prowess. It is a test of risk assessment and survival against superior odds."
"Pretty brutal way to grade us," Wren commented, taking a long, slow swig from his water skin.
"It is effective," Kael countered flatly. "It separates those who can fight from those who can win when it matters."
They lapsed into a weary silence, each lost in their own thoughts, savoring the precious, stolen moments of rest. The dry canyon around them was eerily quiet, the only sounds the faint whisper of the wind over rock. It was in this brittle stillness that a new sound tore through the air—a distant, piercing scream of pure human terror, followed by the unmistakable, gut-wrenching crunch of stone impacting stone.
All weariness vanished, replaced by a sharp, cold surge of adrenaline. They were on their feet in an instant, weapons instinctively in hand.
"Kael," Raven said, his healer's instincts overriding his own deep fatigue. "See what that is. Be careful."
Kael was a wraith, flowing up the rocky scree slope without a sound. The wait was agonizing, each second marked by another faint, shuddering impact from the distance. When Kael returned, his expression was grimmer than usual. "Another team. Five Stoneclaw Crabs. Tier D. They created an earthen fortification, but it is failing. One student is down and not moving. The others are wounded. They will be overrun in minutes."
Raven's face hardened. He looked at his team, seeing the exhaustion etched into their features, but also the resolute determination that flashed in their eyes. They were tired, but they weren't broken. "We move. Now. Our rest is over. Avoid any other beasts—speed is our only priority."
Pushing their own aches and depleted reserves aside, they scrambled over the treacherous terrain. The sounds of battle grew louder—the guttural screech of enraged monsters, the desperate shouts of students, the relentless, devastating thud of boulder-fists against earth. Cresting a final ridge, the scene of desperation unfolded below them.
A dome of packed earth, heroic in its conception, was now a tragic sight. Deep fissures ran through it, and with every blow from the monstrous crabs—hulking, shelled creatures the size of carts wielding entire boulders as claws—it crumbled a little more. Just as they watched, a large section near the top collapsed, showering those inside with dust and debris. Through the gap, they could see the huddled, terrified forms of the other students.
"No time for subtlety," Raven barked. "Adam, Lira, Kael—harass, maim, kill. Get those things off them! Wren, you're with me. We get to the wounded."
The three of them charged down the slope. Adam's blade flared to life, but the blue flames he summoned were thinner, less vigorous than before, a testament to his drained state. He targeted the nearest crab, his swing shearing through its stony limb with a violent sizzle. The nauseating smell of cooked shellfish filled the air. The beast recoiled, swinging its other claw wildly. Adam was slower than before, his movements fueled by adrenaline alone. He barely dodged, the wind of the passing blow ruffling his hair. He dropped low, sweeping its legs and finishing it with a downward slash that lacked its earlier clean precision but was no less lethal.
[Experience gained: 65 EXP]
[155/800 EXP to Next Level]
To his left, Lira fought with grim, dogged persistence. Her punches lacked their characteristic crimson glow, but they still landed with the force of a battering ram. She hammered at a crab's shell, blow after blow, a testament to her sheer physical endurance, until the chitin finally splintered and gave way.
Kael, assessing the situation, knew raw power was not an option. He slapped a hand to his own chest. "Hasten!" The absorbed buff from Wren flooded his system, and his movements gained a crucial edge of speed. He became a surgeon of violence, his daggers flashing not to kill, but to cripple. He darted between the colossal crabs, severing tendons and slicing joint membranes, leaving them flailing and immobilized for Lira to finish off with her relentless, pounding strikes.
It was a brutal, grinding battle of attrition that felt far longer than its thirty minutes. When the last crab lay still in a pool of green hemolymph, a deep, weary silence fell over the canyon. They turned, chests heaving, to see Raven and Wren already moving among the rescued students.
The earthen dome was a memory, a pile of rubble. Wren was speaking in a low, calming voice to the team's captain, a broad-shouldered boy named Hank, while simultaneously applying a field dressing to a nasty gash on the arm of another boy. Raven was kneeling beside an unconscious girl, his hands glowing with a soft, golden light as he worked.
"...just pushed herself too far," Hank was saying to Wren, his voice thick with exhaustion and guilt. He gestured to the girl. "That's Mei. Our water adept. In this dry canyon, pulling enough moisture for a real attack... it takes everything. She just... dropped. Right before those things swarmed us."
The rest of his team was a picture of defeat. A slender girl named André—their illusionist—sat utterly still, her face pale and taken aback, her abilities having proven useless against creatures with no mind to trick. A boy named Jonah was retracting sharpened bone spurs from his hands, his knuckles bloody. The last member, a lanky youth named Ian, was carefully, meticulously gathering nearly invisible psychic strings back into his palms, his face a mask of frustration.
As Adam, Lira, and Kael approached, Wren looked up from his work. "Took you long enough," he said, though the usual mischief in his voice was replaced by a tired warmth. "Hank here was just telling me how they were holding the line until their anchor dropped." He nodded toward the unconscious Mei. "Said they put on a pretty brave last stand protecting her."
Hank managed a weak, grateful smile in their direction. "We were falling apart. When Mei went down, our whole formation collapsed. We were just trying to keep her safe. We wouldn't have lasted... thank you. Seriously."
Raven stood, the golden light fading from his hands. "She's stable. Deep mana exhaustion. She needs proper rest and fluids, but she'll recover." His gaze swept over the other injured students before returning to his own team. They were all bruised, drained, and pushed to their absolute limits. The Cinder Wastes had tested them with fire and blood, but in the crucible, it had also forged a moment of indispensable, unbreakable solidarity.