Seraphine snapped, "What are you doing, idiots! FOCUS!"
This time, nobody listened to her orders.
A boy walked along the outer edge of the chamber.
Black hair. Bare skin under the torchlight. Blood streaked across his ribs, some dry, some fresh. Dirt marked his knees and feet. No armor. No weapon. Nothing that should have carried him this far.
He looked like he belonged in a graveyard, not in a room that tore elite soldiers apart every minute.
Even Seraphine froze, her movements locking with recognition and doubt.
She remembered the gargoyle. The twisted bone. The dull certainty of his death. She remembered those moments, how he stood up, smiled and walked away.
By any measure, he had died in a way nobody walked away from.
Yet he stood here.
Orion stayed silent and appeared calm, but inside, he laughed. His face showed nothing during the healing phase.
"Up close, everything looks real and bloody. But every face here looks the same. Fear."
He slipped behind a struggling cluster of soldiers and candidates and the entire group shifted away from him without thinking. This reaction went beyond strangeness.
People sensed something wrong and made space for him. Their instincts screamed. Something terrifying approached, something that raised every hair on their bodies.
For a brief moment, Orion considered stopping to try leveling up here. Weapons covered the floor. Plenty of chances lay around him. He dismissed the idea instantly. The growing number of monsters filling the room felt dangerous.
"If I wait any longer, this place will fill even more with monsters. I also have no idea if the portal has a time limit. I need to get out of here fast."
As Orion continued forward, the crowd split in two like a red sea and Valerius noticed him as well.
Seraphine watched fear and shock ripple across the noble's smug face. His sword dipped slightly to the side. His stance shifted without him realizing it. One attendant leaned in and shouted into his ear, panic obvious even as the words vanished in the noise.
"Good," Seraphine thought. Panic belonged to these shitty people who believed the world existed to obey them. She was different.
At least, that was what she believed. Just like all the others.
A creature snapped at the naked boy's ankles, then passed him without attacking.
The failure felt strange. The creature hesitated while searching for an enemy and never even looked at the boy. Not for a single moment, as if its body and instincts forced it to leave him alone.
Seraphine caught that detail and kept it in mind.
"So when monsters face him directly, they pause for a moment." The reason did not matter. An opening remained an opening.
"Maintain formation and follow me!" she barked, her voice cracking like a whip.
She pulled them forward with her tone alone, then reinforced it by stepping into their line of sight so their focus returned where it belonged.
She kept tracking the naked boy while fighting.
He moved at an odd pace, half running, half walking.
"Move slower, fu*ker," Seraphine muttered, swearing freely now under the pressure. She planned to take second place in the exam by following the boy who refused to die. No one else understood this yet and they hesitated.
Before long, no one but Seraphine used the gap Orion created.
While Seraphine and Valerius watched him, Orion's gaze drifted toward the portal and the space around it.
Valerius forced his way forward, armor scraping against bodies as he advanced. He shouted at the naked boy with a sharp, aggressive voice, packing authority into every word.
His posture leaned into confrontation. Pride demanded space even as people died around him. Then Valerius met the boy's dark eyes and faltered for a heartbeat.
Orion understood none of the words. For some reason, the system never taught him this world's language. Words mattered little anyway.
The intent was obvious. This fool tried to command him.
"Stop and obey me," probably.
Orion ignored it.
He met the noble's gaze with a forced, emotionless expression and continued forward.
He sped up slightly, but with half a minute left, concern never reached him.
He had one priority in this room.
The dungeon's exit, breathing light, mist and monsters into the chamber.
"It has to be the exit. There is no way this is wrong."
Orion kept moving.
..
Seraphine moved. She forced her way closer, rapier low, bow slung, ready to step in if Valerius turned this into a disaster.
The portal flared again, another wave surged out and the defensive shield wall bent too far. Holding the line started to feel impossible.
The naked Orion walked on and monsters ignored him the entire time.
He kept his eyes low. Looking up had killed him once already. That memory stayed sharp, trusted more than anything else his mind offered.
Above the portal, a massive dragon shape loomed. Everyone treated it as stone.
But Orion knew better.
He had read the system message before. That monster lived. Slow, heavy and massive enough to ignore ants entirely.
He kept his gaze down and walked toward the portal.
Near the portal's light, something small floated in the air. A tiny dragon figurine. Neat and bright. Innocent at first glance, but Orion saw it differently.
It felt out of place. Small, inviting objects belonged to traps. He passed it without giving it any attention.
The arrogant noble Valerius kept shouting. Too late now. When he realized Seraphine already followed behind Orion, he froze.
"When did she..?"
He stopped advancing and allowed a monster to massacre a small defensive group nearby. He reacted to none of it. Envy and despair twisted his face.
When he noticed the blonde, blue-eyed girl who looked like a princess rushing past him, his steps broke into a run.
About forty seconds had passed since Orion entered the portal room and Valerius refused to die again in front of this many people. He pushed forward desperately.
Orion stepped through the portal in front of everyone.
For a brief moment, Valerius stared at the portal, but his eyes snapped to Seraphine. "Stop! Give it to me and I will gi-"
Seraphine ignored him. Her eyes stayed on the front, on the tiny figurine.
Her eyes stayed on Orion.
He stepped into the portal and vanished.
At the exact moment Seraphine grasped the figurine, time across the entire maze froze. Monsters vanished. People on the brink of death survived.
The dead stayed dead, but this was the only mercy the Academy offered these candidates.
A last second mercy for the wounded..
Seraphine took a deep breath. Relief washed over her face, but it felt less satisfying than she expected.
The naked boy walked into whatever lay beyond the exit. Deeper levels of the maze, where these monsters came from.
That choice felt wrong in a way she hated, because it hinted at a path the Academy never mentioned.
She decided to sit in a corner until the exam results were announced.
"I have to be first," she muttered. "I ended the exam. That creep would have dragged it on forever. Yeah. You earned this, Sera..."
Even so, calming her heartbeat took longer than expected.
After several minutes, she closed her eyes and began cultivating.
While everyone else tried to calm down and plan their exit, Orion had already arrived the other side.
As he stepped out of the portal, he imagined a sunny sky and elf girls in revealing clothes waiting for him.
Instead, he faced a sight beyond anything he had imagined. For the first time, he felt the true cost of a "second life."