While Mehr was fighting the three other aspirants, a boy with his sword on the side was walking towards the hill. His steps were relaxed yet confident. His left hand was rested on his scabbard but also ready to pull out his sword at any given moment. The boy, Sirius, hastened his steps a bit after noticing noise from a distance. His body was clad in mana as he pushed against the ground to speed up. Wind rushed past him rustling his hair while his half cape was fluttering behind him. With his hand on the scabbard, the house of the sword with the golden hilt with red dragon embedded on it, he came to a stop as soon as he reached the eventful location.

A fight had just finished and the victor was taking deep breaths when he heard Sirius’ footsteps.

“Come out!” The boy with sharp eyes said.

“I wasn’t really hiding. I just got here.” Sirius smiled innocently as he walked towards the boy.

The boy noticed that Sirius had his hand on scabbard. The boy took the stance instantly and lunged at Sirius for the first attack. Sirius took out his sword in a single swift motion and went on to parry the attack with the side of his sword. The fist of the attacker stuck the sword and a clanging noise reverberated in the area.

“Hey, calm down please.” Sirius said, “I don’t want to attack you.”

“Sure, that was the same thing that the last one said. Bow and arrow.” The boy jumped back to create some distance and said under his breath. A set of bow and an arrow materialised in front of him which he hurriedly caught. He nocked the arrow and clad it in mana in an instant. He released the mana clad arrow that zoomed past the distance and closed in on Sirius. Meanwhile, Sirius had already clad his sword in mana and was swinging it with utmost force. The mana wrapped around his sword was whipped towards the incoming arrow. The mana, in the form of a projectile, ripped apart the arrow and travelled like a slithering serpent towards the other boy.

“Shield!” The attacker screamed in panic and a shield appeared in front of him. He held the shield in front of him and got ready to block Sirius’ attack. He sucked in air and hardened his stance while covering the shield with as much mana as he could in the moment.

Sirius’ attack struck like a raging wind’s tackle and the shield shattered instantly. The attacker was flung backwards while spitting blood.

“Are you okay?!” Sirius ran towards him worrying about the health of the person he had just attacked when he heard the other person scream, “I withdraw!”

“No, please wait!” The attacker had vanished in the specks of light before Sirius could finish his sentence. Sirius stopped and looked at the place from where the other boy had vanished and sighed softly.

“I’m sorry.” Sirius said to no one in particular and kept walking forward. A little distance away, hiding behind a tree were two aspirants watching this entire situation unfold. They gulped and looked at each other.

“Why is he so strong?” One asked.

“Damn it. Why are there so many monsters in our group? Let’s take another route.”

*********

In another direction, a little girl in a red frock was walking with a book in her hand. The book was open and unintelligible scribbles were visible on its open pages. The girl was walking straight ahead without even lifting her head up to look around, and just kept on reading the incomprehensible scribbles. Her voice was chilling and the area around her seemed to be separate from the reality. The girl, Nora Forde, finally looked up from her book when she noticed a mana clad spear flying at her rapidly. She calmly blinked once, looked down at her book and just continued to read it while moving forward.

The spear swerved around the trees while changing directions rapidly as it approached Nora. As soon as it got near her, the space around Nora became viscous and the speed of the spear vanished. The viscous space gradually swallowed the spear inside and vibrated softly. In only a moment, hundreds of such spears were launched back to the attacker from inside the viscous space around Nora. The attacker left his post and ran in a different direction but the spears swerved and followed behind him. The spears got extremely close to the attacker but never attacked him. They would follow as soon as he changed direction and would increase their speed as soon as he did as well.

“Idiot. Made me overdo it.” Nora giggled while watching the poor guy being chased by the spears and continued on her way.

***********

Hope Woodrow had found a small number of her followers already, and was approaching the hill soon. Their party had already eliminated a number of other people while searching for each other, and now they were undoubtedly the biggest group in the trial. Every member of the party seemed ready to attack any living being that they would encounter. They had their weapons out and their eyes sharp as all of them followed behind Hope. Hope was walking unconcerned and relaxed as she never even had to attack so far. Well, the situation changed abruptly and extremely drastically when the body of one of her followers came crashing down from a distance.

“R-run.” A single word was all he could muster before his body turned into specks of light and flew away. The party went on high alert, looking around for any attacker that might sneak in. An attacker did come, however not sneakily. A girl in shabby clothes, with her black hair flying and her black eyes narrowed, came from the left side of the party. Three people instantly charged at her while two others started throwing mana projectiles from a distance. The girl in shabby clothes kept walking while looking at the small party. The projectile attacks had almost reached her with three people following behind.

The girl in shabby clothes stopped in her tracks. Her face was expressionless and her sharp eyes were devoid of any emotion. As soon as the projectile attack reached her, it blew apart into smithereens and the mana was dissolved back into the environment. The warriors that had reached her were also ripped to shreds as if multiple sharp whips had attacked them at the same time. The girl in shabby clothes hadn’t moved a single muscle and yet she had killed three people instantly.

The party’s expression dropped and they all took steps back in fear. Only Hope was standing still and watching the other girl with her cold eyes.

“A filthy commoner should know her place.” Hope said angrily as she stepped forward with her hands glowing brightly. She flicked her hand and a white orb of light shot out at an incredible speed. As soon as the orb reached the girl in shabby clothes, it exploded with waves of fire spreading in all directions. The smoke, fire and dirt had covered the commoner girl completely, and as soon as the area became clear, the girl came into view. An expression of surprise was visible on her face as she had been pushed back almost a meter. The same surprised expression was visible on Hope’s face as well.

‘She managed to push me back?’ The girl in shabby clothes thought.

‘How is she still alive?’ Hope thought.

They both looked at each other, Hope with killing intent in her eyes and the other girl stared back with an emotionless gaze.

Soon, explosions were heard throughout the forest and the smoke and burning smell attacked other people’s noses.