The sky burned golden.

A nimbus of gilded flames devoured the heavens whole, the majestic conflagration swallowed the swarming wyvers, incinerating their flesh and scorching their bones until not even their ashes remained.

“Faster,” Irwyn exclaimed, ignoring the perspiration pouring from his forehead. He no longer even grunted as the skin of both his arms visibly melted only to recover the next moment. The spectacle was truly bizarre as the pink smouldered into black scorch and white blister only to revert again in a vicious cycle of what was nothing short of agony for Irwyn.

The healer, Fel'ganeer had been desperately struggling to keep up with the rapid damage to Irwyn’s body as her complexion turned increasingly pale. Even that wouldn’t have been enough had the huntress, Arianne, not also continuously poured the immense vitality from within her rather unique bow to fuel that rapid restoration.

It was one thing to make it through the stages by himself, another was to keep 4 other people prone to instant death alive. Rather than precise attacks and parries, he had to burn everything to cinders before it had even the chance of arriving in attacking distance. Although his body would usually not be able to handle such strain even with his internal wounds temporarily healed, the presence of a skilled healer as well as an ample supply of vitality had allowed him to just barely sustain the necessary firepower.

[Wave 5/5 completed; calculating]

As the pain gradually built up, Irwyn finally received the notification and released the magic.

[Phase score: Completion 1098/1098; Contribution 1098/1098; Surviving members 1098/1098; Bonus objectives 1098/1098. Final score 4392/4392; Next phase will initiate soon.]

[19th phase commences, round 90-95; The gates of Abyssal Ridge; Pass the 5 gates and earn the right of entry; Bonus objective: Reach the gatekeeper guarding the 5th gate.]

For a brief moment Irwyn was swallowed by the familiar darkness and his surrounding completely changed. Unlike his sandbags, he did not gaze in wonder at the gate, instead he took a deep breath and enjoyed the rare feeling of familiarity and nostalgia. As someone who had ample experience with the realm of the awakened, he was very capable of sensing Truth, especially when it came to the Truth of reality that just barely leaked from behind the towering walls.

Smells like home, Irwyn became slightly sentimental for about a second before he suppressed the emotions in his heart. Although the control he had over his feelings was gradually getting better, it would still take him about 5 to 6 years to obtain complete control over the defects of a mortal shell.

“I won’t be able to forcefully bring you any further,” Irwyn then announced, attracting the attention of his teammates away from the gargantuan gate, clearly surprising all of them.

“What do you mean?” their healer, Fel, asked, clearly taken aback. The image Irwyn had built by his strangely powerful magic was impressive enough that she had hard time imagining there was something he couldn’t do while the shock and awe lasted.

“The foes on the path ahead are no longer corporeal monsters,” Irwyn said with a smile, “Though half of you probably won’t really notice that by the time it kills you,” he added and then stepped forward.

“Wait,” to Irwyn’s surprise, the silent knight adorned in rather basic equipment spoke suddenly. Moreover, the voice which had never sounded until then was clearly female. The combination of the two factors was plenty to earn Irwyn’s glance as she took off the helmet. Beneath were revealed a deeply tanned skin, deep brown eyes as well as short chestnut hair, appearing about 15 years old. Although she wore no enchanted equipment, Irwyn immediately realised that there was a strange aura surrounding her, something that was for some reason only noticeable because of the ordinary helmet no longer obstructing it.

An optical illusion, Irwyn immediately realised. Although it was unable to really mislead Irwyn, it still left behind traces manifesting as that strange aura. Since he had paid the knight little mind and the magic had been subtle without a target to affect, it had remained unnoticed throughout their journey. Connecting the illusion that couldn't be truly dispelled even by the user with the sword she had brought, Irwyn immediately realised her class.

“Phantom blade,” he said, though that immediately brought about another problem. The elusive power would’ve been far weaker and but obvious for a common second tier. It would take a proper teacher as well as great talent and countless hours of hard work to achieve that much at her age. She appeared to be far more capable than Irwyn had originally thought, though not enough to truly warrant Irwyn's full attention.

“As expected,” she smiled, not surprised at all, mostly because of Irwyn had already shown skill far beyond common sense, “I had originally been instructed by my teacher to carefully hide my identity in the group stage and make up for any losses afterwards, so that her enemies would not notice I was leaving for the academy before I am already long gone. However, considering what I just witnessed, I hoped to at least introduce myself. I am Audrey.”

Irwyn nodded, maintaining his smile l, then he walked towards the gate one again. The girl was clearly not simple. After all, her teacher feared that she had enemies daring enough to kill her disciples as they traveled into the academy accompanied by multiple examiners, since in the 4th tier. Few people had such enemies. Judging by the tint of her skin, she was likely from the more southern regions of the mainland, area where Irwyn had not yet properly learned of all the secret cults and sects born in the recent millennia. But it was worth keeping her in mind, people with potential who were already awed by Irwyn were the best recruits once he started setting up a network among the academy students, though he was not too worried about that point considering he had already gathered 4 prodigies around him in advance.

[Gate 1/5 passed]

As he reached the first gate, the other 4 who seemed dazed from listening to the conversation simultaneously recovered and rushed after Irwyn who had just stepped inside. Passing through the membrane, Irwyn welcomed the incredibly thick mana. He did not try to resist that pressure, instead he became a part of it. That terrorizing power seemingly merged with his own and the pressure simply ceased. The trick was rather simple, just extraordinarily difficult to execute for most mages. Perfectly merging with the ambient mana was a technique most capable mages discovered at the peak of the 4th tier as they hit the brick wall of awakening and gradually explored the power they knew wouldn’t increase in a long time of ever.

Not unexpectedly, by the time Irwyn reached the second gate, a song of pained grunts sounded from behind him. Before passing through, Irwyn cast his gaze back for a moment and to his surprise, only one of the four figures had collapsed. Arianne sheathed herself in the bow's vitality, barely resisting the pressure as she limped forward. Meanwhile, Fel'ganeer used her healing powers to fight off the constantly accumulating damage; a theoretically more effective strategy, though that was not taking into account how long the young cleric could bear the pain as her eyes were already red with tears. But that didn’t surpass Irwyn’s expectations, it was the last figure; Audrey stood upright, her face barely twitching from the pain. She was trying to imitate Irwyn’s solution and was not utterly unsuccessful. Although the class of Phantom blade was among those which combined physical might with magic, the focus was on the former while they barely learned the basics of the prismatic Phantom magic to mislead and confuse their opponents who were not expecting a spellblade. Needless to say, Audrey’s control over her magic was abnormal.

[Activating Overseer]

And that was enough to gather Irwyn’s curiosity. He didn’t have the habit of overusing Overseer, especially in the environment of the Blackburg family filled with 4th tier mages capable of detecting it, however, he just happened to find himself in a realm where he didn’t have to worry about such things.

[Activation successful]

[Name: Audrey of the Glass Valley]

[Race: human (Phantom’s bloodline)]

[Soul grade: rare]

[Mana: 1,440/1,450]

[Active Classes: Phantom Blade (T 2/4) 15/20; Bloodline Warlock - Light (T 1/4) 15/15]

[Worship: none]

[Essence: 1,560]

[Unspent points, level: 0, attribute: 0, upgrade: 0]

[Titles: Prodigy of Phantom’s bloodline, Phantom of epic Light, Phantom of epic Space, Phantom of common Time]

[Magic: Phantom magic (Light + Time), general magic]

[Skills: Warping Blade+ 80/100, Phantom's mask 10/10, Kincaller 10/10]

[Dormant classes: Bloodline Warlock - Space, Bloodline Warlock - Time]

[Attributes:]

[Magic capacity: 145]

[Constitution: 20]

[Strength: 13]

[Intellect: 60]

[Dexterity: 76]

[Soul: 29]

Irwyn quickly absorbed the information and turned around, leaving the 3 strugglers to their fate in order to advance through the gates. Naturally Irwyn understood what Phantom’s bloodline represented: Someone with a main class utilising Phantom magic had awakened, gaining the ability to sacrifice his own strength and pass it down through a bloodline, beginning the heritage of warlocks. That effect was even more pronounced if the originator of the power was still alive. As for the name Glass valley, it rang no bells.

[Gate 2/5 passed]

Remembering to get in touch with Audrey once they would arrive at the academy, Irwyn walked forward.

[Gate 3/5 passed]

As Irwyn felt the ambient mana grow even denser, a tremor spread from ahead of him. Raising an eyebrow, Irwyn quickened his pace.

[Gate 4/5 passed]

The first thing Irwyn noticed was the corpse on the ground, marinating in its own blood. Just as Irwyn was about to conduct a deeper inspection, an impact resounded throughout his body. A moment later Irwyn came to realise that something had plummeted onto him from above as warm liquid immediately leaked behind his collar and seeped through his clothes. At first he was alarmed until he realized that what struck him was not an attack but another corpse.

Dragging it from his back, he immediately recognised what was left of Elizabeth, solely because of Voidmother's Embrace as the heap of flesh had very little resemblance with Irwyn's most devoted follower. Unexpectedly, Irwyn had to suppress an unfamiliar emotion within his heart before he closed his eyes and focused his perception into the body.

"Bind. Preserve," Just as he had expected, he found something: Elizabeth's soul, barely bound to the mangled remnant of what once had been her body, about to completely disconnect. Irwyn couldn't use healing magic and therefore would normally have no way of restoring the mesh of bone powder and gore into a functioning vessel, however, within the trial realm, all he needed to so was bring her soul and body in a relative proximity of each other into the next stage. Saving her from certain death is also another way of deepening her loyalty, Irwyn justified his actions after the fact as he looked over at the other corpse.

Considering the relatively better state of the body, Irwyn had no need to lift its head in order to determine it was Desir, the boy once again surpassing Irwyn's already high expectations. Unlike Elizabeth, Desir didn't have a powerful armour to shield him from the unbearably dense ambient mana with a trace of Truth beyond the gates. Moreover, even reaching them in the first place would've been a fluke unless the part-demon had made a significant breakthrough. Either way, Irwyn would be able to directly ask after the trials, so his eyes looked up.

There he noticed the familiar form of Blasphemy's bone puppet. Perhaps misleadingly, the skeletal dragon was not a creation of necromancy. Necromancy was not capable of directly affecting monsters in the first place as its main principle was controlling and then twisting the target's soul until they became a mindless follower out another abomination, an act clearly not performable on monsters which all lacked souls altogether. Instead, the puppet was created through the neighbouring, albeit infinitely less despicable, major element of Binding and summoning. The technique used to reanimate the puppet created something akin to a fake soul which filled in the void that all monsters had, even in death. Afterwards, that fake soul became the core from which the controller poured his power and dominated the deceased body.

Despite being imposing, the technique was more suitable for scouting rather than direct combat for most who grasped it, as it required the user to not only supply high amounts of mana to act as fake vitality, it also required enough focus to manually control the moment of all limbs and attacks, something even more difficult if used on a corpse of an animal or a monster the caster was not trained to move as. After all, few beings had the mental capacity to simultaneously utilise two different bodies to their full potential in the heat of combat.

Knowing all that, Irwyn immediately noticed an abnormality with the corpse puppet. It was strangely still, as though its strings had been cut. Upon closer inspection, Irwyn found traces of black flames which would occasionally lick the front ribs or peek out of the damaged vertebra. After a moment of pondering Irwyn arrived at a conclusion. With the protection of Voidmother's Embrace, Elizabeth had survived the instant kill opening attack of Truth that Blasphemy liked to use. With the massive advantage of Truth removed, the puppet could barely be considered among the weakest 4th yet creatures with impenetrable toughness, also one with long rusted and never practiced combat experience.

Elizabeth also had another trump card: The Equilibrium. Although it had not yet reached even the fraction of a fraction of its full potential, out was still a genuine Aspect artifact, it would not be impossible for it to barely cut through a weak and scaleless bone of a dragon, even if all dragons were genuine awakened creatures.

And with that strike, Elizabeth must have hit or at least disrupted the core which gave the puppet life, just before she was obliterated by her foe. In a way, Elizabeth had achieved an impossible feat through a streak of luck: She had fought a 4th tier into a tie while just in the second tier. Even Irwyn had no confidence of achieving something like that without losing his body. The qualitative change of the 4th tier was massive after all.

"Quite impressive," his eyes wandered down in praise before quickly looking back up when he remembered what exactly he had been carrying. Relatively carefree, he approached the bone puppet. Soon enough, Irwyn was close could confirm that the puppet was fully disconnected, not just disrupted. Irwyn wondered whether Blasphemy had his once in a millennium chat with Elizabeth as he walked through the final gate.

[Gate 5/5 passed]

[Calculating...]