Under the coming dawn, the waterfall roared relentlessly.

A ceaseless, pounding thunder that battered the air and shook the stone. Mist rose in great white plumes where the falling water met the pond below—and in the early light, the spray caught fire. The sparkling surface reflected the gold and rose bleeding across the horizon.

At the center of it all, where the water current was the strongest, a single rock broke the torrent.

Sitting on that rock was a figure.

He was looking up at the coming dawn, humming a tune that strangely could be heard even though the waterfall roared around him as if something was reflecting the waterfall’s roar away and amplifying the tune.

His form was draped with a black cloak edged in gold thread that caught the light.

Blood-red gems dotted the fabric; on the shoulders, the sleeves, the deep hood, everywhere—glinting with the slow patience of watching eyes. The waterfall hammered down around it, yet the cloak did not stir, nor the mist touch it.

Just then, the tune stopped.

A ghastly figure manifested not too far behind him, forming into what looked like an old man.

Dignified and very old.

"You’ve done something really stupid, Diamantona," the ghastly old man said with a stern, almost angry voice. Despite his old age and experience, he almost couldn’t hold back his anger. "Why did you even do that? Any entry to the Cavity will be detected, even if it’s a dead zone."

"I know," Diamantona replied; his voice was calm. Undisturbed.

"If you know—then why would you do it? Do you know how important this moment is? That arrogant brat’s evaluation is coming soon. Very soon. Once he passed the evaluation, he would attain complete jurisdiction over the Cavity. I can’t let that happen. Especially when he stole the opportunity from me."

"We have a deal, old man," Diamantona slowly turned over his shoulder.

Beneath the hood, a pair of red gemstone eyes stared at the ghastly old man with disturbing calmness.

His skin was completely black—not the color of living flesh, but obsidian. Ink made solid. A darkness that swallowed the dawn’s glow without reflection, as though light itself refused to linger there. "Just prepare your end of the deal, and I’ll focus on mine."

"You’re confident... why? Rashal’s enforcers are investigating the West Cavity by now."

"That’s because I want them to investigate."

"You want them to investigate? Do you think you can outsmart that arrogant brat?"

"I don’t need to outsmart him," Diamantona turned away, staring back at the coming sun. "Winning is a matter of probabilities. How do you think diamonds form? Carbon must be present. Pressure must be sufficient. Temperature must be perfect. Disturb one, and the probability of forming a diamond would decrease.

"In this case, even if the High Lord is smarter, all I need to do is reduce his probability to predict me—pile more and more factors into the equation until his chance of success plummets low enough for mine to rise."

A scoff escaped the ghastly old man’s wrinkly lips.

"Did that method work for you in your realm?" He asked. "Are you sure it’s going to work?"

"Of course," Diamantona took out a red gem from inside his cloak. His eyes stared at the billions upon billions of souls trapped inside it—destined to forever be his playthings. "How else did I wipe out every single living being from my world?"

"Hmph," the ghastly old man’s body began to fade away. "Finish this properly, and your joy would be endless."

Once the sound of nature prevailed again, Diamantona let out a deep sigh.

"I’m bored..." He muttered, staring at the red gem while leaning his face to his palm. "I don’t get how these Demigods and Gods have the will to grow that much stronger. Isn’t it boring to win all the time? Sigh... I hope something interesting happened.

"Maybe I’ll meet someone whom I can’t defeat. Yes... That sounded nice."

...

Meanwhile, Rex scanned his eyes around, watching creatures climb out of the ground like zombies.

But they weren’t zombies—Knights.

A gauntleted hand burst from the soil first, dark grey, spilling dirt everywhere. It groped at the air for a heartbeat before clamping down onto the soil, and then a second hand emerged, and the ground groaned as the creature climbed out.

It rose in lurching, graceless motion, like a corpse clawing out of a grave.

Dirt sloughed from its pauldrons. Its helm turned slowly, scanning without eyes, and the great sword in its grip dragged a furrow through the earth—as it straightened to its full height. Eight feet of dark-grey hardened steel.

Almost like it was forgetting something, the Knight reached down and took out its great shield.

Now, it stood up again and stared at Rex. Shield and sword ready.

Another hand broke the surface. Then another. Then a hundred more.

All around the clearing, the ground heaved with slow, inevitable birth. Fully-plated knights climbed out from the soil like answering a summons until the first row stood assembled. And behind them, more of these knights were already emerging.

Hundred. Perhaps thousands.

A rising tide of dark grey metal that circled the three of them in tightening rings.

Each knight exuded its own pressure, a weight in the air that pressed against the chest—and made the lungs work harder. Individually, their auras were formidable. Together, they were suffocating. A wall of killing intent so dense it felt like drowning in cold iron.

Once the last of them had clawed free, the advance began.

Not a charge. Not a rush. A single, unified step.

Rex looked around and smiled inwardly as this was the perfect enemies to test out something.

He had always wanted to try it out ever since he saw Davina’s power against the Pale Defenders.

"Care to listen?" He asked the sisters.

"Whatever it is, better be quick," Davina answered, already channeling her life energy.

Lilliana also did the same, stimulating the great wolf’s hide to elongate her claws, "I’m listening."

On the other hand, Alexander watched the three of them plotting in silence.

’The first test they did earlier was simply there to measure their awareness of their surroundings. Only to measure how long it would take for them to realize they were walking in place. In our line of work, awareness is as important, if not more important than strength.’ Alexander rested both his elbows on his thighs; his gaze fixed on Rex as the scene below unfolded. ’This one, however, is about grit.’

Due to the dangerous assignments given to them, grit is an extremely important trait to have.

Having grit directly influenced survivability.

’Normally, candidates gave up after their limbs were broken,’ Alexander smiled. ’Let’s see how th—’

Before Alexander could finish his thought, Davina suddenly surged upward.

She hung in the air like a goddess bringing down a verdict for execution.

Her eyes ignited silver, then blinding—forcing Alexander to shield his own sight with a film of energy. Through that trembling lens, he watched her spread her arms wide. Her starry, beautiful tails lifted right behind her; their tips curved upward until they nearly met above her head.

Just then, a star began to form.

It swelled from a pinpoint into a sphere of churning light, fed by two distinctive energies that contained the power of starlight and gravity. Fusion and weight. It grew with each passing second, but slowly. At least, Alexander found it too slow.

’She’s going to be interrupted,’ He shook his head. ’And those two won’t be able to hold back all of the knights.’

As expected, one knight tried.

And then a dozen more followed, leaping straight at Davina to smash her down.

But when they were barely off the ground, a pressure slammed down upon them—like the stomp of an unseen god. Even Alexander felt the sudden weight that dropped across his shoulders—pressing down like gravity had been cranked a hundred times its normal power.

Below Davina, Rex, and Lilliana stood in matched stillness.

Both their auras bled outward in perfect sync—it was the Almighty Aura and the Almighty Bearing.

Making use of their new skills, Rex and Lilliana combined their skills into a powerful force that crashed into the circle of knights and sank them deeper into their armor. Intelligence stat was drained from them in a cold wave, leaving them even more vulnerable to the pressure.

None of them could jump. None of them could reach Davina. All of them can only bear the weight.

Then, slowly, Lilliana exhaled.

From her body, two dense ribbons of energy slithered skyward—pale green and seething. They coiled upward, spiraling through the air like serpents seeking heat, and dissolved into the growing sphere that Davina was preparing.

The sphere drank them in, and its size doubled. Tripled.

Lilliana’s bloodline, the Heiress of Soulspeed Werewolf, had swelled her energy reserves.

Far more than she has before, and she used it to help her sister.

Rumble—!

The ground began to shake.

Miles trembled. The glowing sphere swelled to the size of a house. Its core was dense with the combined power of two, and its surface crawled with intense starlight. Alexander’s frown deepened. He had not expected this magnitude from them.

Davina’s glowing eyes flared, and with a final, straining grunt, she hurled the star downward.

She pushed it hard with both hands and all tails.

And it descended like a comet.

Swoosh—!

Before it began to fall, Rex had already moved. He seized Lilliana by her waist and leaped skyward, rising to meet the descending sphere. Or avoid its blast radius. At the apex of his arc, his hand brushed against its searing surface.

Gentle, but deliberate.

Rex poured his own energy, doubling its size in an instant.

But that’s not the end of his involvement.

Right above the knights, a translucent layer of energy manifested, made entirely of two laws. The Law of Inevitability would keep the knights pinned, writing the descending star as their cause of destruction in the book of fate.

And the second law, the Law of Misdirection, condensed the descending star tighter—and summoned a translucent barrier that would minimize but concentrate the impact at the same time. Rex cleared the blast zone, and Alexander did the same, escaping before the laws could hold the area.

Once the star touched the ground, it was cataclysm.

Kaboom—!

A brilliant white—and absolute swallowed the world. Light became a physical force, a cataclysm of starlight that erupted across the earth and turned stone to silhouette. Even contained, even caged by the Law of Misdirection, the aftershock rolled outward with devastating force.

A thunder that shook the bones of everything within miles.

Streams of starlight shot skyward from the cracked earth, creating a beautiful sight of destruction.

And when the light finally died, there was only the crater, the silence, and the three of them suspended above. Demigods inspecting the destruction they caused. Not even one of the knights was spared. All of them were obliterated.

"I don’t think I have anything that can match that area of effect," Rex commented in disbelief.

Even when Davina used her own energy, the blast was already massive.

Now, with the additional power from him and Lilliana, it has become unfathomable.

It cracked the ground in more than a dozen miles radius, and at the heart of it was a dark and deep hole that reached deep into the ground. He wouldn’t even be surprised if it took a minute for a falling body to reach the very bottom.

"There’s a reason they nicknamed her the Graceful Starfall," Lilliana shrugged. "Weak soldiers dreaded to meet her in battle as her attack took up a massive area."

"It’s nothing," Davina scoffed. "Just a gift I was born with."

"Alright, genius," Lilliana clicked her tongue in displeasure.

The three of them went aside and landed not too far away from the stunned Alexander. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

"How is it?" Rex asked. "Did we pass the test?"