The Anomaly's Path

Fuck my life.

I leaned my head back against the frozen stone wall, staring up at the dark, jagged ceiling of the lower tunnels and cursing whatever god decided to make my life this way.

Three hours. For three straight hours, I had been stuck in the most awkward, suffocating situation imaginable. It was not the freezing cold air that made my skin crawl — it was the two girls standing on either side of me.

Over the past few hours, the journey through these deep corridors had not just been a test of survival against the cold. It had been a slaughter.

We had crossed paths with a few overconfident student teams who thought they could ambush us or take the lower path for themselves. Disarming them and taking their cores did not take long. They were completely outmatched.

After stripping them of their points, we left them behind to deal with their bruised pride.

On my left stood Malva, blank-faced and staring at me with a cold, unblinking look that could cut through steel. Ever since I started treating her like a real teammate — sharing the cores and watching her back instead of using her like a shield — her guard had gone up.

She did not know how to handle a guy not being a jerk to her, so she just stared at me, trying to figure out my ”hidden plan.”

And if that was not enough, up on the high stone arch above us, completely separate from us, sat Seris.

Our second-year watcher was hiding in the shadows like a quiet, red-eyed ghost. She had not broken the rules or said a word, but her heavy, close watch felt like a weight pressing down on my shoulders.

Stuck between a girl who stared at me like a puzzle and an older student tracking my every move from the dark, the silence in the hall was so stiff you could cut it with a knife.

To break the awkwardness, I casually flipped a heavy, glowing mana core into the air, caught it, and flicked my wrist. My Space power opened a small rift, swallowing the prize whole. It landed in my storage pocket on top of a big pile of cores.

”That is two hundred and forty-two,” I muttered, wiping dark monster blood off Tempest before putting my katana back in its sheath. ”Honestly, if the noble teams spend any more time giving long speeches about their families before drawing their weapons, I am going to start charging them for the lesson.”

I was mostly talking to myself to break the silence, because no one responded to my dry joke.

Damn it. Kill me. This is embarrassing.

The words had barely left my mouth when the stone beneath our boots began to tremble violently.

SCREEECH!

A loud, sharp roar echoed from the dark tunnel ahead. The force of the sound broke the frost from the ceiling, sending sharp ice pieces clicking on the stone floor.

From the thick, frozen mist, a big group of Frost Lurkers — thin, many-legged beasts made of blue ice with hollow, glowing purple eyes, came rushing down the hall like a wave. There were at least a dozen of them, all Expert-Low threats moving fast.

”Malva, frontline!” I barked, my dry humor instantly vanishing as my body dropped into a low, ready stance.

Malva did not say a word. She pulled out her sword in one smooth move. Her Void affinity flared around the steel, turning it into a dark vacuum that seemed to eat the light around it.

The first Frost Lurker lunged through the fog, its sharp ice claws snapping at her throat. Malva did not dodge.

She met the strike head-on, swinging her sword in a clean, flat arc. The moment her blade hit the beast’s ice arm, her Void power erased the mana holding the creature together. The claw did not break — it vanished into thin air, leaving the monster off-balance and confused.

”My turn,” I muttered.

Dark lightning burst from my boots, breaking the icy ground as I shot forward. I appeared right under the beast’s body. My katana left its sheath in a fast blur, covered in sharp, crackling lightning. The blade cut cleanly through the monster’s joints, slicing out its core so it could be collected later.

Before the remains could hit the ground, three more Lurkers jumped over the rubble, their jaws open as they fired freezing beams of ice. The cold energy threatened to lock our joints before the spells could even reach us.

”Clear it!” I shouted.

Malva stepped in front of me, planting her feet. She held her sword sideways, letting out a big wave of Void energy that spread out like an unseen wall. The moment the three freezing beams hit her space, they did not explode, they were just swallowed into nothing, their mana gone.

Using the opening she made, I focused my Space power, locking onto the space right behind the three attacking monsters.

Space folded, and I vanished from the front, appearing right behind the trio. I gripped my sword with both hands, sending my lightning power into a big, spinning slash. The electric burst cut through the cold air, hitting all three cores at once in a loud, cracking explosion of blue light.

In less than two minutes, the hall was quiet again. The group was wiped out, leaving only cracked ice and a dozen shiny cores rolling on the dark stone.

Malva put her sword away without a scratch on her clothes. She didn’t say a word.

Watching her slide the blade into its scabbard, I took a moment to look at how she fought. Over the course of our fights today, I had finally seen exactly how she worked in high-stress combat, and honestly? It was pathetic.

She was dangerous for her rank, sure, but her overall fighting skill was lacking. Her stances were wrong, her weight balance was off, and her footwork was rough. I could not blame her, though. It was clear she had never had a real teacher to show her the basics.

The only reason she could beat such strong monsters was pure desperation and an instinct built around survival. Her style was not a real martial art. It was the frantic moves of a cornered animal doing whatever it took to stay alive.

Most importantly, she was carried by her Void affinity...

That element was a huge cheat code for her fighting ability. Even with her low mana and weak physical rank, the power to erase enemy mana let her fight way above her level. But relying only on a broken power to hide bad fundamentals was a death sentence in the long run.

She needed serious training, and I had already started giving her a few basic tips between fights. To her credit, she was a good student. She listened to my advice and tried to fix her grip and stance on the fly.

But the main problem stayed: she did not have a proper sword art.

Her swings were wild, missing the smooth forms needed for high-level fighting. Down the line, I would probably have to spend a lot of points to buy her a good sword art from the system — something dark, deadly, and perfect for her Void power.

She really needed it if she wanted to keep up with me.

”...That was easy,” I said, breathing a bit heavily as I waved my hand, using my Space affinity to slip all twelve new cores straight into my storage pocket alongside the others.

The quick fight had pushed my pulse up, but it also gave me what I needed. By pushing my power through the area, my sense had grown, letting me read the whole lower level.

Three hours are gone, I thought, looking down the long, dark path ahead. The outer areas are empty. We only have five hours for this whole tournament. In the beginning, everyone was happy just hunting normal monsters and clearing the small ones to get a safe amount of points.

I shook my head, my eyes locked on the far end of the path.

But now? With less than two hours left, it’s the perfect time to hunt the boss. Knowing the competitive nature of those guys, they are not going to sit back and farm small points. They are all going to aim for the big points that come from the main boss core.

A sharp, reckless smile cut across my face.

They probably think they are the ones who are going to kill it, I thought, a low smile on my face. But of course, that is not going to happen.

I closed my eyes and let my Space affinity stretch out, feeling the pulses of mana and fighting across the frozen land.

Using my sense, I let my awareness spread like a ripple through still water, cutting through miles of solid ice. I was not looking for normal things anymore. I was tracing the space itself, tracking where the space was bending under heavy pressure.

Deep in the core of the old cathedral, a heavy mountain of freezing power was pulsing. It felt like a big black hole, pulling all the power of the Gate toward it.

Right outside that big pool, the area was pure chaos. I could feel strong, clear distortions in the air — heavy, bright light mana and sharp spear strikes hitting the stone. Big powers were clashing head-on with a wall of guardian beasts, tearing the area apart.

My eyes snapped open. I didn’t say a word to Malva. There was no need for a speech.

I stepped into the center of the dark path, raising my right hand. My Space affinity flared, bending the air around my arm until the fabric of reality began to break, opening a shimmering, dark space rift. It bypassed the locked guards, making a direct shortcut into the inner area.

”Hold on,” I said.

Malva walked forward without hesitation, as she reached out and took my arm.

I took a deep breath, focusing all my power on my Space affinity. Tearing a hole in reality big enough to move two people across a sealed, guarded zone was a huge strain. I pushed my power out, forcing it to twist and bend the space.

Instantly, a heavy, crushing pressure hit my chest. My mana dropped fast, a big chunk of my power gone in a second as the space fought back. A drop of cold sweat rolled down my face, and my breath caught, but I kept my teeth together, refusing to let the rift close, and forced it wide open.

The dark rift swallowed us, closing with a sharp sound that left the empty hall quiet.

The trip through the folded space lasted only a second, but it felt like my whole body was being squeezed through a narrow wall.

When the space finally opened, my boots hit solid ground, and I stumbled a little, my chest burning from the big loss of power. I forced my back straight before Malva could see the small shake in my knees.

The heavy smell of damp stone and thick, metallic blood hit my senses at once.

We had appeared on a big, high stone balcony that looked over the main room of the ruins. The size of the place was huge. The ceiling was hundreds of feet high, held up by big, cracked pillars covered in glowing blue ice.

Frozen waterfalls hung like big, quiet curtains along the far walls, reflecting the violent, flashing lights from below.

The noise from the floor was deafening.

Boom!

A bright pillar of light mana exploded near the center, killing a group of big ice gargoyles. Arthur was right at the front, his sword glowing like a small sun as he led Team Arthur forward with perfect, clean skill.

Behind him, Amelia’s water magic spun in sharp, protective currents, keeping the remaining beasts from surrounding their group.

But they weren’t the only ones tearing through the room.

Whoosh!

A fast, sharp whistle cut through the chaos as a long spear wrapped in twisting air cut through three giant frost golems at once.

Roan was moving like a maniac, laughing loud as he danced through the front line. His moves were so fast that even without using his Time power, his pure skill made him look like a blur. Damon was right behind him, keeping his heavy shield up to block the ice spikes falling from above.

The main cast was fully engaged, clashing with each other, and shouts echoing off the walls as they fought to break through the heavy guard defending the big, frozen archway at the far end of the room.

I leaned over the stone railing, pressing my hands against the cold ledge to steady my breathing as my mana slowly tried to settle. A slow, dark smile spread across my face as I watched the big, chaotic fight below.

They were working so hard, putting on a great show for the school watchers.

”Look at them go,” I whispered to Malva, my fingers tracing my sword. ”They are doing all the heavy work for us...”