The Return Of The Exiled Villain

The physique evaluation burned through the rest of the afternoon the way those things always did: names, sand, the dull crack of wood on bone, a necklace flashing white when someone had been a breath from dying.

A few heirs left the ring looking smaller than they had on the monument. B

y the time the last ordinary-line student crawled out of the black sand, the yard had thinned to the ones who still had a reason to stand.

Vael’Zira did not give them a rest that felt like kindness.

The puppets sank, and the ring instantly widened.

The iron posts pulled back into the ground, and the academy floor kept going until it was no longer a test circle and more like a shallow crater with walls high enough that flying out would look like running.

Five hundred students remained.

That was the number the inspectors had been cutting toward all day. Talent below top-tier was already gone.

Bodies that could not take a beating were gone.

What was left was a mix of heavenly heirs, stubborn top-tier unknowns, a grinning short girl with sand still in her hair, a princess, and an incubus whose coat had split at the seam.

Vael’Zira stood on the rim and let them count each other.

”Final trial,” she said.

”Free for all.”

No one asked her to repeat it.

The shape was obvious the moment the words left her mouth.

No teams announced, no house lanes, no instructor stepping in unless a killing blow needed the same kind of necklace they had used before.

Those wards were already being passed down the line again, bead by bead, because the academy wanted a ranking, not a graveyard.

”You will fight until one hundred of you are still on your feet inside this ring, or until I decide the number has been paid,” she said.

”If you are thrown out, you are out. If you yield, you are out. If the ward saves your life, you are out. If you destroy the ring to hide, you are out. Arts are permitted. Weapons are permitted. Killing is not. If you forget that last rule, I will remind you personally.”

An instructor began calling the remaining names onto the sand.

The Ashrend twins walked in like they owned the floor.

Nethar’s third daughter found a place with her back near a wall without looking like she was hiding.

Sable Fang rolled his shoulders.

Vessa ended up closer to the middle than was wise and immediately tried to drift toward Gray, which Riven would have stopped if he had still been there.

The princess entered without waiting for Gray and still ended up with him two steps off her shoulder, because that was the picture the yard had decided to keep.

’...Mhm. This is what I’m best at.’

A free-for-all was not a duel, but more like a gladiator arena where everyone was probably going to go for the beasts, in this case, the heavenly names and houses.

Surprisingly, the heavenly names would draw the first attention.

The houses would try to knock off anyone who might steal a professor’s eye. The unknowns would either clump together or get eaten for standing alone.

An incubus who had walked in with the Crimson Moon Princess would be a convenient target for anyone who wanted a story and did not want to test Ashrend first.

Vael’Zira raised one hand.

”When I drop it, you begin. When I raise it again, you stop. The one hundred who remain inside the ring after that are students of this academy. The rest can take their talent back to whatever house still wants it.”

The hand stayed up long enough for people to choose a direction.

Swiish!

The ring became noise.

Gray did not chase the first clash.

He let two mid-ring students collide in front of him, stepped around the spray of sand, and kept the princess in the edge of his sight without making it look like he was using her as a wall.

A spear of dark fire cut past his cheek.

He turned his shoulder, let it spend itself on empty air, and put the cheap sword up only far enough to discourage the next person who thought Peak Saint meant easy points.

”HAAA!”

Vessa shouted something rude at a boy twice her height and then had to duck.

The Ashrend heavenly twin went through three people in a line and made it look bored.

Somewhere to the left, Nethar folded a Court Demon’s knee the way she had taken the puppets.

The princess’s Domain did not open.

She did not need it yet.

Her spear drew a short, ugly arc that sent a Sable Fang hanger-on over the rim, ward flashing once as he hit the wall.

She did not look to see if Gray approved.

A student with Emberveil colors came at Gray anyway, because the whispers had done their work.

”A mere incubus like you... should not be in here!!!!”

THUD!”

Gray hit him in the mouth with the guard of the cheap sword and kept moving, making sure he wouldn’t be targeted by groups.

Unfortunately for him... his idea didn’t work at all.

The Emberveil boy appeared right at the instant.

Four more closed the space he had just stepped into, then six, then a loose ring of Sovereign-realm students who had been waiting for someone else to throw the first insult.

Their auras stacked together, heavy enough that Peak Saint should have been pressed against the ground on principle.

”Surround him!”

”Do not let the princess interfere!”

Gray turned in a slow half-circle and counted the angles instead of names.

Two spears, one chain, a pair of short blades, and a heavy fist-fighter.

Behind them, two more ready to fill a gap.

The ring noise around the fight became a wall of its own.

Shrink!

The chain came first.

He stepped in toward the thrower, close enough that the links lost their room to whip, and cut across the man’s wrist with the sword.

Splurt!

”ARGH!”

The chain sagged.

Swoop!

Just then, a spear took that opening and tore a line across Gray’s ribs, hot and immediate.

Slit!

He let the pain flare and moved anyway.

”[✧Swap✧]”

He traded places with the spearman.

The boy appeared where Gray had been standing and caught his own ally’s fist in the spine.

”Fuck!”

Gray was already behind the pair of short blades, the Soul Chasing Qi sliding into the first step of the art Aurora had taught him.

[Severing Pursuit]

He drew it through the nearer bladesman’s guard.

Rip... SPLURT!

Cloth and skin opened. The second bladesman slashed Gray’s shoulder in return and found meat.

”Huff...” Gray hissed through his teeth.

[✧ Dream Mist ✧]

He came back together off the fist-fighter’s left, drove a knee into the man’s thigh, and used the stagger to throw him into the chain-user.

BOOOM!

A dark spike of energy skipped off his sword and still punched through enough to graze his hip.

Blood ran into the waist of his trousers.

The Bone-Ward necklace stayed dull, meaning that it wasn’t a killing blow.

”He is only Saint!”

”Then why is he still standing?”

Taking the opportunity, Gray closed his eyes for a second.

[Soul Binding Trace]

The soul chasing qi snapped out of his wrist like a thread only he could see.

It caught the second spearman across the ankle and pulled the man’s next step wrong.

Gray used the error, stepped inside the spear’s reach, and smashed the pommel into the bridge of a nose.

Crack...!

”Kurgh!”

Cartilage gave.

The student reeled.

Another blade opened Gray’s coat from collar to navel, and the cheap fabric finally quit pretending it was armor.

”Ugh...” Gray groaned slighly.

Just then, the fist-fighter’s jaw popped. A Sovereign aura flared and slammed Gray sideways into the sand.

”Kurgh...”

He rolled, spat red, and came up on one knee.

”[✧Swap✧]”

He swapped with the student at the far edge of the ring so the clustered six had to turn.

In that turn, he cut.

The [Soul Reaving Pursuit] was too much of a signature if he finished the whole form, so he stole only the entry: a sudden, weightless step and a line that wanted a soul-thread more than flesh.

Fwip!

The sword still split a forearm to the bone.

They hit him for it.

A spear butt to the mouth.

A boot in the already-cut ribs. The chain, recovered, wrapped his calf and yanked.

Thump!

He went down hard enough that the sand filled his teeth.

The necklace warmed, considered the next incoming spike, and stayed quiet.

”Haah... pwahahha!” Gray laughed once, under his breath, because the alternative was to snarl.

He dropped the sword, grabbed the chain, and pulled the owner into his forehead.

The impact split skin on both of them.

Then the sword was in his hand again...

[Severing Pursuit]

Thud!

”Aghhh!!!”

One by one they stopped being a ring and started being a pile.

Gray climbed it because the sand under them was slick and the only dry place left was their backs.

He stood there with his coat hanging off one shoulder, the front torn open to the waist, sweat and blood running the lines of his stomach.

His chest worked like he had been drowning.

The sword tip rested against the throat of the Emberveil student who had started the sentence, not quite hard enough to make the ward decide.

The surrounding fights had left a pocket of staring.

Gray dragged his dirtied thumb across his mouth and looked at the red it came away with.

”Next...”

His voice came out in a rough, yet terrifying tone, filled with a strange killing intent that made every demon pause in their tracks.

No one in that immediate circle moved to be next.