Reality's Beholder

Aurora was silent for a few moments, as if contemplating, before answering. "Fine, give them," she said. She collected all fourteen flags from Victor's team and teleported back to her group. Her group was shocked, seeing her disappear, only to appear back after a minute with so many flags. The terrifying part was that the other group handed the flags willingly. Did their group leader had some other groups working for her? If that was the case then their group was set—they thought. Not knowing that they completely misunderstood.

Meanwhile, Victor was extremely incensed. All the flags he had painstakingly acquired were now gone. "We're going back," he shouted at his group. None dared to refute him, seeing how incensed he was—not like they dared to do it before. The members of Victor's group almost felt sorry for whichever team they'd eventually encounter.

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**Adam's POV**

Our group and Aurelia's kept moving towards the center. Though both groups were in an alliance, we both kept some distance away from each other, showcasing the lack of trust. Another thing was that the boundary was getting closer and closer, which meant we might start encountering other strong groups. And if I was right—and I most likely was—they also would have gotten into an alliance with another group.

'I wonder what will happen if we encounter Aurora,' I mused. 'We'll surely get our asses handed to us.'

"There's trouble ahead," Aurelia's calm voice broke through the silent atmosphere. As soon as I heard that, I checked on my flags, making sure they were tightly bound to me—just in case—so that they wouldn't fall off in battle.

Everyone tensed, and just around a corner behind a large building, a group emerged—no, two groups emerged. They were fourteen in number and had five flags, two of which were gold. They weren't people I recognized, so they were definitely among the normal and elite cadets.

"How do we share?" asked Aurelia. "We'll take three and you'll take two," Tokito replied. A frown marred her face; she was about to protest when he continued. "And when we meet another team, we'll do the reverse." I saw what he did there, and I'm sure Aurelia did too. There was a chance that the next group we encounter would have an even number of flags, or we wouldn't encounter any other team till the end of the trial. But it was either go with that or break the alliance for a mere flag, which would be extremely stupid.

The other groups, meanwhile, were looking at us warily. It seemed they were also talking about how to share our flags. Laughable, because even the strongest among them was a three-starred rank three. Still, either they were extremely lucky all this while and only encountered weaker groups, or someone among them had a very troublesome bloodline.

'Fuck, and it just had to be the latter,' I cursed as I felt my body suddenly becoming sluggish. It was like I had some of Instructor Blake's drills—but only much worse. But then, a surge of chilly energy erupted, and then everywhere froze.

Some moments before,

Aurelia suddenly felt her body getting extremely sluggish, but even still, she managed to form the thought to look for the perpetrator, and in a second, she had found him. It was a skinny boy at the back of the group. She pooled all her remaining focus and then launched an attack on him. The very air froze from where Aurelia was and into the ranks of the other groups. The ice attack froze four of their cadets before reaching the skinny boy.

As soon as the skinny boy froze, Aurelia suddenly felt her body regaining its normal disposition, and so did the rest of her alliance. From when she started feeling the vertigo to freezing the boy, not even two seconds had passed.

-----

Looking at the popsicles tens of meters away from me, I took a second glance at Aurelia and made a mental note to myself not to offend her.

The next moment, shit went to fan as chaos erupted. Tokito transformed, Lara burst into flames, and the other members of our alliance jumped into action. Aurelia didn't even need to intervene before the rest of the opposing groups had been dealt with. And of course, yours truly was also behind. When Tokito returned with the flags, he did something surprising—he handed Aurelia's group three of the flags.

"If not for your quick action, we might have lost everything," he said to her. 'So he's a man of honor,' I mused. That's something that makes him different from Owen. Owen's a bastard; I don't think he would have done something like that. Hell, even I wouldn't do something like this. I collected the two flags and added them to the makeshift strap on my waist, making them ten, plus the two I was still holding in my hands. That makes thirteen.

After the little unexpected but slightly expected confrontation, we decided to wait for a bit before continuing towards the center. After an hour of rest (not that we needed it), we continued until the time for the trial remained less than an hour.

"Hey, is it just me, or has the boundary stopped moving?" Lara asked. "Now that you mention it, it seems so," Tokito replied.

"Since it's like that, let's wait here for a bit. We'll wait for others to wear themselves out before launching our attacks." 'Either she is very stupid, or very cunning,' I thought. There's no way the others won't think of that, which means it's just a way to drag out things until the very end—which, I gotta admit, will be very chaotic.

But alas, it looked like we wouldn't be settling. Four cadets came into view; two of them were holding gold flags. One I knew very well—it was the red-haired bastard—and the other was Lily Greatwoods. "Fancy meeting you here, Aurelia," Lily beamed. I could instantly tell it was fake.

"Likewise," Aurelia replied.

"So which one are you taking?" I heard Lily ask the red-haired bastard. "I'll take Aurelia, you take that lowlife," he gestured at Tokito.

Victor had met Lily after Aurora collected all of his flags except one. He was so angry at his useless group that he eliminated them himself. Then he met Lily, who proposed they team up. She only had two of her group members remaining, and altogether had twelve flags, so he agreed to the team-up.

And now he was thankful he did. There were twenty-four flags here—thirteen were with that maggot he had effortlessly crushed during the combat class, and the rest were with Aurelia's group members.

-----

I saw Victor move to attack Aurelia, blood-red flames rolling off his form, so hot that they seemed to ignite the air itself. But Aurelia was no pushover either. A chilling aura erupted around her, freezing everything around her—and unfortunately, some of her group members. Flames met ice, and steam escaped like from a volcano meeting water.

'Their fight would most likely end with Aurelia's entire group wiped out,' I thought in glee. When that happened, I could stealthily pick up their flags.

On our side, Lily faced Tokito. He had already transformed into his hybrid form, while Lily—trees and vines erupted from where she stood and shot towards our group with surprising speed. Tokito dodged the first vine, but it looked like it wasn't going for him in the first place, and pierced into the neck of the guy who could hover a few meters.

Then our group was reduced to five. Lara tried to burn the roots trying to entangle her, but to no avail. Her flames were nowhere near as hot as that red-haired bastard's. Then a few vines shot towards me, but I was already expecting them. Even though I barely dodged them, just like before, it was as if they weren't heading for me. They had taken out the remaining two mobs of our team, leaving only Lara, Tokito, and I.

I wanted to see what was happening on the side of Aurelia and Victor, as steam kept billowing from there. But these vines wouldn't even let me look. The slightest mistake, and I would be gone.

This girl was a beast. She was fighting Tokito and still finding time to attack me. 'Or is it that the vines are autonomous?' I thought. It was feasible. 'No wonder she was rank three,' I thought. I kept dodging and repelling those I couldn't. Throughout this trial, I hadn't fought a single time. I had only been safekeeping the flags. It looks like it's time for me to fight.

I raised my arm at an angle that would surely hit the green-haired girl. I was behind Tokito, so I had to be careful not to hit him. So I moved to the side, and once I got a clear shot—'repel.'

An overwhelming repulsive force shot out from me and towards Lily. All the vines in the way were blown back too, but Lily didn't move back an inch. 'The hell!?' I cursed inwardly. I was astonished by that, but it was only when I looked well that I saw it. She was rooted to the ground—literally. No, her lower limbs had turned into roots and were firmly into the ground.

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