The Trap

The cold chill was everywhere now. Lunette pulled her cloak tighter.

Days had passed since they landed in this… dimension. It wasn't just the humid air and the weird, glowing plants anymore. The very light around them had changed. It was no longer the vibrant purple-green she'd first seen. Now, it was blue-grey.

She crouched behind a cluster of shimmering, willow-like trees. Her sharp eyes scanned the movements of the creatures below. They were drawn to the Heart-Moss, same as the students. But the creatures, unlike the humans, didn't seem to be getting weaker. They just… moved. 

Lunette scoffed quietly. 'Prodigies of the Empire,' Most of them were fools. They got trapped so easily, thinking that those were actually giving them power.

She'd touched the moss once, on the first day. Just a small cluster, carefully. The surge was real, exhilarating even. But she could feel the side effects afterward.

Her Essence, vast as it was, felt a tiny tremor of instability afterwards. She hadn't touched it since. She relied on her own strength.

That was the difference between her and most of these nobles. They were born with power, with resources. She had fought for every single thing. 

That made her cautious and observant. It made her look beyond the obvious things.

The cold is definitely getting worse. She could feel it in her muscles and in the slight delay in her reactions. 

And she was the strongest here. She could only imagine what it was doing to the others.

She had seen groups of students huddled together, their faces pale, shivering even when they weren't fighting. They'd blamed the environment, the long trial, the constant combat. But Lunette had a nagging suspicion that it was more.

She watched a small group of three students, their eyes fixed on a glowing cluster of Heart-Moss further ahead.

They moved with a desperate urgency, their bodies swaying with fatigue. Lunette knew that look.

"Hey! Where are you heading?" she called out, her voice cutting through the eerie silence of the forest.

The students startled, turning to face her with wide, wary eyes. One, a boy with messy blonde hair, seemed ready to draw his weapon.

"Mind your own business, commoner," sneered a girl with a noble crest on her tattered tunic. Her voice was weak, but her arrogance was still strong.

Lunette ignored the insult. She'd heard worse. "That moss won't save you. It's draining you. All of it."

The blonde boy frowned. "Don't be ridiculous! It gives energy! We just need more! Everyone's heading to the nexus in the center. They say it'll make us unstoppable."

Lunette's jaw tightened. Everyone. That was it, wasn't it? the biggest trap. 

She'd heard the whispers too, vague rumors of a central point, a nexus of power. It hadn't sounded right.

"It's a lie," Lunette stated flatly. "The more you take, the more it takes from you. Look at the light. Look at how cold it's gotten. This place… it's feeding. On our energy."

The noble girl scoffed. "You just want to keep it all for yourself, don't you? Or you're scared. A commoner wouldn't understand the true nature of power."

Lunette just stared at her. She didn't bother arguing further. These fools are too far gone. 

She let them go, watching their forms disappear deeper into the increasingly blue-hued forest. 

She had her own path to consider. The central area, the 'Nexus Point' as the rumors called it, was clearly a death trap. But if everyone was going there, it meant something big was about to happen. A final confrontation, perhaps.

And in any trial, knowing where the action is, even if it's dangerous, was key. You couldn't win if you weren't there.

She began to move. She kept to the shadows, her movements fluid and silent. She needed to observe, to understand the full nature of this trap.

As she moved, she saw more and more signs of struggle. Freshly scarred trees, abandoned equipment, faint trails of blood. And everywhere, those sickeningly alluring Heart-Moss clusters, glowing with a promise they couldn't keep.

She passed by a clearing where a group of students had seemingly fought a large creature. The ground was torn up, and the Heart-Moss nearby was shattered, its glow noticeably dimmer. Several students lay slumped, unmoving. They hadn't been extracted yet. Their energy must be critically low.

Lunette felt a pang of grim satisfaction. See? I told you so.

She picked up a discarded water skin. Empty. These students hadn't even prepared for a prolonged stay, relying on the 'energy' from the moss. Another fatal mistake.

The air grew heavier. The blue-grey light intensified, making the world seem dead. The silence was broken only by the distant sounds of combat.

She reached to a ancient tree with branches that reached higher than the others. 

From here, she could see a vast clearing ahead, the Nexus Point. It was a chaotic mess of shimmering purple and green from the massive Heart-Moss clusters, intermingled with flashes of Primal Energy as students engaged formidable, obsidian-scaled creatures.

Moat if them are here, she thought, a grim confirmation. She knew all of them. After all, she wasn't coming from a prestigious family, so it was crucial to memorize and know the possible threats in her path.

There were about fifty people fighting, but only a handful of them stood out for her.

Rue, she recognized his broad shoulders and the heavy sword he wielded, cleaving through a beast with desperate strength. Altair, the noble, red-eyed leader, his alliance moving like a disorganized but still powerful unit, their spells and attacks flashing.

Lyra, nimble and fast, dancing between blows, looking for an opening.

And Vesper.

Lunette spotted him then, the silver-haired boy. He's the adopted son of the grand duke.

He stood near the edge of the major conflict, yet not fully engaged. He wasn't like Rue, throwing himself into the thick of it. Nor like Altair, directing a group. He was alone, moving with an almost imperceptible caution. He seemed to be observing.

Elar had warned Vesper about her. But Lunette had been watching him too, ever since his name was called at the academy gates. The scion of Von Stein, the "weakest" in the 4th Cycle, yet surrounded by whispers of his strange, almost unnatural abilities. He seemed… too calm for someone supposedly outmatched.

She saw him briefly "team up" with a small group of exhausted-looking students amd working with them for a couple of hours.

A cold wave washed over her, not just from the dimension, but from the sudden, chilling thought that hit her. He knows.

Vesper knew that the Heart-Moss wasn't helping, just like her.

She recalled his initial reputation. Unworthy, average. She didn't know him as good as others, there wasn't any information about him; thus, she thought he's just an average noble just like other ones. But Lunette had seen true mediocrity. And this wasn't it.

She watched him move. He never touched the moss.

The sounds of battle intensified below. Roars, screams, the clash of metal. The air itself vibrated with immense, draining power. 

Students were throwing everything they had into the fight, believing this was the final push. But Lunette now knew it was the final consumption. 

She focused her senses, pushing her own Primal Energy to be ready. 

The thrumming in the air wasn't just a background noise anymore. It was a pulse. And with every shattered Heart-Moss, every desperate surge of Primal Energy unleashed by a student, that pulse grew stronger and faster. The dimension was sucking it all in, becoming a giant, self-feeding vacuum.

A terrifying thought settled over Lunette. He hadn't just figured out the trap, he is a part of the trap. She recalled the rules. The last twenty are the winners, and he, instead of surviving, is…accelerating the trial…he's a part of the trial.

She clenched her fists.

The Headmistress had designed a brutal test, but Vesper had turned it into a slaughterhouse for his own benefit.

Lunette's immediate instinct was to warn everyone. To scream the truth into the chaotic battlefield below. But who would listen? They were too deep in, too exhausted and too blinded by the promise of salvation. And even if they did listen, what would they do? Stop fighting? Stop absorbing? They were already manipulated.

Her gaze fixed on Vesper again. His face was unreadable.

He wasn't fighting the monsters, but occasionally casting a small, ice spell, a minor disruption that seemed to nudge a creature towards a struggling student, or divert attention away from himself.

He was maintaining the illusion of a participant, while actively being the conductor.

The cold was worse now, stealing her breath. Her own Primal Energy felt thin, even with her careful conservation. She was strong, but not invincible.

She had two choices. Join the doomed struggle, try to fight her way through the exhaustion and the draining cold, and likely fail like the others. Or retreat, conserve her energy, and try to find a safe place from this monstrous, feeding dimension. But retreating meant potentially missing the end of the trial, missing the chance for acceptance. It meant admitting defeat, not just to the trial, but to Vesper's horrifying scheme.

No. I won't. Retreating isn't an option. I will observe. I will understand exactly how that guy is doing this. And then, if there was any way at all, I will turn his own twisted game against him.

Lunette, for the first time, felt a genuine thrill of danger, not from the monsters, but from a guy's mind.