Lucifer: Godless Reawakening

[Emma's POV:]

The air throbbed with panic. Even without looking, I could feel it—sharp breaths, scraping steel, the frantic thud of feet shifting in the fog-drenched grass.

It had been an hour since we left the ceremonial hall. Out here, the fog still clung to us like a wet blanket, swallowing shapes and sounds whole. We knew the direction of the exit—William had ensured that—but every step toward it was met with another obstacle crawling out of the mist.

"Gah! Need help!"

Warren's shout cracked through the haze. He'd barely lifted a finger until now, yet three goblins had carved into him from the left.

I shifted my weight, extended a hand, and murmured a chant. The glow wrapped around his arm, knitting skin and sealing blood as cleanly as tying a ribbon.

"Thanks…" he panted, shoulders trembling.

"There is no end to this!"

Lextor's voice strained, higher than usual, just before he slammed his palm into a wolf's chest. The creature skidded back but didn't fall. For someone like Lextor to fail to kill in one strike… the fog was eating at their senses far worse than they realized.

SHLINK

The sound was wet, bloody.

Kevin, barely upright, dragged his blade free from the imp he'd intercepted mid-air. His legs shook—moles had battered him earlier, and the fog kept pulling at his balance like invisible hands.

"Why don't they end?!" Anna shrieked somewhere to my right, baton whipping through the air with no rhythm, no aim. She hit whatever came close, and right now, that was the only thing keeping her alive.

Gloria wasn't faring better. Her forehead glistened, breaths coming sharp. Her aether pulsed outward in messy waves, slipping through the fog like frantic heartbeat echoes. Exhaustion… and fear.

I let my gaze drift to William.

He stood in the center of the chaos—spine straight, hands dangling loosely on his sides, a deep frown cutting between his brows. Not fear but there was struggle. And more than that.

Annoyance.

This wasn't strength they were testing. It was endurance. Resolve. How long we could keep putting one foot in front of the other while the fog tried to smother every scrap of clarity.

A tug at my shirt pulled my attention down.

The child tightened her grip, fingers curled like she feared I'd fade into the fog too. Her eyes weren't on me at all—they were fixed on William.

…Huh. Clinging to me all this time, yet worrying about my boyfriend. Adorable timing.

William suddenly turned. His eyes locked with mine.

I met his gaze, steady.

Something flickered across his face—concern, brief but unmistakable.

I drew in a breath to tell him I was fine, that my aether reserves were far from depleted, that I could keep shielding us—

—but my silence reached him faster than my words ever could.

And that silence turned out to be both a blessing… and a mistake.

…..

The surveillance room had gone utterly still.

Dozens of faces—students, instructors, councilmen—stood frozen before the screens as the fog-warped battlefield unfolded in grainy clarity. Not a whisper dared cut the air; the only sound was the constant static hum of sorcery and the distant echoes of chaos bleeding through the feed.

Outside, their prodigies were being swallowed alive by numbers no sane examiner should deploy. Monsters poured from every direction, a ceaseless tide that gave no pause, no breath, no mercy. The students on the field weren't fighting battles anymore—they were surviving seconds.

Even Lextor, the one everyone boasted was a one-man army, buckled under the weight. The fog slowed his movements, choked his lungs, turned each strike into a labored grind. Whenever he cleared a space, three more beasts darted in to fill it.

"This is the first challenge…" someone whispered, disbelief trembling in their voice. "Why is the council pushing this far?"

Another voice followed, quiet but sharp, "They're trying to break them. To see who stands after being stripped to the bones."

Eyes drifted to Gloria's screen.

Her aura flickered wildly, flaring and collapsing like a candle guttering in a storm.

"I can't imagine what she's feeling," a student murmured. "Being the only one who can sense anything in that fog… she must be hanging by threads."

"It won't end well if this keeps up," someone else added, the dread in their tone unmistakable.

A handful of spectators couldn't hide their smirks. Watching the so-called "Superior Seven" stagger under such pressure brought a certain vindictive satisfaction. But even those smiles were thin—forced, nervous. Because beneath that fleeting schadenfreude lay a colder truth.

Their turn was coming.

The Council's tests over the last three days had proven one thing with brutal clarity:

Compassion held no place here.

Weakness meant elimination.

And incompetence—real or perceived—was treated like a stain to be wiped clean.

Domella's eyes remained half-lidded, sharp as a blade's edge, as she watched the screens filled with scrambling bodies and frayed nerves. Panic had spread through the group like rot, and even William—Lancelot's prized student—was caught in its grip.

They had no idea what to do. It showed in every disjointed movement, every misjudged strike, every moment they drifted out of formation. The fog wasn't their enemy; their own disarray was.

Domella remembered the skepticism she'd received when proposing this challenge. The looks. The questions. The subtle contempt. Yet her stance hadn't wavered.

This test wasn't about strength. Not stamina. Not aether capacity.

It was about cohesion. Thought. Leadership.

*This challenge cannot be won unless they function as a true team and show wits.*

She had said that plainly—unapologetically—during the council meeting. And now the truth of it played out right before them.

"You will be labeled as failures if none of you takes command," she had warned the students.

And the question still hung like a heavy stone:

Who would step forward?

William had started well—assigning roles, giving direction, stabilizing their initial formation. His influence had rippled through the group, steadying them.

But pressure tears at even the surest grip.

The fog, the monsters, the exhaustion… and now panic. It was eating their structure from within. What had begun as a coordinated unit was unraveling, thread by thread.

If no one seized control now—if no voice cut through the chaos—they would crumble before even clearing the *first* stage.

Domella leaned closer to the screen, gaze colder than the fog surrounding the students.

"Show me," she murmured. "Who among you still remembers how to think."

But what followed on the screen left her completely shocked, her lips parting, eyes widening.

Unlike what she thought, this challenge wasn't overcome by teamwork.

But …by one man's might.

"W-What?!"

Two hundred beasts, fifty soldiers.

All knocked out.

°°°°°°°°°°

A/N:- Thanks for reading. Moving forward, we would know William's limitations for the first time during this test.