NOVEL NEXT Chapter 67: My kind of training
"Do not talk to the fog," Damien Bloodbane muttered. He quietly manipulated his death energy to resist the silver fog entering his body.
It worked somewhat as his mind cleared slightly.
Glancing at Jiang Xiao Yu, she was already doing the same thing.
"It's like swimming through soup," Lin Xiu grunted, squinting. "I can't even focus my mana anymore."
Zhao Rui swayed slightly and burst out laughing. "I can't tell if I'm angry or happy. This is the worst day of my life."
"Guys…" Mu Qingyu said with a small, hiccupped laugh. "I think we're getting mana drunk."
Ji Chen exhaled slowly and steadied himself. Wind energy started to swirl around him. He was the third person to think of resisting the mana fog.
"This is mental torture" Jennifer Aquafrost muttered. "They want to see if someone will make the sacrifice to end the suffering."
Damien Bloodbane's eyes flicked to the button, then to the slowly thickening fog swirling around their waists.
The chamber was growing hazy. Their breathing slowed. The air smelled faintly of lavender and ozone, a dangerous mix of calm and static tension.
Jiang Xiao Yu leaned against the wall, looking straight at Damien Bloodbane. "If no one presses it… I wonder what happens when the timer hits zero."
Damien Bloodbane looked back at her, eyes clear even through the mist.
"Probably something worse than toilets," he said flatly.
And with that, the countdown ticked past 3:00… still no one moved.
2:00.
The silence thickened. No one wanted to clean the toilets. That much was very clear.
1:00.
As the timer dipped past 0:30, the mana fog grew thick enough to chew. The metallic taste of compressed elemental residue clung to every breath, and the chamber swayed ever so slightly, as if mocking their hesitation.
No one moved.
Then suddenly…
CRACK!
Lin Fei's foot shot out.
BAM!
It slammed into the floor inches from Fatty's leg, the impact loud enough to snap everyone out of their daze.
Lin Bao and Lin Xiu charged in.
No words. No warnings. Just movement. Efficient. Coordinated. Predatory.
Fatty's eyes went wide.
He yelped, turned to run and instinctively dove behind Damien Bloodbane.
But Damien Bloodbane didn't move. He didn't even look at the triplets. He simply muttered under his breath.
"One Dragonfang for every time I get hit."
Fatty froze.
Then his eyes narrowed.
Something clicked.
And then…
BOOM!
Like a landmine in a donut shop, Fatty exploded.
He spun out from behind Damien Bloodbane with a roar that belonged to a much larger creature.
"YOU LITTLE SHITS! YOU THINK DRAGONFANGS GROW ON TREES?!" Fatty roared angrily.
Lin Fei reached for him and got suplexed into the wall so hard it left a dent.
Lin Bao lunged next only to be grabbed mid-air and hurled overhead like a sack of cabbages.
Lin Xiu tried to flank, but he was caught, spun in a vicious arc, and used like a battering ram to knock the other two across the chamber.
The fog swirled around their crashing bodies.
And then Fatty's eyes locked on the button.
He charged, scooped up the half-conscious Lin Bao like a javelin, and hurled him forward.
"FLY, YOU SMUG SHIT!"
0:01… 0:00.
WHAM!
But it was too late.
The chamber went dark.
A second later, red emergency lights flashed on. The walls pulsed with mana, and the projection changed.
Result: No Candidate Chosen.
Penalty Activated.
The floor beneath them dropped.
All eleven plummeted screaming into a pitch-black shaft and landed hard into a new chamber below. This one was filled with training drones, hundreds of them, each armed with stun batons, rubber projectiles, and mana disruptors.
An extremely disappointed voice echoed overhead.
"Cowards. If none of you have the resolve to sacrifice yourself, then all of you will bear the price."
The drones activated with a deafening hum.
Professor Kong Hu's voice followed.
"First lesson. Sometimes, a single sacrifice can save everyone, including yourself, from a world of pain. This is the Collective Discipline Protocol: Death Mode. Survive for one hour."
The hundreds of drones surged toward the twelve with mechanical shrieks.
And Damien Bloodbane… smiled.
"Now… this is my kind of training."
The room exploded into chaos as the first wave of drones lunged forward, stun batons crackling with raw mana.
Ji Chen conjured a gale barrier just in time to deflect three stun strikes. Next to him Zhao Rui roared angrily, his fist lighting up with fire as he punched a drone's head clean off.
Across the chamber, Damien Bloodbane was already moving.
Effortlessly.
The first drone aimed for his back—he tilted his head slightly and let it miss by a hair.
The second came from above—he didn't even glance. His foot slid half a step forward, and the drone's baton whistled past his shoulder.
A third flew in from his blind spot—Damien Bloodbane crouched lazily, letting it crash into the floor where he'd just been.
Damien Bloodbane was literally dancing.
Graceful. Precise. Calculated down to the millimeter.
The swarm of drones treated everyone else like prey. But to Damien Bloodbane, they were just mildly annoying mosquitoes.
Then Fatty trundled up beside him, wiping sweat from his brow and panting like a winded ox. "Boss, we're sticking together, right? Safety in numbers! I'll take left, you take the rest!"
Damien Bloodbane glanced at him. Then Jiang Xiao Yu appeared on his other side, lips tight but eyes gleaming.
She didn't say anything. She just stood with him. That was enough.
"…Fine," Damien Bloodbane muttered. "But don't get in my way."
He moved again, this time slower.
Fatty was a powerhouse, smashing drones with reckless fury, his belly bouncing like a shock-absorbing weapon.
"GET SOME, YOU BUZZING TIN TWERPS!" he howled, grabbing one by the legs and swinging it like a club.
Jiang Xiao Yu moved like a ghost. Silent. Clean. Lethal. Her strikes weren't flashy, but each one disabled a drone with surgical precision.
Damien Bloodbane adjusted his rhythm to match theirs.