’Cold... cold...’These were the thoughts filling Izel’s mind.
She had barely endured the heat in the first stage, only to find herself here now.
Freezing inside this liquid... and as if that weren’t enough, she was drowning, choking on the water.
She couldn’t breathe.
Her mind knew that she wouldn’t die here, that none of this was real—but the sensation was vivid, overwhelming.
Several times, she restrained herself from opening her mouth and taking a breath. She knew—
Instead of the air her mind demanded, water would rush in, freezing her internal organs.
’I need to endure... I can’t retreat here... I don’t want to lose again.’
Izel encouraged herself, trying to waste time and ignore the pain that seeped into her bones from the cold.
She wanted to scream more than once, but in the end, she managed to hold herself back.
It felt as though an eternity had passed while she was here, yet she knew it was nothing more than an illusion.
In reality, only a few seconds had gone by.
She looked around, downward, where there should have been a bottom to these waters... but there was nothing except darkness.
The same was true above her.
She turned her head and looked around, seeing her fourteen fellow trainees.
Or rather, they had been fourteen.
Now, there were only twelve.
Talia had been eliminated, along with someone else, it seemed.
Her eyes caught sight of Jin, clutching his throat as bubbles escaped from between his lips.
It was clear he was struggling to survive.
He clenched his teeth, trying to calm himself and his body, which had begun to lose control due to drowning in the freezing water.
A few seconds passed...
And with each passing second, Izel felt the water grow colder.
The chill crept into her bones, freezing the cells of her body as she suffocated.
Bubbles rose from somewhere close to her...
She turned her head to see Jin opening his mouth wide, trying to draw in a breath—only for cold water to flood in.
He grabbed his neck, trying to endure a little longer... but in the end, his lips moved, forming a simple word.
"Give up."
With the word formed on his lips, Jin disappeared.
Eleven people remained.
Izel wasn’t in a much better state. She felt on the verge of losing control of her body and opening her mouth to scream.
’Should I give up... maybe this is enough,’ she thought.
Even back in that furnace-like desert, she had managed not to think about giving up—but things were different now.
This was too much... far too much for a seventeen-year-old.
Slowly, the desire to give in began to take hold of her.
Her eyes caught sight of another person disappearing.
It was a girl with dark hair—Valia. Then, moments later, someone else vanished as well.
’No... I can’t endure any longer.’
She clenched her teeth as the pain reached an unbearable level.
Perhaps this stage was nearing its end... but Izel could no longer continue.
Her lips moved as she prepared to give up.
Water rushed into her mouth, reaching her stomach before she even realized it.
’Unbearable... unbearable...’
With that final thought, Izel Ashvil disappeared, followed by Naira, another girl.
Eight people remained... no—
Another young man was eliminated, leaving seven.
...
Among the seven remaining, Ivan Rexel was on the verge of giving up as well.
But somehow, he managed to endure until the end of the second stage.
The water vanished, along with the suffocating sensation.
Instead, the atmosphere became mild.
"Huff... huff."
Ivan gasped for breath.
"Finally..." he muttered.
He looked around, finding himself in a black void containing nothing at all. The others were nearby, the same situation as him.
’Which lunatic designed this test?’ Ivan thought as he finally rested after suffering through both extreme heat and extreme cold.
A few seconds after entering this space, winds began to strike them from below—or whatever direction this was.
With each passing moment, the wind grew stronger.
Ivan looked down to find a gray point approaching them.
’It’s not the wind that’s blowing... we’re falling.’
Everyone fell through the black void toward those glowing gray points.
With every moment, they became clearer, while a familiar sound entered Ivan’s ears.
A sound that shouldn’t have been here.
It resembled dozens of electric saws spinning at the same time... and with each moment, both the sound and the gray points grew clearer.
They turned out to be saw blades, directed straight at them...
"This is madness... this is madness..." Ivan shouted into the black void, his voice swallowed by the roar of the saws.
He tried to circulate the essence within his body, or do anything useful—but it was pointless.
He knew that right now, they were nothing more than ordinary humans, utterly powerless.
Ivan and the others drew close to the saws, their screams drowned out by the deafening noise.
And just before Ivan’s body could be torn into pieces... he made his decision.
"Give up."
Six remained.
...
What does it feel like to be cut apart by a saw?
If someone had asked Leona Starlin that question a day ago, she would have said she didn’t know...
But now, that question had been answered in Leona’s mind.
’Painful... unbearable... intolerable... I’ll go mad.’
All of these were descriptions of what had just happened.
Everyone’s bodies passed through dozens of saws, torn into pieces.
Their heads were severed, their limbs reduced to fragments falling through the black void.
And even so, they were still alive.
Leona felt every single moment as she passed through the saws.
How her flesh and bones were cut apart... the pain that assaulted her consciousness...
And yet, she didn’t scream.
Not because she didn’t want to, nor because she was strong—no.
But because her head had been separated from her body.
Slowly, something strange began to happen.
The pieces of her body gathered and fused together once more, perfectly, returning Leona to her original state.
That might have been a good thing—
If only she hadn’t arrived at another set of saws.
But this time, before they could cut her apart, she spoke a single word.
"Give up."
With that, five remained.