“It was him! The Librarian! He did it!”
The instructor's crimson optical lens whirred into focus, locking onto Brio with pinpoint malice. Brio merely offered a breezy, unapologetic shrug.
“Me? Sir, I’m in archival studies. My specialty involves… very careful page-turning,” Brio began, his tone dripping mock innocence. “I barely survived a rogue slime that almost gave me a papercut. What makes you think I could conjure such a magnificent spectacle of destruction? Perhaps Vasco here, with his legendary Blaze-Fist, was simply… *overly* enthusiastic with his training?”
Vasco spluttered, his face turning a shade of puce that clashed terribly with his tailored tunic. “Liar! You drew a dragon! A monster claw! It ripped out of a book!”
“A conceptual masterpiece, Vasco, darling. A sharp critique regarding the Spire’s lack of proper charcoal pencils,” Brio corrected, smirking. “Hardly an act of sabotage. More like a public service announcement.”
A steel gauntlet smashed down on a buckled terminal, shearing bent alloy. “Enough! I don’t care if you painted the ‘Mona Lisa’ with a bio-weapon, Nando! Half of Sector Gamma is scrap! This institution runs on raw lethality. If you can actually fight, demonstrate it. If not, you face trial as a saboteur!”
The crimson lens whirred, sweeping over the shaken youths huddled among rubble. “A live-fire drill! Now! We deploy a Class-III Arcanos-Beast in the Crucible. Anyone who can stand takes the field. Let’s see if your sketches keep you breathing, ink-drudge!”
Murmurs of panic broke out. A Class-III Arcanos-Beast was an apex predator, not a hollow drone. It was typically reserved for final examinations, not an impromptu execution.
Nayara clamped a bruising grip onto Brio’s wrist, pupils blown wide with sudden terror. “Don’t. You'll be torn apart. Tell him Vasco misfired, blame the console, anything!”
“And miss a chance to showcase my craft in an arena setting? Never,” Brio murmured, tapping her knuckles. Yet his mouth set tight, a split-second hitch in his swagger that only she caught.
Within minutes, the squad stood herded onto the Crucible's blast tiles. Static hummed against the dome overhead, four-tier dampening fields humming to keep rogue abominations trapped inside. Over the speaker horn, the commander bellowed: “Release the beast!”
A rift tore open across the flagstones, boiling with amethyst radiation. Chitin plates scraped against flagstones as an eight-legged hulk hauled itself into the ring, pulsing yellow sensory clusters twitching above thick cords of bioluminescent fungus.
[SIMULATION OVERRIDE DETECTED]
[EXTERNAL ANOMALY: INTER-DIMENSIONAL INCURSION – THREAT LEVEL: KAIJU-ALPHA]
[STAR-EATER FACTION SIGNATURE CONFIRMED]
The system messages flashed across every cadet’s visor, turning the fear into pure, unadulterated terror. This wasn’t a simulation. This was real. The invader hissed, dissolving the floor beneath its belly into smoking black tar. It outmatched any Class-III, spewing mold spores that ate straight through the chamber's alloy tiles.
“Apex seal ruptured!” the platform speaker cracked as the supervisor clutched his plasma sabre, backing behind reinforced quartz.
The brute sprang forward on jointed talons, hurtling straight toward Brio, Nayara, and a paralyzed Vasco.
A searing, violet blast erupted from one of the Kaiju’s fungal tendrils, aimed squarely at Brio’s chest. He knew, with a chilling certainty, that this wasn’t a practice shot. This was meant to atomize him.
Nayara lunged, throwing her shoulder across his ribs. The purple bolt slammed her spine point-blank. Concrete shattered under her boots, sending her skidding through an ash trough with a ragged cry.
[ALLY: NAYARA’S CLASS – ‘TEMPLAR’S SHIELD’ – STATS: DEACTIVATED (0% COMBAT EFFECTIVENESS)]
[DAMAGE TAKEN: LETHAL (100% LIFE FORCE EXPENDED)]
[TEMPORARY OVERRIDE: SOUL-LINK ACTIVE (SOUL-BOUND ALLY WILL DEFY DEATH FOR 30 SECONDS)]
Brio froze, his breath turning to ice. Nayara. Zero combat effectiveness? What had she risked for him?
“Nayara!” Vasco shrieked, scrambling backward like a frightened crab. Other survivors opened fire, hurling plasma rounds, arc-coils, and kinetic blasts into the creature's thick hide. The shells bounced off harmlessly.
[ERROR: INSUFFICIENT PLOT ARMOR. ABILITY 'FLAME-SPEAR' INEFFECTIVE.]
[ERROR: INSUFFICIENT PLOT ARMOR. ABILITY 'VOID-SLASH' INEFFECTIVE.]
[ERROR: INSUFFICIENT PLOT ARMOR. ABILITY 'SHOCKWAVE PUNCH' INEFFECTIVE.]
The sarcastic Apex-Codex, even in the face of planetary devastation, remained relentlessly unhelpful.
Brio dropped to his knees beside Nayara, whose chin was smeared crimson as she scraped uselessly at the stones. Thirty seconds. His glance swept the floor until he spotted a heavy folio: a dropped Bestiary codex left behind by a fleeing scribe.
He snatched it up, flipping through pages at impossible speed. His fingers, still coated with traces of the illegal nano-pigments from his inventory, a legacy of his past life, twitched. A woodcut print jumped out from the parchment: an electric roc tearing open a storm serpent. Perfect.
His gaze fell on Vasco, who was still trying to dig a hole with his fingernails to escape. An idea, devious and brilliant, sparked in Brio’s mind. Vasco's gold-stitched silk tunic, displaying his proud brawler badge, practically begged for vandalism.
“Vasco, my pet! A little collaboration, if you please!” Brio yelled, a manic grin spreading across his face. He scrambled over, ignoring the Kaiju’s renewed roars and the desperate cries of other cadets. Vasco shrieked, mistaking Brio’s approach for an attempt to use him as a human shield.
Before the blubbering noble could roll clear, Brio pinned his collar and dragged three pigment-stained fingers down the fine cloth. Rapid charcoal-black strokes mapped out wings, needle quills, and static arcs right across the embroidered fist.
“Get off! My designer silk! This weave cost two months' allowance!” Vasco wailed, flailing as Brio pinned him with a knee, tracing feathers with surgical precision.
[UNAUTHORIZED AESTHETIC DEVIATION DETECTED]
[NEW ARTISTIC INTERPRETATION: ‘STORM-FEATHER: VANGUARD EDITION’]
[STAT MULTIPLIER: 15,000% (CHAOS BONUS APPLIED)]
[PERFORMANCE ART: DEPLOYING ‘STORM-FEATHER’]
The moment Brio lifted his thumb from the final barb, the ink ignited into blue flame. Cloth split with the crack of a snapped cable as the painted aviary peeled free of the weave, wings of azure voltage expanding outward until its screech drowned the monster's roar.
The phantom raptor plunged, wings spanning thirty yards. Its static talons slammed into the chitin carapace, detonating into a flash that scoured the beast down to drifting carbon.
Where the monstrosity had squatted, a glowing memory core tumbled onto scorch marks. Beside it, Vasco sat naked in the soot, covering his groin with soot-stained palms while blubbering in disbelief, his clothes completely consumed by the ink spell.
[MISSION COMPLETE: KAIJU-ALPHA NEUTRALIZED]
[ARTISTIC IMPACT: CATASTROPHIC (REWARDS ALLOCATED)]
[HUMILIATION INDEX: OFF THE CHARTS (BONUS REWARDS ALLOCATED)]
The arena went dead still, broken only by Vasco's wet sniffling. Up on the observation rim, the supervisor stared downward, mouth open. Brio dropped beside Nayara, his features tightening with quiet dread before he snapped his usual smirk back into place.
He pocketed the glowing core, feeling its warmth pulse against his palm. A small projection beamed above it: a roster of marks. At the top, Nando’s face bore a bloody crimson slash. Just underneath, marked with a scarlet bullseye, sat Brio’s true face—the outlaw forger from his past life.