As night descended, the forest exhaled a colder breath.
Birds fell silent, beasts stirred, and somewhere deep within the tangled darkness, unseen claws traced invisible paths through the undergrowth, as if the entire Holy Land had quietly shifted from a battlefield into a hunting ground.
The fierce competition of the day, filled with blood, ambition, and clashing steel, seemed to have slipped by in a blink, like a blade flashing once before vanishing back into its sheath.
Yet what Ryan had done in that single day… was anything but fleeting.
With him at the center, the North District candidates had transformed from scattered embers into a growing flame.
And the results of that transformation were nothing short of staggering.
In just one day, they had eliminated 263 candidates from the Eastern, Western, and Southern Districts.
