Half a day's march passed in a steady grind.
As the Kinzoku's thousand pressed south, the small settlements and carved dirt roads gradually thinned out, until every lingering trace of human civilization vanished entirely into raw wilderness.
Then, the earth abruptly cut away.
The thousand Martial Apprentices ground to a halt at the precipice of a sheer cliff, dropping hundreds of meters into a suffocating abyss.
Below them stretched the boundless, emerald sea of the Severian Plateau—tens of thousands of square kilometers of primordial jungle. Towering, hulking canopies swayed in the wind, while strange, massive creatures with vast wingspans glided effortlessly through the mist. Terrifying roars echoed up the rock face, reminding everyone that this was a pocket of the untamed Beast Domain, an uncolonized territory thrust straight between the Sekigaharan Confederacy and other neighboring superpowers.
The cliff served as a natural barrier as human civilization was fortunately on a higher-elevation, and that gave it a good buffer zone that separated humanity from the dangerous beast domain.
A ripple of uneasy murmurs spread through the ranks.
"...How are we getting down that?"
"If I lose my footing on the way down, I'm dead before I even hit the trees."
"Yeah... that looks impossible."
"Damn, I hate being really high up..."
FWHOOSH.
Before panic could take root, Senior Ephraim descended from the air, hovering effortlessly over the lip of the gorge with his arms crossed over his broad chest, with his spear on his back.
"We have arrived," Ephraim's voice boomed across the entire line, effortlessly drowning out the wind.
"We are already a day behind schedule. The other major clans have already descended into different sectors of the Severian Plateau to maximize our territorial claim, led by the Kaze Clan and backed by our heavy engineering and military units."
He paused, scanning the crowd. "As we speak, high-level negotiations are underway with twelve foreign nations to carve up the land rights of this newly emerged dungeon. Following intense talks with the Kandrian Empire, the Severian Pact was officially signed. By decree, every combatant operating inside the plateau is restricted strictly to the Martial Apprentice realm—a precaution to prevent desperate, losing nations from deploying Squires and purposefully triggering the dungeon's self-defense mechanisms, which would destroy the territory for everyone."
Ephraim noticed that only a handful of minds, including Mikan—seemed to grasp the political scope of what he was describing.
The rest of these idiots don't understand the significance of what they're doing...
He let out a short, heavy sigh.
"In short: don't worry about getting crushed by Martial Squires. Everything down there is in your weight class," Ephraim declared flatly. "Your objective is simple. Find a way down this cliff, establish a fortified base camp in the lowlands, scout our designated border limits, and stand ready as secondary shock troops if our vanguard needs reinforcements."
A noble scion raised his hand, shouting up over the wind. "What about you, Senior Ephraim? Where will you and the escort force be?"
"The Squires and I stay right here on the ridge," Ephraim smirked, a dangerous glint in his eyes. "If we take one step past this cliff, foreign observers might claim we breached the pact. And as much as I love a good slaughter... fighting twelve nations at once might give our nation indigestion."
A wave of tense, eager laughter rippled through the young warriors.
War was always welcome... but winnable wars were preferable.
"That's everything," Ephraim barked, waving his arm toward the abyss.
"Go. Now."
Chaos erupted along the ridge the instant Ephraim gave the word.
Squad leaders barked frantic orders into the howling winds of the cliffside, trying to maintain formation among hundreds of restless martial artists.
The noble houses, rich with resources and foresight, immediately seized the prime cliffside drop-offs. Their attendants unfurled heavy reels of reinforced esoteric silk ropes, while hammer-wielding martial artists slammed heavy iron pitons into the solid bedrock, driving them deep with powerful slams.
Further down the line, the independent and commoner squads had to rely on sheer grit and raw martial technique.
Lacking expensive climbing gear, several daredevils drew heavy iron spears and drove them straight into the sheer stone face as they slid downward, leaping from shaft to shaft in a death-defying, multi-stage descent.
Another group attempted to carve makeshift footholds into the shale using brute-force leg strikes, but the stakes were terrifyingly real—a single missed step meant plunging hundreds of meters into the hungry green canopy below.
The air filled with the deafening clatter of iron pitons, the sharp cracks of shattered rock, and shouting captains trying to stop their formations from collapsing into a desperate bottleneck.
To make matters worse, several arrogant noble scions began demanding hefty fees or servitude pledges from commoner squads in exchange for access to their secured rope lines. They openly exploited the panic to force lesser warriors beneath their thumb before even setting foot in the plateau.
Arguments flared, tempers boiled, and handguards clicked as weapons were half-drawn in the rising chaos along the edge of the abyss.
Senior Ephraim sighed heavily from above as he witnessed such a disgusting display. But he had decided long ago not to meddle in the petty squabbles of the lower realms, turning away and floating higher into the skies alongside his escorts to observe from a distance.
Mikan slowly walked toward the cliff's edge, not bothering with any of the squabbling.
Noticing her approach, a handsome noble scion standing beside a pristine, reinforced silk rope line flashed a charming smile.
"Lady Mikan!" he called out, stepping into her path and gesturing grandly to his house's prime drop-off point. "The descent below is far too treacherous for anyone to navigate alone. Why not utilize my family's secured line? So long as we agree to stick together once we hit the battlefield below, I'm sure we can—"
Without saying a single word or even acknowledging his existence, Mikan broke into a sudden sprint right past him toward the drop-off and leapt straight off the cliff side with a flip.
The noble's smile shattered as he reached out in panic. "Wait, what—?!"
Gasping screams erupted from the apprentices watching her plunge into empty space—only for their jaws to drop in utter disbelief.
Drawing upon the fundamental Ki control Merun had taught them last-minute, a faint, almost imperceptible hum of Ki surged beneath the soles of her boots, gently pushing against the air currents and nullifying gravity's pull.
With quiet, breathtaking elegance, Mikan floated downward, casually stepping through thin air as if descending a grand staircase made of air.
"WHAT?! How is she doing that?!"
"Is she... Sky-walking?! A Martial Apprentice can do that?!"
"How on earth did she do that?! Tell me, I'm not seeing things, right?"
"Whatever it is... it seems Lady Mikan is truly a cut above all of us..."
The commoner Apprentices turned around to glare smugly at the noble scions.
The aristocrats flushed deep crimson in embarrassment, frantically yelling at their subordinates to hurry up with the rappelling gear. Not a single one of them possessed the ability nor confidence to just jump off a drop of such a height.
After all, a Martial Apprentice's raw body was still within normal human parameters; the only difference is that they've learned how to better effectively use their bodies for combat.
That and the discovery of their martial path.
True superhuman feats are only after one has attained their Martial Body, which is the Squire realm.
Near the back of the marching line, the tall, broad-shouldered warrior clad in full iron kabuto armor stepped up to the edge of the cliff.
Behind his steel faceguard, the man watched Mikan casually stroll down the sky and disappear under the rich green canopies below. A smile spreading across his face beneath his visor.
Looking past her and toward the horizon, the man took in the vast, treacherous expanse of the Beast Domain stretching into the clouds.
"What a big world." The man mumbled before disappearing in plain sight as the army continued their way down the cliffside.