"Crack" the crystal cracked and fell into little pieces. However none of the recruits batted an eyelid as they were each focused on their Resonance crystal. The bald instructor walked over to Kai with the same little smile on his face. "Guess this one is certainly failing in the afternoon" the instructor thought to himself. The rest of the recruits proceeded to do this for the rest of the day. Some were very good at Chi Manipulation while some were terrible at maintaining their form. But it seemed everyone recruited to the Dominion of Blades simply did not know when to give up. It was soon afternoon and dark clouds had covered the sky. The recruits were led out of the classroom to the outside of the fortress towards the mountain. They headed toward the jagged northern edge of the mountain a place known as the Bridge of the Whispering Void.
It wasn't a bridge in any traditional sense. It was a series of narrow obsidian pillars, each no wider than a dinner plate, suspended over a misty, bottomless chasm. The gap between each pillar was a leap of faith, and the air between them shimmered with a distorted, oily sheen. This time however the ranked weren't present for the physical exercise. "The classroom is for children," the scarred woman said, standing at the edge of the abyss. Her obsidian armor seemed to absorb the little light that penetrated the fog that had formed. "Manipulation is useless if you cannot maintain it under the weight of the world. This is the Weight of Atmosphere trial. Beside her, the bald instructor held a strange, pulsating brass sphere. "The chasm is filled with a pressurized Chi field," he explained, his eyes lingering on Kai for a heartbeat too long. "To cross, you must wrap your Chi around your body like a second skin. If your focus wavers, the atmosphere will treat you like an ant under a boot."
He didn't give an order. He simply tapped the brass sphere. A low frequency hum rippled through the air, and suddenly, the gravity felt three times stronger. Several recruits collapsed instantly, their knees shattering against the hard earth before they had even reached the first pillar."Move!" the woman barked. Darius was the first to leap. He was a brute, but his Chi was thick. A jagged, orange aura flared around him, pushing back the crushing air as he landed on the first pillar. Lucien followed with a fluid, effortless grace, his white light shimmering like a diamond shield. He didn't even look back. Kai stepped to the edge. He felt the pressure immediately it felt like being submerged in deep water, a crushing weight that wanted to squeeze the air from his lungs. He reached for his core, for that "abyss" he had discovered. He didn't try to push a shield out like the others. Instead, he opened the "drain." As he stepped onto the first pillar, the crushing pressure rushed toward him, but instead of flattening him, it was sucked into his skin. To the observers, it looked as if the air was warping around Kai, creating a pocket of absolute, eerie stillness.
But behind him, the horror began. A boy Kai recognized from the well a quiet recruit who had shared a nod with him the night before leaped for the third pillar. Halfway through the air, his faint blue shield flickered. There was a sound like a dry branch snapping. The boy's body didn't just fall; it was imploded. In a sickening blur of red, his chest collapsed inward, and he vanished into the mist without even a chance to scream. Then came the "Chi Storm." The instructor twisted the dial on the brass sphere. The pressure doubled. The "Whispering Void" began to earn its name as the wind howled with the force of a hurricane, laced with razor sharp Chi shards.
"Help me!" a recruit who was a C rank named Tobias screamed. He was clinging to the fifth pillar, his clothes shredded. His shield was sparking, turning a dull, sickly grey. Kai was three pillars away. He could see the terror in his eyes the same terror he'd seen in the fight clubs when a man realized the match was over. He reached out, his hand cutting through the pressurized air with unnatural ease. But as his fingers brushed his, the "abyss" in his palm flared. He didn't just touch him, he accidentally inhaled the last of her protective Chi. His eyes widened. The green light vanished from her body. No, Kai thought, reaching out further, but it was too late. The atmosphere slammed into him with the force of a falling mountain. He was flattened against the obsidian pillar for a split second before his bones turned to powder, and he slid silently into the fog.
Kai stood frozen on the narrow perch. Around him, the chasm was a symphony of destruction. He watched as a group of four recruits, trying to hold onto each other to stabilize their shields, were caught in a localized Chi vortex. Their screams were cut short as they were twisted into a single, unrecognizable mass of flesh and cloth before being tossed into the dark. "Don't look back, trash!" Darius yelled from the far side. He had made it, though he was gasping for air, his orange glow dimming. Kai forced his legs to move. He stopped trying to help. He stopped looking at the faces. He became a machine of consumption, walking through the carnage while his core greedily swallowed the very pressure that was murdering his peers.
By the time Kai leaped onto the solid ground of the far side, the silence had returned. But it was different now. It was the silence of a graveyard. Of the two hundred unranked recruits who had started the afternoon training, barely eighty stood on the far ledge. Many were weeping; others were staring blankly at the mist, waiting for friends who would never emerge. The scarred woman walked among the survivors, her boots clicking on the stone. She didn't offer a word of comfort. She didn't even acknowledge the dead. "One hundred and fifty failures," she said, her voice cold and clinical. "The dining hall will be less crowded tonight. Mourn your losses and remember only the strong survive here." Kai looked at his hands. They weren't trembling from the weight of the mountain, but from the weight of what he had become. He looked at the mist, where the Tobias' green light had vanished. He hadn't just survived; he had fed on the very thing that killed him. Lucien approached him, his white hair windswept but his expression unreadable. He looked at Kai's hands, then at the swirling faintly gray eyes." You're a monster, Kai. I saw what happened although I don't understand how it happened.," Lucien whispered, though there was no malice in it only a terrifying, cold realization. "But in this place... that's the only to become stronger and to survive."