The next morning, Himo woke up to Phylia’s smile.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning, Master.”

Himo sat on the side of the bed. “I feel that something fun is going to happen today.” He chuckled and walked to the bathroom. After preparing himself, he walked to the exit door. “Let’s go.”

His snow-white tail waved from side to side as he smiled. "Phylia, let's go!"

“Yes!” She hugged his neck from behind and morphed into a white scarf.

The two left the room and aimed for the stadium. On their way there, Himo noticed being aimed by several glances from other students. What’s up with them? He looked them back, but they diverted their eyes. Shrugging, he left their sight by entering into a portal. Soon enough, he reached the stadium. 

“How is this possible? Is this, really… the same stadium?”

It had changed. Completely. No ring was in sight—surrounded by the stands that towered from above a gray wall, a field of green acted as the new stadium. Over ten times bigger than the previous days, the stadium was filled with small mounds, trees, rocks, and a thin mist that gifted limited visibility.

On the stands, the first row was occupied by a hundred A-class students. From high above, they looked down with majestic presence at the crowd of a thousand B-class students. The defeated students stood far behind them—despite many seats being empty, they dared not to occupy them. Lastly, the teachers were spread evenly around the place.

In the center of the stadium, the headmaster floated in plain sight. His white radiated in the midst of green and attracted countless gazes. “Today, the exam is going to be a little different.” He let out a chuckle as his booming voice reached the deepest corner of the stadium. “It will be an all versus all fight! You may fight one on one, all against one, or even not fight at all if you so desire!”

With a grand wave of his hand, he said, “No need to hold back: if you’re about to receive a fatal hit, I’ll teleport you away. To reach the A-class, you’ll have to be one of the remaining thirty!” Grinning, he last added, “Good luck!”

He snapped his fingers and vanished—he reappeared on the stands—and the B-class students found themselves teleported to random places of the stadium, each separated by tens of meters.

Himo blinked. Ignoring the green around him, he looked at the headmaster on the stands. Just how strong are longevity realm cultivators? But his thoughts were cut short by an approaching arrow.

Himo grabbed his violin, but when the arrow flashed red, he quit the thought of blocking it. He skipped aside using [Hopper] and glanced at the arrow as it flew past him—once it touched the ground, its tip burst into a sphere of fire.

“A spell used through a tool? That’s possible too?” Himo’s eyes lit up as he turned to the student who shot the arrow.

Atop a mound, the student wielded bow and arrows. With the next shot already nocked, he pointed his bow to Himo as he muttered a few words. The arrow flashed red and left his bow. And he nocked the next. And the next. In but a moment, several arrows formed a volley behind the first. They broke the sound barrier and advanced parallel to the ground, all with a single target: Himo.

And yet, they were still too slow. Himo leaped in the midst of them and reached the mound where stood the student. The student paled and stepped back in fright, but Himo ignored him. He whirled to take a look at his surroundings.

Running around the field, the students clashed with one another. None approached Himo. They all stood at a distance.

Himo smiled and nodded. “That’s good.” He sat cross-legged on the mound and took his violin from the storage.

“What are you doing?” The student, still behind him, frowned at the sight. He clenched his grip on the bow and took a few steps away from the child. Meanwhile, he hid a dagger behind his back.

Himo grinned and held up his violin bow. He moved it to the violin’s strings and said, “It would be unfair if I were to eliminate students left and right.” He thrust the fiddlestick with a great swing and the violin yelled its music. “After all, any respectable last boss will wait for its challengers!”

A bubble expanded from him and covered the mound and its surroundings.

“An illusion realm!” The student widened his eyes and jumped away, hand on the bow. He nocked an arrow and pointed at Himo to then—nothing. Before he could realize it, he found himself on a seat of the stands.

Himo, looking at a ball of magma that floated where the student once was, sighed. “I’ve just lost a spectator…”

-----

On one side of the stadium, thirty students walked side by side. They defeated every student they saw and marched to the center of the stadium.

“Everyone!” Their leader raised his voice. “Remember that we’ll fight together and win together. Our first objectives are Shu Himo and Aura Azusa—once we defeat them, no one will be able to stop us!”

A student among their ranks frowned. “Will we be able to defeat them?”

“If we give up before trying, what did we come to this academy for?” The leader turned to look at the student that spoke. “Raise your head and brave through the danger! Together, we can do it!”

This group was the one that had seen the exams from the start. Armed with precious knowledge, they came up with countless strategies to win. They believed to have victory at hand.

And then... they met Azusa.

-----

At the same time, on the opposite side of the stadium, twenty students marched in a spread formation.

“Have you seen them yet?” The leader, walking in the center, yelled at the forward-most students.

“No! No trace of neither Shu Himo nor Aura Azusa!”

“Understood!” The leader replied, “Remember to notify us immediately if you see them so that we can do our best to run away!”

While they walked, the pleasant melody of a violin accompanied them.

-----

After ten short minutes, teachers and headmaster felt stifled at the sight of the stadium.

The green had turned into a craters-filled land, fires had burned most of the trees, and students acted like groups of survivors from an apocalypse. As if that wasn't enough, a particular area of the arena kidnapped any student that stepped inside.

Among the thousand students that began the test, only a third was still in there.

It wasn't a stadium anymore. It was Himo and Azusa's hunting range.