The basin shook under the weight of three teams pressing their advantage. Lightning split the air, stone beasts slammed the ground, and handlers shouted over the chaos.

Rowan's voice rang out sharp, almost defiant. "Verdy, root the flank—don't let them push us in!"

The Verdalune Moss Lemur leapt from his shoulders, moss-tail glowing, vines snapping up to catch a plated hound mid-charge. The beast stumbled, howling, but the reprieve was fleeting.

Beside Rowan's group, their allied squad fought desperately. A shield-bearer clashed against a thunderous bear, sparks flying as his spirit beast buckled. Another handler shouted frantically for her eagle to evade, but the enemy's lightning twin-headed mayfly dove and ripped it from the sky.

One by one, the allied squad fell. First the hawk-handler, then the shield-bearer, then the rest. Their essence marks flared and vanished, silver light whisking them from the arena.

In moments, Rowan's alliance of ten was halved. Only his five remained, backs pressed against cracked stone, Verdy panting hard as moss-light sputtered along its tail.

The enemy captain sneered across the clearing, his three teams tightening their circle. "You're finished. Two teams can't beat three. Yield before we break you."

Rowan spat blood, his grin somehow still hanging on. "Funny thing about odds…" He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "…they're never permanent."

His words were drowned by a piercing screech that split the canopy.

Mirage.

The Glasswing Owl dove like a shard of living frost, wings scattering an Icy Gale that ripped across the battlefield. Frost sigils flared, slowing enemy beasts mid-step, their claws dragging sluggishly through the dirt.

Then the treeline erupted.

Gray was first, streaking like a shadow, claws slashing clean through the chestplate of an enemy beast before its handler even gasped. Silver light swallowed them whole.

"Ambush!" someone shouted, panic surging.

The ambush landed like thunder. Mirage's gale froze the charge, Gray's claws carved through a handler before he even raised a defense, and Marcellus's beast hit the flank like a boulder loosed from a cliff. Ivy's runes bound, Brennar's traps exploded, Selene's light healed, and Kai's commands kept it all knitted together.

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The three-team alliance reeled. One team gone in an instant. The rest panicked, shouting, trying to regroup as spikes of stone split their formation apart.

"Press them!" Aston barked. "Don't give them room—"

Suddenly, a pillar of light enveloped Aston and all the surviving participants. Then, a booming voice rolled through the compressed sky.

"An hour and twenty minutes have elapsed. The field has been reduced to its final sixteen teams."

The battlefield froze.

Light shimmered across the survivors. The scattered handlers from the enemy alliance gasped as their essence marks flared—not with defeat, but with confirmation. The system had chosen them.

One of the opposing squads—the least damaged—were engulfed in silver glow and whisked away, spared from elimination by the announcement. The other squad, too battered to qualify, flared brightly. The enemy captain locked eyes with Rowan's through the light pillar.

His face twisted with fury. "This isn't over. You only survived because another team struck us from behind. Next time, we'll see how long your tricks last head-on."

His comrades snarled their agreement, one spitting in the dirt before the glow consumed them. "Enjoy the fluke while you can."

The battlefield dimmed as the last echoes of fury faded with the enemy squad's disappearance. The silver glow that had spared them spread wider, washing across Aston and his companions.

Gray flicked his tail, ears twitching at the hum of the energy. Mirage circled low above Aston's shoulder, its glassy wings scattering fragments of light as if welcoming the transition.

"Looks like that's our cue," Marcellus muttered, his broad shoulders finally sagging after the long fight.

"Hold steady," Selene said gently, her dove fluttering in widening arcs as if to soothe the group. Already, faint threads of healing essence were drifting into their battered limbs.

Kai stood pale and stiff beside Shelldon, his eyes darting between the fading battlefield and Aston. For all his usual doubts, there was a steadiness in his posture now, like he'd resolved something quietly within himself.

Then Rowan gave a half-laugh, half-sigh as Verdy clung tightly to his neck. "Well… not how I pictured us making top sixteen. But I'll take it."

The glow intensified, crawling across their marks and spirit bonds. Brennar gave a low whistle as his construct hummed, runes sparking faintly in sympathy. "Feels like we're being rewound out of the world."

"It's the Vice Principal's beast," Aston said, voice low, but even as he spoke, his body grew weightless. His senses stretched thin, untethered—sound and light smeared into blinding silver.

For a heartbeat, there was no battlefield, no forest, no enemies. Just radiance swallowing them whole.

Then the world shattered—like glass rippling into a thousand fragments—and Aston and his allies were gone, whisked from the chaos into whatever awaited the chosen sixteen.

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