The sun of Aetheron beat down on the stone arena floor, casting sharp glare across the vast stadium. Thousands of spectating eyes focused on the single platform where King Voss Halloway stood.
"This tournament will be an assessment!" the King roared, his voice cutting through the heavy murmurs of the crowd.
"Out of everyone gathered today, only twelve people will win. Only twelve will earn the right to wear the shroud of the Grim Phantoms."
He raised a single hand, signaling a tall, heavily built warrior to step forward from the royal guard line. The warrior carried a massive, twin bladed polearm that hummed with a subtle, golden yan resonance.
"Renci," King Voss commanded, turning his head slightly toward him. "Everyone who wants to join will fight you. If you wound him, or if you can survive a real clash to draw blood, you will be a part of the Grim Phantoms."
Renci gripped his weapon tighter, his eyes widening slightly as he looked at the sheer volume of applicants filling the staging grounds below.
"My lord, there is nearly two hundred people here," Renci said, his tone tight with disbelief. "Surely you don't mean that I must face them all back to back?"
"I feel that you will be fine," the King responded smoothly, his eyes scanning the crowd with cold precision.
"Out of the one hundred and eighty six people here, only thirty seven of them actually have some sort of power. The rest are merely weaklings to be cleared from my sight."
The gates groaned open, and the first wave of applicants rushed the stage in a chaotic frenzy. Renci did not hesitate. He spun his polearm in a devastating circle, the golden yan energy fracturing the stone beneath his boots. The first hundred opponents were nothing more than normal men with ordinary steel.
He made quick work of them, using the blunt end of his staff to shatter shields and launch bodies into the stadium walls. Within minutes, the arena floor was littered with groaning men, yet not a single drop of Renci's blood had been spilled.
Then, the final thirty seven candidates stepped forward, their tracking steps careful and coordinated. The dynamic of the arena shifted instantly as real essence began to leak into the air.
The first three fighters advanced together, a trio of mercenary brothers wielding synchronized curved sabers. They moved like a single organism, forcing Renci to abandon his wide sweeps and bring his polearm back into a tight defensive guard.
The sound of clashing steel rang out like rapid thunder as they pressed him back to the very edge of the stone platform.
Renci managed to parry a lethal strike aimed at his throat, countering with a heavy shoulder check that broke their formation. They did not fall, circling back into a guard stance immediately.
"They look promising," King Voss observed from the royal box, raising a hand to stall the fight temporarily. "You three can sit aside for now. Your potential is noted."
The three mercenaries lowered their weapons, stepping off the platform with heavy breaths to await the final tally.
"Get serious, Renci," the King added, his golden eye flashing with dark expectation. "The remaining thirty four will not be as simple."
The next phase of the assessment became a brutal test of endurance. A heavy dual wielder clad in dark leather stepped up next, using a strange, flickering shadow yan to bypass Renci's guard.
Renci had to twist violently to avoid a blade, the steel cutting through his cloak and nicking the skin of his shoulder. He gasped, his breath hissing through his teeth as he used a low sweep to shatter the man's knee, but the damage was done. Renci was bleeding.
Two more fighters lunged immediately after, utilizing rapid stone needles that rained down from above. Renci struggled, his movement slowing down significantly under the weight of his mounting fatigue.
He managed to deflect the majority of the projectiles, but three needles buried themselves deep into his forearm, the poison on the tips making his fingers go numb.
He screamed, channeling a massive burst of golden yan through his weapon to detonate the stone floor beneath their feet, sending them flying.
By the twentieth fight, Renci was bleeding from half a dozen shallow cuts, his polearm slick with his own sweat. A massive brawler with iron gauntlets pushed him to his absolute limits, shattering Renci's defensive stance with a series of thunderous blows that left his ribs bruised and cracked.
Renci only managed to win by feigning a retreat, catching the brawler off guard with a swift, backward strike from the pommel of his weapon.
The remaining candidates pressed their advantage relentlessly, recognizing his exhaustion. Renci had to rely entirely on his superior combat experience, utilizing every dirty trick he had learned in years of warfare just to stay upright.
He parried, ducked, and countered through a haze of absolute agony, his golden yan flickering dangerously close to empty.
When the thirty fourth fighter finally collapsed into the dirt, Renci was leaning heavily on his polearm, his breath a ragged, wet gasp as blood dripped onto the stone from his chest.
King Voss Halloway stood up, his face a completely unreadable mask as he looked down at the arena floor.
"Bring someone to heal Renci immediately," King Voss commanded, gesturing to the royal medics waiting in the tunnels.
The King then began to scan and survey the last thirty four combatants who lay breathing heavily or nursing wounds in the staging area.
He evaluated their performance with a critical stare, choosing exactly eleven specific candidates whom he thought had put up the absolute best fight against his exhausted champion.
With his eleven choices finalized from the larger pool, King Voss leaned over the balcony, his eyes finally shifting back and locking onto the trio of mercenary brothers he had set aside at the very beginning.
"Which one of you is the oldest?" King Voss asked, his voice echoing cleanly across the quiet arena.
The three brothers looked at each other. Two of them turned and pointed directly to the brother standing on the right.
That brother simply shrugged, his expression completely blank, looking as if he did not care about the crown or the vanguard.
King Voss surveyed him for a second.
"I will not choose the oldest," the King declared plainly. He then shifted his gaze across their faces. "And who is the youngest?"
The middle brother gestured to the boy on the left. The King shook his head. "I will not choose the youngest either."
King Voss then fixed his stare entirely on the middle child, a slow, calculating smile touching his lips.
"You here are the strongest. You will be a part of a new team. Stand by."
The remaining two brothers stepped down into the lower ranks, leaving the middle sibling to join the winners circle.
"The sorting is done," King Voss declared, his voice echoing through the silent stadium. "Combined with the eleven specific fighters I selected from the final matches, my twelve Grim Phantoms are chosen."
Athena watched the chosen eleven step forward to join the middle brother.
"Twelve blades for his collection," Athena thought. "He is building an army of ghosts right in front of us, and no one seems to care," Athena thought.
As the afternoon sun finally dipped below the horizon, the focus shifted far away from the brightly lit stadium of Aetheron.
Night had finally claimed the graveyard of the Jaeren ruins. The darkness was total, thick with ash choked air that pressed heavily against the small camp where Kota's group sat huddled around the embers of their fire.