The transport halted five kilometers from the target zone, its engines falling silent against the barren wasteland. The cadets disembarked, boots sinking into dust that had not felt human presence in years.

“Stay close, stay quiet,” Helena commanded, “From here on, we’re in their territory.”

They moved on foot, Helena at the lead, her senses sharpened by years of battle.

Adrian felt the Source stirring within him, responding to the hostile environment. Every shadow could hide death, every rock formation a potential ambush point.

After an hour of steady advance, the terrain shifted into jagged stone ridges and broken cliffs, guiding them toward a canyon.

“The nest,” Helena whispered, raising her fist to signal a halt.

The entrance to the nest lay there, a sprawling cave system carved into the rock.

Shapes moved in the shadows ahead. Raptors, their forms sleek, padded across the canyon’s entrance.

Their amber eyes glowed faintly in the dim light, and the glint of claws against stone spoke of blood spilled countless times before. Adrian counted six raptors, their movements coordinated.

“Cadets,” Helena’s voice was a quiet command. “Eliminate them. Consider this your first trial.”

The cadets broke formation, mana flaring like sparks. Kai’s hands shimmered with spatial distortion as he blinked across the battlefield, severing a raptor’s flank before it could sound an alarm.

Seraphina’s saber blazed with radiant light, cutting a swath of brilliance through the shadows as she carved another down. The beast’s dying shriek echoed off the canyon walls.

Elena conjured jagged lances of ice that pinned a screeching beast against the canyon wall, frost spreading across its obsidian hide until it shattered like glass.

Marcus charged forward, his war hammer crackling with metallic energy. The weapon caved in a raptor’s skull with a sickening crunch, brain matter painting the rocks behind it.

Damon’s venomous barbs found their mark in the throat of another raptor. The creature convulsed violently before collapsing, purple foam bubbling from its maw.

The skirmish ended quickly, the last raptor collapsing with a hiss of steam. Helena nodded once, her eyes scanning the cave entrance for movement.

“Efficient. Inside.”

They descended into the cavern. The walls narrowed, twisting into natural chokepoints before opening into chambers vast enough to swallow entire platoons.

Then came the sound. A low, resonant call that vibrated through the stone, answered by a chorus of hisses and screeches. The nest was awake.

The first wave struck without warning. Raptors burst from hidden alcoves, their movements coordinated with unnatural precision. One feinted high while another lunged low, their timing exact, their strikes guided by something more cunning than instinct.

“Shields up! Break them!” Helena’s shout cut through the chaos. She moved like fire incarnate, her affinity flaring in arcs of blazing heat that forced the pack back.

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The cadets responded instinctively, their attacks layering over one another. Marcus anchored the line, his metal affinity manifesting into barriers that deflected the worst of the assault.

“They’re learning our patterns!” Kai shouted as he blinked behind a raptor, his spatial blade carving through its spine.

Lyra’s sound waves disrupted the raptors’ rhythm, shattering their coordination long enough for Damon’s poison-laced strikes to seep into exposed flesh. Seraphina’s light blinded, Elena’s frost sealed choke points.

Adrian stood among them, watching, absorbing. His Source whispered at every flash of affinity around him. Lightning’s rhythm, frost’s structure, space’s distortions, each unfolded before his perception, not as foreign elements but as pieces of a whole he already understood.

His mana channels stretched wider with every heartbeat, capacity deepening as the act of comprehension itself expanded his power. The Source fed on understanding, growing stronger with each new pattern it witnessed.

When his turn came, Adrian unleashed his refined flame. White-blue fire roared from his palm, hotter and more focused than any basic fire affinity should allow. It consumed three raptors in a single wave, their screeches cut short as their bodies disintegrated into ash.

A raptor lunged from the shadows at his flank, but Adrian’s gravitic snare snapped into existence, invisible tendrils of force crushing the beast mid-leap. It writhed in the air, bones snapping under the invisible pressure before collapsing lifeless to the cavern floor.

Kai stumbled mid-blink, his concentration broken. “That’s impossible.”

Seraphina’s radiant barrier flickered as she stared. “Echo users can’t maintain two different affinities simultaneously.”

The others faltered for a heartbeat, their eyes widening at the display. They knew he’d acquired the gravitic snare recently; most thought he couldn’t even comprehend it. Yet here he wielded it with deadly precision.

Echo users were supposed to imitate, to degrade, to burn mana wastefully. Yet Adrian’s manifestations were sharper, deadlier, more efficient than any of their own. His supposed weakness looked like overwhelming strength.

Helena noticed as well but said nothing.

“Advance! Clear the chamber!” she commanded, though her voice carried an undertone of analysis.

The cadets surged forward as one unit. Kai’s spatial tears opened pathways for Marcus’s charge, while Elena’s ice funneled enemies toward Seraphina’s blazing saber.

Damon’s poison clouds created zones of death that complemented Lyra’s disorienting sound waves. Their individual strengths wove together, each covering another’s weakness.

Adrian moved through their formation like water finding its course. His white-blue flames erupted precisely where Kai’s blinks left openings, his gravity snares anchoring targets for Marcus’s crushing blows.

But something deeper was happening. As Seraphina’s celestial light flared beside him, Adrian felt the Source drinking in its stellar resonance, understanding not just the power but its fundamental structure.

When Elena’s ice crystallized nearby, the Source absorbed the molecular patterns, the way thermal energy surrendered to absolute order. Each spell cast in his vicinity became another page in an infinite grimoire.

“Adrian, left flank!” Kai shouted, blinking past a raptor’s claws.

Adrian’s response came without conscious thought. His flame shifted, taking on aspects of Seraphina’s stellar heat, brighter, more penetrating. The raptor didn’t just burn; it sublimated, flesh becoming vapor in milliseconds.

Seraphina’s head snapped toward him mid-swing. “That’s not possible. Stellar fire requires—”

“Focus!” Helena’s bark cut through the observation, but her own eyes narrowed at Adrian’s display.

The chamber filled with dying shrieks as the last raptors fell. Silence settled like dust, broken only by ragged breathing and the distant echo of something larger stirring deeper in the nest.

Marcus lowered his war hammer, sweat streaming down his face. “Did anyone else notice—”

“We all noticed,” Elena interrupted, her ice-pale eyes fixed on Adrian. “Echo users copy techniques, not fundamental principles.”

Adrian felt their stares. The Source continued its work, passively analyzing the residual mana signatures lingering in the air, but he forced his expression to remain neutral.

Damon wiped poison from his blade, his movements deliberate. “That wasn’t copying. That was innovation.”

“Enough,” Helena commanded, though her tone suggested she agreed. “The alpha’s still ahead. Save the theories for after we’re alive.”

They pressed deeper into the nest, but the dynamic had shifted. Where before they’d fought as equals, now they moved with Adrian as an unspoken focal point.

The others began positioning themselves to give him clearer lines of sight, unconsciously creating opportunities for his increasingly sophisticated attacks. He was becoming their center of gravity.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep