Rebirth: The Shadow Of Greed

... The scenario was a large scale war where two sides are fighting a huge battle and there are casualties on both sides, batches of support students were sent in to see if they can help turn the tide or better the situation of the soldiers. 

The trials for the rest of the departments drew to a close, with a percentage of the students from each department being cut from taking the exams, they still had quite a considerable number of students going to take the exams. 

It was finally time for the last trial to take place, the trial for the offence department. Traditionally it had always been the one with the most spectators and the most hype, mainly because most students respect the offence department more than anything. 

Odrunn was back at the arena again, this time accompanying Zero, Soli, Ashli, Arlene and most of the Aquos compound members that were part of the offence department.

With them taking the front, the rest of the Aquos compound members showed discontent at how close these two outsiders were behaving with their young mistress. 

Entering the stadium, Odrunn directly walked up the steps into the audience areas when he was called out to by Vero, needless to say, Vero already had seats allocated to him and he had graciously invited Odrunn to plop down beside him. 

Z and the rest entered the stadium as they started warming up in preparation for what's to come. 

"What do you think the topic for this year's trial would be?" 

Ashli asked, 

"I hope it's like the previous years. A free for all brawl would be nice! That way we can just go all out."

Arlene replied. Soli just stared blankly and shook her head, Z was seemingly unperturbed as he whipped out a nutrition bar to consume. 

"Sir! There is to be no consumption of food and drinks in the arena! Please throw it away!"

A referee shouted towards Z motioning an X. Z nodded as he shoved the entire nutrition bar into his mouth before throwing away the wrapper. 

The referee was speechless at the scene but since the food had been taken care of, there really was nothing else he could say. 

"I hope the range of your abilities are as big as your mouth."

Z heard a snarky remark coming from behind him, it was Soli's cousin, who still nursed a grudge with Z and Odrunn. 

"That's enough Falcor!" 

Soli shouted as she tried to step in to defend Z. 

"Cousin, cousin, I'm just merely making fun of your friend, it's all in the name of good fun, just some banter, he can insult me back if it makes him feel better."

Falcor smiled as he walked towards Z and pat him on the shoulder before leaving his hand there. 

"Go ahead! Say anything at all! It will be fun!"

Z looked towards Falcor, before opening his mouth to speak. 

"Thanks, your childish acts annoy me, are you perhaps jealous of Soli and because you are not strong nor influential enough so you have to resort to insulting her friends to get on her nerves? I'm not offended nor angry at what you say, mainly because what you say makes no sense and you're just an insignificant side character after all."

Z finished what he said as he shrugged Falcor's hand off and walked away. 

The people from the Aquos compound all turned pale as they looked at the young master's face turn from green to white to red with anger. He wanted to kill Z who had insulted him so badly. His plan of annoying Z to attack him had failed and now it was a complete reversal. What made it hurt so much was because it was true and quite obvious to the people who were watching the situation.

Falcor gave Z a long hard stare before turning around and walking back into the crowd. 

"That was a great comeback! I'm starting to like you more and more" 

Arlene said loudly while she put her arm around Z's shoulder. 

"I think what you said makes sense" 

Ashli smiled as she bowed towards Z. 

"Will all the participants please gather at the front of the stage! Please gather at the front of the stage." 

A voice boomed out from the S.A.D, Z recognised the voice as the examiner who gave the instructions the other day for the vanguard's trial. 

"The trial for today will be run as follows, the arena will be split into 4, there will be a castle at the end of the area, you will individually go into battle and try to kill your way to take out the king, your scores are determined by your kills. There will be a grand total of 5 platoons consisting of 30 people on the battlefield defending the castle, this is a mix of melee and range soldiers. Your goal is to reach the king in the castle and kill him. The max number of points here will be 160 with the king being 10 points, if you manage to score the maximum number of points, we will take into accord the amount of time taken to clear the stage." 

The audiences started to murmur with many being excited and many doubting the feasibility of the trial. 

"It's exactly what I expected from the offence department."

"It's really exciting, but at the same time with only 4 people participating at the same time wouldn't it take a really long time?"

"Nah, they don't have to wait for waves like the vanguards, it should be fine, they just have to kill quickly, the enemies won't respawn I think."

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Entering the control room, the chief examiner once again questioned his staff. 

"You've all done a great job in the past few days, I hope today will be smooth sailing as well."

"Boss, you don't have to worry! The opponents today are all following instructions from the main AI which is the king hidden deep inside the base. Which will replicate the exact same sequence as a normal castle defence."

"That's good! But what if the main AI gets taken out?"

"The odds of that happening are extremely low… Not to mention they will still go on the offensive, just that they will lose their capabilities to do any sort of formations and just proceed on the attack."

The chief examiner had the hair on the back of his neck stand, as he had a bad premonition of what was going to happen for this trial. 

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