## Chapter 8: The Elimination Round
The amber light of early morning filtered through the tinted glass of Sylvan's room in the West Crimson Mansion. The soft hum of distant hovercars and automated drones could be heard in the distance. A subtle chime rang through the room.
"Sylvan," a calm synthetic voice called, "it's time."
His crimson eyes opened at once.
Within moments, he was up and dressed. Black Converse, black fitted trousers, a black inner shirt, and a sleek black jacket that shimmered faintly under the ambient light. He walked briskly to the lower hangar where his hoverbike—an obsidian-black Razor X7—waited. It had been transported from the West long before their move. Sleek, aerodynamic, and nearly silent, it responded to his presence with a soft glow.
He mounted the bike and sped off, cutting through the glimmering cityscape.
---
The Western Military Academy came into view within minutes. Towering spires of translucent alloy rose into the clouds, shifting shape and form through smart-reactive architecture. Everything pulsed with flowing neon energy: walls embedded with dynamic AI, anti-gravity elevators scaling impossible angles, training domes rotating mid-air.
It made even the advanced Crimson Mansion look primitive.
Sylvan parked at a designated dock, stepping off as an escort bot glided toward him.
"Contestant Sylvan Crimson. Follow me."
He was led into a monolithic stadium that dwarfed mountains. The air buzzed with anticipation. Inside, the space was impossibly vast—2 billion contestants stood in tight formations, yet the stadium felt spacious. Floating screens hovered above, each showing various angles of the field. The roof was a holographic sky simulation with weather controls, and gravity regulation zones were subtly adjusted by AI.
Among the audience sat the elites: his parents, his three older brothers, and high officials from across the globe.
A tall, silvery figure hovered above the center platform.
"Welcome to the West Military Academy Elimination Trials," the referee announced, voice amplified and resonating with power. "Only 500,000 of you will proceed to the Academy. This is your trial. Free-for-all combat. Use any means necessary. Knockouts, ring-outs, or incapacity will result in elimination."
Gasps rippled through the crowd.
The figure raised one hand. A massive holographic screen materialized above the stadium, displaying a countdown.
**\[BEGINNING IN: 10... 9... 8...]**
Sylvan exhaled slowly.
**\[3... 2... 1...]**
**\[BEGIN!]**
The battlefield erupted.
Thousands clashed immediately—claws, blades, elemental explosions, force fields and energy blasts filled the field.
A boy dashed at Sylvan, throwing a punch.
Sylvan sidestepped effortlessly. "Windmild Playshot."
A gust of spiraling wind erupted from his palm, sending the boy flying across the stadium and slamming him into a kinetic barrier. He was out cold.
More came.
Sylvan kept moving—twisting, ducking, redirecting.
Three men surrounded him. One fired lightning, another wielded a plasma hammer, and the third charged with brute force. Sylvan leapt high and called upon **Light Mirage Step**—his body split into three after-images. In a blur, he reappeared behind them, knocking each out with bone-shattering precision.
A monstrous roar echoed.
A beast-like man, mid-transformation, lunged at Sylvan—muscles bulging, fur sprouting, growing into a hulking brown bear hybrid. Claws the size of daggers swiped at him.
Sylvan used **Void Reversal**. The attack phased through his body and reversed into pressure, blasting the beastman backward. The creature crashed against the field wall and lay still.
But the chaos didn't stop.
Dozens attacked from all angles. Sylvan summoned bolts of lightning from the sky and knocked them away with **Thunder Reap**. He rotated mid-air, his wind and void energy dancing together as he formed a dual-elemental vortex and hurled it across the field.
Hundreds were taken down in seconds.
---
Elsewhere, the strongest began to emerge.
A girl cloaked in fire. Every swing of her hand unleashed whips of living flame. She spun in place, summoning a cyclone of heat that melted nearby weapons. Opponents screamed as they fled or were burned into unconsciousness.
A boy cloaked in shadow stepped into the fray. No one saw his attacks coming. He blinked through reality, appearing behind targets and dragging them into his dimension of darkness. He was a phantom—untouchable and deadly.
Another man in a glowing blue cloak stood calmly as a crowd rushed him. He exhaled.
A frigid mist escaped his lips.
Within seconds, everything in front of him was encased in solid ice—men, weapons, even the air itself. Frost spread across the floor, immobilizing entire squads.
The fourth was a tank of a man—seven feet tall, pure muscle, and unstoppable. His fists cracked the air like sonic booms. One hit sent five people flying. His footfalls shattered the ground.
Then there was the energy manipulator. He controlled kinetic force and momentum. Bullets froze mid-air before reversing. Blades bent. Shockwaves turned. Anyone who got close was thrown aside by a wall of redirected force.
And in the center of it all, Sylvan was unmatched.
He moved like a storm—dancing through waves of combatants. His transformation bloodlines triggered briefly—black scales forming on his arms, his eyes glowing silver and red. With controlled precision, he struck and disabled. Wind, lightning, void, light—he never stopped.
---
An hour passed. The numbers were dropping.
500 million. 200 million. 50 million.
The battlefield thinned.
Sylvan, still focused, now faced the true elites. Those same five stood unyielding, scanning the horizon.
They would clash soon. But for now, the elimination continued.
**\[Contestants Remaining: 890,214]**
Sylvan darted forward into another wave of opponents. A trio of men coordinated in perfect sync—one wielding a whip of light, another hurling sonic pulses, and the last manipulating gravity. Sylvan struck first, blinding them with a flare of radiance before dropping into a roll. He launched upward, channeling wind and light into a blade and slashed through their defenses.
They collapsed.
Another fighter attempted to trap Sylvan in a dimension rift—a spatial cage made of shimmering geometry. Sylvan closed his eyes, drew in the surrounding void essence, and ripped through the reality layers using **Void Pulse**, dissolving the trap and knocking his enemy unconscious.
Others tried power in numbers. Five… ten… twenty. But they couldn't keep up with his speed, skill, and elemental control. One by one, they fell.
Explosions crackled in the distance. Ice covered entire sections of the field. Waves of energy sent shockwaves through the stadium. Still, Sylvan held the center.
**\[Contestants Remaining: 750,000]**
Fatigue set in for some. Sylvan pressed forward. A man clad in bronze armor exploded toward him using raw combustion, fists burning white-hot. Sylvan countered with **Thunder Vein**, shocking him into unconsciousness.
An aerial attacker swooped down, wielding twin swords of plasma. Sylvan vanished in a flicker of light and reappeared above, unleashing a spiral void bomb that detonated silently, knocking the swordsman to the ground.
**\[Contestants Remaining: 612,000]**
It was a warzone. Craters, broken constructs, scattered bodies.
Then—
A massive rumble. From the far end, a telekinetic with silver eyes lifted dozens of unconscious bodies and hurled them at Sylvan. He spun, summoned a cyclone of wind, and created a shield that shredded through the mass.
**\[Contestants Remaining: 528,220]**
Final push.
Sylvan leapt into a group of thirty fighters, disabled them in seconds using a flashstep-enhanced combo of void and lightning jabs.
Another wave came, dozens of fierce contenders, but none could withstand his rapid-fire elemental control. He sent out a shockwave of radiant light that blinded attackers, then used Windmild Playshot to finish them off.
Others fell to the shadow user's sudden ambushes. The ice manipulator turned wide sectors of the arena into glittering glaciers. Screams echoed as fighters were immobilized. The energy controller redirected an enemy's plasma beam into a dome of compressed force, knocking out a dozen at once. The strongman tore through structures and enemies alike, clearing whole sections of the battlefield.
**\[Contestants Remaining: 500,000]**
A thunderous bell rang.
Everything froze.
Holograms above blinked and stabilized.
The voice returned. "500,000 remain. The elimination round is complete."
Sylvan stood in the center of the storm.
And the true test had only just begun.