"That plate is designed to take a direct hit from a rogue Elemental," Esguerra said, stepping back to the safety of the heavy doorframe . "Show me your adaptation, Mr. Salvatierra. Hit it."
I walked toward the monolith. It loomed over me, cold and indifferent. The hunger in my gut flared—not for food, but for release. The energies inside me were screaming for action . The agile part of me wanted to bite; the analytical part wanted to find the weak point. But I chose the density . I needed weight. I needed to show Esguerra that I wasn't just strong; I was unmovable . I closed my eyes, visualizing the heavy, grounding energy expanding from my chest, flooding my arm, turning my bones into lead and my skin into iron . The air around me grew heavy, the floor tiles cracking slightly under the sudden increase in my mass .
"Show, don't tell," I whispered to myself .
I drew my fist back. No fancy technique. No martial arts. Just raw, condensed mass accelerated by the explosive twitch fibers of my muscles . I stepped in, my foot crushing the laminate flooring, and drove my fist into the center of the black metal slab .
BOOM.
The sound wasn't a thud; it was a thunderclap in a confined space . The air pressure in the room spiked violently, popping my ears . The monolith didn't shatter—it was too strong for that—but it screamed . The metal groaned as a massive dent, nearly a foot deep, caved inward around my fist . The entire slab was knocked backward, ripping its anchor bolts from the concrete floor with a screech of tearing metal, sliding five feet back until it hit the rear wall of the chamber, cracking the reinforced concrete behind it . Dust and pulverized concrete drifted into the air.
I stood there, steam rising from my arm, the dense energy humming with satisfaction . My hand throbbed, the skin scraped raw, but the bones were intact. I turned to look at Esguerra . He hadn't flinched. He was standing in the doorway, brushing a speck of dust from his lapel, his eyes gleaming with a terrifying intensity .
"Category 4 physical output," Esguerra murmured, more to himself than to me . "With no visible casting time and no mana chanting. Pure biological enhancement." He looked at the dented metal, then back at me. "You held back."
"I didn't want to break your toy," I lied, though we both knew I had only used a fraction of the chaotic energy swirling inside me . If I had used all three distinct powers in unison, the room would be a crater .
"Consider the assessment complete," Esguerra said, tapping a command into his tablet . "You are cleared for provisional release into the camp, Mr. Salvatierra. I'm assigning you a clearance level of Bravo-5. That means you get access to the officer's mess, better rations, and you aren't confined to the refugee tents. In exchange, when I call, you answer. Day or night."
"And if I don't answer?" I asked, flexing my bruised hand .
"Then I release the footage of what you just did to the public," Esguerra said simply, his voice devoid of malice . "And to the other factions. The Haraya Foundation would love to dissect you. The Maharlika Frontliners would try to draft you into their suicide squads. And the Americans... well, they just arrived, and they are very curious about the local talent. Anonymity is your shield, Kil. I am the one holding it."
It was a threat wrapped in a favor, a beautifully constructed cage made of logic . I hated him for it, but I respected the play. He had boxed me in perfectly .
"Fine," I said, walking past him toward the exit. "But leave Mark out of it. He's just a civilian."
"Mr. Marquez is your anchor," Esguerra said, opening the door for me . "He keeps you human. Believe me, I have no intention of removing him. A monster without a leash is useless to me. Keep your friend close, Kil. You're going to need him to remind you which side of the species divide you stand on."
I stepped out of the assessment room and back into the airlock . As the decontamination mist sprayed me again, washing away the sweat and dust, I realized that I hadn't just survived the test. I had been drafted . The cold water hit my face, but it did nothing to cool the burning realization that the monsters outside the walls were simple compared to the architects inside them . I pushed through the outer flaps and emerged back into the camp.
The transition from the clinical cold of the tent to the outside world was jarring. The morning sun had climbed higher, baking the asphalt and turning the camp into a sweltering gridlock of humidity and noise. The light was harsh, exposing the grime and exhaustion on every face in the crowd.
I scanned the refugees, picking out Mark's heat signature near the gymnasium wall where I had left him . He wasn't alone. He was awake, talking to someone—a girl with long hair and a posture that looked too rigid for a refugee . I started walking toward them, the weight of Esguerra's unseen leash heavy around my neck .
"Bravo-5," I muttered, spitting the taste of disinfectant from my mouth. "At least the food better be good."
The day was just beginning, and as I looked up at the purple bruise of the rift pulsing in the bright sky, I knew that the real assessment hadn't even begun. The world was evolving, and I was running out of time to figure out if I was the cure or the disease.
"Kil!" Mark's voice cut through the din, waving his arm .
I waved back, forcing a mask of calm over my face . For now, I was just a student who got lucky. For now, I could pretend . But deep down, the powers inside me were laughing. They knew the truth . The cage wasn't built to keep me in. It was built to keep the world out .
"Hey," I said, reaching Mark and dropping onto the concrete beside him. "Did I miss anything?"
"Just the end of the world," Mark said, eyeing me critically. "You look like you went ten rounds with a blender. Did you pass?"
"I got a gold star," I said, pulling the ration bar wrapper from my pocket and staring at it. "And a job offer."
"From the suit?"
"From the devil," I corrected. "But the benefits include not being shot, so I took it."
Mark didn't laugh. He just looked at the signpost resting against my leg, the metal now bent even further from the impact with the monolith. "We're in deep, aren't we?"
"Yeah," I said, looking at the towering walls of Camp Aguinaldo. "We're in deep."
"Excuse me," the girl Mark had been talking to spoke up. I turned to look at her .
She was young, maybe our age, wearing an Ateneo jacket that was torn at the shoulder . Her hair was messy, but her eyes were sharp, intelligent, and glowing with a faint, iridescent light that shifted colors like oil on water . Another Awakened. And unlike the terrified ones in the triage tent, she didn't look scared. She looked determined .
"My name is Elara," she said, extending a hand that hummed with a frequency my senses found irritatingly high-pitched. "Mark says you're the one who cleared the Coliseum. I have a proposition for you."
I looked at her hand, then at Mark, then at the command tent where Esguerra was undoubtedly watching on a monitor . The factions were already moving. The game was starting.
"I'm listening," I said, but I didn't shake her hand. "But I charge extra for spiders."