the era of calamities-Chapter 87: Waiting and Reflection

Sirius and Conrad now found themselves alone.

Sirius stood up, brushing the dust from his coat with his hand.

"Do you want to continue now or put it off for later?"

Conrad scowled, then raised his guard, a knife in hand.

"I don’t need anyone else to deal with you. The others were only there to legitimize my claim to power."

Sirius cracked his neck.

"Good. That’ll make a nice way to end my training."

"Enjoy it while you can. It’ll be your last laugh."

Their fight didn’t last long—neither Sirius nor Conrad used their resonance.

Conrad charged at Sirius, his blade aimed for the neck.

Sirius tilted his head aside, deflecting the strike, and lashed out with his leg.

Conrad blocked with his forearm but was caught off guard by Sirius’s next move.

Sirius lunged, using his hand for support, flipping into a handstand. Both legs clamped around Conrad’s head, slamming it into the sand.

They both hit the ground, Sirius choking Conrad with his legs. Conrad tightened his grip on the knife, then flung it upward toward Sirius.

When the blade was barely two centimeters from his face, Sirius lifted his head just slightly and caught the dagger between his teeth.

Conrad struggled to break free, but Sirius squeezed with all his strength until Conrad began to choke for air.

Just before Conrad passed out, Sirius released him.

Coughs tore from Conrad’s throat, his breathing ragged, but he still managed to rasp out:

"Why... cough... why don’t you kill me?"

He wasn’t stupid—he had seen the difference between them.

Sirius extended a hand.

"Relax. You’d already be dead if my mission weren’t to prevent the candidates from dying."

Conrad slapped the hand away.

"Tsk... Who’s supposed to swallow that crap? War is coming. There’s no way everyone makes it out alive."

Sirius almost shouted, ("That idiot of a director!") but held his tongue, wary that San might be nearby.

"Believe what you want. Just know the calamities will arrive any minute now. If you can set aside your little power trip, good. If not..."

Sirius leaned close, whispering in Conrad’s ear as if sharing a dark secret meant for no one else. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

"I’ll tear off every limb and hide you somewhere. I’ll cut you up with enough precision to keep you alive until the exam ends."

Conrad growled but made no further move against him and walked away.

---

Sirius checked his phone: 4:23 a.m.

"These childish games cost me some time, but I’m still on schedule."

This time he didn’t go looking for the other candidates. Hide-and-seek was over—the real game was about to begin.

When he reached Ronel’s position on the cliff, he asked:

"What’s the status?"

Ronel didn’t answer. He just handed over the binoculars.

Through the lenses, Sirius spotted a dot the size of a tennis ball.

"It’s too far to see clearly... but it has to be them," Ronel said, his voice thick with sleep.

Sirius nodded, calculating quickly.

("Yeah... considering the height, the visibility, and the scale of the image...")

"They’ve got to be at least sixty kilometers out. If what we see from here looks like a tennis ball, then in reality it’s as massive as an island."

"Wait, how the hell did you figure that out? You some kind of walking calculator?" Ronel muttered, then added:

"You mean... a flying island?"

"I don’t know if it’s an island, but it’s floating, and it’s that big. We’ll only know for sure once it gets closer."

Ronel yawned, then noticed Sirius’s filthy state.

"By the way, why are you so dirty? You roll around in the dirt or something?"

Sirius paused a moment before answering.

"Yes. Exactly that."

"Well, since you’re here, I’m gonna crash."

Ronel drifted off, leaving Sirius to keep watch.

---

By sunrise, nothing had changed.

Sirius used the time to think ahead.

He gathered some stones, sketched a chessboard in the dirt, and placed the pebbles as pawns.

"What move would I make if I were a duke here to massacre humans?"

He played out strategies, his mind turning over ways to defeat a duchy’s forces without a single candidate dying.

"The best way to prevent casualties would be not to fight at all.

As long as there’s a melee, there’s no controlling the chaos. Inexperienced people will panic, run, or trip each other up.

But how do you win without fighting?"

He placed a lone stone against a cluster.

The outcome was a crushing defeat.

Then he tried two, then three, experimenting with different setups against overwhelming numbers.

By noon, he checked the binoculars again. Nothing had changed—except for the spark of an idea forming in his mind.

"I’ll improvise as I go... but it’s still only a one-in-a-hundred chance."

Sirius pulled out his phone and found Iris’s number.

Beep... beep...

"Hello?"

He could hear several voices in the background she wasn’t alone.

"I need to talk to you, but you have to be the only one listening."

Iris hung up, then called him back a few minutes later.

Sirius explained his plan and what she needed to do.

Iris listened all the way through, then asked:

"Are you sure? If you do this, everyone will hate you."

"I know."

"You’re really sure? That reputation will stick to you forever."

"I know."

"You might never get a girlfriend. Not that Lucy would dump you, but no one else would even dare..."

Sirius cut the call before Iris could enjoy herself further at his expense.

---

A full day passed, and the calamities hadn’t moved.

Fear, however, had already taken root among the candidates, after the announcement that the attack could happen any minute.

Although they had always known that they would be the first to face the duchy’s forces, the anticipation of the past few days had managed to ease some of that stress from their minds.

Yet, with the Calamities starting to show their presence and no one knowing what the first move would be, terror gripped them.

After all, it was entirely possible that the duke might decide to make the opening move, and that the director (who had not been seen since the announcement of the second trial ) would arrive late.

All these possibilities weighed heavily on the minds of the various candidates.

Sirius had ordered the watch shifts stopped so everyone could stay at full strength.

As for Conrad, he hadn’t tried anything else against him.

And it wasn’t until the next dawn that the calamities finally stirred.