On the day of the second phase, Executioner Leywin canceled the afternoon and evening training with the cadets. She wanted to be present in the control room to observe the development of the second phase. To Delta's surprise, she hadn't come alone as she arrived at the control room with Stella walking beside her, wearing her white Black Guard mask for the first time.
As the second phase ended, everyone in the control room started getting the information ready to make the phase's final report.
"How did the top participants do?" Delta asked.
"They all seem to have been able to get through the second phase without much problem. Especially the participant in the manifestation stage, his heart rate barely increased when the poison was injected into his bloodstream," a man answered while the profile of a young participant appeared on the main screen in front of everyone.
"What about the non-awakened participant?"
The man paused for a moment, reading again the information on his screen.
"He's inside the qualified participants. His heartbeat and blood pressure rose quickly at the start of the phase, however, it quickly stabilized after a couple of minutes. From then on, his vitals were on par with the manifestation stage participant's," the man said as the participant's profile appeared on the main screen.
'Th-that's impossible. Since he couldn't channel energy to reduce the effects of the poison, the amount of pain induced by it should have knocked him out after a few minutes. Just what kind of pain resistance does that damn defective have?' Delta thought in disbelief.
After seeing the participant's image on the main screen, Stella immediately recognized him.
'Why would he enter the tournament with another name and academy?' she thought.
"However, his vitals went crazy again at about the same time as the effects of the poison were counteracted by the antidote. In fact, he's currently among the participants who are being sent to the medical floor in a gurney."
"What's the number of participants in need of medical attention?"
"Out of the 1013 participants who entered the second phase, 653 had to be sent to the medical floor, with 48 of them being participants who qualified for the third phase."
"Very well, make sure those 48 participants get priority treatment. I want everyone to be ready to start the final phase as soon as possible," Delta said as he turned to leave the room. "Send a message to all the participants informing them that the briefing for the final phase will take place tomorrow at 20:00 and that the final phase will start the day after."
After Delta left, all the officers in the control room quickly got to work, typing frenetically on their holographic keyboards.
Since there was nothing left to do, Executioner Leywin also turned around to leave, thinking Stella would follow her. However, she noticed that Stella's attention seemed to be focused on the hall, as her eyes followed a particular gurney.
"Hey," Executioner Leywin said, bringing Stella back to reality. She quickly turned around and followed her out of the control room.
******
The entire world around Seth had turned into a dark cacophony of blurred-out shapes and colors. It had all looked the same for the past few hours, then, he felt he was being moved and shortly after, dim lights started dancing above him, accompanied by distant echoes of voices.
'Make it stop.'
At some point, he finally drifted into sweet unconsciousness.
******
Stella walked in silence behind Executioner Leywin for some time.
"Uhm… Executioner Leywin?" Stella said doubtfully.
She stopped walking, however, she didn't turn around or look at Stella.
"I was hoping that you could look into some of the participants," Stella said.
Executioner Leywin took out her phone and after less than a minute Stella received a notification. She had sent Stella the report on each of her friends.
"Two of them passed and the other two were disqualified, still, none of them require medical treatment."
As she read the report Stella felt relieved that none of her friends had been injured.
'Well, Alia and Kaira had said that they wanted to work in research anyway,' she thought while reading the report on the two that had been disqualified.
"Anything else?" Executioner Leywin asked.
Stella hesitated to talk.
"Uhm… The non-awakened esper that they mentioned in the control room, I know him, and they said they were sending him to the medical floor, but I was there the other day and they were completely overrun by the number of participants. I know that only Black Guard operators and high-level officers are allowed, but would it be possible for me to take him to the high-grade medical wing?"
Executioner Leywin remained silent for a couple of seconds.
"Go ahead."
"Really?" Stella said unable to hide her surprise.
"You can tell the medical staff that he picked the interest of the Black Guard," Executioner Leywin said before she continued walking.
Even though she was surprised by Executioner Leywin's statement, she didn't waste time and turned around to hurry to the medical floor yet, Executioner Leywin's words stopped her.
"Stella," she said, "You still haven't become an official Black Guard operator so our rules aren't being applied to you as strictly. Still, for your sake, I would advise you to start acting according to what's expected of you. It will make it easier in the long run," Executioner Leywin said before walking away.