Kiehra stood at the edge of the wasteland, her chest tight with nervousness. Before the examinees stretched the Field of Fallen Gods, a vast, barren expanse littered with ruins, shattered relics, and remnants of battles lost to time. Once a lawless region of Gehenna,The Phantom Sentry took it for themselves not long after their formation, turning it into a training ground and prison for rogue spirits. The cracked earth and jagged rock formations told countless tales of the battles between the Sentry and Spirits over centuries. Dark, curved structures rose from the ground like the skeletal remains of a long-forgotten titan, casting twisted shadows over the red sands. It was an unsettling place by all accounts, but Kiehra barely noticed. She was far too distracted by thoughts of yesterday's events, and the weight of what she had to do today.
"Focus," Three's voice murmured in her mind, his presence her only source of comfort. "This is an opportunity to make up for yesterday. Stay calm, don't let your power slip out of control, and avoid any situation that would lead you to do something disastrous."
Kiehra nodded to herself, her fingers tightening around the Spectral Harness she'd been issued for the spirit capture. Most other applicants picked out a Spectral Interface with the hopes of taming and bonding with a decently powerful spirit. Not only did it give more marks for the exam, but it was a guaranteed way to acquire power. Given how she already had Three with her, picking the Harness was the only viable—and far safer option. She held onto the device carefully, not wanting to break it in half and automatically fail the exam. As she walked she could feel the chains wrapped beneath her clothes, jingling lightly against her skin with every movement, their weight a constant reminder of the power she had to keep in check.
The other applicants swarmed around her, checking their gear and muttering to each other about the kinds of spirits they would capture or bond with. Some of them cast weary glances at her, no doubt remembering the spectacle she'd made of herself during the physical exam. Her sharpened senses could pick up on their feelings: some fearful, some amazed, a few even disgusted. She swore she heard someone mutter "freak" under their breath. Word of her record-shattering performance had spread like a wildfire, meaning all her attempts to stay out of focus had failed miserably. Now it was more than Payday's eyes that were watching her closely.
"I'll make sure to blend in today," she whispered to herself as a form of self-motivation. "Catch a few lower ranked spirits, stay away from everyone else…and get this over with."
But even as she said it, a creeping sense of unease fell over her. Something about today felt off, and it seemed even Three could feel it, his presence muted in the way she knew he was thinking about something. There was an unseen tension in the air that only she seemed to notice. She glanced over at a young alien boy named Flak, with whom she had been grouped with for the exam. His blue and white striped skin stood out against the wasteland's dull colors. He fiddled nervously with the Spectral Interface on his wrist, each of his four wide eyes darting around the area like he expected a spirit to leap out and devour him at any moment.
"You doing alright over there?" Kiehra asked, her voice calm despite the panicked storm brewing in the pit of her stomach.
Flak looked up, his luminous purple eyes blinking in surprise. "Yeah…I guess…I'm just…look I don't want to run into any high-risk spirits y'know? I don't think I could handle it. It's not like there's any running around right now right?"
Kiehra gave him a reassuring smile, though she felt a twinge of guilt. Her presence alone was likely far more dangerous than any high-risk spirit out there.
"Stay close and we'll be fine," she said. "Let's just focus on capturing as many low to mid-level spirits as we can. No need to push it too far hm?"
Flak nodded, though his body was still stiff with worry. The exam had officially begun, and the groups had already spread out across the wasteland. Kiehra and Flak walked in relative silence, each of them scanning the environment for signs of spectral activity. After a couple minutes of venturing deeper into the wasteland, Kiehra encountered her first spirit. The being puffed into life in front of her, a translucent, wispy entity that looked like a sentient piece of cotton candy. Its movements were slow, its form indistinct, like a cloud of smoke hanging lazily in the air. Kiehra couldn't help but compare it to Three, who was still strangely silent.
"You're just perfect," Kiehra muttered. "Come on boy, let's keep this simple. Come to mama."
She lightly tapped on the screen of her Spectral Harness, a small hum of energy pulsing through it as a long tether shot out towards the spirit. The plan was laughably easy: capture it, repeat the process two or three times with other similar spirits, and secure her place in the Sentry with minimal fuss. The spirit was pulled into the containment device with minimal effort, offering no resistance like it didn't even know what was going on around it.
"One down."
Kiehra's mind raced, trying to calculate how many weaksauce spirits she could capture before she ran out of time. She wasn't here to impress anyone—she just needed to survive. As easy as her plan was, coming by the spirits themselves was a little trickier than she'd expected it to be, courtesy of most of the low-level ones constantly meandering in and out of existence.
Flak, who had been ahead of her in search of a decent spirit to merge with, suddenly froze, his hand hovering over his Spectral Interface. "D-did you feel that?" he whispered, his voice barely audible.
Kiehra frowned. She hadn't felt anything unusual, but now that Flak mentioned it, she could sense the slight shift in the environment around her. The spiritual energy around them suddenly thickened, like the unnerving calm before a horrifying storm. Her eyes scanned the horizon, and for a brief moment, she couldn't detect anything out of the ordinary.
And then the ground trembled beneath their feet.
A low, guttural growl echoed across the wasteland, a fearsome sound so deep it vibrated through Kiehra's bones. Flak's eyes went wide, and he stumbled backward, his voice shaking. "That…that's not an average spirit is it?"
Kiehra's breath hitched. No, this wasn't an average spirit. In fact it felt worse than even a high risk. This was something far worse than any classifications. Her eyes locked onto the distinct shape of something slowly rising from underneath the ground. At first, it looked like a mound of rubble, but as its full form emerged from the earth, Kiehra felt her blood turn to ice.
The creature was gargantuan, its body shrouded in thick layers of bone and twisted metal armor. The aura it exuded was one of pure malevolence, its many eyes glowing with an eerie, malign light. Ancient runes etched across its body flickered with dark energy, and the very air around it seemed to warp under the weight of its presence. Something of this magnitude wasn't supposed to be a part of the exam—no, it had been buried deep beneath the surface, lying dormant for untold centuries. And now it was awake.
"Three," Kiehra gasped, "I don't think that's supposed to be here!"
"Those runes—run Kiehra!" Three's voice rang out, sharp and fraught with worry, but Kiehra's body wouldn't move.
The spirit roared, the entire area shaking the entire area to its core. Three seemed to recognize it, meaning that this entity was likely a primeval force, far older and far more dangerous than anything Kiehra had ever imagined. But instead of attacking her, its glowing eyes locked onto Flak, who had stumbled into his view, body paralyzed with fear.
"Flak, run!" Kiehra yelled, her voice sharp with urgency.
Before the boy could react, the spirit lunged toward him with a speed that didn't at all fit its massive size. Its clawed hand, easily dwarfing a house, came crashing down, aiming to crush Flak where he stood. Just like she did in the speed test, Kiehra's body moved faster than her mind could catch up, propelled by an overwhelming surge of adrenaline and instinct. She grabbed Flak and yanked him out of the way, the spirit's hand slamming into the ground so hard it splintered, a shockwave blasting through the air.
Flak screamed, his voice pitched so high Kiehra was certain her eardrums would burst. He staggered, legs giving out beneath him as he collapsed to the ground, his eyes wide with terror.
"Stay down!" Kiehra ordered, her own voice barely controlled. The spirit loomed over them, its oppressive aura growing heavier by the minute. Kiehra's mind raced, her chains rattling as her power started to strain against her skin. I have to keep calm. I can't afford to lose control here. We should leave and have the Phantom Sentry deal with this.
The spirit lunged again, faster and more precise than before. Kiehra's mind blanked. Everything turned to a blur. Her body moved on its own, her arm swinging out in a reflexive attempt to save herself and Flak. But she underestimated her own strength—she always did. Her hand met the spirit's chest in a backhanded slap, and in that moment, everything changed.
The instant her hand connected with the creature, the heavy chains she wore to dampen her strength shattered.
The sound of the breaking chains was a sign of bad things to come, but it was too late. In that instant, Kiehra's raw, unfiltered power surged forward like a tidal wave released from the deepest depths of her being.
All she'd done was hit it with a simple backhand motion meant to deflect it. The results of her actions however, defied all logic and comprehension.
Her strike exploded with a force that could only be described as cataclysmic.
The sound of the blow could be heard—and felt—all the way back at Phantom Sentry Headquarters, creating a shockwave so intense it split the ground beneath them. Kiehra felt every ounce of the enrgy ripple out from her arm, a raw, uncontrolled burst of power that tore through the very fabric of the wasteland. The spirit, a colossal mass of armor and shadow, didn't just falter—it disintegrated.
Eighty percent of its hulking form was blasted out of existence in an instant, the very components that made up its being scattered on the violent wind. What remained of its body was flung across the wasteland like debris from an explosion, flying multiple miles before crashing into the distant cliffs with a force that split them wide open. The very sky above them twisted, the clouds warping in recoil from the otherworldly impact.
But the destruction was far from over.
The ground itself, made of solid rock and ancient stone, began to quake and buckle under the force of Kiehra's blow. Whole sections of the wasteland collapsed inward, forming massive craters and caverns where the land had once been flat. Jagged fissures raced across the ground in every direction, stretching for miles and miles. The landscape was being reshaped, transformed by the sheer ungodly magnitude of her power.
In the distance, mountains crumbled, their peaks collapsing as the tremor radiated outward. The atmosphere warped, clouds bending and twisting to adjust to the sudden upheaval of the land. The sun, once high and blinding, now cast strange shadows over the altered terrain, as though Gehenna was scrambling to reassemble itself after being broken.
The effect was far more than just a simple quake—it was like Kiehra's backhand had reshaped reality, bending both land and sky to her immense power.
Her heart was threatening to burst out of her chest as she stared in horror at what she had done. The once barren wasteland was now an endless stretch of broken, disfigured earth. What had once been a flat, desolate field was now an alien biome of towering cliffs and deep, treacherous craters.
And through it all, Flak lay unconscious at her feet, having passed out the moment the spirit had lunged at him. The entire world was silent for a long, agonizing moment, as if the air was holding its breath.
"What…what did I just do?" Kiehra asked nobody in particular, her voice so small it couldn't even be heard.
Three's voice was low and tense, devoid of any amusement. The spirit was every bit as stunned as his host. "You….just altered the geography of the Field of Fallen Gods. You…you just reshaped the land…"
Kiehra felt numb. Her body was shaking, not from exhaustion or exertion but from the sheer shock of what she had unleashed with her hands. She hadn't meant to. She hadn't meant to destroy the spirit like that. She hadn't meant to turn the wasteland into a chasm of irreparable ruin.
But there was no time to dwell on it. Alarms were blaring in the distance—Phantom Sentry officers would soon arrive to investigate the disturbance.
"We need to get out of here, now." Three commanded. "Nobody saw you do this. Let's keep it that way."
Kiehra nodded, slinging Flak over her shoulder as she fled the scene. Her heart was beating like crazy, her mind reeling from the cataclysm she had caused, but she forced herself to keep moving. Her eyes darted to the alien boy on her shoulder, and she breathed a sigh of relief—he hadn't seen it. He hadn't seen her lose control.
On her way, she noticed two low-class spirits that had been drawn to the commotion, and captured them without much hassle. She barely registered what she was doing, her mind focused only on covering her tracks. As she ran, she glanced back at the wasteland one last time. The scars of her power were unmistakable—giant craters, crumbling mountain ranges, and the sky permanently twisted into an unnatural position over the shattered land. It would take decades, maybe centuries, for the land to heal from what she'd done.
As the timer for the spirit capture exam ran out, Kiehra stood in the aftermath of her own destruction, her heart still racing. She had done it—she had captured the spirits she needed. But the price had been far greater than she had anticipated.
---
Later, after the field had been cleared and the results tallied, Kiehra sat in the Phantom Sentry headquarters, a drink in her hand. The combined result of her two exams and the spirit capture test had earned her a position as a mere Initiate LV4, slightly above the average rank for newbies to attain, courtesy of Lieutenant Vela's hateful machinations. She was grateful though. That meant all attention was hopefully off her for now. Beside her, Payday clinked her glass in a quiet toast.
"Well, looks like you survived! Too bad about your position despite your amazing physical stats. Oh well, drinks all around, right?" the energetic woman asked, pouring some whiskey into her flax.
Kiehra managed a weak smile. "Yeah, drinks."
As they celebrated quietly amongst the other examinees, the weight of what she had done hung heavy on her shoulders. She glanced at the shattered remains of the chains she had worn—broken by the sheer force of her power.
For now, no one knew. But at the rate she was going, not even that would last forever.
---
Flak sat in a cold, sterile room, surrounded by Phantom Sentry officers and Lieutenants. His blue hands trembled as they questioned him about the vanquished spirit, and the unprecedented destruction he had witnessed, their faces tight with confusion. The records they'd collected from the field were contradictory—nothing made sense. How could such a powerful spirit simply be vanquished like that?
Flak, thankfully, had no answers. He was pale and jittery, his recollection fuzzy at best. He kept shaking his head, repeating the same line: "I…I can't remember…I passed out."
The Lieutenants exchanged glances, their suspicion shifting elsewhere. Specifically, to the top four examinees. Kiehra was a prime suspect, but a considerable amount of questions were directed at another applicant—Fabian Rann, a quiet young man who had finished second in the physical exams. He was the runner up to Kiehra in several of the trials, and though his scores were pale in comparison to hers, they were still far greater than average despite his apparent powerlessness. The Lieutenants didn't trust the coincidence.
"I'll investigate Kiehra Ashbluff," one of the Lieutenant said, his voice laced with venom. It was Redford, whose record had been broken as well. "Something doesn't add up with her."
But Lieutenant Vela stepped in, his cold eyes locking onto Kiehra's file. "No. I'll be the one to handle her."
His tone was final, and as the others stepped back, he clenched his fist in rage. His gaze lingered on her picture a moment longer before he turned away, a singular thought running through his head.
To make her life a living hell.