Tension gripped the room like a cowboy lassoing a steer. The thirty seconds passed in slow motion. Everyone busied themselves —Elk trying to look unfazed as he ate another fish dumpling, Mary staring at her bitten nails with a hint of regret, and Tress… Tress was serene, but not with a peaceful kind of serenity. She looked like someone who had already accepted their fate at the gallows.
I gulped down a large portion of the icy tea she’d introduced to us and waited.
It was such a brief amount of time, but in those thirty seconds, I came to a strange realization. This place, no matter how messed up it was, had never deceived us. The rules were always stated plainly when the time came. There were almost no subtleties, no hidden codes to decipher, no forbidden streets to avoid.
The system—the show—spoke a single language: strength, survival, and adaptability. Mistakes were punished more harshly than on the streets, but victory was infinitely more rewarding.
For all I knew, Earth was as good as gone, and our planet’s only shot at retaining some dignity rested on people like Mary and me. And Max. Don’t forget about him.
I couldn’t forget him, even if I wanted to. Following my logic, wasn’t Max the righteous one and me the weak? There were some roads I couldn’t walk, though. I knew I had this beast inside me—a monster that awakened when I needed it, a monster capable of killing, but only to protect my life and the lives of those I cared about.
There was something broken in Max, a hatred he couldn’t control. He could probably get close to win this show, but ultimately, he’d fail because of his enormous blind spot.
I looked at Elk and Tress and saw in them the same humanity I saw in Mary. I recognized that the lack of that could be Max’s downfall, and I wanted to be there when he fell.
The show started.
A screen materialized behind us, the air taking the rectangular shape of a large TV. A projection floated in midair, needing no surface to rest on. The images formed before our eyes, like a 3D movie that actually worked.
The first set of images showed previous years' integrations. Aliens of all kinds fought monsters and each other, accompanied by thunderous, epic music in the background. Each fight scene stayed on the screen for only a few seconds before switching to the struggles of another competitor.
It continued like that for two minutes, the intensity building with each moment. The final image showed a creature I could only describe as a blue orc holding a dragon’s head in its hand. He was crying. He’d been the ultimate victor of that year’s game.
The fighting scenes shifted to show the orc’s race celebrating in what looked like a wasteland. They hugged each other, cried, and shouted what I assumed was the fighter’s name.
I shivered at the impact of the images, thinking about the kids back at St. Jerome, Leo, and even some of my friends from college. They were all counting on me to win, and the thought made my stomach churn nervously.
The show’s logo appeared in the center of the screen: Ascension Games. That’s what they officially called it, aside from referring to it as a partial integration.
A voiceover began, and I realized it was the same woman from the briefing room, though she never appeared on screen.
She greeted viewers from all the imperial lands and protectorates, welcoming them to this year’s show. Then she introduced the competitors.
“The Myriads from Jouintr!” she shouted as images of their planet appeared—similar to Earth but with a single massive continent, mostly covered by forests and mountains.
The Myriads were shown as a mostly peaceful people. There were scenes of them fishing, eating, and communing, but then the images shifted to war. Myriads slaughtered each other in a desolate forest. One faction had clean faces like Tress’, while the other bore three black stripes painted from forehead to chin.
Tress grimaced at the sight, and before she could get more bothered by it, the images switched.
“The Arahaktar from Trass!” the woman announced as Elk’s planet appeared. Its atmosphere had an orange hue, almost red, like some depictions we had of Mars. The landscape was mostly devoid of buildings, but as the camera shifted to the planet at night, I caught glimpses of lights from several cities scattered across the surface.
The camera zoomed in on one of the cities, revealing a thriving society.
The houses and architecture resembled classical Roman structures, built from solid stone with sturdy, secure designs. People traded in the streets, conversed, and laughed, but there was an underlying tension visible in their faces.
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Then I noticed the Arahaktar scattered throughout the streets. These ones wore no tunics, proudly displaying their bodies in public. They were everywhere, overseeing everything, a constant presence.
The images shifted to a brutal duel between two warriors, ending with one breaking the other’s neck. The scene zoomed out, revealing a massive arena where a bored ruler watched from his seat. He wore no clothes either, and he was the largest, most muscular Arahaktar I’d ever seen. Contrary to what I might’ve expected, there were no women beside him. He sat alone, one hand idly caressing one of his giant horns while the other played with a knife.
I didn’t see a single hornless Arahaktar like Elk among them, and the show didn’t mention it either. Instead, it emphasized how the Arahaktar had driven their oppressors from the planet and now ruled through might and strength.
They spent more time showcasing Elk’s planet than Tress’, and he seemed even more uncomfortable with the footage than the elf had been. By the end, he wasn’t even watching, instead focusing on his icy tea and the vermillion paste for solace.
Elk’s planet appeared to be dominated by the males of his race, with physical strength dictating who held power. Elk lacked the horns and the muscles, and I could only imagine how hard his life must have been.
Thankfully, the show switched to Earth. The way they portrayed it was similar to that of the Myriads. They showed thriving cities, advanced technology, family bonds, and the natural and manufactured wealth we possessed. Then, the tone shifted. They began showing famine-stricken people from across the globe—every race had its example of someone struggling to survive. Images of the food we wasted daily played alongside scenes of people dying from hunger.
Next came war. Men with assault rifles fired at others armed with nothing but sticks and rocks. Drones dropped bombs. They showed footage of the Holocaust and the First World War. Dead bodies from mustard gas attacks—both in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. They even included a scene shot from someone's phone of a mugging in what had to be South America. Even worse was what followed after they took the stolen goods from their victim. Two men continually stabbed the victim for no apparent reason.
Then, they cut to New Year’s celebrations—people hugging, laughing, and wishing the best for their loved ones.
We looked like damn hypocrites. They weren’t wrong, but I didn’t dwell on it. Humanity was all that they showed: evil, twisted, but also capable of good.
I noticed more details in their presentation of Earth because it was my reality, but the discomfort on both Elk’s and Tress’ faces told me they didn’t think their worlds were any better.
No one said a word. There was nothing to say. I’d never expected a perfect place to exist in the universe, and the system had just confirmed that. Imperfection was a trait of humanity, and I’d accepted it long ago, back when I had no other choice.
With the presentations over, the show explained to its viewers how the tutorial worked. It seemed this edited version aired on specific days and times, while the live feed was available 24/7. For the audience watching only the edited version, it almost seemed like we were performing everything in perfect sequence.
The briefing segment took just a minute in the show. They focused on our confused and determined faces but skipped over the host’s smiting of the others.
The class selection montage was a polished sequence showing humans, Myriads, and Arahaktar choosing their paths. The editing made it seem like most Arahaktar chose warrior, the elves were split between archer and mage, and humans took a more varied approach, their choices all over the place.
I appeared at the end of the selection, holding the two tokens—mage and rogue—in my hands. The show maintained the tension, drawing out the moment as I waited to see if I’d be smited or not. My face looked far more relieved than I’d expected.
They then showed the first fights of several people, and I wasn’t surprised when Max appeared on the screen. His story about fighting a confused homeless man turned out to be true; it had happened exactly as he’d described.
Next, they highlighted the conflicts between races, and that’s when I discovered the truth.
Max had a brief, heated argument with Mila, though his words were inaudible. He kept his voice low, almost hissing, before pointing to a corridor. There, two Myriads sat on the ground with their eyes closed, likely meditating.
Max approached them with slow, deliberate steps, Mila trailing close behind. He attacked them by surprise, nearly killing them. But the Myriads were well-trained and started to overcome the odds—until a sound echoed from the end of the corridor.
There I was, rushing to the aid of my fellow Earthlings. The fight was fast and brutal, like most of them were, and in the end, we killed both Myriads.
When one of them asked, “Why?” my stomach churned, and I thought I was going to vomit. My companions’ eyes were on me, and I noticed there was no judgment in them. I couldn’t tell if that made me feel better or worse.
They showed Max lying and Mila’s face twisting with guilt as I swallowed his deception. Damn, I’d been an idiot, but the Russian was a damn good liar. He’d told me a partial truth before slipping in the lie to soften the blow, and I’d fallen for it—at least partially.
They didn’t show much more of what happened on the first floor. When the images of my duel with the Arahaktar appeared, I was already alongside Elk, and it was implicit that we were allies. They cut the fight down to key moments, but the ending was edited like the climax of an action movie.
Pride surged through me as the Arahaktar accepted my terms, and we parted ways without any deaths.
There were more depictions of the second floor, but they didn’t show much of Max or Mila, and our fight against the wargs was only glimpsed briefly. However, it was becoming clear that my party was one of the few consistently featured in every stage of the process. I wasn’t sure if that was because so few of us had survived or if it was part of some narrative the show wanted to create.
“Now, we’ll take a short break before showing the conclusion of the proving grounds!” the announcer said. “We’ll reveal who was blessed by a deity’s patronage and who didn’t make it in time!”
She paused, as if the segment was about to end, then added in a playful tone, “And to celebrate this year’s games, you’ll get to watch live as the winners are presented with their new world!”