"Alrighty! Are y'all ready! Get started, get sweaty, or get screwed!" Principal Khan's voices thundered overhead through countless Projection Casts as a few dozen five-man squads prepared themselves before the start of the Summer Selection Preliminaries.

“That didn’t even make any sense…”

“Sh...he would hear you…”

Gathered around the Southern parts of the floating island, Wu's squad, or really officially, Fatera's Squad is among the many Summer Selection hopefuls that are fighting to qualify for the big tournaments.

There are supposed to be quite a few more qualifying tournaments, but thanks to Fatera causing the group to be late, they were stuffed at the tail-end of the first qualifier, as the later dates are fully booked up by other squads who wanted more time to prepare.

"Here is the all-eyes-on-us moment..." Wu murmured, his voice slightly augmented through the mask he is wearing before he checked the pulses of Wave all throughout his Void suit, "Again, thanks to you, Fatera."

"As it should be!" Fatera said, puffing her chest up and tearing off the light armor set she pretended to wear, "Let's just win and go eat somewhere."

"You’d better be buying." Ver cracked her neck, scanning the environments around, "Thankfully, the rules are simple this time."

Each squad wore numbered jerseys for the sake of identification, and the five remaining squads from each of the qualifying tournaments will end up as participants in the Summer selection.

The entire forest was big, but not big enough to comfortably hide twenty squads of five, especially with their presence in the Wave so viscerally palpable. Principal Khan's own shield Cast will then act as the shrinking area for their battle royale, encouraging fights rather than running away.

"Simple? That just meant everybody is going to target us." Lera said, flipping over her book of Casts and calming her breathing. She never had the best Wave sensing, yet even she could tell the countless eyes looking at them, "When they come at us, let me engage them first."

"I will help you." Augen said, tapping Fatera on the shoulders, "We shouldn't really separate in this particular battle."

"What? Why not?!" Fatera protested when suddenly, the horn indicating the start of the preliminaries blasted through the air.

In that instant, the trees around them were completely disintegrated by massive Casts as dozens of cannon-like Casts pointed their barrel towards them, jets of water, fire, Wave orbs, shards of ice, and dark blobs started raining down on them.

People were not supposed to prepare their Casts before the official start of the battle, and it seemed their opponents around them had other ideas, despite Lera's earnestness with following the rules.

"LERA?!" Ver shouted, when a glowing grid rapidly expanded from around their feet.

"Sweeping Darkness...VOID DOMAIN DROWN!" Lera shouted, a massive semi-transparent dark wave shooting up the air, dissembling the individual attacks while bathing Wu's squad in complete and utter darkness, "Now! Go."

With smiles floating on their faces, all five Wave users in Wu's squad simultaneously reached towards a circular disc over their left chest, pressing a button and activating the Anti-Void Domain. Then, they slipped silently into the void, moving without a sound or a trace.

"It's...it's coming!" The squads around them all felt the spine-tingling aura from Lera's Void Domain, though thanks to the addition of Sweeping darkness which blinds all vision for the Lera's opponents and Void Domain Drown that hides all presence of those within the Void Domain, there were not a hint of where each of the five is within the regions of darkness that now started to...crawl around like a bug made of black mist?

"Don't be scared!" A valiant voice came from above as a trio of Channelers leaped high up in the air, their fists glowing and body bathed in glowing Waves of different colors. They have seen Casts like this before, wide-ranging mobile Casts that cover a large area, and the key weakness of those Casts are their integrity in relation to the Caster's own strength and fitness.

Typically, through repeated attacks against the Cast itself, they are usually able to eventually break through the spanning Casts. And there is no one better at producing relentless and repeated attacks than the Channelers that Lera dreads so much.

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"ATTACK!" A squad made entirely of Channelers charged in at the same time as the three landing from above, and they both vanished into the darkness, their battle cry sniffed up in an instant and their presence in the Wave erased. Then, as the Void Domain continued to move, their unconscious beaten-up body was left behind like metabolic wastes of this otherworldly creature.

"What...what is happening here?!" The other groups shouted, attempting to attack some more as their attacks were completely absorbed by the Void Domain, and their fighting spirits along with it. The groups that once allied with one another to take down Wu's squad now turning against one another as they hoped to secure one of the other four remaining spaces to qualify.

Among the chaos, Principal Khan's shields started shrinking away, and the Void Domain created by Lera simply walked along at the pace of the bubble.

"This is pretty crazy..." Wu said, walking alongside Lera as she concentrated on holding the Void domain while Augen, Fatera, and Ver made sure to clear away any opponents in the way, "We are basically in a tank by now..."

"Mobilizing my Cast Array was my next step," Lera said, her grey eyes opened up wide as she focused. Wu reached over and wiped away sweat over her forehead as she smiled lightly, "I still haven't done it that well, and...I am nearing my limit in expanding the range of my Cast array."

"So you are just continuing to make more and more of your Cast array?" Wu asked as Lera grunted hard, her face becoming paler as she nearly tripped.

"Argh..." Lera said, her breaths becoming faster and faster as the intensity of the Void Domain started to decrease. However, by that time, the majority of the contesting Squads had already been defeated, leaving behind less than ten in the battle.

With all intents and purposes, Lera did her job. The job of a supporting Caster, and one of the most important jobs of them all.

"Thanks Lera." Fatera's voice came from beyond the darkness as she stepped towards Lera who dropped into Wu's arms. As the Void Domain and the Sweeping Darkness slowly faded away into thin air, the outlines of Fatera, Ver, and Augen's bodies became more pronounced in Lera's eye.

"We will take it from here." Augen continued, decks of glowing cards in between his fingers before he tossed them high up into the air, a chilling wind blowing around them as blizzards knocked back the ranged attacks coming from the remaining squads.

"Don't ya worry." Fatera said, clashing her fist together, "I shall carry ya all to victory."

Turning around, Fatera walked through Augen's blizzards created by his Winter Bark Cast, and dark red Wave surged out from within her body, her crimson eyes glowing bright like molten iron. Staring down dozens of Wave users all with their attacks ready, she unleashed her Killa Mode upon them.

Through the blizzard, Wu, Lera, Ver, and Augen watched as massive explosions rocked the entire forest, with Fatera working her way through the countless remaining squads all by herself, her punches ripping through the air and kicks peeling away the earth.

Screams and shouts from her opponents were brief, and moments later, she stood alone in the decimated landscape, her hands clean and posture erect.

That was when Principal Khan's shield Cast started peeling away, and the dozens of floating chariots moved out of the way to make way for a platinum-colored one that descended through the air. The principal leaned out, his smooth head poking over the edge as he examined the destroyed forest where the five remaining Squads stood, and he sighed.

Then, he reached a hand over and snapped his finger. Suddenly, Fatera found herself bathed in the flames all around her, though something felt weird...those flames felt...cold? Tracking the movements of the fire and smoke, she quickly noticed that they are going backward, but not backward in space...

Backward in time.

Augen gasped, feeling the unnatural flowfield of the Wave as all of the individual Wave users near the ground felt their stomach turned upside down, and Lera turned her head to the side before she started vomiting. The disorientation felt exactly like what they experienced when they first approached the island from below, and that was also a Cast that Principal Khan personally maintains.

"Alrighty, now the forest is fixed." Principal Khan said, sitting back into the platinum chariot, "Congrats, you five fives. Welcome to the Summer Selections."

"See? I told you I will hard carry you." Fatera said, turning around and giving Augen and the group a big thumbs up as Ver Whirlpool Purpled the rest of them towards Fatera. However, her face appeared a little purple and her eyes seemingly strained.

"You felt that too, didn't you?" Ver asked, subtly raising her shaking hand before calming it with the other one, "That ridiculous power..."

"Yes." Fatera said calmly, blinking a few times and dropping her smile, "I silently activated my Dominance mode, just to feel if I could withstand it, but..."

"It felt so overwhelmingly natural as if his Casts are just the way things are meant to be..." Augen added in, as Lera had finally regained her composure after dumping out Ver's home cooking all over the bushes.

"That's the strength of the Principal." A familiar confident feminine voice came from beside them, and Wu turned to see Lily absolutely rocking her combat tight suit with black lines describing her juicy curves, "The strength of one of the Pillars. I aspire to be as strong as him one day."

"And I aspire to be stronger than that." Fatera said, standing up to Lily as their shared a smirk.

"See you at the actual selections." Lily said, turning around and waving a hand as the members of the two squads briefly greeted one another, "We have all been getting stronger, so don't leave us disappointed in three months!"