The second storm nucleus was larger. After the trio ventured through the cloud of dust, they anchored themselves as close to the nucleus as possible. The core of the nucleus, spanning two hundred feet in radius, was made of two powerful spiraling arms that thrashed sand into spirals of towering waves. With the constant spin rate of the core, the sand wave rose and fell rhythmically, like the heavy breaths of a Herculean monster.

Without the obstruction of the non-Newtonian dust barrier, Zora scouted this storm fairly easily.

There were three critical points that needed to be defused within twenty-second intervals. For Shon, it would be physically demanding but not nearly impossible.

Shon fired his grappling hook into the storm, but before the hook could attach to anything solid, it got slammed off its course by the sand wave from one of the arms. Although the velocity of the storm was not fast, the sand wave carried enough mass to deflect any projectiles.

Flustered, Shon devised a new strategy. He sprinted alongside the storm’s whirling arms. Activating his jump pack, he accelerated forward to match the frenzied speed of the outermost sand waves. The moment he spotted a fleeting gap in between the two waves, he fired his grappling hook inside, letting his own inertia guide the hook through the narrow crevice.

The hook latched onto a boulder inside. Shon quickly retracted the cable, propelling himself into the churning sand waves. Like a surfer who mastered the ocean, he rode along the sand waves in the same dizzying circular motion around the nucleus, occasionally giving himself an extra push with the help of his jump pack and grappling hook.

He closed his eyes and used his thermal perception to analyze the terrain. He quickly located the first critical point and launched a thermal spear towards it.

This time, he did not detonate the spear immediately, because prematurely defusing a critical point risked altering wind patterns and changing the location of the other critical points. He must detonate all three spears simultaneously.

He fired a grappling hook at another boulder and rode the sand waves toward the second critical point. Suddenly, he felt an oscillation down the cable, followed by a sudden tightening that spun his body around. He quickly adjusted his body back on course with the help of his jump pack, but he felt something off about his trajectory. He pulled onto the cable, but there was no tension.

Shit. The grappling hook must have gotten detached somehow. He remembered the earlier quakes at the Exam center from the level five storm. The storm must have caused a quake in the simulation course that dislodged his grappling hook. Ironic that the simulation course of artificial storms was getting struck by the real storm.

However, now was no time for these thoughts. Without the grappling hook, Shon was thrown out of the sand waves. His jump pack charges were depleted, and he had no way to correct his course.

He was hurled with full strength toward the rocky wall of a canyon. With his current speed, he would certainly be knocked out if not killed.

Shon closed his eyes and braced for impact. However, before he got to replay the precious moments of his life, he felt a powerful grip seizing his waist and yanking him out of his trajectory.

Startled, he opened his eyes and found Zora’s face mere inches away from his own. As they soared through the air, strands of her dark hair swept lightly across her face, and Shon had a sudden urge to brush them away. Never before had Shon looked at Zora’s eyes from this close. For the first time, his gaze traced the elegant sweep of her long and delicate eyelashes, danced along the perfect contours of her eyelids, and finally settled into the enchanting orange glow of her iris.

Before Shon could finish processing his thoughts, the two of them crashed into a pile of sand. The world spun wildly around him as they rolled over and over, finally coming to a stop twenty feet away.

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Shon glanced up. Zora was on top of him, her hands still firmly clasped around his body. Her chest, pressing firmly against his, heaved in and out with each breath. A few beads of sweat rolled down her cheek, glistening in the dim light of the storms. Shon suddenly became aware of how fast his heart was pounding. It was a near-death experience after all.

Zora looked down, and their eyes locked. For a second, it was as if he could speak a thousand thoughts with a single gaze. He could feel the warmth from her body enveloping the atmosphere around them. He wanted to reach up, to close the distance between them. But just like for every beautiful moment in life during the storms, reality crashed back too soon.

The ground shook again. This time, Shon felt the full force of the quake. The quake broke apart many artificially reinforced fixtures used to hold rock formations in place. Large boulders fell from the high cliffs, shattering into tiny pieces of gravel. The smaller rocks got swept right off their fixtures and assimilated into the artificial storm winds as deadly projectiles.

The Fraxian survival instinct immediately picked up the danger. The blanket of air in front of them was getting shredded apart. This meant only one thing.

Shon grabbed Zora’s hand and helped himself up. They stared at the breathing storm nucleus, now more alive than ever. The sand waves accelerated around the core, and with each revolution, they picked up hundreds of pieces of gravel from the shattered boulders and broken sandstones. Like a hammer thrower spinning his hammer, the storm accelerated every second with the new gravel mass it picked up. If anybody stood near the sand wave right now, their body would immediately be torn to shreds.

Finally, the hammer thrower’s chain snapped from the velocity, and all hell went loose.

A barrage of gravel — some the size of bullets and some the size of golf balls — headed straight towards Shon and Zora. Shon could sense the incoming onslaught, and he knew that by the time he could see the gravel, it would already be too late.

Death by shrapnel. This must be how his father had died.

Images flashed in Shon’s head. They were images of his dad that intruded on his dreams, images of what he imagined his dad went through from other’s descriptions. Words like “complete disfigurement” and “total organ puncture” raced through his head. However, since Shon never looked at the actual autopsy photos, he would never know which was more terrifying, the storm that really happened or the storm in his imagination.

Overwhelmed by the memories, Shon found his feet rooted to the ground. Everything in front of his eyes happened in slow motion. The first piece of gravel emerged from the heavy clouds of dust. It was shaped like a jagged cube, traveling with just enough force to burrow into Shon’s organ but not exit from the other end. The next instant, a few dozen pieces of gravel emerged behind it.

Suddenly, a large beam of blue light emerged from behind Shon. The pulsing energy instantly vaporized that jagged cube and half a dozen pieces behind them.

“Stop standing there like idiots!” shouted Damien Strauss. He was firing the blaster rifle at full horsepower.

However, with its sheer mass and velocity, the torrent of gravel soon overpowered the blue beam in just a mere second. However, one second was enough.

Shon and Zora snapped back to their senses. In perfect unison, they held up their right arms. The bracer covering their forearm buzzed to life, emitting gigantic pulses of energy that rippled to its surroundings. Within a few milliseconds, the energy ripples stabilized into a translucent blue shield covering half of their torso.

With their shields covering their ten and two o’clock, Shon and Zora assumed a defensive position with one knee on the ground and braced for impact. Their shields instantly vaporized the smaller gravel pieces, but some larger pieces still squeezed through with their burnt remains, leaving cuts and scorch marks along their arms.

The barrage went on for ten whole seconds, but it stopped at last.

Shon peeked up from behind his shield, now flickering from depleted energy. The storm was shrinking in size for some reason. He turned his head and found the answer.

Behind him, the artificial sky of the Stormrunning simulation course was completely torn apart, exposing a jumbled mess of broken Thermo Pipes and torn air ducts. Hot pressurized steam erupted from one of the broken pipes, while coolant liquids trickled down from another.

This was the first time that the simulation course’s stormmaker had been destroyed by its own creation. Shon waved at the examiners. The Republic of Valeria had never paused a Stormrunning Exam before, and Shon was unsure what would happen now.

After a few minutes of silence, a voice boomed in the simualtion course’s broadcast system.

“Candidates, please be aware that the stormmaker is partially damaged but still functional. Terminating your exam now would be considered forfeiting your scores. You are expected to continue your exam.”