Let's petition for the best performer of sword dancing.

MAGNUS

There are twenty of us. Now realigning ourselves in two lines of ten. Rank Leader Tom insists we will cross the portal in a gentleman, not to mention vexing manner.

"Twenty?!" the guy with tangled cropped up blonde hair hissed from the opposite line. He's fairly short and a bit like a stray circus monkey who got lost in our Rank.

"Ronald you sick bastard this is all your fault!" He's about to detach himself from his line and charge at Roland but the tall burly guy with olive skin and long pointy nose stops him.

"Now's not the time Liam. Let it go." The burly guy grunted. Despite his intimidating height and buffy muscles, he doesn't like violence and lives according to the rules. Seriously, I respect the guy. I can't imagine how he's living uptight for all these years. His name is Dante by the way.

"Like hell, I will." Liam tried to shrug off Dante's hold but the Rank Elder at the front cleared his throat. Clearly disturbed at their commotion. Liam circled his shoulders and face front.

The Rank Elders, with their wooden staff and blank oblong white masks, have always had a thing for red and shiny stuff. They wear red hooded overcoats with gem bracelets on their wrists. Each bracelet marked each 'Blessings' they mastered. They used it to create portals across the kingdom, and to keep the boundary strong and intact.

It's supposed to ward off intruding 'Beasts' too… and yet, ever since the 'Deity Stone' came, the 'Blessings' flowing in their bodies weaken. Making them unable to maintain the strength of 'Blessings' present in the boundary. It's still there. However, it's like a transparent curtain drawn over the vast unending cliff.

The Beasts can easily fly past them. Good thing the boundary is located in a wide empty desert. There's at least twenty kilometer distance from the kingdoms of Gifted People. At any rate, when bloody fights over beasts arise, the citizens are safe from harm.

"At the count of ten, the portal will open. Brace yourselves for what you will encounter out there Rankers." The Rank Elder announced. His voice drawled under his white mask.

I checked my back for my cross swords. Still there. Tight and secured. I touch my legs, four eight inch silver knives on my lap and ankles. Check. I'm not the type to wield boomerangs like Ronald nor crossbows like Thomas. I love swords. But it's inconvenient to carry only one. The best shot to take down those two to five feet tall beasts – is to berserk with two blades. One for the neck, the other for the eye.

The air beside the Rank Elder's left rippled. Like a clear surface of a lake hit by a droplet. I held the hilt of my sword, bending my knee, preparing to run at full speed. The transparent ripple crack, black line crept through until it becomes an irregular oblong able to accommodate human size for entrance.

"Three," My eyes dead focus at the growing portal.

"Two," My teammates held their own weapons and take a step forward.

"One," Roland, who's standing in front of me, dashed towards the portal following the others. In a flash, we're standing outside in the open barren land.

The first thing I notice is the moon. Ever since the 'Deity stone' came it never changes its shape. Always the full circle, illuminating the quiet desert with bleak white light. I set my eyes to the landscape of flat sand, slapping my cheeks with the howling air of dust and dry baked earth.

At first, it's empty. Still, and silent. No other creatures on sight except me and my nineteen teammates. Sand started to get into my eyes as I tried to bulge my eyeballs for better vision. Unlike the other seven days when we're dispatched, dismembered bodies of other Rankers greets us with the air stink in blood. This time, I smell nothing. I see nothing. I feel nothing.

"What's going on?"

"Where's everybody?"

That's the question I want to vocalize. The dispatched team is assigned to pick up the bodies of Rankers every twelve hours. They retrieved the A groups who were sent from 1 am to 12 pm. The previous twenty who lay lifeless in the hall? They're the Rank 12A group. The dispatched team did a decent job identifying and retrieving their remains one by one while the battle is still going on.

From 1 pm to 12 am onwards, are the B groups, that's us. We're the last team to be dropped off, Rank 12B, which means the bodies of Rank 1B - 11B, or what's left of them, should be here somewhere. Or if some have made it alive somehow, they should be here, battling against the 'Beasts'.

And yet, nothing.

"Magnus, I have a bad feeling about this," Roland said as he skidded to my side. Someone bump into my back, when I look sideways I see black feather arrows protruding in his back, these belong to Thomas.

"Where did they go?" Thomas asked.

I scan the area. Trying to detect the secrets of what happened here. The desert is too quiet, despite the wind whistling pebbles from our right the expansive dead land on our front is completely still. There's no movement. There's no wind. As if the sand dunes are just a painting pinned at the enormous wall to fool enemies.

My comrades run to our side, coming towards me.

"Magnus, should we go back and tell the Rank Elder about this?" Dante asked. I didn't notice him and Liam were standing at my right. Giving me the 'we're waiting for your orders' look. Honestly, I don't see any leadership or redeeming qualities in me for my comrades to rely on me like this.

A glint in our front caught my eye. A small white light hovering in dead air. So quick to appear, so swift to disappear. As if it's just a trick of the sunlight. Yet, it's full moon. There's no trick of the light at night, only shadows playing with our minds. This scenery is an illusion.

"Can you get in contact with the Rank Elder, Dante?"

"Yes," Dante takes out the rectangular metal compact half the size of his palm from his pocket. There are intricate drawings at the side, the surface a clock's face with a needle in the shape of the Rank Elder's staff. He let the metal come closer to his lips and whispered.

"Vocavi te, Rankus Eldrus." The needle staff shines and the Rank Elder's voice came through.

"What's the emergency Ranker?" Dante gave the communicator to me.

"Rank Elder, we've got a serious situation in our hands. All presence of Rank Elders are requested immediately." I said. The glint came again. This time I could make out five thin threads from where it hovered. My comrades exchanged wary glances at each other.

"What's the situation, Ranker?" He asked, I caught the hint of irritation in his voice. This is the first time someone brave enough to call all Rank Elders. And it's punishable by forced incision of the Mark. They could denounce my position as Ranker. And denouncing means sentencing me to death.

"A faery has passed the borders. A lower rank of Class 6." I thought naming the Class Level of the Faery who put up this scenery facade will make it come out in the open. It didn't. I waited. My hearing picks up even the slightest sound in the air. My eyes are wide, alert, expecting attacks.

Before I get to hear the Rank Elder's reply, the whizzing sound of the wind cut by a blade came into my ears.

"Duck!" My team immediately crouched in cover. Twenty, no thirty light swords strike at us from the front. Thomas, clearly shaken out of his wits, attempts to stand up in his wobbling knees.

"Fae - faery? Magnus are you seri -?"

Goosebumps crept over my spine. I locked eyes at Thomas's widen eyeballs. As if ruled by instinct, I take out my sword from my back and leap towards him. Shoving him down the ground. Thomas yelped.

A trio of fireballs lunge at me in fastball speed. I used my cross swords to deflect it. But it wasn't the same thing with light swords. They're untouchable. I'm so preoccupied with the fireball I didn't crouch in time to protect myself from the discharging thirty light swords.

Nine struck me in my arms, thirteen pierced me in my legs. The rest make themselves at home to my torso.