Phoenix Flight

The Arcane Knight Guilds existed in order to more easily manage all the various Knights that were within the kingdom. A Knight was required to work for a Guild in order to maintain their license, and in return for working alongside their Guild, they would be offered extra resources.

The Guilds were often ranked amongst each other. Typically, the top three were always the Shining Sentinels, Umbra Mortis, and Mourning Stars. The worst Guild was always Phoenix Flight, also known as the cursed Guild.

There was an app that was created where a person could view the various Guilds, see their members, total quests completed, and various other rankings. This app also allowed users to look up specific Knights and even post quests. When a quest was created, that person could either pay a high premium price and specifically select a Knight or Guild to send the quest to, or they could just put the quest out as a bounty, which would then be handed out to one of the eight Guilds by another group of people who monitored all quests and came up with the prices.

Due to this method, Phoenix Flight rarely received any important missions, yet the ones they did receive always resulted in failure anyway.

In the beginning, there were four Knights who served directly under Lady Haru herself. These four Knights were some of the mightiest warriors the world had ever seen, and even to this day, while those Knights are no longer around, their family names and titles have all been passed down, save for one…

Each of these four Knights left behind the first ever four Guilds. These Guilds were the Shining Sentinels, Umbra Mortis, Mourning Stars, and lastly, Phoenix Flight. 

That's right. The failure of a Guild used to be one of the original four. So what happened?

All its members died.

After Haru passed on to the next life, followed closely by the Ebony Knight, the four Guilds made it their mission to serve the king and the newly formed Kingdom of Estiria, but trouble would rise when an S1-grade dungeon opened in a city.

Phoenix Flight was the nearest guild, and their Captain took all members into that battle, and every single one of them was slaughtered. They all died, and the kingdom mourned, for it had lost some of its finest soldiers and the original Knights who served under Haru.

And so, there were only three guilds left. In order to fill the hole Phoenix Flight left, Oak Watchers would be created, and the kingdom would move on and continue to thrive. That was until one hundred years later, when a new group of people rose up. They had been raised on the stories of Haru and the legendary heroes of Phoenix Flight, and they decided it was time for the group to reunite. 

These people rapidly rose in popularity and fame as unofficial Knights, and even gained the attention of the king, who was so impressed and moved by them that he made them all official Arcane Knights, and once more, Phoenix Flight's Guild was reborn!

Then an invasion of the Gallenth nation occurred near the border of Estiria, and all the rookie Knights in the newly formed Phoenix Flight Guild were slaughtered, with their heads hung up on pikes.

Yet again, the Guild died.

The people were in shock and mourned yet again. Then, not even a hundred years later, Pantheon had been formed, but some of its members got caught up in controversy and were forced to leave the newly created Guild. These Knights didn't want to quit their job, though, and so instead they decided it was time for an old favorite to appear again. That's right, they became members of Phoenix Flight, and a week later, they all died when a severe natural disaster occurred at their Guild base, resulting in all the members burning alive under an ocean of lava.

By this point, rumors of Phoenix Flight being a cursed Guild began to spread through the kingdom, and when, yet again, a new iteration of the Guild was created and all its members were cursed by a mighty dragon and turned into rocks two years later, the rumors seemed to be confirmed.

Phoenix Flight was destined to fail.

Sometimes it would be around for a week. Other times, it could last a year or two. On infrequent occasions, it could even last up to ten years, but no matter what, it always ended the same. All members in the Guild would either be outright killed, cursed, or put through things so bad they'd never be able to function as Knights again.

In the nine hundred years that the Guilds have existed, there have been over one hundred different Phoenix Flight Guilds.

A question must then be asked. Why?

Why did the Guild still exist? If it really was being wiped out, why would the kingdom allow it to stick around?

Unknown to most of the public, a horrible truth had been discovered. If Phoenix Flight weren't around, then another Guild would simply become the target for this wave of awful luck. The King had stopped allowing the Guild to exist, but in doing so, a freak accident happened that nearly wiped out every Shining Sentinels, Umbra Mortis, and Mourning Star member and almost resulted in the top three Guilds being destroyed for good. It wasn't just the top three Guilds that were suffering either. The other four Guilds were hit with bad luck as well, all losing dozens of members on a daily basis until a new Phoenix Flight Guild was created.

No one understood how it worked or even why it worked, but the message was clear. If Phoenix Flight didn't exist to be destroyed, then none of the other Guilds had a right to exist either. Perhaps it was a curse from an evil god or maybe a devil, but the universe seemed to require that Phoenix Flight exist so it could have a punching bag.

That was how Phoenix Flight became the eighth 'unofficial' Guild.

The Guild now served as a placeholder, and it usually didn't gain any new members, since even if the Captain for the Guild voted, exam-takers would rather end up with no Guild than become a member of Phoenix Flight. The only sort of people who did join that Guild were the absolute worst of the worst, who were desperate to be a Knight, even one that was doomed, Magical Mutants, or straight-up criminals whom the kingdom would throw into the Guild as a form of punishment since everyone in the Guild always ended up dying.

Every now and then, a Captain of the Guild would try and reorganize and form Phoenix Flight into a respectable Guild and get them to do actual missions, but it never lasted long before the Guild was wiped out and a new sucker was forced to take over as the head of it.

There was one good thing that came out of the Guild, though.

Now that the age of magitech had arrived and recording things on a phone was possible, dozens of 'epic fail' videos were all over the internet, showing the members of Phoenix Flight failing their missions.

All of this was being told to Davi by Ash, who had his phone out and was eagerly showing Davi one of these epic fails. The video showed a woman with blue hair who was fighting a large, bear-like monster. At first, she had been doing well, but then she suddenly tripped on a branch, and the bear managed to get her.

The video ended just as the bear grabbed one of her legs and started to rip it off. Davi stared blankly at the screen, the woman's screams still haunting his ears.

"Why did you show me that?" Davi asked.

"Thought it would be funny?" Ash shrugged. "I love watching epic fail videos. They're great."

"You're a messed-up dude." Davi hummed and shook his head, forcing the horrible sight out of his mind. He forced himself to snap back to the reality of what was happening and looked back up at where Pretty Face was. The woman had been blabbing about random stats and other fun facts about the Captains and Vice Captains, but Davi didn't really care about it, even though the rest of the crowd seemed transfixed and kept cheering. He was more focused on the empty throne. "Does bad luck actually exist?"

"Of course it does." Ash nodded and pocketed his phone after he sensed Davi wouldn't want to watch another gore video. "A Guild being destroyed seldom happens. Sure, a Guild can lose a ton of members and almost be torn down, but only Phoenix Flight has managed to wipe itself out so many times. Once or twice it might have been a freak accident, but there have been way too many Captains who have taken their entire crew with them to hell."

"Bad luck can be used if you know what you're doing, though." Davi rubbed his chin. "For example, if the Guild always gets destroyed, then the thing that destroys them has to be powerful enough to do it."

"I don't think I follow what you're saying." Ash frowned.

"Well, if I were in that Guild and became as strong as I needed to, anything thrown at me wouldn't be able to kill me," Davi explained. "So, for the 'curse' to actually hit me with a wave of bad luck that would result in my death, something perilous would have to set its eyes on me. Something like a dragon."

Ash made a face. "Dragons don't exist anymore; they've all been wiped out, but if one were around, it would for sure set its eyes on Phoenix Flight and wipe the Guild out. Don't worry about it, though; you won't end up on that Guild. The current Captain doesn't care about recruiting people, and she hasn't done so in the two years she's served."

"She hasn't died yet?" Davi asked, surprised.

"Not yet." Ash let out another snort. "That just means it'll happen soon, though. The record is ten years. No other Captain has survived for that long."

"This one must be strong, then." Davi's eyes scanned the stuffed bird that rested in the empty throne. 'Strong enough where only a dragon would be considered enough bad luck to kill you.' Davi hoped.

He had an idea.

A terrible, terrible, idiotic idea.

"Alrighty, alrighty!" Pretty Face called out. She was once more speaking into the microphone she held, her booming voice drowning out the cheering crowd of exam-takers. The drone began to fly over the crowd once more, and more of the men in suits scrolled their tablets and began to send results directly to their captains. "I think it's time we get this party really started!" The woman's wings flapped, and she took to the skies, getting higher up. "What do you all say!"

"Yeah!" People cheered.

"We're ready to take the test!"

"I can see your underwear up your skirt!"

"Throw your best at us!"

"Let's do this!"

Pretty Face casually flipped her hair, and she shot a look at the Father, who rested on his throne. The leader of the Shining Sentinels nodded his head. As did the Crow, and Dark Star. 

Pretty Face nodded back, and she turned to look down at the crowd. "Okay! So here's the deal! As always, there are four tests that you must pass in order to become an Arcane Knight! These tests are important, but I will say they aren't as important as standing out! Each test has a number of points that you can gain! The more points you have, the better off you'll be, but as always, it doesn't actually matter how many points you have by the end of this exam; hell, you can even fail all the tests and still become an Arcane Knight! Why? Because the system is rigged, babies! The only thing that really matters is catching the eye of one of the seven—sorry, eight—captains! Obviously, you should do well, but at the end of the day, it is the pretty boys and girls with good looks, talent, and epic powers that make it into the Knights! Do you have none of those things? Well, that's too bad! I guess you'll have to work ten times as hard to get the spotlight on you! There is one way you can do that, though! Why don't you just… eliminate the competition!"

Davi frowned slightly and raised an eyebrow. 'This is a little more cutthroat than I first thought it would be.' 

For the most part, he got what they were going for. If all that mattered was standing out, then the nobles had an advantage, as they came from wealthy families and had better grades, magic powers, and items. In order to even the score, Pretty Face was basically telling anyone who wasn't a Noble to target the popular people who stood a high chance of winning.

Many of the people who weren't that good-looking or didn't reek of money were already glaring at the nobles and the elites. They were falling into the trap Pretty Face was setting.

By instilling in everyone the idea that they can attack those who are better than them and eliminate the competition, it would cause people to rank everyone as either elite or not, subconsciously. By doing this, the people who weren't elites would have to team up with each other and form groups since they weren't nobles or lacked strong magic, meaning they'd have to form a crowd in order to stand a chance against the elites. That was the opposite of what someone should do, though. By creating too large a group, you'd just be a face in the crowd, and the attention wouldn't go to you but instead to the lone person you and everyone else were jumping, and should that person manage to beat you and your group, they'd stand out even more.

That's what Pretty Face was doing. She was getting people to form a mob mentality, and those who were too smart, too strong, or too full of themselves to go along with it and not join a group were the ones who would really stand out.

As the crowd grew increasingly riled up, Pretty Face began to speak once more. "The four tests, for those who don't know, are the test of Skill, the test of Knowledge, the test of Courage, and lastly, the test of the Soul! As is tradition, the King himself comes up with the test of the Soul, while the Captains of the top three Guilds are randomly selected for the other positions. This year, the Father has created the test of Skill, Dark Star has created the test of Knowledge, and Crow has come up with the test of Courage. They've had a full month to come up with ideas, and I have to say, as someone who has gotten to see them all, I'm eagerly looking forward to it." Pretty Face licked her lips in a way that some people might find hot, but Davi just got more uncomfortable. 

Ash took a calming breath and tried to steady his heart. "It's happening." He said. "The test is really about to start."

Pretty Face lifted her hand to the sky and twirled her finger in a circle. "Vil Wind Roulette!" She called out. 

Ash gasped and stared with wide eyes as a ton of wind magic swirled around Pretty Face. Her mana was a bright gold color, which lit the air around her as it twisted and began to form into a solid object. Above the winged woman, it evolved into something that resembled a slot machine. It was some sort of golden screen-like device with a lever poking out of it. 

Pretty Face flew up a bit higher, getting herself above the machine, and then she floated down, using her legs to shove the lever down. As soon as it dropped, the screen started to glow and spin rapidly. Everyone watched with bated breath as it got faster and faster. This was it. The first of the four tests was about to be selected.

A loud dinging noise echoed out of the magical construct, and the screen finally stopped spinning. Across it, the words 'Test of Skill' were etched. Pretty Face looked at them, her eyes sparkling with amusement, and she turned to look back at all the exam-takers.

"Oh, I'm delighted we got this one first. This will start things off with a bit of a bang, that's for sure." She laughed. "As I said before, this test was created by the lovely Father, so if you have any complaints, be sure to take it up with him! Oh, and also remember to do your best! And I don't just mean give it your A-game! Look left, and then right! Everyone you see could either be an ally or an enemy, and there's only one thing to do with an enemy! You take them out, as brutally as possible!"

A murmur went through the crowd at those words, and some people looked a little shocked or afraid.

A man with spiky black hair, dressed in brown robes, raised his hand up and spoke as loudly as he could. "Are you asking us to kill the other exam-takers?" He questioned.

"Of course I am!" Pretty Face announced happily, shocking the people even more. "Only if that's the point of the test, though! Oh, but don't worry! None of you will actually die! You've seen the magic schools, right? It's a similar thing here! You'll be in a simulation, so if you die, you'll just get booted out of the simulation! You'll be in this simulation for the first two tests, also! So if you're afraid of getting in trouble or going all out, then you have no need to worry! Nothing like a little bloodshed to start the day, am I right? Several drones will be hooked up and watching, and those little bracelets you have are connected to your mana, allowing us to see your stats and traits in real time!"

Davi looked down at the chunk of metal that covered his arm. 'Well, now I want to break it…'

"Remember to do your best!" Pretty Face clapped her hands together, and suddenly, there was another deep rumble, and the entire colosseum began to shake rapidly. It worsened, and some people tripped over their feet and fell, which in turn knocked over more people. The sand started to glow with a bright red rune, which rapidly encircled the area, forming dozens of symbols. Davi squeezed his eyes shut as the light began to hurt him, and he heard Ash gasp. "Oh, and most importantly." Pretty Face folded her arms together and cocked her head to the side. "Remember to have fun!"

The shaking suddenly stopped, and the glowing light died down. Davi opened his eyes and then instantly widened them. He was no longer in the stadium, and Ash wasn't sitting next to him either.

Instead of the stone walls and sand-covered ground, he was standing in what looked like a large cornfield. Thick walls of corn rose up all around him, forming some sort of maze, and in the distance, there were large hills and forests, and he even heard the sound of running water, meaning a lake of some kind was likely nearby. He hadn't been transported away, and instead, this was like when he had entered the magic school in Daisy. He could tell that he was in a fake world because the air was richer and less bitter.

'Well, what do I do now?' Davi wondered.

His question was answered moments later as a glowing blue square suddenly formed into existence directly in front of him. He jumped back, but the square remained in front of his face. It was bright blue and somewhat see-through, and as thin as paper. He tried to swat at it, but his hand just went through it. Something flashed on the screen, and then suddenly writing began to materialize before his eyes.

'A new quest has been issued. Quest: Test of Skill. Objective: Defeat as many of your fellow participants as you can in the allotted time. Each participant is worth one point. Time: One hour. If you wish to forfeit, simply say the words 'I give up' and you will be removed from the simulation. Participants who remain unconscious for one minute or die are automatically removed from the simulation.'

"That's what the test of skill is?" Davi chuckled and nodded his head. 'I think I can do that. I guess this makes sense. They want to see us all fight. That winged girl even riled everyone up just for it. I bet that means she was always planning for this to be the first test, and the slot was rigged. If everyone is watching, then you'll stand out more by taking out large groups of weak people who will all team up to stand a chance.' Davi looked around him, eyeing the field of corn and the expanse of greenery that lay beyond it. He needed to find Olivia. "How do I get rid of this thing? It's kind of annoying."

The blue box remained in front of his eyes, and the time on it kept ticking down rapidly. However, as he complained, it suddenly vanished. 

"Oh, cool. It's voice activated—" Davi stepped to the side, and the spot he had been standing on exploded in a wave of rubble as a jagged spike of earth fell from the sky.

"Ha! You're unlucky that I'm your first opponent!" Standing at one end of the cornfield was a large man. That was the only trait Davi really took note of, though, since a moment later he blitzed forward and rammed his fist into the man's face and sent him blasting back.

Davi looked down at his fist, which was coated in a large amount of mana, and then at the unconscious man, who was out cold. "I guess I am pretty strong." He noted. "Or that guy just sucks."

'You've gained one point!' The blue box appeared in front of him once more.

"It keeps track of my points as well—how handy." Davi watched as his blue screen's countdown got lower and the symbol '1' appeared on his screen. He gazed back at the unconscious man. He had made sure to hold back so the guy would survive.

Pretty Face had said this was all a simulation, and it was fine to kill, and it wasn't like he hadn't taken a life before, but he had the feeling that he shouldn't. The woman seemed to have a way of twisting her words, and if Knights were Superheroes, then killing their fellow exam-takers would probably be looked down upon by the Knights that were watching. It was possible that if he took a life, he'd automatically fail the test.

Then again, it was also possible that he was wrong and looking too much into it. Maybe Pretty Face really did want them to go all out and slaughter their fellow exam-takers.

The unconscious man's body glowed with a flickering blue light, and then he suddenly vanished, being yanked out of the simulation.

'Congrats on defeating your first enemy!' The blue box was written out in a way that made it sound almost cheerful.

Davi was about to dismiss it, but before he could, several metallic objects blasted through his screen, catching him off guard. They weren't traced in mana and had been physical objects, not a construct like the other guy had thrown at him, so he had no way of sensing them until they already stabbed into his shoulder. His blood spilled, and he stumbled back as three spiked needles poked out of his arm. "Ow." He said flatly.

"Oh, thank Haru, I found you." A familiar voice announced, and Davi saw that someone else was in the cornfield with him. Ashley, one of that Noble guy's maids, stood before him, a grin on her face as she produced three more jagged needles from beneath her maid's cloak. "Now I can avenge the shame you left on my Master and end you myself!"

The first exam of the Arcane Knights was in full swing.