Chapter 37: Perfect Clearence I
Chapter 37: Perfect Clearence I
As those above laughed and made their bets...Down below, the dark forest began to light up as the groove where Damian and Lyra Veyrin were hiding started to tremble. Lyra peeked her head out and shook it in exasperation.
"Just when I was about to get something good out of you, they start changing the environment. Say, what do I have to do to actually earn your trust? All your answers so far have been shallow, while I’ve spilled a lot."
...!
Damian turned to look at her just as the temperature around them started climbing, a crimson hue bleeding in from the distance.
Yeah.
She’d told him a lot- about the ZENTHRA Beast Trials, the Trial Guardians, even how the Interstellar Beast Masters were organized.
How even among Beast Masters, there was a clear division between Stackborn and Glassblood.
Discrimination ran deep. It didn’t vanish just because you were in some elite program.
Stackborn Beast Masters like him? Always the underdogs. Even if others didn’t say it out loud.
And Lyra...she had offered a lot—information, goodwill, maybe even genuine kindness.
But trust?
Trust wasn’t something he gave out like candy. Not anymore. Not after what he’d seen from other Beast Masters.
Still, he played along, answering her with his usual guarded tone.
"This is how I am. But the fact I’m still talking to you—that should say something, right? And right now, we might need to pause this little heart-to-heart and focus on not dying."
His eyes swept the rapidly transforming landscape.
As the artificial forest melted into a Volcanic Wasteland, the very air grew heavier, molten heat rippling off the cracking earth.
Lyra sighed and snapped her fingers. The Blue Slime landed on her head, while Kitsuul glided back onto Damian’s shoulder, eyes gleaming, focused on the waves of heat spreading through the terrain.
Lyra’s voice echoed out, tinged with determination.
"Alright. We’ll talk more later. My goal today? Earning your friendship. Six hours stuck in a trial together should be enough to build that, right? That way Little Bluey still gets to hang out with Kitsuul after you become a Trial Guardian."
...!
She barely finished her sentence before...
GUSH!
Geysers of scalding steam erupted from the ground where they had just been standing. Simulated magma began carving chaotic paths through the earth as the two landed on the flaming branches of a scorched artificial tree.
Ash clouds billowed upward, obscuring visibility. Dust coated skin, fur, and sensors. Every few steps, the brittle ground collapsed beneath other Beast Masters navigating the burning terrain.
Volcanic glass jutted like fangs from the soil, waiting to slice. Predator Drones overheated less in this biome, cloaked in thermal camouflage that let them move unseen through the haze.
For Beast Masters, one misstep meant incineration—or worse, separation from their Beast mid-ambush.
Damian, analyzing everything with a cool gaze, asked without turning around:
"You’re really that confident I’ll make it as a Trial Guardian?"
The woman who’d been pretending to be shy, who was clearly something far more, nodded as if it was a foregone conclusion.
"Little Bluey hasn’t even thought about fighting your Kitsuul. That means she might be stronger. And Blue’s already on par with—maybe even better than—some of the Trial Guardians we’re facing today. So yeah..."
She shrugged like it was nothing.
BZZT!
A Predator Drone surged out of the smoke behind them—but Little Bluey hurled himself forward like a bouncing wrecking ball, smashing the drone mid-leap and sending it tumbling into a lava pool with sparks flying.
Damian barely flinched. The searing heat felt more like a sauna to him now—Kitsuul’s power had wrapped around him, dulling the sting of the air.
With Kitsuul and the Blue Slime handling the drones, they were in no real danger—so long as they stayed off the unstable ground and kept to the trees.
Lyra seemed to agree. "Looks like we’ll still get a chance to chat during this part of the trial..."
She did not notice the way Damian’s voice dropped low, the way he cupped a hand over his mouth.
"Wait until we get to the freezing biome. We’ll find a place to bunker down. Talking out in the open doesn’t sit right with me—especially if Guardian Flameborn’s watching. You wouldn’t want me targeted for being too friendly with a Glassblood, right?"
...!
Lyra’s eyes widened further. Then, after a beat, she sighed and nodded.
"Hmm. I get it. Didn’t think of it that way. Okay! I’ll ignore you for a bit—but you owe me a really good answer later."
She whispered it with a smile, then drifted a few feet away. Not far. Just enough.
Together, they scanned the landscape, ready to spring at a moment’s notice. Ready for the next wave of heat... or ambush.
And so the hour ticked by. Despite the environmental hazards and mechanical threats, it was manageable. For them, anyway.
That was... until the scorching heat faded.
Until fire turned to frost.
The Tundra biome dropped like a hammer. Winds howled through frozen branches laced with jagged rime. Ice coated every surface—turning even agile Beasts into stumbling newborns.
Hypothermia algorithms kicked in. Reflexes slowed. Stamina drained.
And the worst part?
The blizzards. Blinding, constant, and merciless—rolling in to trap Beast Masters in freezing white silence.
Isolating them one by one.
Testing who would freeze—and who would fight.
Some regions were riddled with jagged ice spikes hidden beneath snowbanks—fatal if stepped on. Predator Drones had now evolved into frost variants, capable of freezing Beasts and Beast Masters who were unprepared!
And yet for Damian...
His feedback loop with Kitsuul showed just how ridiculously at ease she was in the cold. She was actually playing with the artificial snow and blizzards, while Damian felt like he was walking through a cool spring breeze.
Another easy phase of the first trial, for him.
In this frozen biome, Lyra Veyrin had found another snow-filled, cavelike burrow for them to slip into. Once inside, she veiled their conversation again using her Blue Slime!