Chapter 51: Combat Simulation!
The suppression collars clicked off with a sharp, synchronized hiss.
Three shapes exploded from the darkness of the opened panels. Soren’s stance shifted instinctively, his weight dropping as the Ironwood spear settled into a two-handed grip. His eyes tracked the movement, categorizing each threat in the span of a heartbeat.
’Vorpal Hares.’
The creatures were rabbit-like in silhouette, roughly the size of large dogs, but any resemblance to prey ended there. Their hind legs were coiled muscle beneath patchy grey fur, built for explosive lunges. Jagged, rodent-like incisors glinted under the harsh lights, and their eyes, six each arranged in asymmetrical clusters, locked onto him with feral hunger.
One circled left. Another right. The third hung back, its many eyes blinking out of sync.
Soren didn’t wait for them to coordinate.
He pushed off his back foot and closed the distance on the leftmost hare in two explosive strides. The creature reacted with unnatural speed, its powerful hind legs launching it into a spiraling leap aimed directly at his throat, jaws gaping wide.
The Ironwood spear met it mid-air.
Soren thrust upward, the leaf-shaped Cold-Iron blade punching through the hare’s exposed underbelly. Momentum carried the corpse along the shaft, and he twisted sharply, flinging the body aside before it could foul his weapon.
’One.’
The second hare seized the opening, darting in low from his right flank. Its jagged teeth snapped toward his ankle, aiming to sever the tendon. Soren pivoted on his lead foot, bringing the spear’s butt down in a brutal vertical strike. The weighted end crushed the creature’s spine with a wet crack.
’Two.’
The final hare had used its companions’ deaths as cover, circling behind him with silent, predatory patience. It launched itself at his exposed back, claws extended toward his neck.
Soren reacted in an instant, letting his legs collapse, falling into a controlled crouch as the hare sailed over his head. In the same fluid motion, he reversed his grip and thrust the spear upward behind him. The blade caught the creature as it descended, impaling it cleanly.
’...Three.’
Silence returned to the combat hall.
Soren straightened, flicking dark blood from his blade.
His breathing remained even, his heart rate elevated but controlled. He glanced toward the observation deck where Vahn stood behind the transparent barrier.
The examiner’s expression hadn’t changed.
"Wave two. Begin."
Four panels slid open this time.
The creatures that emerged were much larger and heavier. Their bodies resembled squat, hairless primates with elongated arms that dragged along the metal floor. Thick, calloused knuckles left faint scratches on the reinforced surface. Their faces were flat and featureless except for a single vertical slit that pulsed with each breath.
’Brawler Gibbons. Built to absorb punishment and dish out crushing force.’ Soren recalled the info in his mind as he prepared for another battle.
Gibbons spread out in a loose semicircle, their pulsing face-slits tracking his every movement. The first lunged without warning, its right arm sweeping in a wide arc aimed at his ribs. Soren backstepped, feeling the wind brush his chest. Before he could counter, the second was already moving, its left fist hammering down toward his skull.
He sidestepped.
"Boom!"
The blow cratered the alloy floor where he had stood a heartbeat earlier.
’They are coordinated.’ Soren analyzed quickly. ’Each attack covers the other, leaving minimal openings. Then...’
He adjusted his grip and shortened his hold on the spear for tighter quarters. He feinted toward the first gibbon, drawing its guard high, then pivoted sharply and drove the blade deep into the second creature’s shoulder joint.
"KREEE!"
It shrieked, a horrible wet sound from its pulsing slit, and its arm went limp.
But the third and fourth were already closing. A massive knuckle slammed into his newly purchased armor, right over his ribs. The obsidian-threaded leather absorbed most of the impact, dispersing the force across his torso. Soren still felt the breath driven from his lungs. He rolled with the blow, using the momentum to create distance.
Thankfully, the armor and his Ironclad Body dulled the worst of it.
He planted his feet and reassessed. The wounded gibbon hung back, one arm useless. Three remained combat effective.
’Alright, time to finish this.’
Soren surged forward and targeted the one who had struck him.
The creature raised both arms to guard its featureless face. He swept the spear low instead, the Cold-Iron blade slicing through the tendons behind its knee.
It crumpled with a guttural wheeze.
The remaining two hesitated for a fraction of a second. But it was more than enough for Soren. His spear found the throat-slit of the nearest one, punching through cartilage and out the back of its neck. He ripped the blade free and spun, driving the butt spike into the final gibbon’s face-slit as it lunged.
The creature collapsed, twitched once, and went still.
The wounded one tried to drag itself away on one arm and one leg, leaving a dark smear across the alloy floor. Soren crossed the distance and ended it cleanly.
He stood amid the carnage, chest heaving now. Sweat dripped from his chin. His ribs ached where the blow had landed, but Accelerated Regeneration and Pain Resistance did their work in time.
After he managed to catch his breath and was ready to fight, Vahn’s voice echoed once again.
"Wave three. Final wave."
The overhead lights flickered and dimmed, casting the combat hall into a twilight gloom. Deep shadows pooled in the corners and stretched across the floor like spilled ink.
Three pairs of pale, luminescent eyes opened in the darkness.
The creatures emerged from the shadows themselves. Their forms were indistinct and wavering like heat mirages. They were wolf-sized, with sleek bodies covered in short charcoal fur. Their paws made no sound against the alloy floor.
Shadow Stalkers were apex predators within their weight class, perfect assassins whose signature ability made them nightmares to track. They could merge with any shadow and travel through it as if through water. Worse, they could emerge from a target’s own silhouette.
The center Stalker dissolved without warning. Its body simply liquefied into the darkness beneath it, vanishing from physical sight entirely.
Soren’s instincts screamed. He activated Quick Step, and his form blurred by two meters to the left. Claws raked through empty air where his spine had been a heartbeat earlier. The Stalker materialized briefly from his own shadow, pale eyes gleaming, before melting back into the darkness pooling beneath a dented floor panel.
The remaining two Stalkers began circling, their pale eyes tracking him with predatory patience. One would feint, drawing his attention. The other would reposition. Somewhere in the gloom, the third waited within the shadows themselves, choosing its moment.
They were hunting him like true predators.
Soren forced his breathing to slow. Iron Will suppressed the spike of alarm trying to creep into his chest. He instinctively understood: panic meant failure, and failure meant death.
’...I guess it’s time to get serious.’
He took a deep breath, channeling his cold ice mana to his weapon. The Ironwood shaft grew cool beneath his fingers, and faint wisps of vapor began curling from the Cold-Iron blade.
The remaining two Stalkers circled wider, sensing the shift.
Soren steadied his stance and waited, trusting the simple rule he had learned: don’t chase shadows, let the enemy commit. His eyes swept the hall once more before dropping to the darkness pooling around his boots.
When a ripple stirred in the shadow at his feet, he was already moving.
He twisted his hips and snapped the spear forward.
The blade vanished into a streak of white light as Frost Piercing Thrust drove clean through the emerging Stalker’s chest. The creature barely had time to shriek before jagged ice erupted from the wound and spread across its torso in a single breath.
Its limbs locked mid-lunge, pale eyes frozen wide, and he twisted the spear sharply to shatter the frozen body against the alloy floor in a spray of frost and dark blood.
"Huff... One down..."
Soren straightened slowly and swept his cold gaze across the remaining shadows.
"Two more to go."