Chapter 2: First Trial Takes Blood
The clicking on Severin’s right stopped.
He stayed low in the hollow, eyes fixed on the bend. The pit drew a long breath. Dust slid past his bare feet and vanished down the slope.
Nothing came.
Air burst back through the chamber.
A narrow body shot around the bend with its hooked feet tucked close. Spines flattened along its back. Its head dipped, and the air behind it tightened hard enough to lift grit from the stone.
Threat Vector answered.
Claws would cross his throat from right to left. The hollow beneath the inner wall lay under their path.
The creature launched.
Severin dropped. His right knee struck stone. His shoulders folded beneath the attack while his right palm caught his weight.
Wind cracked over him. Claws combed his hair.
The pit exhaled at the same instant. Its pressure caught the creature’s gust and flung the light body past him. The base of its neck struck the raised rib with a dry crack.
It bounced and clawed for purchase.
Severin was already moving.
His left foot pinned the nearest foreleg. His right heel crashed into the back of its skull. The creature’s head bounced against stone. Severin lifted his heel and struck again. Bone gave.
Its feet opened against the stone.
His pulse hammered against his throat, hard enough to shake his breath. Warm blood slicked the edge of his heel. The creature’s tail twitched against his calf, then sagged.
Before its soul left the body, Severin reached for Void Devour.
Black mist poured from his body.
The pit’s wind drove dust through the darkness but couldn’t move the mist itself. It spread across the creature, muffling claws that still scraped from reflex. Flesh, blood, and the last twitch of the tail vanished beneath it.
The mist brushed Severin’s heel before drawing back into him. Only gray grit remained.
[Void Devour successful.]
[Target: Galespine Skitter]
The route remained open. Keeping the carcass whole wouldn’t make the open route safer.
Digest.
[Digestion Target: Galespine Skitter]
[Digestion initiated.]
Severin crouched with his left shoulder near the wall and watched the bend. The pit inhaled. Dust gathered around his toes. When the wind returned, he listened beneath its roar for another set of claws.
Nothing followed, and no change came inside him. Severin kept watching the bend.
[Digestion Target: Galespine Skitter]
[Digestion Progress: 100%]
[Digestion complete.]
[New Skill Acquired.]
[Acquisition Source: Void Devour]
[Skill Grade: F — Nascent Skill]
[Skill Name: Gust Vector]
A compact burst of pressure settled into his awareness. Knowing how to release it wasn’t the same as knowing where his body would land.
The next pull reached the hollow. Severin shifted his stance. His balance settled faster than before. He noticed and moved on.
Stone clicked behind him.
A seam opened in the inner wall. Inside lay a rough shirt, drawstring trousers, soft boots, a plain belt, and a straight steel sword.
No sheath or armor came with it, but it was still better than bare skin and a heel.
He dressed quickly. Dust scratched beneath the shirt. The boots gripped the stone better than his feet had. He checked the sword last, rolling the grip in his palm. The blade was straight and sharpened, its balance ordinary.
Severin carried it low and entered the tunnel.
Crooked ribs pinched the passage. He turned sideways through the first gap with the blade flat beside his thigh. The next rib hung lower. He waited until the outward pressure weakened, ducked under, and kept moving before the pit inhaled again.
The tunnel bent and shoved at his back. Around the next turn, air drove beneath his shirt and snapped the cloth against his ribs.
The sword struck stone with a bright knock.
Severin changed his grip and kept the point behind him after that.
The tunnel ended at a broken span.
Nearly 3 meters of darkness separated him from the far ledge. A strip of stone no wider than his boot remained under his toes. Dust poured across it and disappeared below. Cold air rose from the gap.
He watched the current pull inward, hesitate, then reverse.
The outward pressure weakened.
Severin set his feet and triggered Gust Vector behind his lower back.
Air hit him like a compact fist.
He cleared the gap too easily. His boots struck the far ledge, his knees folded late, and his left palm slapped the wall before his shoulder followed. The sword point scraped a pale line beside his foot.
Pain stung across his palm. He flexed his fingers, checked the blade, and looked back at the gap.
Works. Controldoesn’t.
At the next bend, he waited for the chamber’s wind.
The tunnel descended through another turn and opened above an oval basin. Thick stone ribs crossed the floor below. A narrow groove split the space between the nearest ribs. On the far side, a closed gate stood behind a low rise.
Something waited in front of it.
The beast’s chest and forelegs were much heavier than its hindquarters. A wedge-shaped skull hung between broad shoulders. Old scars ridged its hide from neck to flank, and its jaw could’ve closed around Severin’s thigh.
Its nostrils widened.
Severin stepped behind the low stone lip near the entrance. Pressure hissed from openings in the opposing walls. The currents met farther into the basin and flicked dust sideways between the ribs.
The beast turned toward him and climbed the rise. Its forefeet dug into the shelf.
Its weight shifted forward. Threat Vector marked a strip along the lip to Severin’s left.
Severin ran.
The beast thundered through the space he abandoned. Its shoulder passed close enough to drag his shirt toward it. It dropped into the basin, carved grooves through the dust, and fought its own mass through a wide turn.
The turn dragged it nearly to the opposite wall before its skull faced him again.
Severin stayed above it until the flank passed beneath him. Then he stepped down and cut.
Steel scraped across hide. The blow jarred his wrist and opened only a shallow red line.
The beast barely noticed.
Severin didn’t waste another swing on the same armor.
He moved toward the groove while it turned. The animal came around with its skull low, slow until it faced him, then suddenly fast.
The scars were thickest across the chest and flank. The inside of the foreleg carried less hide. Severin stopped where the groove crossed its path and let the beast see him.
It charged.
He waited until the near forepaw lifted over the groove.
GustVector struck his right side.
Severin shot left. His left boot cleared the rib. His right boot skidded across its edge as the beast’s inner foreleg dropped into the gap.
Its body twisted around the trapped limb. Stone cracked.
Severin caught the rib with his left hand, recovered his footing, and drove the sword behind the joint. The edge sank through softer tissue. He dragged the blade until a tendon parted.
The beast roared and wrenched backward.
The trapped foreleg came free already broken. The violent motion tore the cut wider and nearly dragged the sword from Severin’s grip. He let the blade slide out rather than fight its weight.
Blood streamed down the inner leg. The paw landed crooked and collapsed. Its shoulder jolted. A harsh cry tore from its throat.
Then the sound stopped.
So did the flinch.
The beast forced the ruined paw against the floor and advanced without flinching.
Severin watched the leg, not its face.
The paw slid sideways. The joint folded under its weight.
Pain’s gone. Damage isn’t.
He backed toward the crosswind. The beast followed without another cry. Its wounded leg failed again, but the other foreleg caught the fall.
It lowered its skull for the final charge.
Threat Vectoropened a line beyond the wedge of bone and shoulder. Severin moved before the first step landed, sprinting left on his own strength.
The pit breathed out.
Crosswind struck as the beast planted its good foreleg to turn. Its broken limb folded. The chest slammed down, and the skull scraped across stone until the throat lifted clear.
Severin stepped inside the sweep of its jaw. He locked his hands around the hilt and drove the sword upward through the soft flesh beneath it.
The beast convulsed. Its good foreleg hammered the floor, then stopped.
Severin held the hilt until the neck loosened around the blade.
The gate remained shut.
He pulled the sword free and released Void Devouragain.
Black mist flooded over the beast from muzzle to hind legs. Wind combed the dust around it. The darkness didn’t stir. Blood and body disappeared together, leaving the wet sword in Severin’s hands and no stain on the stone.
[Void Devour successful.]
[Target: Scarhide Mauler]
Scarhide. The name suited it.
The gate hadn’t opened. Whatever had let the beast ignore its ruined leg was worth taking apart.
Digest.
[Digestion Target: Scarhide Mauler]
[Digestion initiated.]
Severin returned to the low lip. He crouched behind it and laid the sword on dry stone beside his right knee, close enough to seize without looking. Blood thickened along the lower blade while the chamber breathed dust back and forth.
He watched the pressure openings. No second guardian appeared.
[Digestion Target: Scarhide Mauler]
[Digestion Progress: 100%]
[Digestion complete.]
[New Skill Acquired.]
[Acquisition Source: Void Devour]
[Skill Grade: E — Established Skill]
[Skill Name: Pain Partition]
[Evolution Rank advanced.]
[Previous Rank: Rank 9 — Awakened]
[↓]
[Current Rank: Rank 8 — Tempered]
Severin planted his palms before the change could throw him forward.
His shoulders locked. Heat drove down his spine and through his legs while a colder pressure tightened somewhere beneath muscle and bone. His arms began to shake. A breath ripped between his teeth.
He widened his knees and held the stone.
The shaking passed in waves. When the last tremor left his arms, Severin stayed low and tested his weight before standing. His reach felt wrong again. His balance answered too quickly.
[Existence reconstruction complete.]
[Physical and spiritual parameters reinforced.]
He drew his right foot beneath him, rose without overshooting, and retrieved the sword. The blade felt lighter. He adjusted his grip until the point stopped wandering.
[Divine Trial 1 of 5 completed.]
[Divine Trial 2 of 5 initiated.]
[Trial Type: Greed and Restraint]
[Trial Name: The Gilded Floodplain]
The gate split down the middle.
Cold mineral air rolled into the basin. Beyond the threshold, black water covered the floor and crawled over narrow paths veined with gold. Luminous caches stood along the remaining stone. Farther out, something disturbed the reflections and vanished beneath them.
Water slid over the nearest path and kept rising.
Severin stepped to the threshold with the bloodied sword in hand.