Chapter 20: The Tyrant spirit Exam
The sky above the Ironvale Fortress was starless and still, a blank canvas waiting to be painted in blood or glory.
Thalen stood at the mouth of the black hall, flanked by the others who had been deemed ready or foolish enough to enter the Tyrant Spirit Exam. No light from within the fortress escaped. No sounds. It was a stillborn silence, the kind that only lingered where power slept.
They had arrived in silence, under orders not to speak until the gates opened. Now, with the hour upon them, the steel doors groaned open.
"Thalen," whispered Varek, the strongest of his friends, his voice low, taut with nerves. "This is it. If we don’t come back"
"We’re coming back," Thalen cut in. His voice was quieter than he’d meant it to be. "We have to."
They stepped forward together. Each of the seven candidates had passed the physical and spiritual tests of the outer trials. But the real test the one that no one had passed in two decades was what lay ahead.
They passed through the doors and into darkness.
At first, the interior was unremarkable. A vast stone corridor, cold with residual aura. Then, the path branched, splitting each candidate into a different direction without warning. Thalen felt the pulse of an aura barrier push his friends away, like invisible hands separating them.
"Varek!" he called but the name fell to silence, as though swallowed.
He was alone.
The stone underfoot shifted. The walls turned to shadow. And then he stepped into the chamber of the trial.