Novel Full Chapter 1458 End of the Lesson
Chapter 1458 End of the Lesson
His muscles tightened, weight shifting in preparation for a sudden lunge that never came.
A breath passed.
Then another.
Again, the sense returned, sharp and insistent, crawling along the back of his neck, urging him to move, to twist, to throw himself aside.
He did not.
Nothing happened.
Blossom remained still, ears rotating slowly, body loose yet ready, far less restless than he was. Her attention was moving in broad, patient sweeps rather than sharp spikes.
Once more, the feeling surged, stronger this time.
Then it disappeared.
‘Is she messing with me? Or am I just messing with my own nerves…?’
The world inverted.
There was no pain, no impact he could register, only the sudden, impossible sensation of weightlessness as his vision spun, the cavern flipping until he was staring at Blossom from an angle that made no sense at all.
His head was cut off.
Quinlan saw Blossom’s body jerk, saw the blur of movement pass through her space, saw her head separate just as cleanly.
‘Ah… It’s over…’ Quinlan realized distantly, the thought forming with surprising clarity as the primordial domain responded. Flesh and bone knit back together as if the moment had simply been corrected rather than undone, awareness snapping back into place with the faintest disorientation.
He stood whole once more.
Across from him, Kiryssa leaned against a column of stone while flipping her dagger playfully around her fingers, putting on a masterful show. Her grin curved, and her eyes became pleased.
“You lost,” she said lightly. “Return to the starting point.”
Then, the drow disappeared.
Blossom stared at the space where Kiryssa had been a moment ago, shoulders slumping as her tail drooped behind her.
“Blossom wanted to protect Master…!!” she whimpered softly, ears folding down. “Blossom tried really hard. She doesn’t like seeing him suffer…”
Quinlan chuckled at that before putting an arm over her shoulders and pulling the adorable girl closer. The pair began walking back toward the center of the cavern. “We will get her next time, Blossom.”
Blossom’s ears perked up almost instantly.
“Okay!!” she chirped, tail lifting again as if the loss had already been filed away and replaced with renewed purpose.
Quinlan let his gaze drift ahead while his thoughts turned inward, already picking apart what had happened, what he had missed, where instinct had screamed too early, and where logic had hesitated too long. Kiryssa was not simply striking from shadows; she was shaping expectation itself, training them to fear the wrong moment and trust the wrong signal, and that meant brute awareness would never be enough on its own.
The next game began without ceremony.
They were not allowed to stay together.
Paths split, stone corridors narrowing and widening unpredictably as the rules shifted, and Quinlan found himself moving alone more often than not, sometimes crossing paths briefly with Ria, sometimes with Blossom, sometimes with Iris, the final participant of the exercise.
Deaths came swiftly and without warning.
Sometimes Quinlan felt the strike a heartbeat before it landed and still failed to move.
Sometimes Ria vanished beside him in a blur of steel and shadow, eyes wide in surprise before the domain restored her with a sharp gasp.
Sometimes Blossom yelped in outrage as she was taken out first, indignation lingering even after she reformed.
And sometimes Iris.
“I deflected that strike! But your blade passed through mine! This is bullsh-” Iris began once.
Kiryssa appeared nearby, grinning. “Proper ladies do not curse.”
Iris wasn’t one to think much about losing the ‘proper lady’ title, thus she kept grumbling under her breath.
The cycles continued.
Time blurred into repetition and refinement as Quinlan pushed his senses harder than before, not just outward but inward as well, learning to recognize the subtle dissonance that preceded Kiryssa’s movement, the absence that came before presence, the way the shadows grew wrong.
And then, finally, he felt it.
An alignment.
His body moved before thought caught up, foot twisting, shoulder dipping as steel almost brushed past where his neck was. But, alas, he was still killed.
Nyxara’s voice slid into his mind, quieter than usual, stripped of its usual theatrics. “You’re starting to understand. You don’t have time to stay forever due to the lingering divinity limiting us. But it’s good that you are already showing signs. We will develop this further back in Thalorind.”
Quinlan inclined his head, accepting the truth of it. “Alright. Do you know when I will be able to stay for longer? Or when can I enter the domain without needing the trial to take me here?”
“Your next trial will be at level 99. At that level, you will be able to stay for months, if not a whole year. Entering the dimension at will comes later.”
“I see… I knew mortals don’t have trials at level 60 and 70, but I thought maybe we primordials were different.”
“Not in this instance.”
Then Nyxara giggled. “Hehe! My Little Ruin wants to take on more trials? Are you hoping to lie with another primordial woman? You don’t need trials for that, just listen to Professor Nyxara’s advice. Who is the lucky woman? Is it Kiryssa? Hanae?”
Her voice turned sultry and scandalous. “Or wait… A threesome with your-”
Quinlan silenced the succubus, shutting her connection off.
He found Kiryssa waiting near the cavern’s edge and smiled.
“I might’ve just kept dying over and over again, but I feel like I’ve learned a lot. Thank you for the lesson.”
Her lips curved slightly. “You have a good head on your shoulders. Even if you understand that I’m teaching a lesson, many people would harbor negative thoughts. You are merely grateful.”
Quinlan couldn’t help but chuckle. “I’m used to women tormenting me. An advice, though: if you don’t want your students to have such thoughts, how about you stop having so much visible fun killing us?”
The dark-skinned woman’s eyes widened. “Me? Stop enjoying killing weak and hopeless targets?” she shrugged. “That’s impossible.”
Quinlan shook his head. One more manic and sadistic woman.
“Bye now, child. Enjoy your freedom.”
“…”
Quinlan didn’t know how to respond to her words; he just nodded respectfully.
He turned away then, following the path Nyxara indicated – after being ‘unmuted’ and after forcing Quinlan to listen to a barrage of hissing complaints. The ground shifted, and the air changed, the oppressive weight of shadow giving way to something warmer, heavier with moisture and scent.
Then, what happened next was a blur.
Quinlan soon found himself in a whole new setting.
Heat wrapped around him, steam rising in lazy curls as stone gave way to smooth rock and gently flowing water, and Quinlan found himself standing at the edge of a hot spring carved into the mountainside.
Ayame sat partially submerged, dark hair loose and slick against her back, eyes lifting to meet his. His beloved samurai looked at him smugly before her eyes traveled downward, studying his reaction with great amusement.
Beside her, Black Fang rested idly, sporting no clothing that covered her body. The Venomborne assassin looked peaceful, resting quietly and enjoying the warm bath.
Between the two naked sisters lounged Hanae, similarly wearing nothing. Her pale skin caught the glow of lantern light as she regarded him with a knowing smile. “Come, child. Enjoy a bath with us, will you?”
Quinlan stopped by the edge of the bath and looked down at the trio.
“This,” he said slowly, already bracing himself, “was not what I prepared for.”
Hanae’s smile deepened. “Training takes many forms.”
Steam rose higher.
And the final lesson began.