Chapter 535 - 535: It begins

Abyss monsters poured out of the rift and into the throne room.

The first wave hit the knights before anyone could form a line. A monster with four arms grabbed a man by the head and tore it clean off. Another caught a knight with its serrated teeth and ripped through his armor like paper. Screams filled the hall.

"Attack!" a commander shouted. "Cut them down!"

The mages raised their staffs and cast. Fire, ice and lightning tore across the room, blasting monsters off their feet and cracking the marble floor. Knights charged behind them, their swords rising and falling. A monster split in half, and black blood sprayed across the carpet.

It was a bloodbath on both sides.

Monsters fell, and humans fell with them. A mage was dragged into the rift, still casting. A knight was pinned to a pillar by a clawed hand. The king stood frozen in front of his throne, his face white, his mouth open, and his guards formed a ring around him without being told.

Then a young knight killed a monster with a clean thrust through the throat.

As it dissolved, a faint glow drifted out of its body and sank into his chest. He gasped. His arms felt lighter, and his grip felt stronger, and he stared down at his hands.

"I... I feel stronger!"

Others noticed it too. Every time a rift monster died, a certain amount of the divine energy floating in the air was absorbed into whoever killed it. It was giving them a boost, like a rough version of the system Silva had once used, only it did not choose where the strength went. It was not strength, speed or stamina in particular. It was simply more.

"Kill them!" a mage shouted. "Every one you kill makes you stronger!"

The fear in the room changed.

Knights who had been backing away stepped forward. Mages pushed their mana harder. They pushed themselves further than they ever had, and they fought with something that was close to hunger.

[...]

Silva stood at the globe in the tower and watched the world burn.

He had zoomed out to see all of it. Kingdoms, cities and villages lit up across the surface of Argon, each one with its own small rifts and its own small battles. The trial had begun, and people were fighting everywhere.

He saw them die.

A man in a farming village was cut down by a rift monster, and a moment later, he opened his eyes in the same spot, gasping, alive. He stared at his own hands in horror. Some of them chose to stand up again and keep going. Others ran, and he watched them run through empty streets, away from everything.

Humans, elves, dwarves, and others he did not even know the names of were all fighting to become stronger, right in front of him, in real time.

His jaw tightened.

'This is what I chose.'

He tapped the globe and zoomed in, searching. Then he found her.

Dawn stood in an open field near a ruined town. The broken walls rose behind her, half swallowed by weeds. Beside her were Gallan and Fang, the first three people Silva had tamed. After he had told them about the trials, he had told them to pick a place where they felt comfortable when it began. They had chosen this one.

Gallan stood with his twin blades drawn. Fang crouched on all fours, lightning crawling over his body. And Dawn stood in the middle with her sword ready.

Silva watched her for a long time.

She suddenly turned her head and looked up at the sky, as if she knew.

"This is your time to shine," Silva whispered. "Show me that you truly want it."

She did not hear him. But her teeth gritted, and her hand tightened on the hilt.

'If pushing past my limit is what lets me evolve, then I'll keep evolving without stopping.'

The ground behind them split open.

A rift tore through the air above the ruins, and abyss monsters began crawling out, one after another, with too many arms and too many teeth.

Gallan moved first.

He ran forward with both blades low, and the first monster lunged. He swung, and the blade cut through the air itself. A crescent of wind followed the swing, sharp and wide, and it sliced through three monsters at once. He did not have wind magic, but he moved his blades in ways that bent the air around them, and arcs of it tore across the field with every cut.

Fang tore through the left flank.

He was a blur of lightning, darting between legs and arms, his claws raking and his jaws snapping. Every swing of his paw sent a bolt crackling through the monsters, and they dropped in smoking heaps.

Dawn went straight for the center.

Fire roared along her sword as she charged, and she cut down the first monster in front of her in a single slash. The second lunged, and she spun and cut again. She ducked under a swinging arm and drove the blade through a chest. Each kill sent a glow into her body, and she pushed through it.

The three of them rotated without a word.

When Gallan was overwhelmed, Fang leaped in and took the pressure off him. When Fang was cornered, Dawn's flames swept across the ground and forced the monsters back. They moved like a single unit, switching places in the middle of the fight, and covering each other without looking.

But the focus was mostly on Dawn.

She was dominating. She was faster than she had been on the mountain, and her flames burned hotter, and she did not stop. She pushed herself harder with every kill. Her breath came fast, and her arms ached, but she did not slow down.

A monster the size of a horse rushed her, its teeth open wide.

She did not back away. She leaped over its head, twisting in the air, and brought her flaming sword across its neck.

SLASH!

The head came off cleanly.