Chapter 33: Exam (13)

The Minotaur didn’t give Tristan time to admire his new rank. With a deafening, chest-rattling roar, the beast swung its massive iron greataxe in a lethal horizontal arc, the heavy blade shearing through the air with enough force to generate a pressure wave.

Tristan didn’t try to block it. Tempered core or not, he wasn’t suicidal enough to test his physical frame against a Fallen-class weapon. He ducked violently, throwing his body into a desperate, tight roll across the blood-stained cobblestones as the axe caved in the masonry an inch above his head. Rock splinters and dust rained down around him.

Before he could even regain his footing, the Minotaur’s massive, iron-shod hoof came crashing down where his torso had been a split second prior. The shockwave rattled Tristan’s teeth.

’Damn this hunk of meat is strong as hell.’

The beast snorted steam, lowering its horned skull. Its violet eyes burned with corrupted rage as it dug its massive hooves into the stone, coiling its thick muscles to initiate a full, steamrolling charge.

’This is not scary at all...’

As the monster surged forward, Tristan didn’t dodge. He stood his ground, anchoring his boots to the stone and locking his enhanced perception onto the rushing wall of muscle and kinetic energy. Through his newly awakened Tempered vision, the world slowed into distinct layers. He didn’t just see the beast; he saw thick, violent threads of crimson and violet motion propelling the creature forward like a runaway locomotive.

He raised his right hand, spreading his fingers, and targeted the very concept of its speed.

"[Reave: Momentum]."

The effect was instantaneous and unnatural. The Minotaur’s terrifying speed vanished in a fraction of a second, as if it had suddenly sprinted into an unyielding wall of solid steel. Deprived of its forward momentum while its massive legs were still moving at full stride, the creature’s physics broke down. It stumbled violently, its hooves skidding uselessly across the smooth stone floor as its ten-foot frame tumbled forward, roaring in utter, disoriented confusion.

’Wooo, man the tempered core feels really nice.’ Tristan hummed, feeling a heavy, thrumming warmth settle into his core as the stolen momentum sat queued in his status. ’And, I’m not stopping.’

Buying himself a few more precious seconds, Tristan turned and sprinted toward the ruined threshold where Oliver had burst into golden sparks. On the ground amidst the rubble and dried blood lay the noble’s abandoned steel polearm, it had splintered into two pieces, laying under the flickering torchlight.

’Just what I needed.’

Through Tristan’s heightened conceptual perception, the weapon practically vibrated. It wasn’t just a piece of worked metal, it radiated a sharp, lethal aura, a bright crimson thread representing the absolute intent to puncture and tear.

He reached out with his mind, brushing against the weapon’s concept.

"[Reave: Pierce]."

The polearm’s faint magical sheen instantly dulled into ordinary, unrefined iron as Tristan yanked the trait into his queue. With the concept securely stored, Tristan broke into a dead sprint down the winding hallway, luring the enraged monster behind him.

’In Flamecrest Legacy, Fallen-class entities had soft caps on raw physical damage, Tristan talked internally, his breathing remaining steady despite the high-speed chase. ’A simple steel dagger won’t cut deep enough through its hide, even with essence. I need some kind of leverage, kinetic multiplication, and an angle where it can’t use its mass.’

He knew these corridors better than the beast did. A few turns ahead lay a grand, high-ceilinged transit chamber, a room lined with heavy, rusted iron chains hanging from ancient lifting mechanisms, suspended directly over a known structural weak point in the labyrinth’s lower architecture.

’That might actually work...’

Tristan kept running ahead until he finally reached the chamber room, the faint clicking of chains could be heard above him.

The Minotaur recovered its footing with a guttural bellow, its booming hooves echoing through the stone like thunder as it closed the distance. Tristan burst into the cavernous transit chamber, his eyes immediately darting upward. Hanging fifteen feet above the floor were clusters of thick iron links, dangling like a web of frozen serpents from rusted ceiling winches.

The Minotaur thundered into the room right behind him, swinging its axe in a murderous backhand. Tristan ducked beneath the whistling blade, stepped onto the beast’s sweeping knee, and drove his dagger into its shoulder. The blade skittered off the thick hide, leaving only a shallow red scratch, but it gave Tristan the height he needed.

Channelling a fraction of his essence into his legs, he leaped upward, catching a hanging chain and swinging his body across the high archway.

’Holy, not the biggest fan of heights.’

The Minotaur roared, its massive axe swiping upward and missing Tristan’s boots by a hair’s breadth. The wind from the swing set the surrounding chains swinging in chaotic arcs.

Using the pendulum momentum of his swing, Tristan launched himself from chain to chain. He moved with intention and precision, his minds-eye calculating every trajectory. Every time the Minotaur swatted at him, its colossal weapon shattered the stone support pillars around the room. This was more than just dodging, using his memory he was herding.

’Closer. Just two more links,’ Tristan thought, deliberately letting himself dangle lower to act as live bait.

The Minotaur took the lure, lunging upward with its free arm. Tristan kicked off a pillar, swinging past the central winch and pulling a heavy length of slack chain with him. He looped the iron links cleanly around the beast’s outstretched wrist. The Minotaur hissed in frustration, snapping its jaws, its violet eyes wide with confusion as it struggled to track Tristan’s rapid, acrobatic movements.

Tristan didn’t stop. He kicked off the wall, diving through a forest of dangling iron. He passed under the beast’s armpits, over its horned head, and around the central pillars, trailing heavy iron links behind him like a spider spinning a web of steel.

The conflict reached its crescendo as the Minotaur, thoroughly enraged, committed to a massive, full-body vertical strike to crush Tristan against the ceiling.

It was exactly as Tristan had engineered.

As the beast lunged upward, the tangled mesh of heavy chains Tristan had carefully routed across the room snapped tight all at once. The Minotaur’s own immense upward momentum acted as the trap’s catalyst.

With a deafening, metallic CLANG-CLANG-CLANG that echoed through the entire chamber, the slack vanished. The rusted chains bound tight around the monster’s torso, arms, and legs, anchoring its massive weight directly to four load-bearing ceiling pillars.

Dangling several feet off the ground, entirely immobilized by its own brutal force and wrapped in hundreds of pounds of tensioned iron, the Fallen-ranked predator let out a choked, furious roar that shook the very foundations of the room.