The forest trembled as Eldrigan darted through the trees with uneven breath, each inhale like gravel scraping down his lungs. The trees weren't safe but town wasn't an option either.
He'd seen enough battles to know that civilians didn't walk away from Divine clashes unscathed, especially not when the bastard behind him had a harpoon.
It had only been thirteen minutes. The last two minutes were extremely slow.
"Damn it…"
His dislocated shoulder was dangling. His left leg had gone numb ten seconds ago and he was pretty sure a rib was stabbing his lung, but he kept moving. Because if he didn't, there wouldn't be anything left of him to bury. His instincts suddenly screamed so loud they nearly deafened him. Eldrigan didn't question. His battered body jerked right, almost tumbling out of the sky just as the air behind him split open.
The harpoon tore through the forest canopy. It expanded, into a twenty-meter weapon of pure turquoise energy. For a second, it blotted out the sky, its humming vibrations warping the wind itself. A wave of devastation exploded outward, atomizing everything in its radius. Trees collapsed into splinters. Rocks vaporized. The ground sank in on itself as the beam of turquoise light consumed the forest.
Eldrigan was caught in the blast.
Peroncerea's scream sliced through the air.
"ELDRIGAN!!"
She didn't care who stood in the way but before she could move even a step, something latched onto her wrist. Phaenora stopped her.
"Let me GO!"
Peroncerea snarled, a demonic flare igniting around her. Her form half-shifted.
"He's dying! I know it! I can feel it—"
"I know."
"Then why are you—"
Phaenora raised her hand calmly. Her palm glowed. A hologram appeared that revealed more than it concealed. Phaenora's expression didn't budge.
"He's alive but just barely."
Peroncerea's voice trembled. "How long?"
"One minute. Literally. That's all he's got unless he moves."
"Then LET ME GO!!"
Phaenora's grip tightened hard enough that Peroncerea winced.
"If you interfere, he fails the trial."
"But he can't move! He's not even at Third Enlightenment! And Sireth is a monster! He's dying!"
"I know."
That's when another voice chimed in.
"Tch. Use your brain, girl."
Peroncerea's gaze snapped to Narisva.
"Don't talk to me like that!"
"I'll talk however I want, succubus. Eldrigan's no idiot. You think he took a blast that big without knowing what he was doing?"
Peroncerea paused. Narisva's gaze softened.
"Like Veneri, he doesn't make moves unless he's calculated every outcome. If he got hit, it's because it gave him something. An edge or a delay perhaps."
"He looked like he died," Peroncerea whispered, her voice cracking.
"Yeah, he looked like it. He also trained with Veneri every week. Every damn week for a year. You think he didn't plan at least one card up his sleeve?"
Peroncerea looked down at her wrist still held in Phaenora's grasp. She tried to twist it free but it didn't budge. She tried harder. A sickening crack nearly dislocated her wrist. She cried out, stumbling back as her knees buckled. Phaenora caught her gently and eased her down.
"Don't. Not now."
"How are you this strong?"
"Veneri passed his Sacred Trial," she said. "He's at Third Enlightenment now."
Narisva's eyes widened. "Wait… wait, what? He passed? When?"
"Two hours ago. He shared the ascension with me. I'm at Third now too."
"Holy stars. Of course he did it. Of course Veneri cleared it."
"That's Veneri for you. And Eldrigan's the same way."
"So what do we do?"
Peroncerea asked, looking out toward the wrecked forest, a turquoise crater now glowing. Phaenora's answer was simple.
"We wait. One minute left."
-------
Far above, the wind howled through the broken canopy. Turquoise mist danced over the ruins of the forest. And somewhere within the wreckage, Eldrigan Hanabas opened his one good eye, grinned with blood in his teeth, and laughed.
"One minute left. Let's dance, asshole."
The forest lay in ruins behind him, burned and blown to smoldering ash by the turquoise beam that had cracked through the canopy. Eldrigan was a charred silhouette at its edge, steam curling off his limbs. His skin was blistered and torn. His bones were screaming beneath muscle that refused to quit. His body groaned under the strain of holding the impossible.
Elastic Absorption, his Divine Form had activated in the final breath, but not as a shield but as a coffin. He had poured every drop of Divine Energy into it, not to retaliate but to survive. And he had.
The blast had been cataclysmic. Twenty meters of compressed rage was funneled into his body. It should have erased him and turned him into wet mist and scattered thought but he took all of it. He could feel it eating him from the inside and still, he grinned.
"But what is life without a little risk?"
Eldrigan's weapon convulsed in his hand, warping and snapping apart like liquid iron before expanding into a hammer, now ten meters tall. Every molecule of that turquoise energy was now wrapped around the weapon.
He used Dismemberment on it. The hammer rippled crimson from Eldrigan's Divinity. The moment he swung it, the sky bent.
It met Sireth's monstrous harpoon in an impact that didn't sound like metal meeting metal. It sounded like mountains breaking. The sound split birds from the sky, tore the air and sent shockwaves so massive it shook the entire island. Wind howled outward in a sonic boom, uprooting entire trees and hurling chunks of land and water into the atmosphere. But Eldrigan wasn't standing there to admire it.
Even before the impact finished echoing, he was already flying toward the others. His body was broken. Every movement was lightning on raw nerves. His vision was almost gone but the absorbed energy and the shockwave had become a living momentum behind him, hurling him forward.
He crashed into the arena in front of the others hard. His body didn't rise. Steam curled from his skin. His fingers twitched. His eyelids fluttered like moth wings caught in wind.
Fifteen minutes had passed. A crimson light bit into his chest, searing across his body.
He had passed the First Sacred Trial.
But Eldrigan wasn't moving.