Vikram's hands blurred, muscle memory guiding instinct. Twin axes smashed against the descending greatsword aimed at his neck. The clash sent a shockwave through the ruined chamber. Steel shrieked against steel. Sparks exploded.
Both Vikram and the old warrior staggered back from the brutal collision, but Vikram's boots were the first to root again.
In a battle like this, a second of recovery meant the difference between victory and death.
Vikram roared, twisted his hips, and brought both axes over his head. He swung them down in a savage arc. The twin blades slammed against the back of the old man's rusted helmet. The impact crushed the warrior into the ground like a felled tree. Cracks spread like spiderwebs beneath his body.
Then silence.
The health bar above the Boss's name flickered. And disappeared.
Vikram exhaled.
His fingers loosened around the hafts of his axes. The tension drained from his body, until a sudden tremor froze him mid-breath. His face scrunched in instinctive dread.
He leapt backward.
The old man's corpse was twitching.
No, not twitching. Transforming.
And then it came.
An aura, massive, suffocating, crashed down upon Vikram like a collapsing mountain. It wasn't just pressure. It was focused, targeted, drenched with hatred. For him.
He had endured powerful auras before, divine and demonic alike. But they had been impersonal. Waves washing over a crowd.
This one? It had eyes. And claws. And it wanted him dead.
Vikram's knuckles turned pale as he tightened his grip. His feet slid backward without thinking. He stared ahead, watching the old man's body rise from the crater, impossibly slow, like something pulling itself out of a nightmare.
"Futile..." the figure rasped.
The sword clanged into the ground as support. Veins bulged unnaturally along the warrior's arms. His skin darkened to a diseased, charcoal black. Muscles pulsed and swelled grotesquely, stretching and snapping the joints of his armor. A sickening crackle echoed through the hall.
The armor, the ill-fitting, oversized plating that Vikram had always found strange, began to split.
The warped muscles beneath had become armor themselves. Vein-covered sinew hardened into crimson plates, forming a new body that looked neither human nor beast.
"Why haven't you understood yet?" the voice muttered, half-human, half-snarling.
Vikram blinked. For a brief moment, he frowned, his thoughts betraying him even in crisis.
So… the armor didn't have some secret…?
He had expected some lore, some twist. A hidden meaning behind the poor fit of the armor. A purpose.
But there was none. The truth was more primal. More brutal.
It was just a shell. A cocoon to restrain the monster within.
Vikram scratched the side of his head with his shoulder and grimaced.
I really expected more…
But now was not the time for reflection.
A blood-drenched aura coalesced around the creature. It rose into the air like an offering to a god, wrapping the malformed figure in power and pulling it upward as though it were ascending into enlightenment.
Vikram clicked his tongue.
"Screw this."
He wasn't going to wait for it to finish powering up. No way. He launched himself forward, axes flashing. He aimed for the heart, hoping to stop the transformation halfway. Maybe, just maybe, it would buy him an edge.
But the old man, or whatever was left of him, let out a guttural laugh.
And exploded.
The world went red.
[You have died.]
Vikram gasped.
His body jerked upright from the cot. Familiar white light spilled through the creaky wooden slats of the dormitory ceiling. His chest rose and fell, drenched in sweat.
He was back. Back in the real world, or at least the one outside the death simulation.
A long breath escaped him as he covered his face with both hands.
There's still a part of the tutorial left…
He rolled off the bed and stood, joints aching from the phantom pain of that final explosion.
His thoughts drifted back to the thing he'd just faced. That creature, no, that abomination, wasn't just strong. It was wrong. Everything about it screamed corruption. It had reeked of blood, decay, and something older. Something demonic.
And it had only revealed a glimpse of its full arsenal.
Blood manipulation. Muscular armor. Self-detonation.
God knew what else it could do.
Vikram shook his head, trying to focus. There was no time to dwell on failure. Because today was important. Perhaps the most important since arriving at the Tower.
Today was the day the recruits would receive their Cultivation Scriptures.
He remembered asking Brunus once why they weren't given these foundational texts from the beginning.
The burly instructor had merely laughed and slapped his back.
"Because you'd die, boy. Your physique wouldn't be able to handle the draw of the Scripture. It would eat you alive."
Vikram didn't doubt it.
He sighed and stretched his arms.
'Time to touch some grass,'