To call this a trial was an Imsult for two monsters in the skin of humans were endlessly destroying the horde of Stalkers.
Freya was enjoying it but she was starting to get annoyed. Stalkers are monster thay appear when there Is a deep darkness in a spot, it occurs mostly at night but they were not this much.
Thinking about it, the darkness here is quite abnormal and that could only mean one thing. "Lin, someone is using their trait to spawn Stalkers."
Lin who had exhausted his taimat core was now swinging his scythe in a brutal grace, tearing apart and cutting open the monsters bodies. "Yeah and if we continue to kill these annoying things, another creature will spawn."
Initially this monster was given the title of 'Monsters who prey in the dark' but when a certain number of them are killed, a condition activates which trigger for the emergence of another monster called. 'Angel Singing in the Dark' which to Lin were more annoying because they affect a person's perception of reality.
He hated those kinds of abilities but he made an exception for Dorothy's trait. Freya gritted her teeth, at first she was enjoying this but as the minutes past, the Stalkers would increase as if trying to distract them.
She finally couldn't hold her irritation. "Tsk, I may have to use my Trait."
What Freya has been using all these time was her Tai which increased her speed more then Lin's as she was a descendant of a Child Of Taimat.
She released her trait and the overwhelming darkness cleared as the entire filled was illuminated by a potential light source, all around her golden lightning appeared. The golden guns twisted and shrank, plates shifting, collapsing into sleek, clawed gauntlets that pulsed with raw Tai energy. Sparks of golden lightning snapped around her form like chained dragons set loose. Freya's aura surged—no longer a controlled flare, but a radiant inferno. Her hair lifted from the pressure, eyes glowing so fiercely they almost hurt to look at.
Lin shielded his face from the sudden radiance with one arm, squinting. "Well damn. You've been holding out on me."
Freya didn't answer. She stepped forward, each movement sending a ripple of pressure through the field. The ground cracked beneath her, scorched with golden arcs. A Stalker leapt toward her—and vanished.
She broke a condition, so the beast no longer existed as there was no darkn ess present where it leaped.
The laws that governed the Stalkers were crude but absolute. Where there was no darkness, there could be no Stalker. And now, with Freya's Trait tearing through the gloom like a divine flame, each step she took erased the battlefield itself from their reach.
Lin sighed, though he was not weak, someone with the lineage of Azkorel was slightly a bit broken.
He wondered, should he start using his actual techniques than using brute force to kill these small fries.
Lin has went into the wilderness for five years, hunting and exploring the world, meeting interesting people and making enemies and in his long journeys, he had refined a lot of his skills to perfection but his Trait was something that didn't improve.
He did find a way out of that, though it may hurt him in prolonged uses.
The gravity around him seemed to tense and it did not increas or decrease, his black hair began to turn a light silver and his red eyes were radiating a black energy at the edges. At that moment, his Morphtech began to strain under the slight pressure, His scythe became a spear.
Then he whispered something. "Is this how you did it?."
He was asking to himself, remembering the person who cared for him the most half of his life, he smiled remembering his mother, he hoped to meet her again one of these days, she would probably arrive when his birthday began approaching as that is the only time she would come to him.
He was going to throw his spear. "Pierce through the world, Wishing Star."
The spear in his hand pulsed with gravitational force so dense it bent the air around it. Particles of light and dust spiraled toward the tip, sucked in like a dying star's last breath. He reared back, one foot digging into the cracked earth for leverage, and hurled the weapon with all the force his mutated Trait could offer.
The moment the spear left his hand, it didn't just fly—it tore through space like a black comet. A sonic boom followed instantly, sending Stalkers tumbling away like dolls. A line of distorted reality was left in its wake, and for a brief instant, the sky itself seemed to ripple.
The spear struck the ground amidst a crowd of Stalkers.
And then it exploded—not in fire, but in collapsing gravity.
Everything within a thirty-meter radius was pulled inward, crushed into an invisible singularity for a single breathless heartbeat. Then, it reversed, erupting in a concussive blast of compressed Tai energy. Craters formed, earth upheaved, and the night was momentarily devoured by the gravitational storm.
When the light and dust cleared, there was silence.
Freya blinked, golden arcs dancing off her skin. "What the hell was that, Red Eyes?"
Lin cracked his neck, retrieving his scythe as it reformed beside him in a burst of shadow and metal. His hair slowly shifted back to black, and the veins on his face pulsed faintly with leftover strain. "Something I picked up from my mom, it's just weak imitation sadly...sigh."
Weak imitation?, Freya won't talk but she walked close to him with her hands glowing a bit, and then gently traced the small lines that began to bleed on his body. "You're reckless and stop doubting yourself." That was the only thing she could say to support her friend.
Lin didn't respond immediately. His gaze lingered on the crater left behind, on the warped space still flickering faintly at its center. His breathing was steady, but his limbs trembled slightly. The recoil of channeling that much energy without stabilizers… it was catching up to him.
Freya's hand glowed with a soft golden Tai, knitting torn skin and sealing microfractures in his veins. The storm inside her hadn't faded, but around Lin, it gentled. She didn't look at his face as she worked—she knew pride made him avert his eyes when she fussed.
"Thanks," he muttered.
Freya nodded once. "Just don't die doing something cool before I do. That's my job."
---
Diron was all alone doing his own stuff, killing the Stalkers with no problem at all...well that was until he heard startling sounds from the far south and within minutes the darkness around him receded and a light from above descended, it was the sun but it was fake since it was night in real life.
The Cat Anima stretched himself and made his dagger split in two and flat beside him, as he walked to the south, he suddenly stopped. His ears perked and his senses increased by a tenfold, he could see something coming from above and he swiftly dodged.
BOOM?!!.
where he was. Something large landed making dust cover the surroundings. "Oh, I found the Cat Anima here, I was getting tired of killing the Stalkers."
Diron recognized thay voice, it was the person who mocked him for being an Anima.
The boy continued. "It seems your girlfriend isn't here to save you."
Diron frowned, Dorothy was not someone he had an Interest on but she is likeable and besides the person he once longed for is gone. So hearing someone saying he was betraying her made Diron feel a slight anger.
No scrap that. He felt a calm anger that can't be detected by anyone. His dual pistols had the design of vipers opening their mouth at the barrel.
The split daggers flyed around him, ready to attack. Diron's trait wad called 99 senses, a Trait that heightened not just the five standard senses, but extended into obscure and supernatural realms of perception. From spiritual resonance to emotional frequencies, and even spatial distortions—Diron could feel everything. He knew when a person lied by the shift in their breath, could detect heat signatures through walls, and sense pressure shifts in the air moments before an ambush.
Right now, all 99 were screaming.
The boy before him wasn't just a loudmouth. He was dangerous.
The bonde Mohawk was glinting at the new brightness and his large axe folded before Morphing into a lean sword with crimson and gold colors. "Oh, you won't talk huh, well as I was saying before I really wondered what beasts like you were doing in Babylon, I mean you're entire race is quite disgusting, Anima!!."
Diron raised an eyebrow, his senses were picking up small waves of energy that tried to affect his mind, did this guy have a trait that taunts others into attacking him?. Thay would explain his short anger.
Knowing this, Diron smirked and immediately shot at him.
The boy was surprised at the attack but he immediately used the sword to block it. Thay short moment was enough for Diron, the split daggers flew behind the boy and swiftly pierced into his back.
The boy grit his teeth and let out a roar, Yellow Tai flaring around his body. "Hey aren't you a man, come fight me head on instead of using these kind of cheap tricks?!!."
The daggers fell of his back but before they touched the ground, they flied back towards Diron.
The Gray haired Cat Anima merely smiled, his green eyes glinting slightly as he began his counterattack. A cat is said to be a bit petty when it comes to someone attacking them, they would remember that pettiness for when they meet once more.
Diron's trait was powerful but he takes pride in his Tai control, so he not only walks around with dual guns and a dagger, he has needles hidden all around him, floating around him, Constantly seeing around him even when he is asleep.
Tiny strands of Tai lit up around Diron, if one were to squint, they would realize they were small needles, 99 of them to be exact, all individually floating around the trial space.
Diron didn't waste time with flashy declarations.
The moment his opponent raised his sword again, Diron vanished. Not literally—he simply moved so fast, so precisely, that the human eye couldn't register it. His opponent swung in reflex, but the blade only met wind and a flicker of silver light.
Bang—bang—bang!
Three shots rang out. The first grazed the boy's shoulder, the second ricocheted off the blade, and the third struck him clean in the thigh. Not deep enough to cripple, but enough to make him stumble.
"Tch... annoying little freak—!"
Before he could recover, the floating needles came alive.
Each one moved with the intelligence of a veteran warrior, converging on weak points—the back of the knees, beneath the ribs, around the temples. The boy roared and swung his sword in a wide arc, unleashing a crescent slash of Tai that vaporized half the forest behind him in a golden explosion.
But Diron was no longer there.
He dropped from above, pistols aimed at point-blank range.
"Say it again," Diron whispered, voice colder than steel. "Say what you said about my race."
Bang.
The shot struck the boy's shoulder, disarming him of his sword. He staggered, clutching the wound.
And yet, he grinned.
"You're good," he muttered, blood dripping from his mouth. "I like that. You're gonna make this fun."
The ground around the boy cracked as his Tai surged. Unlike Lin or Freya's radiant, elegant power, his was wild, turbulent—a storm with no center. A twisted sigil glowed beneath his feet, and the broken pieces of his sword reformed, not into a blade, but into a twisted greatbow.
"You're not the only one who brought toys."
Diron was slightly surprised. "That Morpthech is enhanced by Tiamat Runes."
Once upon a time, there was once a human who declared she was the Primordial Mother. Taimat, but that was a lie, it was the twisted half sister of the dragon, a being responsible for Taimats fall and the creation of monsters.
Not only that, she has also created am intricate language that can command The world or in this case the entirety of Taimat. Sigils and if someone who hated Anima's so much was using it. That meant the bastard he was facing was a two faced hypocrite.