Chapter 45: Trials, Blood, and the Unbroken Pack
Ashratal juddered in my grasp as I wrenched it free from the orc's chest. The beast twitched, claws curling in final rebellion, but the acrid scent of burning flesh and ozone marked its end. Lightning still flickered in etched runes on the halberd's blade—remnants of a storm barely leashed. Around me, the air shimmered with residual mana and drifting sparks. My heartbeat thundered in my ears, sweat trickling beneath my armor, sticking to healing bruises that echoed the chaos of the last two weeks.
Across the cavern, Anaya moved in a ballet of calculated destruction. The dungeon's uneven ground—strewn with wolf carcasses and a scatter of her many weapons—gleamed under the strange, mineral-rich light of the ceiling's glowing fungus. She swept through a fifty-square-meter ring of bodies, her staff spinning, nunchaku whistling, short blades and a katana whirling in her wake. Wolves, dark-furred and spectral-eyed, snapped and lunged, but her eyes—cool, calculating, and wild with the thrill of battle—never lost track of any target. Every predator that broke ranks paid for it in blood. Watching her, I wondered if this even counted as a warm-up for a Rank 2 hunter. After all, entering a Rank 1 dungeon was barely sport for someone as obsessive about honing her craft as Anaya.
A guttural shriek drew my attention. Ross, a crimson blur, tore through a mob of goblin archers. His machetes flashed, arcs of red-black steel, spinning death among the ranks. Arrows clattered harmlessly off his battered armor, or were batted aside with practiced contempt. Every step he took left muddy footprints and jagged lines of blood on the dungeon floor; the air around him pulsed with the kind of animal violence that made ordinary men falter. Rusty? Maybe for a week. Now, you could see the muscle memory returning, the confidence rebuilt one kill at a time.
The cavern hummed with the echoes of violence: a pack of three, carving through monsters, dragging complicated histories behind us.
A week and a half since that academy "drama"—it felt both distant and uncomfortably fresh. The duel videos had spread through the upper classes of Delhi's safe zone like wildfire, boiled down into memes, soundbites, viral spectacles. Dad's phone pinged with dungeon invitations and business offers every hour. My notoriety was a problem. His, a novelty. If nothing else, Delhi's powerbrokers never wasted a marketing opportunity.
Joining a guild never made sense to me, though. Raj joined out of necessity—in those days, Dad couldn't train him directly, so the Flamebearer Guild became a surrogate family. But now, with business slower, Dad poured all his attention into me. Sometimes, I wondered if his so-called "mentoring" was just an excuse to knock the sense out of me—his sparring blows hurt more and more, despite my growing strength. Was he holding back all this time? Or was he somehow still getting stronger, his old wounds healing as our family fortunes revived? Either way, every bruise felt layered with history—an inheritance of pain and pride.
Two seals had been broken, yet the path to the legendary third remained veiled. In the meantime, India's progress drew scrutiny from across the world. The global hunter community watched uneasily as our ranks swelled and power shifted. Saints—those ancient avatars, some ascendant, some dead—stood as both shield and magnet, their legacy a double-edged sword. The international powers weren't open antagonists (not yet), but I could sense their resentment—their disbelief that India could rise again after nearly a century of suppression.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the ghosts of the Battle of the Eastern Seals. Saints dying in droves, the land itself shattered. Gujarat, Rajasthan—whole regions scarred with wild mana, storms that never ended, monsters that never tired. Eighty years gone, yet the world still bled from that battle. Sometimes, I wondered if the mana in my own veins remembered those days—if every seal broken whispered old secrets with it.
Ross thumped down beside me, a goblin's green blood splattering his boots. "You thinking about something serious again, Vijay?" His voice broke my reverie, rough and familiar.
I grimaced as he raked a hand through his sweat-soaked hair, gore streaking the side of his cheek. "Seriously, Ross, you're a freak. Who the hell enjoys bathing in blood like that? If I didn't know bloodthirst awakening gets stronger the messier you are, I'd swear you had some very questionable hobbies."
He grinned, teeth flashing beneath new scars. "Vijay, you're a neat freak. That's your problem, not ours."
Anaya called from across the field, lowering her staff after the last wolf fell. Her smile was feral, all teeth and triumph. "And if it isn't another blood freak speaking for her partner. Honestly, I don't know what you two are waiting for. Just announce it already—you two are more partnered than half the married couples I've met."
Ross's ears turned red, but he smirked with mock innocence. "That sounds dangerously close to jealousy, Vijay. Don't fret—I'm sure there's a nice, organized witch out there for you." He winked, but the tease was gentle.
After a week and a half out of the infirmary, Ross and Anaya had declared their feelings for each other—albeit quietly. In public, though, their relationship was a time bomb. Old blood still ran hot between their families, a feud so entrenched that the idea of a simple truce felt laughable. When footage of our duel reached Ross's father, the old man's rage boiled over. Words were shouted, fists flew, family honor was dragged through the mud of a high-society banquet. I was there, front row, watching Ross finally snap—flipping off his father, going nuclear in front of every major player in Delhi's upper crust.
The aftermath was brutal: Ross was denounced, stripped of his title as heir, banned from Aditya Trading Group, and left with nothing but a few suitcases and a stubborn will. He crashed at a battered apartment near my house—the closest I could get him without tearing open fresh wounds in my own family. Maybe in a few weeks, things would settle and I could sneak him into the guest room—but for now, tensions simmered, and even I wasn't ready to make my parents choose between their son and their old rival's wayward child.
"Earth to Vijay." Anaya's staff thunked into the ground nearby. She studied me, brow creased with mild annoyance. "You were daydreaming again."
I brushed sweat from my eyes. "Just thinking about the upcoming rank ascension trial."
She spun a blade between her fingers, the steel catching dungeon-light. "Don't overthink it. Use your soul weapon for the trial. Each type of trial changes your growth path. Dungeon-type trials are good for new skills. Weapon trials give insight into handling and, rarely, elemental mastery. Then there are trials in the wild—unpredictable but rewarding. Think of it as unlocking a gate, not a test. Everything after that—skills, boons—are bonuses depending on your results and your connection to your Constellation."
Ross and I listened intently as Anaya explained every little nuance—a lecture that wound from personal experience to the arcane details scattered across the hunter-net. She described her own trial: how, expecting a straightforward monster duel, she had faced a doppelganger with perfectly mirrored skills. It had forced her to confront her own over-reliance on weapons, to adapt and innovate. "The trial isn't about strength," she finished, "but about confronting the part of yourself that holds you back. After that, the gates open, and you step through changed."
Her confidence was contagious. Listening, I felt my doubts dissolve—not vanish, but compress, refined by the logic of experience. "What about you, Ross? Any genius words to help me prep?"
Ross snorted, tossing a spent potion bottle back into his pack. "Yeah. Don't overcomplicate it. If all else fails, hit it until it stops moving."
I barked a laugh, the tension breaking for a moment.
The three of us got to our feet, brushing dust and gore from armor and shaking out cramped limbs. I checked the time on my phone—six in the evening. The sun would soon set outside this cave, washing the city in smog and fading gold. It was time to wrap this up.
The dungeon's shadows seemed thicker as we peered deeper into its heart. At the far end, the boss monster—rumored to be an ogre king—waited behind a jagged curtain of stalactites and blue-glowing lichen. The path was narrow, wet with condensation, lined with barkless, dead trees whose branches twisted upward, petrified in the act of screaming.
I flashed a grin at my friends. "First to draw blood from the boss buys dinner?"
Anaya's eyes sparkled with mischief. "Aren't you competitive."
Ross rolled his shoulders, twirling his machetes. "I was craving fried chicken anyway, and my wallet is lighter than my dignity right now. Thanks for the treat, Vijay." He broke into a sprint down the dark passage, laughter trailing behind him—something open and honest I rarely saw before he lost everything.
Lightning charged along my legs; I dashed after Ross, Ashratal spinning from hand to hand like a living piece of the storm, scything through stray imps and smaller goblins as they lunged. Anaya, matching our pace, vaulted over a fallen boulder, dual blades flashing. Even as we plunged into combat, her eyes darted to Ross with naked affection and to me with the trust only born through fire and loss.
We hit the boss chamber together. Ross dove into the mob first, dancing through the ogre king's club strike, slicing deep into coarse flesh. Blood sprayed in an arc, splattering his already blood-soaked armor. I followed, summoning a twisting spiral of fire and lightning, battering through the ogre's minions and knocking axes from their fists with precise, brutal swings. Anaya darted through the chaos, a staff sweep here, a kick there, weapons shifting from spear to blade as she hurled them with pinpoint accuracy, pinning wolves and hobgoblins to the cave walls.
My mind's eye drank in every detail—the rhythm of footsteps on stone, the metallic tang of magic and iron, the echo of triumph and pain in my friends' voices.
Mid-fight, between parries, Ross shouted with a manic grin, "Round two, boss fight edition!" Anaya laughed, slicing a wolf in twain. "Keep dreaming, future fried-chicken buyer!"
My heart swelled—adrenaline, pride, something ancient and defiant in our shared fight.
I leapt, Ashratal blazing, lightning and flame wreathed together, slamming down on the ogre's shoulder. The smell of burning flesh, of mana and victory, filled the cavern.
In the end, we fell together—three battered friends, bloodied but unbroken, surrounded by corpses and the echoing silence of a dungeon conquered