The Cinder Wastes seemed to tighten around them as they moved deeper into the canyon. The air grew heavier, the silence more profound, broken only by the scuff of their boots on stone. The EXP counter in Adam's mind [215/600] was a quiet, persistent demand for growth.
They encountered two more packs of beasts. The first was a skittering horde of Razorclaw Jackals. The team fell into their practiced formations. Lira's empowered punches sent bodies flying, creating openings for Adam's flaming sword. Kael was a whirlwind of precise strikes, while Raven's spear darted like a serpent's tongue. Wren wove his magic through it all.
[Experience gained: 30 EXP]
[Experience gained: 30 EXP]
[275/600 EXP to Next Level]
Two notifications. Two clean kills. The jackals were weaker, faster to die. Efficiency, Adam thought, wiping blood from his brow. But I need bigger game.
The next encounter was against a pair of Cinder Vipers, E+ rank serpents that blended perfectly with the red rock. The fight was slower, more cautious. Raven and Kael took the lead, drawing strikes. Adam waited for his moment, his fire sword severing a viper's head as it lunged.
[Experience gained: 50 EXP]
[325/600 EXP to Next Level]
Fifty. A more substantial chunk. The progress was tangible, but the effort was increasing. He felt the drain of maintaining his fiery blade, the mental fatigue of constant vigilance.
They paused in the lee of a massive rock spire to drink sparingly. The canyon had narrowed dramatically, the walls soaring hundreds of feet high, casting them in deep shadow.
"It's too quiet," Kael stated, his voice a bare whisper. He stared into the deep gloom of a side crevice, his body tense. "The lesser beasts have gone silent."
Raven nodded grimly. "They're hiding. Or they've been cleared out."
A sound echoed through the narrow pass, less a growl and more like boulders grinding together deep underground. It vibrated in their chests. From the darkness, a shape uncoiled itself.
It was a horrifying fusion of mineral and monster. Its body was a long, segmented exoskeleton of interlocking, stone like plates the color of rust and ash, moving with a jerky, predatory grace on multiple multi jointed legs. It was all sharp angles and armored segments, larger than any horse, built like a monstrous, fossilized scorpion. But where pincers should have been were scythe like blades of obsidian, and its tail was a horrifying aberration a massive, petrified rock the size of a small barrel, studded with sharp, crystalline spikes, held aloft by the final skeletal segment of its tail. Its head was a wedge of fused stone and bone with multiple clusters of pit like black eyes.
"A Canyon Crusher," Raven identified, his voice tight with a fear Adam had never heard before. "Tier D. Don't let that tail touch you."
The Canyon Crusher assessed them, its head tilting with a series of grinding clicks. Then, it moved. It didn't charge. It flowed across the stone, its legs moving with terrifying speed, its body impossibly low to the ground.
Its tail was the first to strike. It wasn't a whip, but a brutal, piston like thrust, the spiked rock mace shooting forward to pulverize Raven. Raven dove, the rock smashing into the ground where he'd stood, leaving a crater and a web of fractures in the stone.
Adam lunged, his sword a comet of fire aimed at the joint between two segments of its stony leg. The blade struck true, but instead of cutting, it screeched against the mineral armor, leaving a blackened scar but failing to sever. The exoskeleton was impossibly hard.
The Canyon Crusher ignored him, its focus on Raven. It scuttled sideways, its scythe blade arm lashing out at Lira, who met it with a gauntleted block. The force was immense, driving her back, her boots skidding. Sparks flew where obsidian met enchanted metal.
Wren, from a distance, shouted, "Weaken!" A pulse of grey energy hit the creature. It shuddered for a second, its movements slowing marginally, its black eyes swiveling to locate the source of this annoyance.
It was the opening Kael needed. He had absorbed the essence of Adam's fire before the fight. His daggers, wreathed in flame, stabbed not at the main body, but at the thinner, flexible membranes where the leg joints met the undercarriage. The fire bit deeper there. The Canyon Crusher let out a shrieking grind and recoiled, a thin, dark fluid oozing from the wounds.
Enraged, the creature's tail swung in a wide, horizontal arc this time, the spiked rock mace aimed to sweep the entire party. "Down!" Raven yelled. They all dropped, the massive weapon whistling over their heads, shearing the top off a stone pillar behind them.
As the tail passed, Adam saw it. For a split second, at the very base where the petrified rock mace connected to the final bony segment of the tail, there was a patch of softer, darker tissue, a pulsing, tendon like anchor point that lacked the hard mineral plating.
"Kael! The base of the tail! The connection point!" Adam yelled, rolling to his feet.
Kael's eyes flickered, taking in the information. He nodded once, a sharp, decisive motion.
The Canyon Crusher, recovering from its swing, focused on Kael, recognizing him as the one who had caused it real pain. It scuttled forward, a scythe blade arcing down to bisect him. Raven's spear intercepted it, the golden light around it flaring as he strained, barely holding the monstrous limb at bay.
"Lira! Now!" Raven grunted, muscles bulging.
Lira didn't need to be told twice. She charged, not at the body, but to the side, drawing the creature's attention. As its head and one set of eyes tracked her, Kael moved. He became a phantom, using the distraction to flank the beast. He leaped onto a low rock, then launched himself into the air, his body a blur, both flaming daggers aimed like a spear at the vulnerable spot Adam had identified.
The Canyon Crusher sensed the threat. It tried to twist its tail, to bring the mace down on Kael, but it was too slow. Kael's daggers, fueled by absorbed fire and his own immense precision, plunged deep into the pulsing tissue at the tail's base.
There was a wet, tearing sound, followed by a crack of shattering mineral and bone. The Canyon Crusher shrieked, an ear splitting sound of pure agony. The massive, spiked rock mace, now severed, crashed to the ground with a thunderous impact, shaking the canyon floor.
The beast was crippled, unbalanced. It thrashed wildly, dark fluid gushing from the stump of its tail.
"Adam, finish it!" Raven shouted, still holding back the scythe blade.
Adam didn't hesitate. He ran straight at the flailing, disoriented creature. He poured every ounce of his remaining mana into his sword, the flames roaring so high and hot they turned from orange to a searing, brilliant blue. He leaped over a flailing, barbed leg and drove the blue hot blade like a stake directly into the Canyon Crusher's primary cluster of black eyes.
The blade punched through the stone like helm and deep into the core beneath. The Canyon Crusher's thrashing ceased instantly. Its legs collapsed under it, and the massive armored form hit the ground with a final, resonant crash.
Silence returned, deeper than before.
[Experience gained: 300 EXP]
[Level Up!]
[Current Level: 6]
[25/800 EXP to Next Level]
The notifications flashed, bright and triumphant. A full level. The cost of it was written all around them in their heaving chests, their drained mana reserves, and the terrifying corpse at their feet.
Wren was the first to move towards the carcass. "Incredible. The armor plates alone are worth a small fortune." He began the messy work of extraction. As he pried up a large chest plate, something clattered to the ground. It was a small, metallic disk.
Raven bent down and picked it up, wiping away a smear of dark fluid. He froze. "Look."
He held it out. It was a token, slightly dented and scarred, but unmistakable. Stamped upon its surface was the official crest of Aethelgard Academy.
"Of course," Raven said, understanding dawning on his face. "The assessment isn't just about survival or combat. The academy must have seeded these tokens throughout the canyon. Retrieving them from powerful beasts like this is the real test."
A new understanding settled over the group. This wasn't just a wild beast they had defeated they had completed a key objective of their trial. The Cinder Wastes had just revealed its true purpose: to separate those who could merely fight from those who could triumph against overwhelming odds and recover what was lost.