PRAK! BOOM!
A bone-shaking shockwave ripped through the battlefield, scattering a pack of Sand Wolves like leaves in a storm. Dust and sand rose in choking plumes as the enormous beasts tumbled backward, their guttural growls echoing off the stone maze walls. Each of the wolves was as large as a full-grown lion, their coarse fur rippling as they steadied themselves on clawed paws.
At the center of the storm stood Bahamut.
His black-streaked white hair whipped messily in the wind, clinging to the sweat on his tanned skin. His fox-skin clothes were shredded and smeared with blood, some his, some not. Deep gashes crisscrossed his chest and arms, staining the blindfold around his eyes with streaks of red and sand.
He looked like someone on the verge of collapse, yet the wild grin splitting his face told an entirely different story.
"HAHAHAHAHAHA! MORE! MOOOOORE!"
His laughter was raw, feral, echoing across the area like the call of a mad beast. The wolves, creatures forged to hunt and kill, hesitated. Their hackles rose, ears pinned back. Their instincts screamed danger.
Perched on Bahamut's shoulder, Ren finally stirred from his nap, his tiny white bunny face twisted into an irritated scowl. The little creature's fur was speckled with dust, his long ears flicking in agitation.
"Can't you just finish them off already?!" Ren snapped, thwacking Bahamut's cheek with his soft paw. "Stop playing with your prey!"
"Ouch, ouch! Okay, okay!" Bahamut chuckled, unfazed. "No need to get violent."
Ren glared. Bahamut grinned wider.
He crouched low to the ground, like a predator about to lunge, the tips of his now elongated fingernails scraping lines into the sand. His aura flared, not mystical energy, but raw physical pressure. A suffocating stillness spread, and the wolves responded with instinctive growls, forming a wary circle around him.
Then...
FWOOSH!
Bahamut vanished from sight, the sand exploding where his feet had been.
In the next instant, he reappeared behind the two wolves whose skulls he'd previously clashed together. His hands clamped down on their massive heads like iron vices. Their startled yelps never fully formed...
CRACK!
He slammed their skulls together again, harder this time. Bone splintered like brittle stone, and their bodies went limp with a sickening thud. His fingers dug deeper, darkened nails piercing through flesh and bone.
The wolves convulsed as Bahamut lifted and smashed their heads into the ground with brutal, gleeful abandon.
Blood sprayed. Brain matter splattered. The ground beneath him turned a muddy red.
Ren recoiled with a disgusted squeak, shielding his tiny face with his paws. "Ugh! Gross! I just cleaned myself!"
Bahamut threw back his head and laughed, crimson streaking across his body like war paint. "You should've seen their faces!"
The remaining Sand Wolves growled, shifting nervously. Even beasts at the Circle of Spirit recognized when they'd cornered a monster rather than prey. One wolf lunged out of desperation, sand flying in a sharp arc, only for Bahamut to twist aside and crush its jaw with a single punch that snapped like breaking rock.
Ren huffed and muttered under his breath, "You're impossible."
Bahamut, unbothered, stepped forward, his muscles coiled, his breathing steady despite his wounds. Blood ran down his torso, mixing with sand, but his grin didn't fade. If anything, it sharpened.
Around him, the wolves began to falter, not because they were outnumbered, but because they finally understood what they were facing.
Not prey.Not man.Something far, far worse.
...
The pack of Sand Wolves circled warily now, their yellow eyes flicking between their fallen kin and the blood-stained human who stood at their center. Their breath came out in ragged growls. Bahamut tilted his head slowly, his neck cracking in the silence. His bare feet shifted slightly in the sand, his stance relaxed, his hands hanging loose at his sides, but every muscle in his body was drawn tight like a coiled predator ready to strike.
Then it came.
A pulse, low at first, like the heartbeat of some ancient beast, throbbed out from Bahamut's body. The air thickened around him, hot and iron-tasting. Fine grains of sand shuddered and rose into the air. His skin seemed to hum, veins beneath his flesh glowing faintly with a dark crimson light. The light spilled into the air in faint tendrils, coiling like smoke, alive.
Ren's ears twitched. "Oh… here we go."
The wolves froze. Every single one of them stiffened, instinct screaming at them to run. But the illusory trial didn't allow retreat. It forced them forward.
Bahamut's lips split into a grin, too wide, too sharp.
"Come."
The wolves answered with a chorus of snarls and launched at him in a unified wave, their claws tearing into the sand.
Bahamut didn't step back. He moved through them like a phantom wrapped in violence.
His elbow shattered the skull of the first wolf mid-pounce, blood splattering across his face. He twisted, seized another by its throat, and ripped it open with his fingers as if tearing wet cloth. A third lunged from his blind spot. Without even looking, Bahamut stomped backward, his heel crushing its jaw into the ground with a wet CRUNCH.
Two more came in from either side. He slammed his forehead into the left one's snout, bone fragments flew, then grabbed the right by its hind leg, swung it like a weapon, and hammered it against the others.
Sand flew. Bones cracked. The sound was ugly, visceral.
The crimson aura surged outward again, sharper now, pressing down on everything around him like a physical weight. Even the wolves staggered mid-attack, their movements growing sluggish under the oppressive pressure. Bahamut didn't use techniques. He didn't need to. He became the storm they were trapped in.
Ren clung to his shoulder, ears flattened. "You're such a psycho," the bunny muttered, but there was no fear in his tone, only long-suffering familiarity.
The last wolf, the largest of the pack, its aura at the peak of Circle of Spirit, circled him, fur bristling, saliva dripping from its fangs. It lunged, faster than the rest. Bahamut stepped in, not away, met its charge head-on, and with a primal roar, drove his fist through its ribcage.
A geyser of blood splashed across the sand. The wolf's body went limp before it even hit the ground.
Silence fell.
The illusion battlefield was a ruin of sand and blood. Bahamut stood amidst it all, breathing steadily, the dark crimson aura flaring around him like a feral crown. His wounds bled freely, staining his skin, but his presence was nothing short of overwhelming.
Ren shook his head, flicking blood off his paws. "Disgusting. You're gonna make me wash again."
Bahamut tilted his head back and let out a low, guttural laugh. It wasn't the laugh of a human in a fight. It was the laugh of a creature who belonged in it.
Then, with a low thrum, the illusion cracked. The broken bodies of the wolves dissolved into motes of golden dust, carried away on a phantom wind. A sigil formed beneath Bahamut's feet, an intricate Egyptian pattern glowing faint gold, signaling the completion of the third stage. The air pulsed once… twice… and the fourth stage portal flared open before him, a swirling veil of golden sand and shadow.
He rolled his shoulders, blood still dripping down his arm. "Heh. Finally."
Ren sighed. "Here we go again."
And with that, they stepped forward, swallowed by the next trial.
Meanwhile…
Far away from the arena, in the Shadow Fang Sect's Observation Hall, a series of circular water mirrors floated in midair, each one showing different candidates locked in their respective illusion trials. Around the mirrors stood a group of elders, robed in black, white, and gold, their garments reflecting their rank and division within the sect.
Their faces were partially shadowed by the golden glow of the runes lining the chamber's walls.
One mirror, wreathed in a faint crimson shimmer, displayed Bahamut's battlefield. The blood. The brutality. The aura.
Elder Karesh, in deep black robes with gold-stitched fangs along the hem, gave a low, humorless chuckle. "That boy fights like a beast that's tasted blood before. No hesitation. No refinement either. Just raw destruction."
Elder Sylna, robed in white with long silver hair cascading down her back, frowned slightly. "It's more than that. Did you feel it? That aura wasn't just killing intent. It was… alive. The pressure was enough to make a Circle of Mind cultivator falter if caught off guard."
An older man in golden robes leaned forward slightly, his voice rough as sand. "He is still at the Circle of Body. For someone at that level to display this level of physical suppression… it is not normal."
"Not normal," Karesh echoed with a wolfish grin. "But promising."
Another elder, this one silent until now, spoke in a measured tone. His robe bore no insignia, only pure midnight black, and his eyes were like chips of obsidian. "Promise without control is a blade without a hilt. Useful… but dangerous to the one who wields it."
Sylna's gaze lingered on Bahamut's image, on the crimson aura coiling around his frame like something that should not belong to a boy his age. "Or dangerous to those who get in his way."
A heavy silence settled among them. The elders were no strangers to prodigies. The Shadow Fang Sect had raised monsters before. But this one… There was something different. Something feral. Something that whispered of blood and ruin.
Karesh smirked. "I like him."
The elder in black gave no reaction, but his eyes narrowed a fraction. "We will see if he survives the next stage. Besides, he looks familiar..."
The mirrors shifted, but Bahamut's image burned brightest, crimson against gold. The boy in fox-skin clothes and a bloodstained blindfold was carving his way through their trial, not with elegance, not with precision, but with overwhelming, feral will.
And somewhere deep in the sect's shadows, old instincts stirred.
The hunt had only just begun.