Chapter 90 — Trial of Blood
The door sealed behind them with a sound that felt alive.
Stone screamed. The cracks glowed molten red for a heartbeat before cooling to black.
Above the archway, a new line of script burned into existence—letters twisting like veins across flesh.
"Trial of blood."
The air itself thickened. Sand shivered. The pyramid was watching.
John rolled his shoulders, muscles tightening like coiled iron. The ache from the last trial still lived in his body, a whisper threading through every motion — but now his frame felt different.
Denser. Heavier. Every heartbeat throbbed with power, each breath pushing against invisible resistance.
He exhaled once, and the sand near his boots rippled outward in concentric waves.
Blake glanced over, fingers brushing the hilts of his daggers. The faint green haze around him pulsed with a low hum, the air alive with toxin and heat. His eyes still glowed that strange violet-green—mesmerizing, almost serpent-like now.
"Looks like I get to test my new abilities out," Blake muttered.
John nodded. "I get to as well. Let's see who can kill more."
The sound came first — scrapes, claws dragging through dust — then the shapes: low, loping things with spined backs and slick hides that gleamed like oiled stone. Their eyes burned red in the dark.
The monsters charged as one.
Dozens—maybe hundreds—flooded forward.
John moved first.
He didn't draw his weapon.
He didn't need to.
His foot came down, and the ground cratered. Dust and sand erupted in a perfect ring.
The nearest monsters froze an instant too late.
John blurred.
He vanished and reappeared between them, a streak of motion and impact. His fist collided with the first creature's chest, and the sound wasn't flesh—it was detonation.
Bone burst outward in a halo of blood and dust. The body folded before it even hit the ground.
Another leapt at his back. John twisted, caught it by the throat, fingers sinking in. A heartbeat later its neck exploded in a mist of crimson.
He was in Break-the-Mortal realm now with his physical cultivation.
Every strike shattered the limits of what a human body should do.
His aura wasn't energy—it was gravity, crushing everything nearby.
"Guess you're enjoying yourself," Blake called, half-laughing as he stepped forward.
His daggers sang as he spun, but he barely needed them.
A haze of green spread around him — soft, luminous, sweet.
The first creature to breathe it in staggered, eyes dilating until they went blank.
Then, obediently, it turned on its packmate and tore it apart.
The poison worked faster than venom. It was music, and every monster was forced to dance.
Blake's steps were light, almost lazy. Each time he passed, a faint ripple of toxin followed, and another creature collapsed, eyes wide with glassy calm.
He laughed once, rough and breathless. "This power just Feels too good."
John tore another monster in half with his bare hands. "Don't let the power get to your head."
The air shook.
Another wave burst from the far wall—bigger beasts plated in bone and iron.
Step Five elites. Their combined aura rolled through the arena like thunder.
Blake grinned. "It might honestly be too late."
They hit like an avalanche.
John met them head-on. The first swung a blade the size of a wagon; John caught it with one hand. The steel shrieked, bent, and snapped. He slammed his forehead into the creature's skull and sent fragments of bone across the sand.
He didn't fight with grace anymore.
He devoured the battlefield.
Each blow sent shockwaves through the air, cracking pillars and ripping trenches into the floor. Every monster that touched him came apart — crushed by raw kinetic force before claws could even reach his skin.
Alaric's voice was a low murmur in the back of his thoughts:
"Your physical power is close to a peak step 6. Most of these monsters don't stand a chance."
John ignored him. He was already gone—lost in rhythm, motion, and instinct. The darkness that he's been holding back is showing through his personality.
Blake slipped behind him, poison thickening into mist that shimmered like starlight. Each droplet carried death and control.
When he whispered, the air itself obeyed.
"Dance."
The beasts staggered, limbs jerking as the poison hijacked their nerves.
John's strike followed a heartbeat later—meeting flesh already softened by toxin, and the combination was annihilation.
For a moment they moved as a single current of violence—John's physical might carving paths, Blake's poison flowing into the wounds, finishing what brute force began.
Minutes passed.
Then ten.
Then twenty.
When the last of the Step Fives fell, the chamber went still. The air was thick enough to drink; their breathing echoed like war drums.
Corpses steamed as their essence seeped into the sand, the pyramid drinking it in.
John flexed his hands. Blood ran down his arms, cooling fast. Blake's aura was causing a flashing a green pulse as he used each ability.
"That was…" Blake exhaled, "…a workout."
John exhaled slow. "Too easy."
The silence broke.
Low at first — a hum that came not from the air, but from the bones of the realm itself. The walls vibrated. Sand lifted from the ground, hanging weightless.
Alaric's voice returned, cautious now.
"The pyramid isn't finished. Get ready it's about to get harder."
The corpses dissolved completely, blood and essence sucked into the ground. Glyphs ignited under their feet—circles within circles—like the eye of some ancient god opening.
Blake took a step back. "John…"
John didn't move. His pupils constricted.
Something was rising.
The ground split, bleeding light.
Figures climbed from the fissures—towering, armored, silent. The air around them bent. Their presence alone crushed the sand into glass.
Six of them. Each radiated the power of Step Six—monsters once divine.
One stepped forward—a hulking creature of obsidian and molten veins. Its voice was a growl that rattled the ribs.
"Mortals… who dare stain this ground with strength."
John cracked his neck. "Looks like it's time to step it up a notch."
He blurred.
The first titan swung; John caught its fist. The impact detonated in a shockwave that split the wall. John slid half a step back, then grinned. He twisted—and the monster's arm ripped free at the shoulder. He swung it like a club into another Step Six, the blow scattering black blood and molten sparks.
Blake was already gone from his side. He appeared in a shimmer of poison behind one of the titans. His dagger sank into the back of its knee. The wound hissed as venom invaded.
The titan roared—but froze.
Its eyes glowed green. Slowly, it turned its weapon not toward Blake, but toward its own kin.
Blake's whisper slithered through the haze. "Breathe deep."
The poisoned titan struck, cleaving another's torso clean through before collapsing into vapor. The mesmer effect was short-lived—but devastating.
John plowed through another, fists like meteors. The impact caved its chest inward, ribs collapsing into pulp. He spun, grabbed a fallen blade, and threw it hard enough to bisect a creature mid-charge.
Everything in him burned. His body thrummed with power equal to a peak step 6. Each strike was layered with his power, his aura sharpening with every kill.
Their rhythm returned—two storms spiraling together.
Blake's poison drifted like ghostlight, moving wherever John's fists didn't. When John crushed a monster's guard, the mist poured into the wound. When Blake's poison stunned one, John finished it with bone-breaking precision.
They didn't speak. They didn't need to.
The Step Sixes began to falter. Their regeneration couldn't keep up. Even their ancient armor cracked beneath the combined weight of toxin and raw force.
One tried to flee—John caught it by the jaw and slammed it into the ground hard enough to crater the arena. The impact made the floor glow red beneath them.
Blake stepped beside him, chest heaving, poison still humming faintly around his shoulders. He smiled without humor. "You think that's it?"
John shook his head. "Seems like it."
The tremor beneath their feet changed pitch—from rage to exhaustion. The light in the glyphs dimmed. The pressure vanished as suddenly as it had come.
The Step Sixes dissolved into dust, their essence drawn back into the pyramid's veins. The hum of the realm faded until only the faint echo of their breathing remained.
For the first time in what felt like hours, the air was still.
Blake let his daggers fall slack at his sides. His poison mist thinned until it vanished entirely. "Guess that was the final round."
John glanced around. The arena was a graveyard—melted glass, black sand, and silence. The weight of the trial lifted from his shoulders, replaced by the steady rhythm of his own heartbeat.
The pyramid was… calm.
"Yeah," he said softly. "We're still standing."
A low rumble echoed beneath them. The glyphs in the floor shifted, rearranging themselves into a single line of light that stretched toward the far wall. Slowly, stone ground against stone as a new door formed—massive, ancient, its surface carved with spiraling runes. The glow along its frame pulsed like a heartbeat.
Blake sheathed his blades. "Another one?"
John rolled his shoulders. "You expected a break?"
Blake's grin was weary but alive. "Not anymore."
They walked side by side, footsteps echoing across the shattered floor. The door loomed ahead—black and gold, alive with faint energy. Behind them, the trial chamber began to collapse, its purpose spent.
When they reached the threshold, John looked back once more.
Hundreds of corpses, shattered bones, burned sand, green mist curling like dying smoke.
"Let's move," he said.
Blake nodded. "Yeah. Before it changes its mind."
Together, they stepped through the doorway.
The stone sealed behind them with a quiet, final click.
And the Trial of Blood was over.