The chamber widened until it no longer felt like a cavern.
It felt like a buried battlefield.
The ceiling disappeared into blackness. The ground stretched endlessly in all directionsash-colored stone scarred by claw marks older than recorded pack history.
Riven stepped forward.
Behind him, Astra's presence faded into shadow.
Her voice echoed one final time.
"You must fight until your body is forced to adapt."
Her tone was calm. Unyielding.
"Brutal battles forge strong bodies."
A pause.
"Do not use Night Wolf energy."
The warning lingered.
"Do not use Dark Lunar energy."
His jaw tightened.
"For you cannot fully control it. And berserk versus a legion of berserkers…"
A faint, humorless breath escaped the darkness.
"…is a recipe for your own destruction."
Silence.
"You will rely only on base strength."
Another pause.
"Now begin."
Riven exhaled slowly.
He stepped fully into the field.
And that's when he saw them.
They stood motionless across the vast expanse.
Thousands.
No
More.
Layered deep into the distance.
Distorted wolves.
Some half-shifted eternally.
Some skeletal and elongated.
Some massive and hunched.
Their eyes were hollow. Not glowing. Not alive.
They simply… existed.
Neither dead nor living.
Failed evolutions.
Core ruptures.
Abandoned anomalies.
The Forgotten.
They did not breathe.
They did not twitch.
Until
One of them tilted its head.
Then another.
Then all of them.
In unison.
Their hollow gazes locked onto Riven.
The field trembled faintly.
A low vibration spread outward like the hum of an earthquake preparing to split the earth.
Riven rolled his neck once.
Cracked his knuckles.
No aura.
No energy reinforcement.
Just muscle.
Bone.
Scar tissue.
He planted his feet.
"Fine."
The first one moved.
Then ten.
Then a hundred.
Then the horizon shifted.
They charged.
All of them.
Not in formation.
Not in strategy.
In feral, collapsing waves.
The sound was overwhelming thousands of clawed feet tearing across stone.
A tidal wave of broken evolution.
Riven didn't step back.
He stepped forward.
The first wolf reached him
He pivoted.
Elbow drove into its jaw.
Bone shattered on impact.
It didn't scream.
It dissolved into ash-like fragments.
The second lunged from the left
Riven caught its wrist mid-air, twisted, slammed its face into the stone hard enough to crater it.
He didn't stop moving.
Three more.
He ducked low, swept legs, crushed skulls under heel.
The wave crashed into him fully.
Claws raked across his back.
Teeth snapped near his throat.
He moved like a blade in a storm.
Efficient.
Minimal.
Every strike decisive.
A punch to the sternum.
A knee to the ribs.
A shoulder ram to send bodies flying.
He didn't roar.
Didn't rage.
He conserved breath.
He fought like a war machine stripped of power enhancements.
Ten down.
Twenty.
Fifty.
The tide didn't thin.
It thickened.
They piled on him.
Hands clawed.
Teeth sank into his forearm.
He ripped one off and used it as a weapon, slamming its body into others before it disintegrated.
A claw tore across his cheek.
Warm blood dripped.
He ignored it.
A heavy one larger, twisted charged head-on
Riven planted his feet and met it directly.
Fist collided with skull.
The impact cracked like thunder.
Pain shot up his arm.
His knuckles split open.
The creature shattered.
Riven flexed his hand once.
It trembled.
He kept moving.
More came.
He spun through them backfist, hook, low kick, palm strike, shoulder slam.
Bodies shattered around him like falling statues.
The ground began to sink under the sheer weight of charging numbers.
His breathing deepened.
Muscles burned.
His ribs throbbed.
A dozen wolves leapt simultaneously
He dropped flat.
Rolled.
Came up inside their formation and exploded outward with a sweeping double-arm strike.
Three skulls snapped.
Four bodies collided and collapsed.
More filled the gap instantly.
There was no pause.
No spacing.
No clean duel.
It was war against endless bodies.
Minutes blurred.
Then an hour.
His shirt was long gone.
Skin torn in multiple places.
Bruises swelling.
A deep gash opened along his thigh.
His movements slowed by a fraction.
That fraction was punished.
A claw dug into his side where the silver scar lay.
Pain flared violently.
He gritted his teeth.
Did not let the Dark Lunar energy rise.
Did not let the Night Wolf surge.
Base strength only.
He drove his forehead into the attacker's face.
Bone cracked.
Blood splattered.
He tore free.
The numbers did not decrease.
For every one shattered, another stepped forward.
Like an army without morale.
Without fear.
Without exhaustion.
His fists felt heavier.
Breathing rougher.
Vision narrowed slightly.
A hundred more surrounded him.
They came in waves.
He moved like a single point in a collapsing ocean.
Dodging by inches.
Striking through gaps no wider than a hand.
He fought forward.
Not backward.
Always advancing.
Because standing still meant burial.
They climbed over their own fallen remnants to reach him.
He leapt onto a pile of shattered bodies, using elevation to create space.
Three lunged upward
He crushed their skulls downward with twin hammer fists.
The impact rattled his shoulders.
His left arm spasmed briefly.
He shook it out mid-combat.
More swarmed.
He jumped off the pile directly into them
A shockwave of raw physical impact.
No energy.
Just force.
Bodies exploded outward from the collision.
He landed hard, rolled, rose immediately.
A claw tore open his back.
Another sank into his calf.
He drove his elbow backward into a throat.
Spun.
Kicked a skull clean off shoulders.
His breath was ragged now.
Heart hammering.
Sweat mixed with blood.
But something else was happening.
His body wasn't collapsing.
It was adjusting.
Micro-tears sealing faster.
Pain becoming background noise.
Reflexes sharpening under constant assault.
He didn't notice at first.
He only noticed that he was still standing.
Still moving.
Still advancing.
Another wave.
Larger.
Denser.
They rushed him from all sides.
He exhaled slowly.
And stepped forward into the center.
Madness from the outside.
Precision from within.
He moved through them like a storm front cutting through dry forest.
No wasted motion.
No hesitation.
Fists blurred.
Knees cracked ribs.
Spine twists snapped necks.
He ducked under a swing and drove his fist upward through a jaw so hard the impact echoed across the field.
Blood ran down both arms.
His breathing turned almost animalistic
Not berserk.
Focused.
Predatory.
Hours passed.
The pile of shattered remains rose around him like a mountain.
But still they came.
He was slower now.
But heavier.
Denser.
Each strike carried more weight than the last.
His bones felt… harder.
His muscles responding faster.
Adaptation through attrition.
A claw raked across his chest
The wound closed halfway before the next attacker reached him.
He blinked once.
Noticing.
Not celebrating.
Continuing.
He spun through another group
Shattered them
And paused for half a second.
That half second was punished.
A massive distorted wolf twice his size crashed into him like a falling wall.
They tumbled across stone.
It pinned him down, claws slamming toward his throat.
He caught both wrists.
Strained.
His arms trembled violently.
The creature's strength was monstrous.
It pushed harder.
Stone cracked beneath his back.
His ribs screamed.
His body reached its limit.
The Night Wolf energy stirred.
The Dark Lunar pulsed.
He clenched his jaw.
No.
Base strength.
Only base.
His muscles screamed.
Veins bulged.
Tendons threatened to tear.
And then
They didn't.
Something inside locked.
Aligned.
His frame stabilized under pressure.
He pushed back.
Slowly.
Then faster.
The massive creature's arms reversed direction.
Its own weight worked against it.
Riven rolled, mounted it, and drove his fist into its skull again
And again
And again
Until it shattered beneath him.
He rose slowly.
Chest heaving.
The field had not emptied.
But the charge had slowed.
The Forgotten now circled.
Cautious.
Sensing change.
Riven stood in the center of devastation.
Blood-covered.
Bruised.
Breathing hard.
But upright.
His body felt heavier.
Stronger.
Not empowered.
Conditioned.
Forged by continuous impact.
Far in the darkness, Astra watched.
Her eyes narrowed slightly.
He had not called upon his core.
Not once.
And yet
He was no longer fighting like a Low Wolf body.
He was adapting.
Under endless pressure.
Exactly as intended.
The circling horde shrieked silently
And charged again.
Riven rolled his shoulders.
Blood dripped from his chin.
He stepped forward into the next wave.
One wolf.
Against millions.
And he did not retreat.