Kaelen stepped down from the hill.
Contradictory to his surroundings and the gravity of the situation he was walking into, his mind was cold, it was still – it was still completely focused.
As he walked down, the Seafarers Satchel appeared around his body, and within it rested the sharpened bone ribs that he was going to make use of.
A few seconds later he was no longer on the hill, he was in the Demon's territory.
Kaelen stood there in the silence.
"Nice place." - He let out a whistle and pulled out a bone rib and tapped it against his hand, the sound was a dull thwack, like a stick hitting granite.
He kept his eyes on the ball of flaming rock.
"I know you're not a rock, you mutt."
And just like that, the silence was no more.
There was a grinding sound that came from in front of him, the 'rock' woke and stepped out of the shadows being cast by the wall behind it.
Its heavy weight causing a THUMP sound as it walked
"Gods... No wonder they call you guys nightmare creatures... You're ugly as hell."
Seeing it from a distance did not do it justice.
It had the massive, hulking frame of a starved lion, but its front limbs ended in long, pale human fingers that twitched with a restless, hungry intelligence. It had two heads, one a rotting canine snout dripping with black bile, the other a sagging human face with skin like melted wax.
The Demon locked its four mismatched eyes on Kaelen.
He waited for a roar, a grunt or something animalistic, but when he got a response, it made him wonder if he should have prepared more.
The heads simply smiled, revealing rows of needle-like teeth from both the canine head and the human head.
Kaelen sighed and shifted his weight into a combat stance. "I hope you have a 'buy one, get one free' policy on those heads."
Well, truth be told, he did not - the two for one speacial would mean it had 6 soul cores,
Maybe after 2 more trials he would be able to fight a terror since his body would have absorbed more of the trial's essence and in turn would also increase his strength, but not right now.
He was pulled out of his thoughts.
The demon moved, given the distance, it should have taken a few seconds at most, but the damn thing leapt over in less than three.
Kaelen braced himself, it was unfortunate that he did not have any speed advantage, but what he did have was the durability of a boulder.
The creature slammed into him like a falling house, and he was suddenly very happy that the earth essence had changed his skeleton and skin, the impact would have pulverised common bone, but Kaelen's altered body absorbed the shock, the vibration echoing through his core without cracking it.
He flew backwards, his heels digging deep furrows into the ash-covered stone, stopping only when he hit a cluster of bones.
For a split second he waited there, and the creature also just stood there; it most likely thought that its prey had been disfigured.
"My turn," he spoke with a grunt as he pushed himself off the ground.
The demon's smile seemed to drop and turn into a snarl.
As the demon lunged for a follow-up bite, Kaelen swung the heavy bone ribs. He didn't aim for a killing blow - That was not possible, not yet.
He was calculating. He swung low, the ivory blades whistling through the heat. The jagged bone bit into the Demon's human-fingered wrist. Instead of blood, a spray of pressurised, boiling steam hissed out of the wound.
The demon recoiled, the dog head yelping while the human head narrowed its eyes. It realised, with its primitive cunning, that this tiny creature wasn't as soft as the others.
Kaelen didn't give it time to rethink. He reached into his soul sea and summoned the [Burning Blood].
"I'd offer you a drink, but I think you're already a bit too 'lit'," Kaelen joked, his voice echoing in the hollow square. There was no response to his poor joke.
'Fuck, I'm going mad.'
He tipped the cup. The thick, iridescent black ooze began to chug out, painting a slick, oily trail across the scorched earth. Kaelen began to move in a wide arc.
A plan like this would have been difficult to execute in the past two trials because of the fact that a nightmare creature had a lot more stamina than a human, especially when said creature was awakened and he was just a dormant
But he had the essence of the sea in his body, and fatigue was not an issue, especially when he rested his mind yesterday.
The Demon chased him, its flaming body acting like a moving torch. Every time it stepped, its heat threatened to ignite the very air. Kaelen kept the distance just right—close enough to bait the beast and far enough to avoid the thing's jaws and claws.
He skipped over a pile of rocks and heard as the thing simply crashed through, sending stones and rocks flying.
The Demon grew frustrated. It began to gallop, its human hands gripping the stones to swing its massive body around corners. It lunged, its dog's head snapping inches from Kaelen's hip, who felt the heat char the fabric of his pants, but the skin beneath stayed grey.
He spun mid-air, bringing both rib blades down in a crosscut. They slammed into the Demon's shoulder with a sickening crunch. The creature roared in twin tones—a howl and a scream—and its tail, a whip of fused vertebrae, lashed out in a blind reflex.
The tail caught Kaelen square in the ribs.
The force sent him spinning through the air, but just as the creature loomed over him and brought its jaws down, he tucked his body and rolled backwards, avoiding the bite and getting back on his feet.
"Okay," Kaelen wheezed, a small, humourless smirk crossing his face. "That one actually hurt a little. You're starting to get the hang of this."
The black ooze Kaelen had spilt was now everywhere, a shimmering trap waiting for a single spark.
The Demon's human head let out a low, gurgling hiss as it noticed the iridescent sheen of the black ooze clinging to its paws. It tried to shake a limb, but the liquid was like liquid shadow—sticky, heavy, and hungry for heat.
Kaelen stood a few metres away, his chest heaving with a rhythmic steadiness that defied the intensity of the fight. His blood was working overtime, circulating a cool pressure through his veins that suppressed the heat and acid and kept his grip like iron.
He raised two other ribs pulled out from the satchel.
The demon didn't appreciate the gesture. Its canine head snapped forward, unleashing a spray of flaming bile. Kaelen didn't dodge. He crossed his arms, his skin darkening to the colour of deep basalt. The fire washed over him, the heat intense enough to melt lead, but it only served to dry the ash on his grey-scaled skin.
He stood there enduring the flames with his body.
The swift sea could have been brought out from his soul sea, it could have provided him another layer of protection, but if that were to happen, his speed would be cut, and facing a being that seemed to be a literal monster dog on steroids
Well, Kaelen knew he needed all the speed he could get.
As the flames cleared, Kaelen lunged immediately – he felt his skin trying to remoisturise itself using his blood.
But that didn't slow him down; he moved with the grace of a dancer but with the unstoppable momentum of a landslide. He hit the black-slicked pavement and slid, using the ooze to propel himself like a puck on ice. He went right under the demon's massive chest.
"Let's see how many ribs you've got under all that fat!"
With a guttural shout, Kaelen drove the first bone blade upward. It pierced the demon's chest, sinking deep into the smouldering muscle. Kaelen didn't stop. He twisted the bone, his stone-enhanced strength allowing him to wrench the bone through the creature's tough hide like he was carving a statue.
The human head shrieked, a sound of pure agony that made Kaelen's ears ring.
The Demon tried to crush him, slamming its massive human-fingered hand down. Kaelen rolled, the impact cracking the ground inches from his head, and came up on the creature's flank. He buried the second rib-blade into the demon's hind leg, hooking the jagged edge into the tendon.
"Stay... put!" Kaelen grunted, putting his entire weight into the bone.
The demon thrashed, its flaming body igniting the air around them. The black ooze on the ground finally caught. A wall of dark, oily fire erupted, swallowing both the boy and the beast.
In the heart of the inferno, Kaelen felt the heat trying to cook him alive. His Stone Skin began to glow a dull, dangerous red, and for the first time, he felt a flicker of genuine fear, especially seeing the steam rising from his body.
It was a bad sign, and slowly he felt fatigue setting in.
After all, he had a limited amount of water in him, and right now it was being used to neutralise the heat.
He looked up through the wall of orange flames. The demon was blinded, its canine head howling at the sky while its human head snapped its teeth in a frantic, panicked rhythm. The creature's own fire was being fed by the black ooze, turning it into a living pyre.
Kaelen gripped the rib blades—still embedded in the demon's flesh—and pulled. He used the bone weapons as handles, climbing the side of the massive, screaming beast like he was scaling a cliff of meat and fire.
"Almost there," Kaelen muttered, his teeth gritted. "Just need to reach the top. It's crowded up there, isn't it? Two heads and only one neck?"
The Demon sensed the weight on its back. It spun in a violent circle, trying to force Kaelen off. But Kaelen's grip was absolute.
He had practice with this from the time in the sea.
His fingers, hardened by his attitude, dug into the gaps between the creature's fused ribs, anchoring him against the storm of fire and motion.
He was right between the two heads now. The canine head turned, its flaming eyes wide with realisation, while the human head let out a final, pathetic whimper.
Kaelen raised both bone ribs high, the ivory gleaming in the dark, oily light of the burning courtyard.
"Don't worry," Kaelen smirked, his humour returning even at the brink of collapse. "I'm sure you'll both get along much better once you're not attached to each other."
The demon's response was a desperate thrashing. Its human head whipped around, the neck elongating with a sickening wet pop as it tried to reach back and sink its needle teeth into Kaelen's stone-grey shoulder.
"Down Boy!"
He laughed as he leant into the heat. As the human head lunged, Kaelen slammed his forehead—hardened to the density of a riverbed boulder—directly into the bridge of its nose.
CRUNCH.
The impact was like a sledgehammer hitting a melon. The human face collapsed inward, the high-pitched screaming cut short by a gargle of black ichor. The demon stumbled, its massive body tilting precariously as the fire from the ooze continued to eat away at its underside.
Kaelen didn't waste the opening. His blood was roaring now, a cold, pressurised vapour that kept his muscles from locking up despite the searing heat of the pyre. He felt a strange, detached calm.
Victory was already here.
He yanked the first rib-blade free from the creature's flank and, with a heave of his stone-strengthened back, drove it into the soft, exposed junction where the canine neck met the torso.
The dog's head let out a sound that wasn't a bark or a howl but a tectonic roar of pure, awakened agony. It tried to snap at him, but Kaelen shifted his weight with precision. He used the second rib-blade as a climbing pick, burying it into the demon's spine to haul himself higher.
"You've got a lot of heart," Kaelen panted, his humour turning razor-sharp as the adrenaline peaked. "Actually, looking at this mess, you've probably got three or four. Let's see if we can find the main one."
The demon seemed to have sensed its end; looking at where they had started the fight, it saw the black ooze shining there, waiting to be ignited.
The creature sprinted; maybe it would survive the flames longer than the unwanted passenger.
Kaelen felt his skin beginning to crack.
"Oh, so we're doing the 'self-destruct' trope? Classic. A bit uninspired, honestly," Kaelen muttered, his eyes narrowing as he calculated the timing.
He released his grip on the climbing blade, letting himself slide down the creature's charred back. As he fell, he summoned the [Burning Blood] again and smiled.
With a roar of his own, Kaelen didn't retreat. He swung himself around the Demon's thick, trunk-like neck, using the momentum of his heavy body to build force.
He jammed the mouth of the mug directly into the gaping, flaming wound in the demon's chest—the very source of the blazing hot.
GLUG. GLUG. GLUG.
The endless stream of black, flammable ooze poured directly into the creature's core.
Its plan came to fruition; it was just that it planned to use the ooze to burn Kaelen when Kaelen had enough of said ooze to weaponise himself.
"Bottoms up," Kaelen whispered.
He kicked off the creature's chest. He managed to launch him backwards through the wall of black fire just as the chemical reaction hit the point of no return.
Dismissing the [Burning Blood] that was lodged in the creature's mouth, he looked at the mass of flame as it flailed.
The flames had reached its core.
The explosion was a clean burst of orange flame and hot wind that pushed him back; well, it tried to. He leant into the pressure and managed to stay grounded.
[You have slain an Awakened Demon, Fractured Flame.]
[You have received a mMemory: Claws of Flame.]
But Kaelen did not focus on that.
He watched as the orange flames that had just been the demon coalesced into a steady stream and poured into him; his stone skin that had just been fractured by the heat seemed to heal. Each crack had been filled with flowing magma.
But that was not the only change.
Inside his body, all of his organs seemed to catch on fire, but it was not being put out by the remaining water in his blood; rather, they seemed to have a synergetic effect.
The water in his veins flowed through the organs and seemed to emit a pressure that filled him with strength.
Eventually, with a pulse of energy, the flames licking the ground around him were put out instantly.
He stood there for a second taking in the change.
"Nice"
He wanted to just fall back on the ground, but he also wanted to end this first nightmare as soon as possible.
Looking at the white door that appeared behind the flaming corpse, he stepped forwards.
Standing in front of the dog, he dug his hand into the corpse; the heat of the flames did nothing to him now.
Holding it within the creature's corpse, he crushed it and moved to the next and then the next.
Three awakened shards were crushed.
'229 shards absorbed'
Walking around, he summoned the armour around his body; speed was not needed anymore, and walking through that door was taking him to God knows where.
The next trial was about to begin; he had new enemies to slay and a new memory to use, more shards to absorb and more powers to take.
"Well, let's do this then."
And all of a sudden, Kaelen was falling from the sky.