---
Chapter 37
The Trial of Conviction
The first wave hit like a living storm of fangs and fury.
Claws tore through the crimson haze as the black-scaled beasts exploded from the darkness — ten, twenty, endless. Their eyes burned with mindless hunger, each leap calculated to rip flesh from bone.
Alex didn't retreat.
He stepped into the storm.
Steel sang.
His blade carved a perfect arc through the lead beast's throat. Black blood sprayed hot across his face as the creature crumpled. Before its body even hit the mud, he was already moving — Iron Heart Blade Technique flowing through him like second nature.
Step.
Turn.
Sever.
Another beast lunged from the left. His sword flashed upward, splitting its jaw clean in two. A third came from behind. Alex twisted mid-stride, drove the blade through its chest, and ripped it free in a fountain of ichor.
The battlefield drank the blood. The shadows answered by birthing more.
Dozens now.
Their roars shook the cracked earth.
Alex's breathing stayed steady, but his mind sharpened with cold fury.
This isn't the trial I expected.
In the game, Conviction had been a phantom test — visions meant to shatter courage.
This was war. Real pain. Real exhaustion.
The mountain had changed the rules because he had changed the story.
And he would break them right back.
He moved faster.
Mana surged through his veins like liquid fire. Each strike carried the weight of his system-enhanced body — precise, devastating, unstoppable. A beast leapt for his throat; he met it with a rising slash that took its head and half its spine. Two more charged together. He spun between them, blades of wind trailing his sword as he carved both open in a single breath.
But the trial adapted.
The monsters grew larger. Scales thickened. Claws lengthened. Their movements synced, as if the darkness itself was learning his rhythm.
A low slash tore across his shoulder. Pain exploded — hot, real, vicious.
Alex staggered but didn't fall. He reversed his grip and drove the sword down through the attacker's skull, pinning it to the ground.
"Keep coming," he growled through gritted teeth.
His arms burned. His lungs screamed. Sweat and blood stung his eyes.
Yet something deeper ignited inside him.
Memories flashed like lightning.
The burning village.
Screaming families clutching their children.
The mysterious voice that had paid bandits to slaughter innocents just to test him.
The future that no longer followed the game's script — a future he alone had to forge.
If he broke here, everything ended.
The people he had promised to protect.
The empire he refused to let rot.
The life he had stolen from a worthless death and remade with his own hands.
No.
Not today.
He wiped blood from his brow and forced his breathing steady.
"You hear that?" Alex muttered toward the endless shadows. "I know you're watching."
Another beast leapt forward. Alex pivoted sharply and cut it down mid-air, its body sliding across the mud.
"Well?" he continued between breaths. "Is this your idea of a test?"
Another roar answered him.
Three beasts lunged at once.
Alex ducked beneath the first, elbowed the second aside, and drove his blade through the third's ribcage.
"Then come closer!" he shouted. "Send something stronger!"
Far beyond time and space, the two ancient watchers observed in silence.
"He slows," the golden-eyed figure murmured, voice like grinding stone.
"Of course," the violet-eyed one replied, calm as deep water. "His body is only human."
"But his will…"
They watched as Alex forced himself upright, blood dripping from fresh wounds, eyes blazing with something unbreakable.
"…that is something else entirely."
The golden-eyed watcher leaned forward slightly.
"He taunts the trial."
"Confidence," the violet-eyed one corrected softly.
"Or madness."
"Sometimes those are the same thing."
Back on the battlefield, Alex's legs trembled. His sword felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. The ground around him had become a graveyard — dozens of black-scaled corpses piled high, their blood turning the mud into a slick, stinking mire.
Yet the darkness still stirred.
Still breathed.
Still hungered.
Another wave emerged — bigger, meaner, their armored hides now glistening with fresh malice. Ten. Twenty. More.
Alex wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. His vision blurred for half a heartbeat. His body begged him to kneel. To rest. To surrender.
He refused.
A savage grin cracked across his bloodied face.
"How many more?" he rasped, voice hoarse but steady. "How many until you believe I will never break?"
A creature lunged for his throat.
Alex sidestepped barely in time and buried his sword in its neck.
The corpse collapsed against him.
He pushed it aside with a grunt.
"Come on then," he spat toward the darkness. "You're supposed to test my conviction."
His breathing grew heavier.
"Or is this all the legendary dragon trial can do?"
Far beyond the veil, the golden-eyed figure leaned forward.
"He insults the trial now."
"Yes," the violet-eyed watcher said quietly.
"And yet…"
They both watched as Alex steadied his stance again despite the blood running down his arms.
"…he still stands."
Back in the battlefield illusion, Alex planted his feet. Mana flared around him in a faint blue aura, pushing back the encroaching shadows.
The monsters charged.
Alex roared and met them head-on.
Steel clashed against scale in a frenzy of sparks and screams. He fought like a man possessed — every cut deeper, every counter faster, every wound ignored. A beast slammed into his side, hurling him into the mud. Before it could finish him, he rolled, stabbed upward through its throat, and shoved the corpse aside.
He rose again.
And again.
And again.
Each time his body screamed louder, his will answered louder still.
"Not enough," he muttered hoarsely.
Another monster lunged.
He cut it down.
"Still not enough."
Two more attacked.
His sword flashed.
They fell.
"Is that all you have?"
Far beyond the veil, the golden-eyed figure leaned forward.
"He should have shattered by now."
"Most do," the violet-eyed one said, a faint smile in their voice. "Yet this boy… has already chosen his fate."
"Chosen?"
"Yes."
Their glowing eyes followed Alex as he forced himself upright once more.
"He has decided the outcome already."
Back in the trial, Alex stood amid the carnage, chest heaving, blood streaming from a dozen cuts. His sword trembled in his grip — not from fear, but from raw, burning exhaustion.
Still, he lifted it.
"Come on then," he whispered, voice raw with defiance. "If conviction is what you want…"
He took one final step forward, legs shaking, eyes locked on the endless dark.
"…I'll show you mine."
The monsters lunged once more.
Alex answered with a roar that shook the illusion itself.
His body might collapse.
His will never would.
---
End of Chapter 37
---