His heartbeat quickened, his breathing became erratic. With no crevices or ledges around the lip, Ash knew he had only one thing left to rely on.
He prayed that the cooldown was complete, and activated [ Heavy Claw ].
"Come on! Come on!"
The red warmth ignited around his fingertips, and with eyes wide with hope, desperation and fortitude, Ash wasn't wasting a second.
He lunged upward, driving his right fist into the smooth rock. The crimson claws cracked into the surface, holding his weight easier and allowing him to scale the length until he was close enough for his left hand to reach over the lip of the volcano.
Ash hauled his battered, bleeding body over the edge, rolling onto the sloping exterior of the mountain just as the feminine voice came again.
[ Aspirant, time is up ]
Ash, holding his shoulder, sprinted down the mountain like a man possessed. Deciding he wasn't fast enough, he threw himself to the floor and rolled down the sloping mountain.
BOOM!
The sound was louder than thunder. The shockwave punched Ash in the back, launching his rolling body off the rock and back on the rock again.
He forced his limbs to extend, digging his heels and hands into the loose ash to arrest his fall, and using the unstoppable momentum to slide down the mountain face rather than roll.
Behind him, the mouth of the volcano vomited a mushroom of fire into the sky. A wave of blindingly bright lava breached the rim, spilling over the sides and chasing after Ash down the mountain like a liquid avalanche.
When he couldn't slide anymore, Ash rose to his feet and ran. His lungs were on fire, his feet were blistered, and his legs felt like lead, but he didn't dare look back.
He bounded over widening fissures and slid down steep embankments of gray ash, letting gravity and his own momentum carry him away from the epicenter of the blast.
But the lava chased after him fast, melting everything at its wake.
Ash pulled off the makeshift mask from his face, sucking in the fresher air of the white world around him. The oxygen gave him some strength, but he didn't know how much longer he could run.
As his feet carried him desperately, he noticed something strange in the distance. Squinting his eyes, Ash counted four silhouettes of people.
What made this strange was that they weren't running away from the cataclysmic eruption that was sure to engulf this place. Instead, they were heading straight toward it!
—---—
"Ah, seems we're a bit late," Duncan mused, placing his black-gloved hands on his waist. "The volcano has erupted."
He looked over his shoulder to the taller warrior far beside him. "What do you think, Wevard? Can you stop it?"
Wevard turned to him, his glass-blue eyes glinting, and his snow-white hair blowing behind him as his ruthlessly handsome features formed a smile. "Of course I can, Dunk."
"Great," Duncan placed his hand on the back of his head, sighing boyishly. "Cause if you can't, then you don't get to be called the Arctic Knight anymore."
"Do you guys see something?"
Duncan popped open one eye. "Mhm?" He pointed it at Iris, who seemed to be staring bewitchedly at the volcano.
"What is it, Iris?" Wevard asked her with a noticeably softer voice.
"I see it too," Adroft said with his usually bland voice.
"See what?" Duncan stopped pose-walking and joined them in staring. "What do you guys see?"
Adroft lazily raised a hand and pointed at the volcano. "There's a kid yelling at us."
Wevard gazed into the distance, peering through the thick black smoke, and soon he too saw the silhouette of a boy running in their direction. His eyes narrowed in disbelief. "What in the Realms?"
Duncan saw the boy too and his eyes widened, transfixed like he had just seen the most magnificent thing ever.
"No one is supposed to be here," Iris said, her red brows creased to show her worry.
"A boy from a volcano," Duncan muttered. "Isn't this interesting?"
Adroft puffed air out of his cheeks, seemingly unimpressed. "I wonder what he's yelling though."
—---—
"Run! Run!" Ash cried from his smoke-filled throat. "Are you clusterfucks blind and also deaf?! Run!!"
Suddenly, they did something surprising. One of them controlled the snow below his feet, spiralling it around him then using it to launch his body into the sky.
Another disappeared into black smoke.
Ash's eyes bugged out. "What the—"
Before he could register anything, a burst of black smoke manifested in front of him. Ash yelped and threw himself backward on the snow.
From the smoke, a slender man appeared, his face slit in a mischievous grin. "Clench your stomach, kid," he said.
Ash frowned. "Wha—?" The man grabbed him by the collar then vanished with him into the black smoke.
Right after, the volcano's smoke-wave engulfed where they had been. The man rematerialized again, dropping Ash on the floor. Ash quickly dropped to his hands-and-knees and puked his guts out on the snow.
"Told you to clench your stomach," the man said.
"Wevard is doing his thing, Dunk," someone tired said. "You don't want to miss it."
Ash cleaned his mouth with the back of his hand, then looked behind him. He was confused with what was happening, but he still had to check how close the volcano's fumes were.
He saw the wave was now a greater distance far from him, but there was something more interesting occurring.
Ash watched with bulged eyes as the figure who had ascended earlier descended right in the path of the volcano's wrath.
He had snow-white hair that matched the rest of his ensemble: a silver, white and blue formidable armor.
Simply by pushing both hands forward, the man summoned a catastrophic tide of his own, this one from ice and snow. Ash watched, paralyzed, as the two forces collided. The man's overwhelming chill met the volcano's fury head-on.
There was a rabid explosion, and another wave spread as a result. Steam.
The Silver Man concentrated on the main shockwave, still. He formed a great circular wall of thick ice, encasing the small burning rocks and the thick gas inside crystals of ice.
To counter the steam wave, he turned and shot forward a wave of chilling air that crashed into the steam just before it hit Ash and the others beside him. Cold air poured against Ash's face, yet he couldn't stop staring.
The Silver Man leaped, creating a board of ice beneath his feet that carried him toward the volcano. Then, with his arms outstretched on opposite sides, he froze the incoming lava streams all the way up the mountain.
And when he was done, there was silence.
"He-he," one of the people beside Ash chuckled. "Guess he did it after all."
"What did you expect?" a female voice said. "He's the Arctic Knight after all. The Hero of the Realms."
Ash watched from the snow, dumbfounded, unable to believe what he had just seen. How could one man stop a volcano?
He had done it so worklessly too, like he was merely swatting a fly.
Ash's throat tightened. He didn't know if he was inspired by the Silver Man, or jealous of him.
Ding!
His interface blazed to life in front of him.
[ Congratulations, Aspirant. You have defeated your First Challenge! ]
[ You have been rewarded with a weapon: Dragon Fang (D-Grade), two new Skills: ⟦Dragon Scales⟧ and ⟦Heat Blast⟧, and 30 Attribute Points ]
[ Your Beast Dominion has increased to 15% ]
A weapon materialized in his open palm. The Dragon Fang.
The blade was clearly a creature's fang, curved and ivory-white with jagged serrations along the spine for ripping flesh, tapering to a vicious point.
A dragon-head guard was clamped at the base, with ember-red eyes glowing and metallic scales flaring like protective wings around the hand. Dark leather wrapped the hilt, ending in a talon pommel clutching a faintly glowing orange gem like trapped dragonfire, giving the whole thing the look of a powerful relic forged from a slain beast.
Maybe it was, Ash hoped, even though it was only a D-Grade item.
"Cool dagger," he heard a voice say.
Ash looked up and saw the teleporting man who had saved him, shooting him another friendly smile. The man extended a hand to him.
"Get up kid."
Tucking the dagger into his pants, Ash accepted his hand and got up. He then found himself surrounded by four adults giving him curious looks like he was a math problem they were trying to solve.
"So..." the teleporter began, folding his arms. "Do you race with volcanos often or?"
"Ahem!" the Silver Man cleared his throat, stopping his friend. Ash glanced at him.
As he had suspected, the Silver Man was very handsome as well. His eyes were winter-blue and his jawline was sharper than his ice crystals.
"Are you alright?" the Silver Man asked him, his chivalric voice soothing.
"Yes," Ash nodded. "Thank you. You were unbelievable back there."
The teleporter yawned, waving a hand dramatically. "Oh, never mind me. I only saved your life."
Ash stared at him blankly. "Thank you also."
The teleporter grinned.
"Who are you?" the woman asked, her eyes glued at his face.
Ash froze. What exactly was the appropriate answer to this question? He couldn't really tell them that he was an Aspirant inside a Beast Trial. These people weren't even real.
The woman's eyes trailed down Ash's body, and once she noticed the injuries, her hand flew to her mouth. "Oh... heavens," she whispered. "You... were with the slave caravans, weren't you? You must have escaped and hid in the mountain, not expecting it to erupt."
Ash's brows raised, but he didn't dare say a word. Whatever this woman was on about, he didn't see a need to stop her.
"I see," the Silver Man spoke. "It all makes sense now. The Empire has been hunting those slavers for months. We heard reports of a caravan moving through the northern post to avoid the main roads, but we thought the cold would have turned them back."
"What's your name, kid?" the teleporter asked.
Ash glanced at him. "Ashborn."
"Ashborn?" he beamed, amused. "A moment defining name, mhm? Perhaps you were fated to climb out of a volcano."
"I am Wevard," the Silver Man said, stepping. "These are my companions: Iris—" He pointed to the red haired woman. "Adroft—" He pointed to the uninterested tall man. "And the one who rescued you, Duncan."
"We are the Heroes Party of Aldombia. We were sent here to investigate the shifting heat in the North, and put an end to the tyrant Dragon Lord."
Ash's eyes glimmered. "The Dragon Lord?"
Duncan grinned, leaning forward. "Ah, you've heard of him, haven't you? Not to worry, the Heroes are here now, and we'll stop him from purging the world with the Great Fire."
Ash lowered his head and repeated the words. "The Great Fire..."
Wevard stepped forward, catching Ash's attention. He looked up and met the sincerity in the man's eyes, making Ash's stomach churn for a different reason.
"You have no home to go back to in that volcano, and you'll be lost if we left you on your own." Wevard looked at the rest of the party, as if asking for permission before continuing.
"We are heading further North, toward the Heart of the Frost, to finish our mission. Come with us. We can protect you, feed you, and once the Dragon Lord is dealt with and the roads are clear, I give you my word as a Knight of the Realm: we will see you returned to your village."
Iris nodded eagerly, a hopeful smile breaking her strict face "We have plenty of supplies, and Adroft is a better cook than he looks. You'll be safe with us."
The promise of food was enough to sway Ash's mind.
"Okay," he rasped, his voice still rough from the sulfur. "I'll go with you."
Duncan smiled. "Attaboy! Come stay beside me!" Ash was dragged by the teleporter to his side, his hand squeezing his hurt shoulder. "I have so much to teach you!"
"Duncan, do not ruin that boy with your nonsense talks," Iris said as they journeyed on.
"I don't know what you're talking about, Iris."
Adroft sighed. "Can't we just go faster? And quieter?"
The party continued with their camaraderie while Ash, squeezed tight by Duncan's forceful hug, gaped in terror at the floating screen in front of him.
His Second Challenge had arrived.
[ Aspirant, welcome to the Second Challenge of your Beast Trial ]
[ Challenge - Mystery : One of these people is going to betray you. Find out who before it is too late ]