The courtyard of the Obsidian Citadel burned beneath the noonday sun, the air buzzing with latent spiritual tension. Dust still hung from the aftermath of the spirit trial, but the sect did not allow its initiates time to breathe. There was no rest for those who sought to join Shadow Fang.
Around the courtyard, silent disciples carried away those who had collapsed earlier, their faces pale and twisted in failure. Those who remained, eleven candidates, stood at the center, each with their breath steadying at different rhythms. Sweat clung to their skin, but their eyes burned. The atmosphere was suffocating; even the wind seemed to pause at the edges of the training grounds, unwilling to cross the threshold. The scent of iron from blood shed in earlier rounds clung to the air like invisible chains.
The examiner stood at the edge of the courtyard, the black scroll held in one hand. His other hand pressed against the ground, and the formation beneath their feet began to shift. The gold hieroglyphs dimmed… then flared once again, splitting into eleven separate circular arrays. Each glowing circle hovered slightly above the stone like mirrors of light, their surfaces rippling like disturbed water. The examiner's cold voice cut through the thick air.
"The second trial: Trial of the Fang. You will fight alone. You will face the shadows that hunt. Pass the stage, and the array will take you deeper. Fall… and the array will decide if you walk away at all."
The golden falcon statue overhead tilted its head as the hieroglyphs spun faster, and one by one, the candidates sank into the illusion.
The storm-eyed youth was the first to arrive in his trial world. His boots struck hard-packed sand as a burning sky spread endlessly above him. Jagged stone spires clawed at the horizon, the heat shimmering like a mirage. But he wasn't distracted. His breath came steady as his muscles coiled in preparation. A low rumbling growl broke the silence. A jackal-beast prowled into view, its shoulders broad, fur matted with blood and sand. Hieroglyphic chains burned faintly around its legs, a creature bound to the trial itself. Golden eyes narrowed, and then it charged.
The youth's response was immediate. He shifted his stance, weight sinking low, and drove his fist into its jaw with brutal precision. The impact cracked through the air like a hammer on stone. The jackal snarled, thrown off balance. He moved like a storm contained, fast, aggressive, and deliberate. No wasted effort, only destruction. When the beast lunged again, he slid beneath it, drove his elbow into its gut, then twisted its head sharply against the sand until its neck snapped with a sickening crack. Blood seeped into the dunes as the golden hieroglyphs pulsed brighter, pulling him deeper.
...
Elsewhere, the russet-furred beastkin girl's world bloomed into a vast savanna. Tall, yellow grass swayed under a hot, dry wind. She crouched instinctively, tail flicking once behind her. The scent reached her before the sound, musk, iron, hunger. Two lion-beasts padded out of the grass, manes matted, fangs gleaming. Their roars vibrated through her bones, but she did not flinch. Her toes dug into the earth, muscles coiled. When the first beast pounced, she moved like a whip, twisting out of its trajectory and driving her claws deep into its flank. It roared in pain. The second lunged from the side, but she ducked low, rolled forward, and slashed upward, carving its underbelly open. Warm blood splattered across her skin. A savage grin broke through her focused mask. This was her world.
The lions circled again, wary now, but she was faster. She leapt, spun in midair, and landed behind one, her claws ripping its throat in one clean motion. The last beast lunged in fury; she met it head-on, slamming her forehead into its snout with a crack of bone. It reeled, and she tore its throat apart with feral precision. The savanna shimmered and bled gold as the illusion shifted.
...
The silver-haired elf opened his eyes to the remnants of a shattered temple buried beneath dunes. Sand spilled between cracked pillars, and faint whispers coiled like smoke through the air. His fingers brushed the space before him, not calling on spirit, merely reading the currents of movement. A long shadow slithered across the broken floor. A serpent-beast, scales black and gold, emerged from behind a pillar, body thick as a tree trunk. Its hiss was low, measured, intelligent.
The serpent struck like lightning. The elf moved like water, a step to the side, palm guiding the beast's head past him, a kick snapping its jaw from below. Stone shattered as the serpent thrashed violently, but he never met brute with brute. Every slip of its scales was answered by precise punishment. He vaulted onto its back, twisting its weight against the pillar. One, two, three clean strikes to the neck, and the serpent's head smashed against the stone, limp and still. The whispers died with it, and the temple melted away into light.
...
The wolfkin twins entered separately, but their battles were mirrors of one another. One stood in a mist-shrouded forest, facing a massive horned boar. The other found himself in a flooded ravine, a scaled crocodile circling with cold intent. Their strikes weren't elegant; they were pure, instinctive, and vicious. One bit down on the boar's neck mid-charge, dragging it to the ground. The other ripped through scales and muscle with claws sharpened by instinct and will. When they emerged from their illusions, blood was smeared across their faces in the same pattern, as if the maze itself had acknowledged their shared ferocity.
The others fared with varying skill. A slim elf girl scraped by, narrowly dodging a winged hyena's final lunge. A broad-shouldered human crushed his opponent with brutal strength. Another beastkin limped out, shoulder torn and bleeding, but his eyes still burned with refusal to yield.
The examiner's lips twitched, not into a smile, but something close, almost imperceptible. The weak were gone. What remained were those who hungered.
The illusions deepened, dragging the survivors into harsher terrain. The beastkin girl now faced three hyena-beasts that worked like a pack. The storm-eyed youth met a two-headed jackal whose speed matched his own. The elf's serpent returned, plated in armor. Their strikes grew sharper, movements tighter. Blood streaked across limbs. Bruises bloomed across ribs and shoulders. But none of their eyes wavered. This was no longer about skill; it was about endurance, will, and who would break first.
One youth collapsed mid-fight, the illusion spitting him out like a discarded husk. Two others barely made it through, limping and gasping as their arrays flickered weakly. But the rest… they stood taller in the heat of the trial, tempered like blades in flame.
The examiner's gaze swept across the remaining circles, then narrowed. At the far end, one array pulsed a dark crimson.
Inside that illusion, the world was a wasteland of broken stone and red sand. Three corpses of horned beasts already littered the ground. A fourth lay twitching in its own blood. Bahamut stood barefoot in the center of the crimson-stained earth, fox-skin garb torn at the edges, knuckles raw and split. Blood ran in thin streams down his temple from a shallow cut. The beasts had managed to mark him, but they had not stopped him.
The last beast spasmed, throat torn wide open, before collapsing with a dull thud. A slow, dark aura radiated from Bahamut, heavy, violent, alive. His Circle of Body wasn't refined like the elf's, nor wild like the beastkin's. It was oppressive. Primal. A kind of strength carved into flesh and marrow, not learned in any sect. The very air around him warped, quivering beneath the pressure of his existence.
The ground trembled. The wind stilled. Something else was coming.
He tilted his head back slightly, breathing out through his nose, the lazy grin on his bloodied lips at odds with the predatory weight rolling off his body. His fingers flexed once, and the earth beneath him cracked faintly.
"Alright," he muttered, voice low, dangerous, eager. "Let's keep going."
The array above him flared crimson, casting his shadow long and jagged across the shattered sand. The third stage awaited him. And Bahamut hadn't even begun to fight in earnest.
The courtyard outside remained silent, but even from where the examiner stood, watching those shifting lights, something about that crimson pulse felt different, like a storm gathering, like the world itself holding its breath.