"Davi."
Darkness…
"Davi."
The shadows hugged around him from all sides once more. Davi felt their arms wrap tighter and tighter around him. The screeching of the birds was the first thing he heard as the vaults bloomed into creation around him. Davi's eyes cracked open, and he wasn't shocked to see the body he now had. One forged entirely out of shadows and his mana, black and blue fire twisting together into the shape of a person.
"Davi."
Wings flapped around him in the shadowy field, and flashes of blue filled Davi's vision. He saw the monstrous hawks flying madly in all directions. He felt the hands of the vault swatting at several of them as well, and he could feel more of those hands growing tighter around him or caressing him.
"Davi."
Just like in the fight with Tori, he was back where he always knew he'd end up. He was back in his mother's embrace.
"Davi."
The arms were squeezing around him, tighter and tighter, and if he had his normal body, he would have been crushed and broken, but thankfully, he was anything but normal while in here.
"Davi."
Davi ignored the way the shadows whispered his name. Last time he had ended up here, it hadn't been this bad, but after seeing the dragon and having memories of that 'woman', he was once again faced with the harsh reality that was his existence.
"Davi."
Davi allowed the shadows to pull him along. He descended, getting lower and lower as the sea of shadows moved for him. The birds kept screeching, and many tried to fly toward him, but those invisible hands would shatter them to bits with just a mere slap. It wasn't through a mother's love that this was happening, though. Not out of a desire to protect or cherish that which they held dear. The hands here had another goal.
"Davi."
Soon, Davi saw what they were dragging him toward. At the bottom of infinity, where everything ceased to make sense, and the bottomless pits' bottom appeared, there was a floor, and within that floor, there was a sword. A rusty blade, useless to all, save for one.
"Davi."
The area became colder, ice seeping out of the hilt of the sword and filling the unlimited-sized void with a chilling effect. Only the tip of the handle poked out of the ground. The shadowy hands forced his feet to walk, holding him by the ankles and making them lift up and then down. They held his wrists and forced his arms to lift, and Davi was brought to his knees, the sword resting before him.
"Davi."
The darkness grew colder, even more than the blade, and Davi felt his hands wrap around the small part of the handle that was waiting for him. The hands caressed his face, pushed on his fingers and made them tighten around the sword, and they tugged. They were trying to get him to lift the sword. To pull it out of the ground.
"Davi."
To take up his destiny. His legacy. His wish.
"Davi."
The sword almost wiggled as he tugged on it. It wanted out as much as the hands of his mother wanted him to free it. Something was wrong, though. This wasn't him that was doing it. He was conscious, and he was aware, but he wasn't the one ordering his body. He was a puppet. One who was forced to watch as their strings were tugged and twisted at. He suddenly tried to fight back, but it wasn't enough. He was being forced down a path, guided by his mother's will.
"Davi."
Seeing the Dragon again had been what reminded him of his mother and her 'love', so it wasn't shocking that her effect was coming back in full force now that he was thinking of her again. She always had been so controlling after all…
"Davi."
The sword started to lift. He tried to stop it, to pull away, but he couldn't. He was never able to disobey. She had been the one to put him on this path after all—the one who forced a sword into his hands.
"Davi."
The sword was about to lift out of the ground entirely. To rise up and be his, or rather hers, once again. Right before it could come out, though, something happened. Something that made the darkness hiss and shrink away.
"Wake. Up. Davi."
Davi woke up.
***
Davi sat up and gasped. His eyes were wide and bloodshot, and he breathed heavily, but that fact alone shocked him since he shouldn't have been able to draw in any air at all. His hand flew toward his neck, and he shakily felt his head.
'I'm not dead?' Davi felt his heart beating faster and faster. He felt cold, and a pit had opened up in his stomach. 'What the hell is going on?' It took him a second to realize that he wasn't in the dungeon and was instead sitting on a sand-covered floor. There was muttering and yelling all around him as well.
"Davi!" The next thing Davi knew, he suddenly had a pair of arms wrapped tightly around him, and his face was pressed into someone's shoulder. "Y-You're alive!"
Davi blinked and slowly pulled his head out of the shoulder, and he looked up, finding the face of Ken Yuan staring at him. "Ken? Why are we hugging?"
Ken opened her mouth, about to say something, but then closed it. Her cheeks flushed slightly, and without warning, she suddenly shoved him toward the ground. She awkwardly coughed into her fist and cleared her throat. "I was slightly worried when I saw you lying on the ground. Then again, I guess you must have been in shock from dying, right?"
Davi slowly forced himself back up, his legs wobbly as he did so. "How am I alive? My head was completely smashed in? Not even I could survive that…"
"My guess is it wasn't real," Ken said quietly. The girl folded her arms under her chest and let out a sigh, bowing her head. "After you—well, if that even was you—carried me to the edge of the barrier, I stepped through expecting to arrive back in the first dungeon, but instead everything went white, and then flashing letters appeared. I saw the words 'Congratulations on finishing the third exam'. The next thing I knew, I was lying here on the ground back in the arena."
Davi glanced around and saw that everyone was back as well, and a large majority were all freaking out.
"What the hell? Didn't I get stepped on by that giant?"
"I swear that vampire drained me dry."
"I'm alive? But we were all infected by that zombie? How am I not dead?"
"That beast tore you limb from limb. How are you here?"
"That damn ogre was too strong, and it wiped half the team out, yet we're all still alive?"
Davi frowned as he heard the yelling and panicked screams of the people. From the sounds of it, everyone had encountered some obstacle. Several people also looked out of it as if they had just experienced their greatest fear.
"Row Shadow Vault." Davi held his hand out and opened his vault, but nothing came out. The fish he had caught weren't in there. "It was a simulation."
"Are you sure?" Ken asked.
"Yeah." Davi nodded. "That explains how I'm alive." He looked past Ken and found Cain standing next to Ruby. Ruby was on the ground, her body still shaking and her face pale white. Her arms were wrapped tightly around herself, and she was rocking back and forth. She looked completely fried and out of it. Cain met Davi's eyes, but a second later the silver-haired man turned away. "Cain?"
"Don't talk to me." Cain turned his face and folded his arms. "You freak."
Davi's frown deepened, but he shrugged. 'I guess he's still freaked out about what happened.' It was likely everyone's first time seeing a dragon. He decided not to hold it against Cain. Learning how powerful of a creature a dragon truly was had filled him with rage as well. It was a hard pill to swallow knowing something like that existed. 'What of the others? Is Olivia okay?'
He could hear a bit of the conversations the other groups were having. Most people were in a panic, but a few managed to keep calm and collected. From what he heard, it was a lot of different monsters, not just a dragon. Some found themselves facing a horde of zombies, some encountered a vampire prince, and one group even claimed they ran into Lord Medora, one of the great Cultivators of the Rossum nation.
It seemed like everyone faced an ogre, though, and Tulip village kept coming up, so part of the simulation had been decided from the start, but the rest hadn't? What exactly was the test?
While he was wondering about that, up top where the captains were, Dark Star was in a deep fit of laughter. She was on her side and kept kicking her feet out, laughing on and on.
"Is it really that funny?" Laer asked, making a face.
"Leave her be." Myth let out a sigh. "She's still as cruel as ever."
"It's a little funny." Gorgon giggled. "After all, not even the guides knew what was coming. Which one was your favorite Dye?"
"More red." Dye's tongue poked out, and he kept bringing red paint onto a white canvas. It was impossible to make out what he was attempting to create, but whatever it was, it had stolen his full attention.
"I didn't expect you all to be so cruel," Paragon muttered. She was clutching a bottle, gently placing it past Grampa Green's lips in order to feed him a healing potion to keep his falling-apart body stable. "You likely freaked a lot of those poor recruits out, and some of the Arcane Knights." She shuddered a bit, still remembering the footage. None of the guides had been ready for the horrors they'd be facing.
Crow rubbed his chin. He had a blue screen in front of him that floated in the air, showing off the different groups and the dungeons they entered. "I agree with the vice captain over there. Hazing the new recruits is bad enough, but doing it to our own people? I know a few Knights aren't going to be happy with you, old goat. You better watch yourself."
Dark Star's laughter just grew louder, and she clutched at her side. "Haru, it was so funny! Especially the one that famous guy got stuck with! Hey, Myth? I thought that Battery guy was tough!"
Myth let out a grunt and folded his arms. "That's not fair. You can't expect Battery to deal with a dragon! Why the hell was that creature even selected?"
"I'm not the one who picked it." Dark Star giggled, and she snapped. Her own screen appeared, showing a picture of a man with raven black hair and blue eyes. "Blame this creep. Hey, Crow, he's got a shadow core like you? Know him?" The old lady smirked.
Crow's frown grew. "Don't lump me in with that bastard. How did we not notice him before now?" The screen shifted, showing the image of a knight in ebony armor. "This freak was in the exam the entire time?"
"He didn't use his armor," Laer spoke up casually. The leader of Phoenix Flight slumped her head back and sighed. "You all likely didn't pay attention to him because he didn't do much in the first exam."
"How do you know?" Crow demanded.
"Because, unlike you, I've had my eye on him," Laer smirked.
Crow's scowl deepened. "You would, wouldn't you? A stray mutt from Mordeheim with a spell that gives him ebony armor. Blue fire that pours from an endless shadow. Yeah, a freak like that is honestly perfect for your little group. Go ahead and recruit him so he'll die off and we won't have to worry about him."
Laer stretched, feeling her back pop a little. "Sorry to burst your bubble, but I have zero plans to recruit anyone this year. I've been captain of this shitty guild for a while now, so I know what's coming. We're all gonna be dying off soon. No reason to drag anyone else with me. You want him dead so badly, kill him yourself." She shot the captain another grin. "Unless you're scared."
Crow growled and was about to say something but was cut off when Father's fist rammed into his armrest, cracking the stone. "That's enough, you two. Knock it off." The man grunted. "None of us were planning to let him in anyway, so it's not like it matters."
Like every year, people from other nations were allowed to come take the exam, but it was silently agreed upon that no citizens from Mordheim would be selected for any of the guilds. This had now become doubly the case for the man with the shadow armor. Father was a bit shaken up after seeing the armor, but he had managed to calm himself down.
After all, unlike everyone else, he actually knew what the Ebony Knight looked like. That armor was similar but not the real deal. It was flawed and broken, much like the current wearer of it. Not to mention the real Ebony Knight would have had no issue tearing a dragon apart if they were at full strength and wielded the Sword of Wishes.
What concerned him more was a different trial. In front of Father, his screen shifted to the team Sune led. His eyes traced the familiar walls of the castle.
The test had been one created by Dark Star, and she didn't hold back. The woman was as cruel as they came and didn't want to just push the ones taking the exams but also the Arcane Knights who had volunteered as well. She claimed this was to keep them on their toes, but in reality, it was to watch them squirm and suffer. All the 'guides' had one thing in common. They all came from different lands. Not a single guide was actually from Estiria. Dark Star had made sure of that fact.
The guides had been told that the test would be a fake dungeon. They were informed that it would be in Tulip and that the group would discover an ogre had wiped out the goblin clan that took the dungeon over, but that was all the guides had been informed of. The guides, like the exam-takers, also didn't know that they were in a simulation.
The test had first started, and the stadium had shaken and glowed, lighting up. All the people had been confused why they hadn't entered the simulation when the lights died down, but the reality was they had. From the moment the third exam started, everyone was already in the simulation.
The test of courage was simple when it was fully broken down. As the name implied, Dark Star wanted to see how the recruits would handle a situation that was terrifying. By making them think the test was real, they'd believe that one mistake could cost them their lives. The recruits would be told they'd be fighting goblins that invaded Tulip village. Goblins were weak, and it would make them confident, but that confidence would fade when they actually arrived at the dungeon.
Each dungeon had been a high-ranked one that a captain had visited. Some were frozen caves, others vast fiery cities. One was even an old castle built on a volcano. Each dungeon was extremely high in ranking and the type of dungeon that a powerful monster would take over. This was to freak the recruits out and cause them to make mistakes.
The next part of the test came in the form of an advanced ogre. It wasn't that strong by any means, but for a bunch of normal mages, it would pose a threat. Especially considering they went in expecting goblins. It was after the ogre was dealt with, though, that the real test would finally begin.
Unknown to the ones in the simulation, the machine was digging deep into their core. Thanks to the traces of mana the king had access to, the machine was able to trace something called a 'Path', which was a collection of memories and events that shaped a person's core. The simulation would scan these Paths, and it would decide amongst the five people in each group which one would have a fear that would generate the strongest emotion.
For many groups, it was the guides who were selected. After all, being Arcane Knights, they had seen a lot of terrible things within dungeons or on the frontlines of war. The simulation would take whatever fear would generate the most significant emotional response by the group as a whole and then force the four exam takers and the guide into a sudden double dungeon.
Most groups faced a dungeon that was invaded by warriors from other lands. Many of the guides feared soldiers like Medora or the Monarch. Some groups faced actual monsters, though, like the fearsome minotaur and his labyrinth or the hydra that resided within the ocean of blood. Some groups even had a fear that was selected based on one of the exam takers, but that was extremely rare.
Only four had actually been selected. The first and the one all the captains focused on was a dragon—a fearsome beast trapped in a frozen dungeon. When the beast appeared, many of the captains had been shocked, but they quickly got over it.
Not all the fears that were selected were ones someone had physically seen. The simulation stated that the shadow mage was the one whose fear had been chosen, so Father assumed that he had read a book about a dragon or heard stories about it growing up, and that fear clung to the young man years later. That had to be the case, since dragons were long extinct. The last time a dragon had been seen was before he was even born, and it had been torn to bits and driven out of Estiria. It was simply impossible for that mage to have seen a real dragon. It was shocking that the fear was so advanced that the simulation selected it over anything the other four had seen, but Father figured that the shadow mage was really freaked out about dragons and anything to do with them.
The other three groups that had a fear based on a member and not the guide had been just as odd. One was like the Dragon, a fear that came about from stories. Father had been watching this group, as it had a powerful ice mage in it who had scored the most points in the first exam. Sadly for the ice mage, someone on his team had grown up hearing the horrors and tales of the Ebony Knight, and so that group faced a shadowy figure that tore through them all. Since the fears were based on what people thought the Ebony Knight in the test looked like, it looked nothing like the real one.
The other two tests were sadly less interesting. One group faced some weird snake monster that blew itself up, while the other group faced a giant shark that could swim through the ground.
Each encounter also had something in common. It was impossible to win. The simulation made sure that whatever fight a group would encounter, the enemy would be stronger and unkillable.
When faced with a horrifying situation, where even the guides were outclassed, that is where the actual test would start. It was up to the Face to get their team to work together and either do the impossible and win or escape. No group had been able to escape without losing at least one or two members. In fact, a majority had been totally wiped out.
The guides died in most of the tests as well, since they tried to buy time for their party to escape. In a few groups, though, they managed to go back to the guide and try and save them. It was those whom Father had his eye on the most.
"We have a lot of discussing to do." Father hummed. "There is a lot that needs to be considered."
Down below, back in the arena, Davi looked around with Ken, trying to find Olivia, but he still didn't spot her. There was something he wanted to confirm. He hoped he was wrong, but it was eating away at his insides.
Ken also looked around, but she shot Davi a look. "That exam… Can we talk about it?"
"No."
"But—"
"I don't want to talk about it," Davi grunted. His eyes then lit up when he saw someone, but it wasn't Olivia. "Mr. Larison."
Battery stood in the center of the arena. The man's face was pale, and he looked shaken up. Instead of a sucker, he had a cigarette between his lips, and he was smoking. Several of the other guides were in the same shape as he was. It felt like a cruel joke had been played on all of them.
Jack turned when he heard his name called, and his eyes flashed when he saw Davi. The black-haired man approached. "Sir, are you okay—"
"That's close enough." Jack held a hand out, stopping Davi. He took another puff on his cigarette and shook his head. "Stay where you are."
Davi frowned but nodded and folded his arms. "Sure. I didn't think you were in the simulation, either. I thought the you that had been there was a fake once I learned what the test was, but they put you in it?" Jack didn't respond. His eyes seemed glossy and distant. "Thinking about the Dragon?"
"No, actually." Jack dropped his cigarette. "That armor spell… Is that a spell you use a lot?"
Davi rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah. Why?"
"Are you from Mordheim?"
Davi's look shifted again. He let out a sigh. "Yeah. I am. But I'm not the—" Davi suddenly gasped and nearly threw up as Jack's knee rammed into his stomach. The man was on him in a second and hit him as hard as he could. Davi felt his ribs shatter and break, and his gut felt like it was about to pop.
He dropped to his knees, wheezing, and looked up just in time to see Jack's foot flying toward his face.