The impact threw Kahel backward. He landed hard against the jade platform, the shock of it rattling his bones. Pain shot through his back, but he pushed himself up with a grunt, barely avoiding the creature's second swipe. The skeletal beast moved like a shadow wearing armor, its claws leaving trails of crackling energy where they tore through the air.
Kahel steadied his breath and circled, keeping his stance low, just as his master had taught him. But this was no spar. This was a trial woven from the Garden's will, and it would not end with a lecture or a bruise. It would end in blood—or worse.
The Ashen Flame coiled around his arms, pulsing with a rhythm not entirely his own. It was still adapting, still learning him, and he it. He raised one hand, summoning it into a controlled arc. It burned silently, white with threads of gray, like a dying star on his skin.
The creature lunged again. Kahel didn't retreat.
Instead, he stepped into the attack.
The flame met bone.
There was a crack, not from the beast, but from the air itself. The creature's claw was deflected, but not broken. The Ashen Flame hissed as it recoiled from contact, recoiling like a predator uncertain of its prey.
Kahel gritted his teeth. "You burn for me," he muttered, and forced it to stabilize. The flame obeyed, reluctantly. He could feel it resisting, testing his resolve even as he wielded it.
Another clash followed, this time closer. Kahel darted under the beast's next swipe, rolled to the side, and struck the base of its spine with a flame-imbued fist. It staggered, letting out a guttural hiss.
He didn't stop.
He struck again, and again, forcing the flame to flood his limbs. Pain laced every movement. His body was still young, his cultivation not yet evolved beyond its mortal limits. But he moved with purpose, each strike fueled not just by power, but by memory.
His mother's final moments.
The twisted image of his older self.
The promise he had made to rise.
The beast roared and lashed out, catching him across the shoulder. The blow sent him tumbling. Blood spilled down his arm, hot and slick. Kahel rolled onto his back, vision spinning.
"Get up," a voice growled—his own voice.
He rose.
Not because he had strength.
But because he refused to remain on the ground.
Kahel tightened his grip on the flame, called it deeper. It surged now, hotter, more willing. Perhaps it, too, understood.
With a roar of his own, he launched himself forward.
Their final clash blurred into motion—flame against bone, instinct against design. The beast moved like it had no weight, no thought, only killing intent. Kahel moved like a storm given purpose, driven not by training, but by a will honed in grief.
When the blow finally landed, it was silent.
A single strike, driven into the creature's core.
The Ashen Flame didn't erupt.
It sank.
It devoured.
The creature convulsed. Pale light spilled from the cracks forming along its limbs. Then it fell, disintegrating into powder and wind. No scream. No echo.
Only silence.
Kahel stood trembling, covered in ash and blood, the flame pulsing faintly within him. He fell to one knee, gasping.
A strange stillness followed. The platform no longer vibrated with threat, yet Kahel's body remained locked in readiness. He had seen trials before—but this one had been crafted with intelligence. The beast had adapted, each movement calibrated, every strike designed to test a very specific threshold in him.
He reached into himself again, this time not to summon the flame but to study it. It now pulsed slower, more steady. There was a sense of... approval. Or perhaps satisfaction. As though the flame had deemed him worthy to carry it a step further.
Kahel rose with effort. His entire right side ached, and blood still flowed from his shoulder. He wrapped it tightly with cloth torn from the inside of his robe. The fabric sizzled faintly where it met the flame's aura, but held.
Moments later, the old man reappeared, standing where the beast had first risen.
"You passed the first," he said. "But the second will not test the body."
Kahel looked up.
The man's eyes gleamed. "It will test what you've locked away."
The air grew heavier, charged with something unseen. Around the edge of the platform, motes of light began to spiral inward, forming lines and curves that etched themselves into the jade. A sigil took shape—one Kahel instinctively recognized but could not name. Something ancient, perhaps tied to the flame itself.
Before Kahel could speak, the platform shifted again, tilting inward. The void swallowed the remains of the battlefield, and the light dimmed.
The second trial had begun.