The roar of the Dormant Terror was not a warning; it was the thunderclap of a judge's gavel, decreeing the start of a hunt. The sound, a visceral wave of pure power, didn't just echo through the nocturnal forest—it vibrated in Indra's bones, a primal tremor that silenced even the hungry howls of the horde of lesser creatures. And then, the nightmare moved.
It wasn't the blind charge of an enraged animal. It was worse. It was the calculated approach of a general on the battlefield.
The colossal bear didn't run; it flowed with an obscene agility for its monstrous size. Its body, a walking citadel of bone plates and taut muscle, became an instrument of strategic demolition. An ancient tree, as wide as a tower, stood between it and its prey. The Dormant Terror didn't go around it. It slammed into it with its shoulder, an impact that sounded like the fall of a titan. The tree groaned, cracked with a noise of a world splitting, and crashed to the ground, blocking with murderous precision the escape route Indra had glimpsed.
Indra staggered, his heart a caged bird beating against the bars of his ribs. This wasn't brute force; it was perverse intelligence. The monster didn't just want to kill him; it wanted to exhaust him, curtail his options, play with his despair before the final slaughter.
Escape turned into a nightmare of pure adaptation. Indra forced his exhausted body, every muscle fiber screaming in agony, to respond. Fragments of Owen's lessons at the Esoteric Academy returned to his mind, principles of survival and terrain reading that once seemed so theoretical.
"Use the environment." he whispered to himself, his voice a hoarse, panting thread lost in the vast silence of the oppressive forest.
He plunged into a tangle of thick, thorny vines, hoping the dense vegetation would slow the beast. The Dormant Terror tore through them as if they were spiderwebs, but with a deliberate, controlled motion, not a fit of fury. Every second gained was a miserable victory, a breath stolen from the mouth of the inevitable.
Spotting a rocky gorge ahead—a narrow corridor between two cliffs—Indra ran for it. A calculated risk: there was no exit on the other side, but the passage was too narrow for the beast. He pressed himself against the cold stone, his heart hammering, listening to the heavy, far too heavy footsteps approaching.
The Dormant Terror stopped at the entrance. Its eyes, two bloodshot embers, fixed on Indra in the gloom. It didn't try to squeeze through. Instead, it raised a claw and delivered a devastating blow to the base of the cliff. Stones flew like shrapnel, and the rock itself trembled under the impact. It wasn't trying to enter; it was trying to bury Indra alive, to demolish his precarious shelter over his head.
Indra escaped the gorge an instant before an avalanche of rocks sealed the passage. His breathing was a harsh rasp in his throat. He wasn't being hunted; he was being staged, a mouse being herded through a maze by the cat.
It was then that the horde, momentarily left behind, reappeared, drawn by the commotion. The idea bloomed in a flash of final desperation. If he couldn't beat the bear, perhaps he could turn the tables.
He changed direction abruptly, lunging straight into the midst of the swarm of Lesser Creatures and Imps. His movements were erratic, unpredictable, leading the chaotic pursuit right into the path of the Dormant Terror.
The beast didn't hesitate. When the first creatures, blinded by the fury of chasing Indra, crashed into its legs, it crushed them with a casual swipe of its paw, without breaking stride. It was like a man walking through a cloud of irritating mosquitoes. It didn't deviate, didn't stop. The horde was irrelevant. Its focus was absolute, unshakable: Indra.
The pursuit became a macabre dance. Indra, the target, moved like a ghost, every movement a tribute to what he'd learned. The "right breathing" Alexia had forced him to master kept his breath steady while his lungs burned. The fluid movements of the Sword Dance, even without the blade, lent him a supernatural balance, allowing him to dodge treacherous branches and roots that would have tripped anyone else. He was the pure essence of survival, a state of fear and motion.
And through it all, the Dormant Terror pursued him. Without hurry. Relentless. But, remarkably, without delivering the final blow.
It was the pinnacle of terror. The bear had opportunities. It could have closed the distance with a burst of bestial speed. It could have uprooted a tree and thrown it like a javelin. But it didn't. It herded, cut off routes, reshaped the terrain around Indra, always staying a few paces away. Its red eyes glowed with cruel, amused intelligence. It was a game. A meticulous psychological torture to break its prey before the slaughter.
The pressure was a physical weight on Indra's shoulders. Exhaustion turned his limbs into anchors of lead. Fear was a taste of copper and old iron in his mouth. And worse than everything were the memories. The smell of blood and wet earth from that first night, the roar that had torn the fabric of his reality, the crushing helplessness. It all came back, amplified by the physical presence of the very architect of that terror.
Indra fought the visceral impulse to fall to his knees and capitulate. Every step was a victory. Every breath, a challenge.
It was in the deafening buzz of this exhaustion and terror that his perception, honed to the absolute limit, caught something. A pattern. Not an explicit weakness, but a peculiarity in the beast's behavior.
The Dormant Terror was left-handed.
It wasn't obvious, but undeniable. Whenever it needed to avoid a larger obstacle or deliver a precise blow, it favored its left forepaw. A subtle habit, almost imperceptible, but consistent. Likewise, when an obstacle appeared on its right side, it took a crucial fraction of a second longer to readjust.
And there was another thing. Its eyes. That glow of pure malice... but when it turned its head to the left, the glow in its right eye—the farther one—seemed to dim a degree, as if its total focus and perception resided in the left. It was minimal, perhaps a trick of the light, but in Indra's hyper-lucid mind, it stood out like a beacon.
Information. It wasn't salvation, but it was a thread. A thread of hope in a loom of despair.
But hope didn't save him from the final trap.
He was cornered against a cliff. The terrain behind him simply ended, plunging into a black abyss from which whispered the sound of a distant river. In front of him, the horde of lesser creatures massed, forming a living wall of teeth, claws, and hungry eyes. And looming over everything, filling the universe with its monstrous presence, was the Dormant Terror.
The bear stopped. The horde stopped. The silence that followed was more frightening than any roar.
The Dormant Terror advanced slowly, its steps making the very rock tremble. It completely ignored the horde, its red eyes fixed on Indra with hypnotic intensity. It came so close that Indra could feel the animal, fetid heat of its breath, count the scars on its bony plates, see the shreds of dried flesh between its teeth.
It circled Indra, not with haste, but with the glacial certainty of a predator that knows the hunt is over. Its snout moved, sniffing him from head to toe, and a low growl, almost a purr of pure satisfaction, vibrated in the air, making Indra's chest resonate.
Indra was cornered. No way out. The cliff behind, the horde ahead, and the Dormant Terror, closing the final ring. All he had left was a fragment of information, an observed pattern, and the stubborn, irrational will to not die on his knees. He raised the Jian, his trembling hands finding a final firmness, his exhausted body assuming the basic posture of "Dew Step." A last, feeble line of defense against the inevitable.
The bear stopped before him, its eyes burning with horrific pleasure. The game had finally come to an end.
Time coagulated. Indra and the bear faced each other, two entities under the blue moon. A boy and a walking abyss. The creature's red eyes were portals to an endless void, a silent invitation to annihilation. The beast's breath was a miasma that seemed to corrode the very darkness.
Behind the colossus, a chorus of buzzes, screeches, and guttural laughter echoed. The Lesser Creatures and Imps stirred in sadistic delight, a hungry audience for the final spectacle.
Indra knew the truth, naked and raw. There was no victory here. All paths, all calculations, led to a single destination: death. Before him stood the incarnation of the terror that haunted his dreams.
And yet, his feet did not retreat.
The feeling of helplessness was a weight greater than the mountain itself. Worse than the first time, when he had lost everything without even understanding. That night, he had been a passive victim. Now, he was a fighter. And yet, the conclusion was the same.
But then, another memory erupted. The second time. The second tragedy. On that day, he had also lost everything. But he had fought. Fought tooth and nail to protect the only thing he had left: the right to exist.
And now, once again, he was there. Facing the abyss.
It wasn't about honor. It wasn't about pride. It was the most primitive arithmetic of existence: fight… or die.
And he chose to fight.
The tremor in his hands ceased. The Jian in his hands rose, firm and still, no longer a burden, but an extension of his indomitable will. There was no room for doubt. It was there to be stained.
The sky, a black mantle of charcoal, was torn by the blue moon, which burned with a ghostly light. Within it, the living shadow contorted, watching every move with voracious interest. But, curiously, Indra no longer felt fear. Only one thing: Will.
The Will to fight. The Will to persevere.
He began to circulate his Qi, forcing every technique he knew beyond its limits. There was no time to ponder contradictions or incompatibilities. If one technique canceled another, he would force an impossible harmony. Consequences were a luxury for those who still had a future.
His entire body began to radiate a white, ghostly aura, waves of raw energy escaping his pores like steam from a kettle about to explode. Every cell screamed in agony. Every breath was fire in his lungs. It was a state of glorious self-destruction, a swan song fueled by pure determination.
The bear seemed to laugh, a cavern of teeth opening, delighted by this last, pathetic resistance.
Indra didn't wait for mercy. He shot forward, not in flight, but in attack, aiming for the monster's right flank—the side his sharpened perception had identified as slightly slower, less focused.
In less than a second, he was within range.
Alexia's "right breathing" became the tranquil river channeling the hurricane of his energy. He fused "Harmonious Spiritual Flow" with "Dew Step" and his Qi pulsed in a stable, deadly cadence. "Lion's Contained Roar" amalgamated with "Pulse of the Inner Essence" came down in a diagonal cut that scraped the creature's bony flank plates with a metallic screech. The "Breath of the Latent Soul" infused itself into the instant between inhalation and exhalation, the moment of perfect transition. The thread of "Scarring Thrust" shone like a silver lightning bolt, finding a micro-fissure in the torso and penetrating with assassin's precision. The "Serpentine Core Current" the most volatile and aggressive of his techniques, anchored itself in the blade, pulling with brutal force, entwining the Jian in destructive energy. "Candle and Shadow" made the sword appear and disappear at impossible angles, a tempest of shimmering steel. "Stinger's Return" coupled with "Rhythm of the Tranquil Core" established an internal metronome, a cardiac rhythm for his fury, releasing a massive wave of energy against the monster's left side. "Veil Vortex"—still imperfect, still raw—emerged then, a devouring spiral of energy fused with "Sword Harmony" enveloping the Jian in a whirlwind that forced the final attack in a rotation that defied physics.
All of this, stitched together by Alexia's breathing and the fundamentals of the Esoteric Academy. Indra was no longer a man; he was a whirlwind of steel and light, a frenetic orchestra of blows where every movement was a note in a suicidal symphony.
When he stopped, his body was on the verge of collapse. Sweat and blood streamed down his skin, his vision blurred, but he remained standing, panting, staring at the enemy. Before him, the Dormant Terror.
Unharmed.
Just a tangle of superficial scratches on its impenetrable carapace, steaming slightly.
Indra's heart sank like a stone in a bottomless well. He had given everything. Absolutely everything. And it hadn't even been enough to seriously irritate the beast.
The bear then rose onto its hind legs. Its colossal body expanded, looming like a tower of bone and hatred against the night sky, easily surpassing fourteen meters. Its bony plates glinted under the blue moonlight, reflecting the marks of Indra's blows as insignificant scratches on a monument to destruction.
On its face, an insane smile insinuated itself, an expression that wasn't bestial, but deeply intelligent and cruel. An expression that said, clearly: "That was fun. But now it's over."
Indra felt no anger. Not even injustice.
Since accepting his place in the Esoteric Society, he knew every breath was a loan, every second a gift stolen from death. There was no room for excuses or laments. Defeat was an ever-present possibility, a price to be paid.
He had lost. And the price was his life.
The bear seemed to understand his resignation. Its mouth opened wider, a grotesque slit of satisfaction. Then, it raised its forepaw, a block of flesh and bone three times larger than Indra's torso. The air shuddered and bent under the imminent weight of the blow, compressing as if anticipating the impact.
It was at that exact instant, on the threshold between life and obliteration, that the world changed.
A silvery glow erupted from between the dark clouds. Small, initially, like a lone spark. But it was a living, pulsating light that danced in the night sky with a rebellious, chaotic energy.
The air, already heavy, became oppressive and static. A wild, raw, and untamable electricity began to course through the clearing, making the hairs on Indra's body stand on end and the smaller stones vibrate with a low hum.
And above, in the disk of the blue moon, the contained shadow… convulsed. Violently, frantically, like a chained beast that suddenly smells freedom. It was a agitation of pure panic or voracious anticipation.
The Silver Storm wasn't arriving; it was manifesting, and with it, it brought the promise of a chaos that did not distinguish between hunter and prey.