The monsters swarmed.
Leon stood trembling, iron shard slick with blood in his hands. His chest heaved, every breath sharp like knives in his lungs. He had barely killed one beast, and yet the rooftop already shook with more claws scraping stone.
Another hound leapt up, smaller than the first but faster. Its six eyes glowed, its jaws snapping open with a hiss.
"RRRAAUUUGHHHH!"
Leon's legs moved before his mind did. He stumbled sideways, nearly falling as claws slashed the space where his chest had been. His shoulder smashed against broken stone, pain jolting through him.
He swung the iron shard wildly. The jagged edge scraped across the beast's face, leaving a shallow line that only enraged it further.
The hound lunged again. Leon screamed, raising his arms in blind panic. The iron shard punched into its throat—not clean, not deep, but enough to draw a geyser of black blood.
The monster writhed, choking, clawing at him with desperate fury. Leon twisted, shoving with all the strength in his frail body until the shard tore deeper.
With a guttural cry, he ripped it free. The beast collapsed, twitching violently before falling still.
Leon staggered back, gasping, blood soaking his clothes, dripping down his hands. His whole body trembled, but… then it came.
That warmth.
It was faint, almost gentle at first, flowing through his veins like sunlight filtering into a frozen room. His ragged breath steadied. His legs no longer felt like stone.
It was not the warmth of battle—it was something softer, something that made his chest ache.
It reminded him of his mother.
Her smile, her voice calling him honey, the way she held him when he was a boy. That same feeling of warmth wrapped around him now, invisible but undeniable, as though every beast he killed fed him fragments of strength cloaked in her embrace.
The warmth stitched his torn muscles. It steadied his shaking hands. It filled his lungs with air he should not have had.
He did not understand it. He only knew this: if he kept killing, the warmth would return.
And so he raised the shard again.
Another shadow leapt onto the rooftop. This one had tusks jutting from its maw, its claws longer, sharper. It shrieked at him, a sound like tearing metal.
Leon's grip tightened. His teeth clenched.
The warmth lingered faintly in his chest, urging him forward.
He screamed and rushed to meet it.
his arms trembling as the second hound's corpse slumped beside the first. His iron shard dripped black blood, his hands blistered and raw from gripping it too tightly.
But already, the rooftop shook again.
More shadows clawed their way up from below. Their snarls echoed through the ruins. Six eyes gleamed in the dark.
Leon's breath caught. His legs wanted to buckle, his chest wanted to cave in. But then—again—that warmth.
It flickered through his veins, dulling the agony, filling his lungs with stolen air. It was weaker this time, not the rush he had felt with the first kill, but enough to keep him standing. Enough to keep him alive.
If I stop moving… I'll die here.
A beast lunged onto the rooftop, jaws snapping. Leon swung wildly, screaming, the shard slicing across its shoulder. The hound shrieked—
"RRAAUUGHHHHH!"
Leon staggered forward, ramming his weight into the shard, driving it deeper into the beast's flesh. Blood sprayed across his face, blinding him, choking him. But he didn't stop. He couldn't stop.
Another roar. Another shadow.
Leon yanked the shard free just in time to block a second beast's strike. The impact rattled his arms, nearly tearing the weapon from his grip. He stumbled, barely keeping his balance, and thrust upward in panic. The shard pierced the monster's jaw, ripping through its tongue.
It screamed as it fell, blood pooling across the broken stones.
Leon gasped for air, his chest heaving, his body screaming. And then—once more—that faint warmth trickled into him. His shoulders straightened, his hands steadied.
But weaker again.
The first kill had been a spark. The second, a flame. Now… it was only embers.
And the beasts kept coming.
More claws scraped stone. More glowing eyes fixed on him. The rooftop became a killing ground, Leon at its center.
One after another they came. He swung, he stabbed, he shoved, he screamed. Every move was ugly, desperate, the same handful of actions repeated again and again: a thrust, a slash, a shove with his shoulder, a kick to keep jaws away.
Simple moves. Survival moves.
Blood painted the stones. Carcasses piled around him. Each kill gave him a flicker of strength, each warmth just enough to keep his heart beating, his arms moving.
But with every fight, the recovery diminished. The warmth faded faster. His breathing grew harsher. The weight of his body grew heavier.
The trial was cruel by design. It lifted him up with stolen fragments of strength—only to let despair claw him down again.
Leon's vision blurred. His muscles ached like fire. His chest heaved as though his ribs might crack. His hands, once trembling, were now numb from overuse, the shard an extension of sheer will rather than flesh.
Another beast leapt, tusks glinting. Leon barely raised the shard in time, its edge tearing across the monster's throat. The beast collapsed, dragging him to the ground under its weight.
Leon pushed it off, gasping, bloodied, dizzy. His whole body screamed to fall still, to close his eyes.
But more shadows gathered below. More eyes gleamed. More roars shook the air.
The warmth was fading. His strength was thinning. The swarm would not stop.
And for the first time since the trial began… Leon felt himself truly overwhelmed.
Leon's arms moved like machines, his hands numb, his grip raw and blistered. The shard of iron felt less like a weapon now and more like an extension of his will—a lifeline between survival and death.
Slash.
Stab.
Shove.
Scream.
Again and again, for what felt like an eternity.
Hours bled into each other. The ruins rang with the endless chorus of roars and dying screams. The rooftop was no longer stone but a mound of mangled corpses. Blood dripped down the walls like rain.
Leon stood at its center, soaked in gore, his body trembling violently with every breath.
He had slain nearly two hundred beasts.
All of them the weaker ones—hound-like monsters, tusked brutes, crawling horrors with too many limbs. Each one stronger than him, yet each one had fallen to his desperate, simple moves.
With every kill, the warmth had come. Faint, fleeting, carrying fragments of strength and stamina. His body grew sturdier. His strikes carried more weight. His lungs did not collapse as quickly as they once had.
But the recovery had grown thinner with each beast.
The first kills had poured fire into his veins. Now, the warmth was barely a whisper. Just enough to drag him into the next fight, never enough to erase the exhaustion crushing his bones.
Leon's chest heaved like a bellows. His eyes blurred with sweat and blood. His legs shook with every step.
And still, the beasts came.
It was the nature of the trial—endless, merciless. A forge that tempered the weak into strong, or shattered them into dust.
But Leon… Leon was still human.
No matter how much spirit energy seeped into him, no matter how his body adapted, the truth gnawed at him: humans needed rest. They needed sleep. Muscles tore. Minds cracked. The body demanded surrender.
Leon's body screamed for it now.
His arms hung heavy, his breaths ragged. His knees threatened to buckle. His mind wavered between clarity and haze, every roar blending into the next.
Yet his hands… his hands still clutched the shard. Numb. Cramped. Bloodied. And still, when another beast lunged, they moved.
Because they had to.
Because to stop moving was to die.
Because this was not just survival. This was the beginning of his path—the trial that would decide whether he remained a mortal… or stepped onto the road of transcendence.
He kept cutting them down.
One after another.
The shard rose and fell with what little strength remained in his trembling arms. His body no longer obeyed him—it moved on instinct alone, driven by the faint trickle of spirit energy that each kill fed back into his flesh.
But even instinct had limits.
His eyes burned, fluttering shut even as beasts leapt at him. Hunger gnawed at his stomach like a blade. Sleep pulled at him, dragging his mind into fog. He had long since lost count of how many he had slain, the battlefield nothing but a blur of blood and mangled corpses.
It felt as if he had been fighting for weeks.
And then, the rooftop shook beneath his boots as the last hound collapsed with a wet thud.
Leon staggered, blinking through sweat and gore. His chest heaved, his arms hung limp, his vision swam with black spots.
A single thought surfaced through the haze:
The five-hundredth…
He had killed five hundred beasts.
But there was nothing left in him.
The warmth that once surged into him with every kill was now a dying ember. Each exchange of strength had grown weaker, less efficient, until it gave him nothing but the barest flicker to keep him standing.
Now even that had faded.
Leon stood swaying on trembling legs, the shard slipping in his grip, his body hollowed of all strength. His spirit screamed to fight on, but his flesh had reached its end.
If another beast came now… he would die.
He closed his eyes, breath shallow, blood dripping from his lips.
Ready.
If this was where the trial ended—if this was where his life was snuffed out—then so be it.