The second attack came from below — because of course it did. The forest floor erupted in a shower of moss and dirt as something with too many teeth and not enough skin burst upward. It looked like someone had tried to crossbreed a mole with a shark and given up halfway through.
Avian's response was pure instinct married to lifetimes of practice. He pivoted on his left foot, body flowing around the creature's lunge like water around stone. His blade followed the motion, carving a perfect arc that opened the thing from jaw to tail.
Momentum carried it past him, organs spilling out like party favors from the world's worst piñata. It hit a tree with a wet thud, twitched once, and went still.
Ground ambush predators too. This place is a fucking ecosystem of bad decisions.
He flicked ichor from his blade and kept moving, adjusting his senses to monitor above and below simultaneously. The forest was testing early and often, trying to thin the herd before the real challenges began. Smart, if predictable.
The terrain began to slope upward, gentle at first but promising worse to come. The trees grew denser, forcing him to weave between trunks wide as houses. Some bore claw marks at heights that suggested their makers could reach twenty feet up. Others had holes bored through them, perfectly circular and still weeping sap.
Something with acid. Or heat. Or both. Wonderful.
A scream cut through the air — human, terrified, and abruptly silenced. Close, maybe fifty yards to his left. Avian paused, weighing options. Help meant revealing capabilities and wasting time. Ignoring it meant one less competitor but also one less potential distraction for whatever lurked ahead.
The decision was made for him when the screamer's remains came flying through the trees, landing in a wet heap ten feet away. The body was... instructive. Something had peeled it like a fruit, skin removed in one continuous strip. The life stone glowed weakly in what used to be a pocket, unused.
Pride killed him. Could have lived, chose to die brave. Stupid.
The killer announced itself with a sound like tearing silk. It flowed between the trees — and 'flowed' was the only appropriate word. Eight feet of muscle wrapped in skin that shifted between scales and fur and things that had no name. Its head was mostly mouth, filled with teeth that belonged in different species' nightmares.
A chimera. Not a natural one either — this had the stink of demonic breeding programs, the kind of mix-and-match horror that gave evolution nightmares.
"Well, fuck," Avian muttered, raising his blade. "Aren't you just precious."
The chimera tilted its head, processing speech. Intelligence flickered in eyes that burned with unnatural light. Then it smiled — or did something with its mouth that might have been a smile if smiles could kill.
It moved like lightning made of meat and malice.
Avian met it halfway.
The first exchange was all instinct and adrenaline. Claws met steel in showers of sparks. The chimera's tail — because of course it had a tail — whipped around, forcing him to duck. His counterstrike opened a line along its flank that immediately began knitting closed.
Regeneration. Because why make it easy?
They separated, circling each other in a clear space between the trees. The chimera's wounds were already half-healed, flesh writhing as it repaired itself. Its eyes tracked him with predatory focus, learning his movements.
Avian smiled. It had been too long since something actually challenged him.
"Come on then," he said, settling into a stance the Veritas family would never recognize. "Let's dance."
The chimera obliged.
This time, Avian stopped holding back — not completely, but enough. His aura flared from high Master to something approaching Grandmaster, coating his blade in energy dense enough to cut concepts. When the chimera lunged, he flowed around it, blade singing as it carved through air and flesh with equal ease.
The creature's healing factor met its match against aura-enhanced steel. Wounds opened and stayed open, cauterized by energy that denied regeneration. The chimera shrieked, a sound that made his teeth ache, and redoubled its assault.
They fought between the trees in a deadly ballet. The chimera had reach, strength, and the kind of speed that turned physics into a suggestion. Avian had experience, technique, and the calm that came from having faced worse with less.
This isn't even the worst thing I've killed today. Wait, no — it's the only thing. But the day's young.
The end came suddenly. The chimera overextended, just slightly, trying for a killing blow. Avian didn't dodge — he stepped into it, accepting claw marks across his ribs as the price for position. His blade found the creature's spine, enhanced edge carving through bone like butter.
The chimera dropped, back legs suddenly disconnected from the concept of movement. It tried to turn, to bring those terrible teeth to bear, but Avian was already moving. A second strike took its head off cleanly, ending the threat with finality regeneration couldn't argue with.
He stood over the corpse, breathing hard but controlled. Blood ran down his side where claws had found flesh, but the wounds were shallow. His aura had blunted what should have been disemboweling strikes into merely annoying injuries.
Six months ago, that would have killed me. Progress.
A slow clap echoed through the trees. Avian spun, blade rising, to find a figure in knight's armor watching from a branch thirty feet up. The armor was practical rather than ceremonial, scarred from real use. The woman wearing it had the kind of face that had seen too much and decided to keep watching anyway.
"Impressive," she said, dropping from the branch with casual disregard for gravity. Knight Commander, based on the insignia. "Most candidates run from chimeras. The smart ones use their stones. You chose to fight."
"It was in my way," Avian replied, keeping his tone respectful despite the urge to tell her to fuck off. He had places to be, heights to climb.
"Hmm." She circled the corpse, examining his cuts with professional interest. "Clean work. That final strike — not Veritas standard. Something older."
Shit. Showing too much already.
"Improvisation," he offered. "When something's trying to eat you, form becomes... flexible."
"Indeed." Her eyes found his, and there was something knowing in them. "What's your name, candidate?"
"Avian. Tertiary branch."
"The forgotten son." No mockery in it, just acknowledgment. "Less forgotten than you were this morning, I think. Carry on, Avian. The mountain awaits."
She vanished between one blink and the next, moving with the speed of someone touched by true power. Avian stood alone with the cooling corpse and the weight of observation.
Great. Drew attention from the supervisors. So much for staying under the radar.
But the vault called, and standing still invited death. He cleaned his blade, ignored the blood painting his side, and pressed onward.
The forest grew stranger as elevation increased. Trees twisted into spirals, chasing light that didn't exist. Flowers bloomed in ice, petals made of frozen flame. The moss beneath his feet sometimes wasn't moss at all but something that whispered in languages that predated human speech.
He encountered other candidates twice. The first was a secondary branch hopeful, back pressed against a tree while something with too many eyes considered how to eat him. Avian could have helped. Instead, he ghosted past, letting natural selection take its course. The life stone's activation flash came seconds later.
Smart enough to live. Not strong enough to matter.
The second encounter was different. Three candidates working together, moving in formation up a steep section of slope. They'd clearly trained as a unit, covering each other's blind spots, communicating with hand signals. Professional. Competent.
Dead, if they maintained that pace.
Avian paralleled them for a while, curious. They handled the forest's lesser predators well enough, working together to bring down threats that would have overwhelmed individuals. But they were loud, focused on each other rather than the environment, missing signs that screamed danger to anyone who knew how to read them.
Like the trees ahead that were too uniform, too perfectly spaced.
Ambush. Something's using the trees as bait.
He could have warned them. Could have played the hero, saved their lives, earned gratitude and possible allies.
Instead, he adjusted his path to give the killing ground a wide berth and kept climbing.
The screams came minutes later, followed by the distinctive sound of organic webbing being deployed at high speed. Then silence. Then the telltale flash of three life stones activating in quick succession.
Spider variant. Big one, based on the web volume. Good to know.
The morning wore on, measured in blood and elevation. Avian's pace was steady rather than rushed, sustainable rather than impressive. Let others sprint and burn out. Let them trigger the forest's tests through carelessness. He moved like a predator himself, part of the ecosystem rather than an intruder.
His wounds had stopped bleeding, aura-enhanced healing closing the tears faster than they had any right to. His breathing was controlled, energy expenditure carefully managed. Six months of breaking himself had taught him his new limits intimately.
The forest threw its catalog at him. Acid-spitting flowers that dissolved armor like sugar in rain — he carved a path around them. Vines that moved with purpose and hunger — he introduced them to fire, channeling just enough mana to remind them that plants were supposed to fear flame. A section where gravity went sideways — he crawled along tree trunks, trusting grip strength over physics.
Each challenge met and overcome. Each obstacle turned into data for the next encounter.
By the time the sun reached its zenith — or would have, if it could penetrate the canopy — he'd covered thirty miles of the fifty-mile climb. His clothes were ruined, more red than their original color. His blade had tasted enough varieties of blood to satisfy even Fargrim's dormant appetite.
But he was alive, climbing, and according to the increasing desperation of the forest's attempts to kill him, making good time.
The summit revealed itself through breaks in the canopy, still twenty miles up but visible now. The clouds around it moved wrong, swirling in patterns that hurt to track. Something waited up there, something the forest's dangers were just preparation for.
Good. Was starting to get bored.
A horn sounded from somewhere far below — not the trial horn, but something else. A recall? A warning? Avian ignored it, focusing on the cliff face that had just become his next obstacle.
Two hundred feet of vertical stone, slick with moisture that might have been water but probably wasn't. Handholds that looked natural until you noticed they spelled out warnings in dead languages. And halfway up, a cave mouth that absolutely, definitely contained something horrible.
Other candidates might go around, find an easier path.
Avian started climbing.
Straight line's still the fastest route. And whatever's in that cave needs to learn that some things are scarier than it is.
His fingers found the first hold, and he began to ascend. The stone was cold, colder than ambient temperature suggested. The moisture made everything slick, requiring perfect grip strength to avoid a fall that would break even aura-reinforced bones.
He was fifty feet up when the cave's inhabitant noticed him.
It emerged slowly, testing the air with appendages that couldn't decide if they were tentacles or tongues. The body followed — something between a bat and an octopus, with additions that suggested its creator had been drunk on possibility. Eyes opened along its hide, each one tracking him independently.
"Of course," Avian grunted, finding his next handhold. "Because regular climbing wasn't enough of a pain in the ass."
The creature made a sound like breaking glass gargling honey. Then it attacked.
Fighting while climbing vertical stone was its own special kind of hell. Avian kept one hand locked on holds while the other wielded his blade, body twisting to avoid strikes that came from too many angles. The creature had home advantage, using the cave as an anchor while its appendages whipped toward him.
Can't fight properly like this. Need better position or—
One tentacle wrapped around his ankle, yanking hard. His grip held, but barely. Another appendage went for his sword arm. Decision time.
Avian let go of the cliff.
For a moment, he fell, the creature's surprised shriek dopplering past. Then his free hand found Fargrim's hilt, drawing the demon blade in one smooth motion. Even dormant, even starved, it cut through the tentacle holding him like it was made of wishes and tissue paper.
He slammed Fargrim into the cliff face, the blade sinking deep enough to arrest his fall. His shoulder screamed at the sudden stop, but it held. He hung there, feet finding purchase, as the creature above howled its displeasure.
Now we're getting somewhere.
What followed was less battle than vertical murder. Avian climbed using Fargrim as a piton, stabbing handholds into existence. When the creature attacked, he responded with violence that had nothing to do with Veritas training. Each tentacle that reached for him lost itself to hungry steel. Each attempt to dislodge him met with cuts that taught pain to things that shouldn't feel it.
The creature retreated to its cave, leaking fluids that hissed against stone. Avian followed, because the direct path was the only path that mattered now.
The cave was worse than the cliff — low ceiling, uneven floor, and the creature had friends. Three more of the bat-octopus things, smaller but numerous enough to complicate matters.
Avian grinned, a expression that had nothing to do with joy and everything to do with recognition.
Now this feels familiar. Outnumbered in a hole, everything trying to kill me. Just like old times.
He gave himself over to instinct, to patterns carved by necessity rather than training. Fargrim sang as it carved through air and flesh, each strike guided by muscle memory that transcended death. His aura flared higher, approaching the edge of what this body could sustain, turning him into something that moved too fast and hit too hard.
The cave became an abattoir. When the last creature fell, tentacles still twitching in death's confusion, Avian stood among the carnage breathing hard but victorious. Gore painted every surface, including him. His clothes were more suggestion than clothing now, held together by hope and dried blood.
But the back of the cave opened onto a path that switchbacked up the final approach to the summit. A shortcut earned through violence.
Worth it. Always worth it when it gets you closer to answers.
He emerged from the cave to find the afternoon sun painting the world gold. Twenty miles below, the forest spread like a diseased carpet. Above, the summit waited, wrapped in those wrong-moving clouds.
No other candidates in sight. Whether they'd taken longer routes, fallen to the forest's tests, or simply lacked the direct approach's bloody efficiency, he neither knew nor cared.
Avian sheathed Fargrim with something approaching reverence. The demon blade had remembered its purpose, had sung the old songs even through its dormancy. When it finally woke fully, when he could feed it properly...
Soon. After I find what the vault's hiding. After I know why you killed me.
The final climb was almost anticlimactic. The path was clear, the dangers manageable. As if the forest had tested him and found him worthy of passage. Or perhaps whatever waited at the summit wanted him to arrive intact.
He crested the final ridge as the sun touched the horizon, painting everything in shades of ending. The summit was a flat expanse of ancient stone, carved with symbols that predated the empire by centuries. At its center stood a simple arch, through which those strange clouds swirled.
And standing before the arch, looking somehow unsurprised by his arrival, was Aedric Veritas.
"First to arrive," the Patriarch said, checking an ornate timepiece. "By a considerable margin. The Knight Commanders bet on young Thane. I'll enjoy collecting their gold."
Avian stood there, gore-covered and exhausted but victorious, trying to process the casual statement. "You bet on me?"
"I bet on potential recognized." Aedric's smile was sharp as winter. "You've shown glimpses of what you could become. But glimpses aren't enough anymore."
Before Avian could respond, Aedric moved. Not with the showy speed of lesser warriors, but with the inevitability of natural law. One moment he stood by the arch, the next his hand pressed against Avian's chest, directly over his heart.
What the fuck—
"Be still," Aedric commanded, and Avian's body obeyed before his mind could object. "I need to See."
Power flowed from the Patriarch's touch — not hostile, but overwhelming in its scope. It sank through flesh and bone, past the physical and into the spiritual architecture beneath. Avian felt it brush against his Mana Heart, that internal engine that pushed power through his body, and tried not to panic.
He'll sense the dual-path. He'll know I've been hiding—
Aedric's eyes went wide. Then wider.
"Impossible," he breathed, pressing harder as if physical force could change what his spiritual senses revealed. "Your Mana Heart... the structure..."
Shit shit shit—
"It's perfect." The words came out like a prayer and a curse. "Not just functional, not just strong. Perfect. The channels, the conversion ratios, the resonance frequencies..." Aedric pulled his hand back as if burned. "Do you understand what you are?"
"The forgotten third son who needs a bath?" Avian offered, trying for levity while his mind raced.
"You're god-touched." Aedric's voice had dropped to something between awe and calculation. "That level of spiritual architecture doesn't occur naturally. It's the kind of foundation that could support... anything. Everything. Power without limit, if developed properly."
God-touched. If you only knew which god did the touching. The god of getting murdered by your best friend, maybe.
"I don't understand," Avian said carefully, maintaining his mask of polite confusion.
"No, you wouldn't. Not yet." Aedric began to pace, energy crackling around him like barely contained lightning. "A Mana Heart like that could support dual-path cultivation at levels that shouldn't exist. Could push past Paragon into realms of power that..." He stopped, fixing Avian with a stare that saw too much. "Have you been hiding magical cultivation?"
Decision point. Lie and risk being caught. Truth and risk everything.
"Some," Avian admitted, choosing the middle path. "Small experiments. The texts available to tertiary branches are... limited."
"Limited." Aedric laughed, the sound carrying notes of hysteria. "We've been feeding god-potential table scraps. Letting divinity starve in the name of tradition."
He stopped pacing abruptly, coming to some internal decision. "This changes everything. You're no longer tertiary branch — as of this moment, you're under my direct protection and tutelage. You'll move to the main compound tonight."
"Father, I—"
"Don't." Aedric held up a hand. "You've been 'cousin' for seven years because I was blind to what you were. That ends now. But you'll need protection — what you are, what you could become, will draw attention from those who prefer potential unrealized."
He made a gesture, and reality rippled. A moment later, another figure stood on the summit — one Avian recognized from earlier. The Knight Commander who'd watched him kill the chimera.
"You called, oh mighty patriarch?" The woman's voice dripped sarcasm like honey-coated razors. "Or did you just miss my sparkling personality?"
"Lysander." Aedric's tone suggested long suffering. "Meet your new assignment."
The Knight Commander — Lysander — looked Avian up and down, taking in the gore, the exhaustion, and the general air of someone who'd murdered his way up a mountain.
"The blood-soaked puppy? Really?" She sighed dramatically. "What happened to giving me real challenges? First it was 'guard this vault,' then 'stop that minor rebellion,' now 'babysit the patriarch's rediscovered son.' My career trajectory is truly inspiring."
"He has god-potential," Aedric said flatly.
Lysander went still. Completely, utterly still in the way of predators processing new information. Then she grinned, an expression that belonged on something with more teeth.
"Well shit, why didn't you lead with that?" She gave Avian a mocking bow. "Lysander Crowe, Knight Commander, former prodigy, current pain in everyone's ass. I'll be your teacher, bodyguard, and general reality check for the foreseeable future."
"I don't need—" Avian started.
"A teacher? Probably not, based on how you handled my test subject." She meant the chimera, apparently. "But you need someone who can push you past wherever you've been hiding your real strength. Plus, I'm hilarious. Ask anyone."
"She's the strongest Knight Commander," Aedric said, which wasn't quite agreement but close. "Also the most... unconventional. You'll either learn to surpass limits or die from exasperation. Both serve my purposes."
"Your confidence in my teaching methods is heartwarming," Lysander drawled. "So, puppy, what's your actual level? Because that Master-ranked aura you've been flashing is about as convincing as a whore's virtue."
Avian looked between them — his father radiating intensity, his new teacher projecting amused disdain — and decided honesty might be less exhausting than maintaining lies.
"High Master pushing Grandmaster when pressed. Third Core, maybe scratching Fourth. Dual-path, though the magic side needs work."
"At twelve." Lysander whistled. "And here I thought I was impressive making Grandmaster by twenty. Kids these days, making us veterans look lazy."
"Can you teach him?" Aedric asked.
"Can I teach someone with god-potential who's already breaking conventional limits?" Lysander pretended to think. "Depends. Can he survive my teaching methods? They're a bit... unorthodox."
"Define unorthodox," Avian said, already regretting everything.
"Well, last student I had quit after I threw him off a cliff to teach him about wind resistance. The one before that retired when I introduced live explosives to dodging practice." She shrugged. "But they lived, which is more than most can say after pissing me off."
Great. From hiding in shadows to being taught by a maniac. The gods definitely have a sense of humor.
"Perfect," Aedric said, because of course he did. "You'll start tomorrow. For now..." He gestured at the arch. "Avian, step through. Claim your prize as first to summit. The others won't arrive for hours yet."
The arch hummed with power, clouds swirling hypnotically beyond its threshold. Avian approached carefully, feeling space bend around the structure. This wasn't just a doorway — it was a fold in reality, leading to somewhere that existed adjacent to rather than within normal space.
"Fair warning," Lysander called out. "The vault's guardian is a bit touchy about visitors. Try not to bleed on anything irreplaceable."
"There's a guardian?" Avian paused at the threshold.
"Did we forget to mention that?" Aedric's smile suggested he'd forgotten nothing. "Consider it your final test. First to summit gets access. Surviving the guardian determines if you can claim anything."
Of course. Because why make anything simple?
Avian stepped through.
The transition was like being turned inside out by someone who'd learned anatomy from fever dreams. One moment he stood on cold stone, the next in a space that couldn't decide what it wanted to be. The walls shifted between marble, obsidian, and things that might have been calcified screams. The ceiling showed stars that had never shone over any world he knew.
And in the center of it all, the vault's contents gleamed like a dragon's wet dream.
Weapons covered every surface — swords that hummed with barely contained power, spears that bent light around their points, axes that made the air bleed just by existing. Armor that had turned aside god-strikes hung on stands of twisted bone. Books bound in materials best not contemplated lined shelves that extended into dimensions the eye couldn't follow.
Five centuries of conquest and careful theft. No wonder they guard it.
"WHO DARES?"
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, shaking dust from treasures that had waited centuries for purpose. The guardian materialized from shadow and spite — twelve feet of animated armor wrapped around something that might have been human once. Its sword was darkness given edge, its shield a piece of night torn free and hammered into shape.
"Avian Veritas," he answered, too tired for fear. "First to summit. Here to claim my prize."
The guardian stepped forward, then stopped mid-stride. The helmet tilted, examining him with senses that went deeper than sight.
"No." The word came out sharp, disbelieving. "That soul... but you perished. I witnessed your death through my King's flames."
What the fuck—
The armor began to flicker, revealing glimpses of the spirit bound within. Ancient, refined even in bondage, carrying himself with the dignity of old nobility.
"Your soul," it continued, voice dropping to something between wonder and horror. "Different vessel, different name, but that essence... Dex?"
The name hit like a punch to the gut. Avian's hand went to his sword automatically, body tensing for violence that might not come.
"Who the fuck are you?"
The spirit actually recoiled. "Such language. Even after five centuries, you remain..." A pause, then something almost like warmth. "Yes. Only you would greet an old ally with such crude directness. It's Balefire, Direct Attendant to His Majesty the Fire Spirit King."
Memory crashed back. Not just any spirit — the pompous, proper attendant who'd stood beside him when he'd formed his contract with the Fire Spirit King. Who'd watched, disapproving but loyal, as Dex had carved through the Demon King's Four Heavenly Kings.
"Balefire." The noble mask cracked, fell away entirely. "Shit. You're stuck in a tin can?"
"I am bound to this armor as guardian, yes." Balefire's tone carried the same long-suffering patience it had centuries ago. "And I see death has done nothing to refine your vocabulary."
"Why the hell would it? Death's not exactly finishing school."
"Indeed." Despite the propriety, something in Balefire's voice suggested he was almost glad for the crudeness. "When you fell, my King felt it through our contract. The flames themselves dimmed. And then... they changed history. Made you the villain."
"And you've been, what, playing doorman this whole time?"
"Someone must guard their ill-gotten gains." Balefire's form solidified slightly, showing features carved from dignity and flame. "Though I confess, after you destroyed Malphas — the strongest of the Four Heavenly Kings — with such... colorful commentary, standing guard seems rather mundane."
"Malphas was a dick. Deserved every word."
"You called him, and I quote, 'an overcompensating shit-stain with delusions of competence.'"
"And I was right."
"You were." For a moment, warmth flickered in that ancient voice. "My King laughed for days. Said only a human would dare insult a Heavenly King while bisecting him."
They stood there for a moment, processing the impossibility of the situation. Five hundred years collapsed into nothing — just old war companions recognizing each other across death and time.
"So," Balefire said eventually, formal once more. "You seek answers."
"Got it in one."
"I cannot simply provide them. The binding is quite specific regarding my duties." The spirit's voice carried genuine regret. "However, I am permitted to make the test... appropriate to the candidate."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning I shall ask the question that matters. Not the usual drivel about worth or noble purpose." Balefire straightened, armor becoming solid again. "One question. Answer with your characteristic honesty — crude though it may be — and the vault opens."
"Ask."
The guardian leaned forward, and for a moment Dex saw his own exhaustion reflected in that ancient, dignified gaze.
"What do you seek?"