Chapter 24: Ambushed and getting crushed
The sixty-fifth hour of the exam brought a chilling, unnatural silence to the slopes of the central obsidian peak. After the atmospheric upheaval of Roman's breakthrough to the Spirit Sea rank, the group had found a shallow cave carved into the black glass. They couldn't afford to push further in the dark; the flux-saturation at this altitude was so dense it manifested as physical weight, a crushing pressure that demanded rest.
They settled into a grim, silent rotation. John took the first watch, his silhouette a sturdy bulwark against the mouth of the cave. Ellen followed, her flames dimmed to a mere flicker to avoid attracting predators. Shane took the third, his shadow-lynx merging with the darkness of the cave ceiling. Roman took the final watch.
He didn't sleep. He sat in a meditative trance, his mind divided. One half was submerged in his Spirit Sea, observing the new equilibrium between the roaring thunder of Zuzu and the ethereal, void-like pulse of Morphos, the Star-Spirit Dream-Devouring Butterfly. The other half was projected outward through his Overlord Soul.
The sensation of being watched had evolved. It was no longer a vague prickle on his skin; it was a cold, predatory focus that felt like a localized atmospheric depression. Whoever—or whatever—was observing them, they weren't interested in the "exam." They were measuring the weight of Roman's soul.
As the primary sun of X-99 rose, casting a sickly, yellowish light over the charcoal clouds, the group began their final trek. The Extraction Zone was a flat plateau at the very summit of the spire, a mere five miles away. On level ground, it would have been a ten-minute sprint. On the jagged, vertical face of the Forgotten Cradle, it was a gauntlet.
"The air is getting thinner," John grunted, his breath hitching. "But the flux... it's like breathing needles."
"Stay focused," Roman commanded. He was at the front, his True Sight cutting through the shimmering heat-haze of the high-flux zone. "We are less than three hours from the window opening. Every predator on this mountain knows the 'prey' is converging on the peak."
They hadn't walked for more than an hour when the ground began to vibrate. It wasn't the rhythmic thumping of a single behemoth, but the frantic, overlapping pitter-patter of hundreds of paws.
From the jagged ridges above and the crevices below, a tide of silver and grey erupted.
[ Target: Frost-Bite Alpine Wolves ]
[ Quantity: 98 ]
[ Rank Distribution: Rank 1 Peak (80), Rank 2 (15), Rank 3 Mid (3) ]
"A hundred of them?" Shane yelped, his shadow-lynx arching its back. "They're migrating to the peak for the extraction feast!"
"Circle up!" Roman roared.
The fight was a grueling, bloody blur. John became a literal mountain, his Titan-shield ringing like a bell as dozens of Rank 1 wolves threw themselves against it. Ellen's fire turned the slope into a furnace, her arrows piercing the wolves' icy hides. Shane moved like a ghost, his shadow-lynx dragging predators into the abyss.
Roman, however, was a whirlwind of destruction. With his breakthrough to the Spirit Sea, his control over lightning had reached a terrifying degree of precision. He didn't just swing his sword; he directed bolts of violet plasma that chained from one wolf to the next. Morphos hovered above his head, its black wings fluttering. Every time a Rank 3 Alpha lunged at Roman, the butterfly would release a pulse of psychic interference, causing the beast to stumble mid-air into Roman's waiting blade.
By the time the Alpha lay twitching on the black glass, the group was panting, their uniforms soaked in blue wolf-ichor and sweat. Their flux reserves, even with the replenishment of the fruits, were dangerously low.
"We... we need to move," Ellen gasped, leaning on her bow. "The ships... they'll be there soon."
They crested the final ridge, the summit plateau finally in sight. In the center sat a UHF beacon, pulsing with a steady green light—the beacon that would guide the extraction shuttles down.
But as they stepped onto the flat ground of the summit, the world changed.
The wind stopped. The humming of the flux-saturated air died instantly. Roman stopped in his tracks, his heart hammering against his ribs. Through his Soul-Linkage, he felt something terrifying: nothing.
The connection to Zuzu and Morphos had gone silent. It wasn't that they were dead; it was as if a thick, leaden curtain had been dropped between his mind and his soul-space.
"John? Ellen?" Roman turned, his voice tight.
He froze. John was standing perfectly still, his shield lowered, his eyes glazed and staring at a point in space that didn't exist. Ellen was reaching out toward thin air, a peaceful, tragic smile on her face. Shane was slumped against a rock, his lips moving in a silent conversation with shadows.
"An illusion," Roman whispered, his grip tightening on his sword.
But the illusion hadn't touched him. His Overlord Soul, reinforced by the dual-resonance of a 5-star snake and an S-grade butterfly, acted as an anchor. His mind was a fortress of violet light that the psychic fog couldn't penetrate.
"Remarkable."
A man stepped out from behind the UHF beacon. He didn't look like a Tamer. He wore a high-collared, obsidian-black coat that seemed to absorb the yellowish sunlight. His face was pale, his eyes a dull, mechanical grey. He didn't radiate flux; he radiated void.
"You... you're not part of the exam," Roman growled. Violet sparks began to flicker around his body, though they were weak without the support of his soul-core.
"The exam is a nursery," the man said, his voice smooth and devoid of inflection. "My organization—the Saviours organisation has been watching this sector for a long time. We find the 'standard' evolution paths of the UHF to be... limiting. We are interested in the outliers. The 5-star resonances. The S-grade hybrids."
He looked at Ellen and John with the clinical gaze of a scientist looking at Petri dishes. "They are perfect specimens. Their beasts will provide the genetic foundation for the Ultimate Life-Form. You should be honored, Roman Dawson. Most of your kind are recycled as biomass. You and your friends have been found worthy of participation."
"I decline," Roman spat, his True Sight flashing as he tried to find a weakness in the man's stance. "Let them go, or I'll bury you on this mountain."
The man tilted his head. "A brave sentiment. But the 5-star beasts must be caught alive for the extraction process. Their tamers, however... are secondary. You can be brought to the laboratory in one piece, or in several. The result is the same."
The man moved.
Roman didn't see him step; one moment he was ten meters away, the next, he was in Roman's shadow. Roman swung the Lightning Sword in a desperate horizontal arc, but the man simply caught the blade.
Not with a weapon. With his bare hand.
There was no explosion of sparks. No scream of metal. The lightning on Roman's blade simply vanished the moment it touched the man's skin.
"You rely too much on the beast, Roman," the man whispered.
He twisted his wrist, and the force was so immense that Roman was lifted off his feet. The man drove a palm into Roman's chest. It wasn't a flux-enhanced strike; it was a display of pure, terrifying physical mastery. Roman felt his ribs groan under the pressure as he was sent flying back across the obsidian plateau.
Roman rolled to his feet, gasping for air, his vision swimming. He tried to call upon his Lightning Embodiment, but the man was already there again. A kick to Roman's ribs sent him tumbling. A follow-up strike to his shoulder numbed his entire left arm.
The man wasn't using flux. He wasn't using a beast. He was moving with a fluid, terrifying efficiency that made Roman's combat training look like a toddler's tantrum. Every time Roman tried to counter, the man was already three steps ahead, redirecting Roman's momentum and slamming him into the glass ground.
"You have a Spirit Sea rank soul," the man said, standing over Roman as he struggled to rise. "But your body is still flesh and bone. Without your beasts to bolster your physical frame, you are nothing but a clever insect."
Roman snarled, lunging upward with a hidden dagger. The man didn't even look. He caught Roman's wrist, squeezed until the bone cracked, and then delivered a knee to Roman's stomach that emptied his lungs of air.
Roman fell to the ground, retching. For the first time since his rebirth, he felt a crushing sense of powerlessness. He was being dominated. Not by a beast, not by a higher-ranked Tamer, but by a man who treated him like an unruly child.
"I will take the girl first," the man said, turning toward the catatonic Ellen. "Her kestrel has a fascinating thermal signature."
"No..." Roman gasped, his fingers clawing at the black glass.
The man stopped and looked back, a flicker of amusement in his grey eyes. "Still conscious? Your soul-strength is indeed impressive. It's a pity. If you had surrendered, I would have made your transition to a test subject painless."
He walked back to Roman and raised a heavy, black-booted foot.
"Sleep now, Roman Dawson. The stars are no longer your concern."
The heel came down, slamming Roman's head into the obsidian earth. The world exploded into a starburst of pain, and then, the yellow sky of Planet X-99 faded into absolute, suffocating black.
Roman lay broken on the summit, the humming of the beacon fading in his ears, as the saviours organisation loomed over his fallen friends.