Ramon’s vision swam as he pushed himself up from the ash-covered ground, the side of his jaw throbbing. He tasted blood and spit it out.

  The figure standing before him was cloaked in shifting shadow, a creature seemingly woven from smoke and grief. Its shape was humanoid but blurred, pulsing like heat rising from scorched earth. Glowing embers flickered within its form, and eyes like twin coals locked onto his.

  Ramon’s eyes widened.

  It’s the same… no, he corrected himself grimly, a stronger version of the first one I fought.

  The memory hit him like a blow—his first steps into this twisted realm, the soul-beast that had clawed at his essence, how he’d barely managed to kill it. And now, this…

  He rolled to the side as a shadow-cloaked fist slammed down where he’d been lying, splintering the ashen ground.

  “Not again,” Ramon growled, grabbing his spear from the side with one smooth motion.

  The creature let out a shrill, reverberating cry—not of rage, but something deeper. Mourning. Hunger. Memory.

  They clashed.

  Ramon pivoted back and drove his spear forward, jabbing into the creature’s torso. It hissed, the smoke around it recoiling for a second before it surged again. Clawed hands slashed at him—Ramon ducked one, caught another on the haft of his weapon, then spun away, ash kicking up around his feet.

  But it was faster. Smarter. Stronger.

  He didn’t have the advantage this time.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  The fight became a blur of strikes and shadows, of narrow dodges and desperate parries. The creature struck with haunting precision, always pushing, always pressuring.

  A clawed hand clipped Ramon’s shoulder—he winced and twisted, using the momentum to slash across the thing’s core. His spear hummed as it passed through smoke, and for a moment, the creature staggered.

  He pressed the attack.

  Jab. Sweep. Lunge.

  He found its weakness—something near the center of its shifting form. That same dim core he remembered from the last one. It shimmered now, brighter, almost like a heart.

  With a roar, Ramon slammed the butt of the spear into the ground, vaulted into the air, and came down with a precise, downward strike.

  The blade pierced through the core.

  The creature convulsed, letting out a distorted screech that shook the trees. Its form unraveled in tendrils of smoke and embers, spiraling upward and vanishing into the gray sky.

  Silence.

  Ramon stood panting, sweat slicking his brow. The windless world was still again.

  He spat blood, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve.

  “Great,” he muttered. “Right when I find something important, I get sucker punched by a soul-ghost.” He shook his head. “I got careless.”

  The scroll had excited him—too much. He’d let his guard drop. In a realm like this, excitement could get you killed.

  He gritted his teeth. Lesson learned.

  After catching his breath, he continued deeper into the charred woods, more cautious now. The world here was steeped in silence, but he could feel it—these woods remembered something. Pain. Power.

  And they weren’t done testing him.

  Over the next few hours, he encountered more of the creatures. Each was slightly different—some taller, some leaner, some with more flickering embers within—but all shared that eerie, spectral composition. All were built from memory, smoke, and something heavier… belief.

  Ramon fought them one by one, each encounter sharpening him.

  He learned to anticipate their movements.

  He learned to find the core faster.

  He learned to kill.

  And with each death, something strange happened.

  He felt… clearer. Lighter. As though something in him was strengthening—not his muscles, not his bones, but deeper. His soul.

  The change was subtle, but unmistakable.

  After one particularly drawn-out fight, he sat under the dead boughs of a fire-touched tree, catching his breath. He stared at his hands.

  What’s going on?

  This isn’t normal cultivation. It’s something else. Like my soul is… evolving. Growing sharper.

  It was exhilarating. And terrifying.

  But mostly exhilarating.

  Ramon rose again, heart pounding, spear at the ready. There’s something more here. Something deeper. These monsters aren’t just guardians… they’re part of the trial.

  He pressed onward, deeper than ever before, past the trees that had burned and the silence that had hardened into memory.

  Eventually, the woods fell away into a rocky slope. Ahead, nestled into the charred mountainside, was a cave.

  Its mouth was wide and perfectly round, like it had been carved—not by tools, but by force. It pulsed with darkness, an abyss that swallowed all light.

  Ramon stepped closer, and even before reaching it, he felt it: a weight pressing down on his soul, like gravity turned spiritual. The blackness within the cave seemed… wrong. Like it didn’t just lack light, but rejected it.

  It was like staring into a black hole.

  And it was calling to him.

  Ramon stared at the entrance, heart thudding.