Chapter 77 - Bone-deep exhausted
Again, Lilia and Ryn stepped out into the darkness of the trial’s night.
The six suns had gone black and hollow once more, leaving the field washed in muted shadow.
This time, not many words were shared.
Ryn glanced down at Lilia.
She was quieter than usual. Her eyes lingered on the ground ahead, unfocused.
He looked forward again.
“The retreat points,” he said after a moment. “You changed them. Did something happen?”
Lilia didn’t answer immediately.
“…Yeah,” she said finally.
A pause.
“I-I’m guessing the creature this time might attack from below.”
She didn’t look at him as she spoke.
“It seems like the logical next step.”
Ryn considered that.
Then nodded once.
Before either of them could say more, the familiar voice rang through their minds.
[Challenge four begins.]
The wind stilled.
Ryn shifted his weight, pressing his boot firmly into the ground.
Nothing moved.
No tremor.
No vibration.
Silence settled around them.
Not the tense quiet of something preparing to strike—
But a deeper stillness.
Even the wind of the trial had gone.
Lilia stepped forward cautiously.
“That’s weird. I thought—”
A flash of blue light tore across the far edge of the field.
And then—
Something ripped through the air.
The sound came a heartbeat later.
A violent, slicing rush.
Not wings.
Not claws.
Something faster.
The grass bent in its wake as it tore across the darkness, carving a pale line through the night straight toward them.
***
Lilia ran.
She’d been wrong.
Painfully wrong.
Trying to predict the trial had been foolish.
She sprinted back toward the temple ruins, toward where Ariel was hidden, positioned for a clean line of sight.
Ariel was on one knee, breathing hard, sweat clinging to her brow.
Lilia dropped beside her and grabbed her arm.
“Ariel, please—one more shot!”
Ariel didn’t answer. Only her uneven breathing filled the space.
“If you don’t—” Lilia’s voice cracked. “He’ll die. Ryn will die.”
Ariel’s jaw tightened.
Then she nodded.
She raised her hand.
Lilia steadied her wrist and turned them both toward the field.
Ryn said he’d give them an opening
They waited.
Another flash split the darkness.
A projectile tore across the field, carving a glowing path through the grass. Ryn barely dodged it, rolling just as the ground ruptured where he’d been standing.
And then Lilia saw it.
A shape—barely visible.
Metallic. Segmented.
Moving in bursts like a wound spring releasing.
It was Fast.
Too fast.
It moved in blinding bursts, each attack preceded by that brief flash of blue light.
They couldn’t afford to miss.
Ariel didn’t have the strength left for another mistake.
“Concentrate,” Lilia whispered.
Watch Ryn.
Watch the pattern.
There—
The creature paused—
That familiar flash building at its core—
“Ariel. There!”
Ariel fired.
Her white light tore through the trial’s dark night, blinding against the black sky.
It struck the aberration squarely—right as the blue light at its core began to form.
For a split second, both lights collided.
White swallowed blue.
There was a sharp, splintering crack—like metal tearing apart from the inside.
The blue core flickered violently—
Then shattered.
The projectile never formed.
The creature convulsed once, its form destabilizing, fragments breaking away into fading shards of light.
And then—
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It collapsed.
The glow died.
The field fell completely still.
No second shot.
No movement.
Only the fading echo of impact hanging in the air.
They had won.
Ariel’s body sagged forward.
Lilia caught her just before she hit the ground, dropping to one knee under her weight. Ariel went completely limp in her arms, unconscious.
The glow along the cracks in her skin flickered faintly.
Lilia stared down at her.
Then, suddenly, she brought a hand to her own silver hair and pulled hard.
“Damn it…” she muttered through clenched teeth.
They had won.
***
Lilia sat in the temple.
She’d rested for a while, but woken up before anyone else
Again, she was the only one still functional.
Again, she was alone with her thoughts.
Her fist tightened against the stone floor.
After a moment, she pulled out her journal and opened it.
She tried to sketch the aberration from the previous night—but the memory was fragmented. It had moved too quickly. She hadn’t seen its full shape clearly.
So instead, she wrote.
The creature from last night was the most unique one so far.
Unlike the others, it did not resemble a beast in any conventional sense. If I had to compare it, it was most similar to the tentacle mass—primarily because it left no corpse behind.
She paused.
Then continued.
It attacked using projectiles. At first, I assumed they were similar to Ariel’s light attacks.
They were not.
These were physical. Dense. Similar to arrows or spears—but far faster.
The creature would fire, then immediately reposition. It was incredibly quick. Comparable in speed to the bird from night three.
Her grip on the charcoal tightened.
Unfortunately, Ariel’s exhaustion meant she missed more than once. Each miss drained her further, making her less focused.
Ryn and I did not perform better.
I was not fast enough.
She stopped.
She stared at that sentence for a long moment.
Then forced herself to continue.
Because of that, Ryn compensated for my mistakes.
He took multiple hits that should not have landed.
Her jaw tightened.
However, he created an opening.
We observed a delay between the manifestation of the blue light at its core and the projectile release.
That window allowed Ariel to strike.
And we defeated it.
The scratching of charcoal slowed.
The entry ended there.
Just as Lilia was about to close the journal, she heard footsteps behind her.
“That’s the least accurate drawing yet,” Ryn said.
He lowered himself down beside her.
Lilia didn’t respond immediately.
“I couldn’t get a clear view,” she said after a moment.
“Open it again,” he replied. “I’ll describe it for you.”
She hesitated.
Then reopened the journal.
Ryn began speaking quietly, matter-of-fact.
“It wasn’t flesh. Not fully. The surface looked metallic. Segmented. Almost plated.”
Lilia sketched as he spoke.
“There were spikes along its sides,” he continued. “Those were the projectiles. They’d detach—fire outward—then regenerate.”
Her charcoal moved more confidently now.
“It didn’t move like a creature,” he added. “More like a mechanism.”
When he finished, he leaned slightly closer to inspect her sketch.
“…That’s slightly more accurate,” he said. “I think.”
Lilia finally turned to look at him.
For the first time since he’d sat down.
His armor was dented inward in several places. Split open along the shoulder. There were deep gouges in his thigh and shoulder where the spikes had struck.
Dried blood traced uneven paths down his skin.
He looked exhausted.
Lilia looked away again.
Her fingers tightened slightly around the charcoal.
“Why are you like this…” she said quietly.
Ryn didn’t answer immediately.
He simply looked at her.
“Like what?”
The charcoal in Lilia’s hand snapped in two.
“Y-You could’ve avoided most of those,” she said, her voice shaking despite how hard she tried to steady it. “You didn’t have to take them.”
Her fingers curled around the broken piece.
“I-I never asked you to do that, Ryn.”
He didn’t interrupt.
“And yet here you are,” she continued, “talking to me so casually. Like I’m not the reason you look like this.”
Her throat tightened.
“Don’t ignore it.”
Silence stretched between them.
Ryn studied her for a long moment.
The wind moved softly through the ruined temple.
He didn’t answer.
He just sat there.
Lilia stood abruptly. She swayed slightly as she rose, exhaustion finally catching up to her. Her silver hair was loose and uneven around her shoulders.
“Why, Ryn?” she asked quietly.
He opened his mouth. "I—"
Before he could speak—
A sharp sound cut through the temple.
Ariel groaned.
Not softly.
Loud enough to echo.
Lilia held his gaze for half a second. Then she ran.
“Ariel, what’s wrong?” she asked, dropping to her knees beside her.
Ryn followed after a second later.
The cracks along Ariel’s skin had spread.
They now reached past her chin, thin golden lines crawling upward along her cheek like fractures in porcelain.
Ariel made a sound Lilia had never heard from her before.
Not a scream. Worse than that. It was low and involuntary, like something being wrenched apart slowly enough that her body couldn't decide how to react.
She clawed at the ground. Her fingers dragged through dust and cracked stone Her eyes were open but unfocused, fixed on something that wasn't there.
Lilia hovered helplessly.
She reached out — then pulled her hands back. She didn't know if touching her would make it worse. She didn't know anything.
Ariel's jaw clenched hard, the golden light at the cracks pulsed unevenly. Bright. Then dim. Bright again.
Then — it stopped.
The light steadied.
Ariel's breathing slowed.
She didn't look at either of them. Just stared at the floor, fingers still pressed flat against the stone
Sweat soaked through her clothes.
"I'm fine," she muttered.
She very obviously wasn’t.
But Lilia didn’t know how to help.
She brought her hands to her face and pressed hard against her eyes, as if that would force the helplessness away.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “We won’t make you use your powers anymore. It’s fine, Ariel.”
Ariel shook her head sharply.
“I said I’m fine, Lilia.”
Her voice rose slightly.
??“You’re… you’re not,” she said, tired. “You’re clearly not. And we don’t even know what happens if you keep pushing your Blessing like this.”
Ariel’s jaw tightened. Her teeth clenched.
“That doesn’t matter,” she said through strain."Without my Blessing, you two will die."
Lilia’s shoulders sagged.
The words landed heavier than they should have—they didn't sound arrogant.
Just factual.
Lilia opened her mouth—
Then closed it.
She wanted to argue.
She wanted to deny it.
But Ariel wasn’t wrong.
Most of their strategies depended on Ryn creating openings and Ariel ending the fight. Without her destructive power, they would be overwhelmed.
Silence stretched between them.
Finally, Lilia nodded.
“…Alright.”
Her voice was smaller now.
“Just rest. I’ll get you something to eat.”
She stood and walked away slowly, leaving Ariel kneeling on the cracked stone floor, golden fractures faintly glowing beneath her skin.
Ryn said nothing.
His hand tightened slowly against the ground.
***
They ate what remained of the lizard meat.
And some of the bird.
This time, it tasted like nothing.
They finished it quickly.
Ryn wrapped strips of cloth around his injuries himself.
He had refused Ariel’s healing.
And this time, Ariel hadn’t argued much.
Lilia suspected even she knew it would cost her too much.
Ryn tied the last knot with his teeth, pulling the cloth tight over his shoulder. Blood still seeped through, but it would hold for now.
Lilia watched for a moment longer.
Then she pushed herself to her feet.
They had already wasted too much daylight resting.
There was little time left to prepare for the next night.
Lilia dragged her hands down her face and pressed at her eyes.
She was exhausted.
Bone-deep exhausted.
But she had to move.
And tomorrow—
She would have to do it again.
Her gaze lifted toward the pale sky beyond the broken temple roof.
How long… she wondered.
How long does Sol expect us to stay?
The six suns burned on, indifferent.
