The echoing acoustics of the subterranean tomb died away, leaving behind a silence so absolute it felt physical.
The towering knight-ruler halted its descent. The colossal, rune-etched greatsword hovered inches above Ingis's shattered, bleeding wings, the razor edge radiating a lethal chill that cut through the damp air. The motion of the remaining statues froze like clockwork running down its final gear—the female scythe-wielder, her weapon dripping with fresh, arterial spray; the obsidian-dagger user, gliding silently like a phantom of malice; and the leader upon the dais.
Luke lay pinned to the obsidian floor, a sickening pool of dark blood widening beneath his right leg where the blade had sheared through muscle and bone. Every breath felt like inhaling crushed glass. His core, once roaring with the furious heat of a 6th-circle furnace, flickered like a dying candle, struggling to pump mana through a body that was rapidly shutting down.
Despair wasn't a sharp pain anymore; it was a heavy, suffocating weight that pressed the life out of his chest long before the steel could finish the job. All his calculations, his desperate sprints across burning capitals, his refusal to break under the weight of gods and monsters—it had all led to this damp, stinking vault of old copper and rot. Hope hadn't just been defeated; it had been systematically dismantled, leaving behind the hollow, echoing realization that some fights were unwinnable from the very first breath.
Across the chamber, a ragged, heartbroken sob tore from Ingis's throat. But no words came. Her vocal cords were crushed, unable to form a sound, leaving her to communicate her absolute agony through a choked, silent wheeze.
She dragged her mangled, useless wings across the stone, trying in vain to reach him. Her feathers were matted with her own blood, her eyes wide with a frantic, agonizing terror that burned far worse than any physical wound.
The knight-ruler did not hesitate. It yanked its greatsword free from Luke's leg with a sickening squelch of torn flesh, the sudden motion eliciting a sharp, strangled gasp of agony from Luke's lips. He didn't even have the strength to scream. His vision fractured, tunneling into blurred, swimming edges of black and gray.
With measured, inescapable cruelty, the stone ruler seized Luke by the collar of his ruined, blood-soaked attire, dragging his broken body across the scuffed, blood-smeared floor. Every inch of movement tore open his wounds afresh, leaving a dark trail upon the marble. It heaved him upward, casting his limp form onto the center of the slick, greasy obsidian altar.
The cold of the polished stone bit instantly through his torn clothes, a deep, absolute frost that seeped directly into his marrow. It was the chill of the grave, rushing upward to claim him.
The knight-ruler stepped onto the dais, its heavy iron crown catching the sickly-green luminescence. It raised the colossal greatsword high above its head, the metal humming with a low, bone-rattling frequency that signaled the end of all things.
Luke stared up into the vaulted shadows, his chest rising in one last, shallow, shuddering heave. The pain faded, replaced by a numbness that crept outward from his fingertips toward his heart. The cold hands of death wrapped around his throat, squeezing gently, blotting out the suffocating air, the stench of copper, and the weight of a world that demanded a blood sacrifice.
He didn't look at the blade. He turned his head, his fading vision locking onto Ingis where she lay broken on the floor below, hopelessly trying to scream a name she could no longer voice.
Through the haze of death, as his eyes dimmed and the final warmth drained from his face, Luke smiled at her—a soft, fleeting expression free of anger, carrying all the quiet sorrow and fierce affection he could no longer speak aloud.
The greatsword swept downward in a blinding arc.
A dull, wet thud echoed through the silent vault. The world spun violently upside down for a fraction of a second, a dizzying blur of green light and weeping stone, before Luke's severed head hit the polished obsidian floor. It rolled twice, leaving a dark streak in its wake, before coming to a stop.
The trial was over. The sacrifice was complete.
Luke's severed head rolled across the polished obsidian floor, coming to a rest directly beside Ingis. His eyes dimmed, the ruthless, cold hands of death snatching his consciousness from a cruel and unforgiving world. High upon the dais, Luke's headless body slumped forward as the leader casually wiped the fresh crimson off its massive greatsword.
With a chilling, mechanical finality, the leader cast a sharp glare down at Ingis before striding back to its throne. The female scythe-wielder and the obsidian-dagger user bowed in synchronized unison to the greatsword, ascending the steps before resuming their rigid, unmoving stances facing the altar.
Suddenly, Luke's corpse began to disintegrate into gray ash.
From the vaulted shadows, the mysterious voice echoed through the damp, tomb-like chamber with the cold, absolute resonance of an ancient decree.
"The trial is over."
Reality fractured, splintering like cracked glass around Ingis.
As the light faded from Luke's perception, a profound numbness swallowed his nerves. His thoughts grew sluggish, dragging through a thick molasses of exhaustion.
'Is this how death feels like?' he wondered, a hollow, drifting resignation washing over him.
Yet, right as the abyss claimed him, a strange warmth bloomed deep within his core.
The voice returned—not echoing from the hall, but glitching into existence with a jarring, synthetic dissonance.
"Error."
"Error."
"Error."
"The descendant of August cannot die."
"Ending the trial immediately."
"Interference is necessary."
"....."
"...."
"Glorious descendant of August, you have completed the trial of sacrifice."
Reality shattered entirely, dissolving into a blinding torrent of white-hot light that consumed the void.
When Luke gasped for air, his 7th-circle core surged back to life. His body, though still aching from the phantom ghost of trauma, was miraculously whole. A thick, jagged scar wrapped completely around his neck where the blade had severed him—a permanent testament to the execution.
Before him towered a monstrous entity of pure destruction: a phoenix woven from roaring, abyssal flames. It radiated an overwhelming, suffocating heat that bent the air and clawed at his senses, casting a terrifying, divine shadow over the chamber.
The mysterious voice emanated directly from the burning beast, vibrating in Luke's teeth as he raised a trembling hand to shield his eyes from the blinding glare.
"Your performance is being assessed."
A sharp, electric tingle spiked through Luke's core.
Across the fracturing space, Ingis scrambled toward him, her chest swelling with an overwhelming, boundless rush of pure relief and fierce devotion at the sight of her master breathing once more.
'Ingis, it's good to have you back,' Luke thought, a wave of profound comfort anchoring his frayed sanity.
The voice pulled his attention back to the trial.
"For your first trial, you overcame your fear and faced your worst nightmare head-on."
"For that, you have been bestowed a memory."
Instantly, a vast, violent ocean of foreign memories surged into Luke's mind, a tidal wave of information that threatened to drown his consciousness in an abyss of ancient epochs.
"You showed an unbreakable resolve for the second trial."
"You have received 'The Unyielding'."
A high-tier, intricate set of armor wove itself instantaneously over his skin from threads of crystallized starlight and condensed mana. He could feel a dense, pulsing wave of defensive power radiating from the metal, locking to his biology.
"The strength of the armor depends on the wielder" the voice added, its cadence echoing like rolling thunder.
*"Against all odds, you gave up your own life as a sacrifice—the greatest sacrifice one could offer. And for that, you shall be gifted the legendary sword, Eclipse's Edge."*