NOVEL NEXT Chapter 72- The Trial of Sand
My name… is Axel Vorous, Great Abisai. And I am here to become a Shavrak.
…
"Heh. Good."
I smiled before I realized I was smiling. My second mind was already unraveling the deeper thread—Intisak's intentions, the angles, the foresight. Everything… plans layered beneath plans. Even when he seemed impulsive, there was design. Even in half-truths, direction. He was guiding me while ensuring I believed I was choosing my own steps.
A perfect leader.
"Come, Axel Vorous. Follow dem winds again. Abisai will test your sands."
I nodded sharply and resumed my march, again facing the storm head-on. I didn't sprint this time. Not even a jog. If there truly was a trial ahead, then I needed every shred of endurance I could conserve.
So I walked.
Minutes of silence passed. Then more. Perhaps an hour. Perhaps longer. Time blurred in storms like this. The winds hammered endlessly against the lands, reshaping the black dunes beneath me with every gust.
And then, at last---
"Child."
My first mind responded instantly. Yes?
"What it is dat Intisak done asked ya to kill?"
My eyebrow twitched. …how does he even know Intisak tasked me with anything? Was he watching back then? No---if he had been, he wouldn't need to ask for the details… so how...
I swallowed. A Blacksand Scorpion. Crisis-Class.
"Hoho. Den he thinks highly of ya… to believe ya have it in ya to kill a failed Disaster, when ya only Silver yaself."
My step faltered.
A failed… Disaster? What do you mean?
"It means what dem words mean, mon. 'Tis no secret. Creatures dat done failed dere ascension. Nothing more, nothing less."
My mind sharpened at once.
So such beasts exist… then...can humans fail their Ascensions as well? If so, how? The Ascension itself has always been straightforward...it's the 'getting there' that was rough... What needs to go wrong for a Disaster-tier evolution to fail?
A web of implications branched before me, but I did not lose the conversation.
Why do you ask of Intisak's words, Great Abisai?
"Because yer trial will be precisely dat. Just… not in de way ya think."
So Intisak's demand wasn't random orders in a storm. Not intimidation. Not misdirection. He had been signaling, setting an expectation for Abisai...
Plans over plans…
Abisai fell silent again.
I walked.
Hours slipped by in grinding monotony. I climbed dune after dune---black hills that always looked like the last, always felt like the last, and always revealed only another rising slope ahead. Each time I crested a ridge, I half-expected Abisai to speak again. But the voice never came. Only the storm. Only the sand. Only the endless rasp of wind.
One hour became two. Then three. Then more. My legs burned. My breaths deepened. The storm carved at me without pause, until I felt less like a man crossing a desert and more like a blade being honed by abrasion.
Then, atop yet another dune, the lands finally changed.
The storm cut out in a single instant, as though a great veil had been ripped from existence. No fade. No easing. Just silence. The black haze vanished from the air, and there in the open, unobstructed by wind or sand, stood a colossal structure of black sandstone and gold.
"Welcome, Axel Vorous, to de Trial of Sand."
My pulse jolted.
The thing was an obelisk---a monolith so large it dwarfed mountains I had seen back on Earth. Its surface was polished black, drinking in the light, while titanic runic patterns of gold laced up its sharp faces, branching in geometric precision---the same Shavrak glyphs I'd seen before, matching the architecture of their city.
I couldn't see its top. The upper half disappeared into the dark roiling clouds above.
The Trial of Sand…
"Come closer, now."
Come… closer? You...are you..? My gaze scrutinized the obelisk, wandering if I had just gleaned something substantial.
"A sharp catch, but it is not de case. De Obelisk is not I."
I stared at it for a while longer.
Then… are you inside it?
"…heh. Perhaps. But enough questions. Come, now. I will not ask again."
So I went.
The closer I drew, the more overwhelming it became. The eye struggled to accept something so massive being utterly motionless and silent. Like it should hum. Or tremble. Or sing. But it simply existed, unyielding, eternal.
When I finally reached its base, the voice returned.
"Many have challenged de Trial of Sands. Few have succeeded."
I stood still, chin raised toward the golden runes towering over me.
"They are de ones de Shavrak call Ancestors. De ones they call Elders. De ones they call Chieftain."
Still air. Empty horizon. Only voice and stone.
"And you, child, have been chosen for dis challenge by one such person. Intisak bid you fight a Blacksand Scorpion, a rank above yer own, when every other Elder before ya only challenged beasts of equal standing."
I blinked, realizing I was going to be challenging a Trial of difficulty no one had attempted.
"Why he has such faith in ya, I do not know," Abisai continued, "but it matters not. The choice is ultimately yer's to make.
"Now that you know, it is time we began."
I exhaled once, slow and clear.
"Place yer hand upon de Blacksand Monolith, Axel Vorous… and speak your Challenge. The beasts of de sand will answer your call."
My gaze drifted upward again, following the golden runes into the clouds.
"Unlikely as it is, I know not what will happen if ya succeed. But I know dat if ya fail, what awaits ya is only a fate worse than death."
"Heed dis warning..." Abisai finished, tone now cold as buried stone. "...and choose wisely, Challenger. You will not be given de chance to regret."
Silence reclaimed the desert.
I placed my palm against the Monolith, and the runes pulsed brighter as they waited for me to speak.
For a moment, I pondered Abisai's warning. But the conversation I had with Intisak was not lost on me. Trust. The foundation had to be trust.
So trust I did.
"I challenge...the Blacksand Scorpion. Crisis Class."
The Monolith's runes flared violently beneath my palm. A low hum began to resonate through the sand and through me, vibrating into my bones, threading through every nerve. My vision blurred, the horizon folding in on itself.
Then, I fell. A void opened beneath me, swallowing me whole, and the storm, the desert, the black dunes, everything disappeared. My stomach lurched. My lungs burned. The urge to scream was overwhelming. Like I was losing far more than I'd ever bargained for. A feeling of dread. Like I'd just made the worst decision of my life.
A moment later, I slammed into stillness. Solid, but alien. My senses snapped back, only to betray me further. I was… somewhere. Vast, cavernous, but structured. The ground beneath me was more polished Blackstone, engraved with those same all-too-familiar golden patterns. Towering columns surrounded the expanse, forming the foundations of a colosseum built for beings far larger than humans. The sky above was open, yet no sun, no clouds, only an endless empty blue that pressed on me from all directions. The scale was… wrong. Monumental. Immense. Empty.
I tried to stand.
And the first horror struck me.
My arms. They were no longer the arms I knew. The musculature was...unfamiliar, segmented, jointed differently. Not one elbow, not one wrist, not one hand—but multiple segments, exoskeletal, tipped in something sharp and hard. My fingers were claws. My legs—jointed in ways they shouldn't be—ended not in feet but in a combination of claws and spiked pads.
My back itched, convulsed, and when I shifted my torso, I felt a hard spine elongate. And then, slowly, impossibly… a tail unfurled behind me, curling in a serpentine arc above me, the tip of it twitching with unkempt strength.
Every movement felt impossibly strong, but also impossibly alien.
My body lurched as I attempted to move forward, but I collapsed instantly. Too unfamiliar. My body was far too many things at once. The Confusion I'd been feeling these last few seconds finally began to ramp up into disbelief. My heart...this body's version of it---a tube like organ running down the middle of my back---pumped harder. Faster.
Confusion to Disbelief.
And now, as my pulse quickened into a racing one, as my breaths came faster and faster, that disbelief was replaced...with panic.
I raised my hand in an attempt to feel my face...but I only saw a massive, crab-like claw, pincers, black as the sandstone I stood upon.
No.
No. No.
My gaze fell to the ground, and staring back at me from the polish...were 6 pairs of glowing yellow eyes, segmented upon the fanged head...of what I instinctively knew to be...a Blacksand Scorpion.
What… what is this…? WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!
Abisai's words came back to me like a guillotine.
"Yer trial will be precisely dat. Just… not in de way ya think."
Not in the way I think. The Trial should've been to fight a blacksand scorpion. That was what I had been led to believe.
But then the runes on the arena pulsed again. Once. Twice. And on the third, the runes flashed, blinding me for a few moments. When my sight returned...something new had arrived in the Arena.
Where there had been empty ground, stood a young man.
Tan Skin. Blonde Hair. Burning Red Eyes, Neutral expression, and...
A giant, blacksteel greataxe over his shoulder.