Lunar Legacy: Rise Of The Beastlord

Jayden's choice was made in the same instant his feet dig into the snow. He lowered his center of gravity immediately, bending his knees, pushing his hips back, and spreading his toes so the soles bite into the crusted snow.

He let out a single, slow breath, and lets his shoulders drop so his arms aren't braced rigidly… a flexed, coiled posture that will convert linear shock into structural tension through his spine.

His hands moved without fanfare. The telekinetic thread unfurls inside his head like a line of fine steel. He reaches out with it… not to grab the ball as a whole, but to hook the filaments along its outer skin: those feathery, electric strands that stitch the sphere together.

The line winds, a hundred microscopic fingers, and he pulls in tiny, synchronous tugs to slow the outer layer's rotation.

Ava watches from mid-air. Her jaw tightens, pupils narrowed. The sphere quivers where his telekinetic mesh threads through the surface, but she pushes more energy into it, and the filament lattice bulks with a hiss of power.

She was feeding it faster than he could grip. She wants the sphere to carry him through.. to overwhelm him before his telekinetic fingers can gather purchase.

Jayden shifts his stance two degrees, transfers weight through his heels, and fires the second part of his plan.

He draws breath, and with the inhalation, sealed his inner skeleton. The skeleton which had already been morphed into adamantine added a whine in his muscles and boosted his firmness.

Then, he creates a telekinetic field meters in front of him to keep the sphere further away from his body as it approached.

And then.. the sphere hit. Crashing softly into the telekinetic field.

The first contact was a compression that compressed his lungs and forced his teeth together. The outer filaments of the sphere lash at him like hissing whips.

Jayden braced himself, his palms stretched out, veins bulging along his arms, sweat streaking down his temples despite the biting chill of the snowy arena.

Energy bites at his skin. Heat flares against his clothes and then, because the adamantine structure has engaged, the heat transfers into a pressure that his bones take in like a hammer on an anvil.

The fiery orb Ava had conjured was massive, a swirling sun of compressed blue-white energy, roaring and crackling as it hovered only a few yards away. Its heat was unbearable, searing against his skin like an open furnace, and the force of its pressure kept driving him backward, his boots grinding deep trenches into the frozen ground.

He had planned this. He wanted to test his telekinesis under strain, to stall, to endure, not to dodge. But the reality of holding that monstrous energy ball back was worse than anything he imagined.

The air trembled, every nerve in his body screamed. His muscles locked up from sheer tension, his eyes narrowed in concentration, but still.. inch by inch, the ball pressed closer.

Jayden's teeth clenched, breath hissing through them. His mind pulsed with effort, like a vice clamping down on his skull. His telekinetic barrier flickered visibly, shimmering waves of distortion bending the air. Already, his lungs burned and his arms shook as though he were physically shoving a mountain uphill.

Ava stood with casual grace a dozen paces away, one hand extended lazily as if nudging the ball forward cost her nothing. Her expression was detached, almost bored, but her sharp eyes missed nothing. The faint curl of her lips deepened into a smirk as she saw the sweat drip down Jayden's face, saw the tremor in his stance.

"Ugh, come on," she drawled, tilting her head like a teacher correcting a stubborn student. "Just let go already. It's not a bad thing to lose once in a while."

Jayden barked a short laugh even through the strain, his arms trembling harder, his back nearly bent under the invisible weight pressing on him. "Sorry, not my style." His voice was cracked but defiant.

Ava's smirk sharpened. She rotated her wrist slightly and the orb flared. The energy expanded, doubling in heat and mass. The radiance alone blistered Jayden's skin, burning through the snow beneath his boots until the ice hissed and vapor rose in columns.

The ball pushed closer.

Jayden's mind was a battlefield. He'd already hardened his inner body with the adamantine transformation and even stacked the thickened skin of the Earth Smasher, but the sheer pressure was still tearing through.

His telekinesis screamed under the weight. Even with every ounce of focus, he knew it wasn't enough... at least not for long.

He had to think of something. Fast.

He considered pulling on the Hybrid Earth Smasher form, but discarded it immediately. It would be too strange, too obvious.. there was no way he would explain it if she saw.

His system abilities had to stay hidden.

Then his thoughts flashed to another primal and transformative option… his Partial Lupine form.

His chest tightened. It was risky. Too risky. Revealing something like that here would raise too many questions.

But his body screamed at him that he had no other choice. He had never treated a fight in this game like a matter of life and death… but for the first time, he chose to. In his mind, losing here equaled dying. And he refused to die. Not here. Not against her.

Ava sighed, flicking her hair from her face, her tone dripping with amusement. "I have to admit, Jay.. holding on this long is impressive." Her smirk softened into something sultry. "And.. kinda hot. But, I'm afraid I have to end it now."

Her free hand rose, energy swirling into her palm, gathering into a sharp spear of blue radiance. "Cheer up though," she winked. "I promise we'll have a rematch some other time."

Then she fired.

The beam struck the glowing orb and detonated its mass, supercharging it. The ball roared forward like a miniature star unleashed from orbit.

Jayden's telekinetic grip snapped instantly. The strain tore through his skull like a migraine exploding into fire, and his body lurched backward from the force.

The giant sphere of energy rushed at him, the arena roaring with its descent.

Jayden exhaled sharply. For a single moment, everything slowed… the roaring fireball, the screaming winds, Ava's calm stare.

He whispered. "I guess this is it, then."

But his fists clenched. His stance widened. He didn't run. He didn't dodge. He braced, and in the final moments before the sphere hit, whispered something under his breath.

Above, Ava's smirked, victorious. But then, she saw something flicker across Jayden's face.. a glow. His eyes… they weren't human. They pulsed, golden light burning through the snowstorm.

Her breath caught, her smirk faltering. "No way… it can't be," she whispered, stunned, a rare hitch in her voice as she stared at Jayden's transforming figure.

His grin was the last thing she saw before the ball struck.

BOOOOOM!

The explosion was apocalyptic. It split the air like a supernova. A blinding light engulfed the battlefield as the orb consumed Jayden's figure whole.

Energy shrieked, detonating outward in concentric ripples that shattered the frozen ground. A shockwave erupted across the arena, flattening snow into vapor, sending a mushroom cloud spiraling into the sky.

The blast left a wide crater, jagged and scorched black, the snow around it melted into steaming rivers.

Jayden's form was gone, swallowed completely.

For a long beat, there was silence.

Ava descended lightly to the ground, her boots crunching against scorched ice. She folded her arms, watching the smoking pit.

The arena system hadn't declared her victory in booming tones, which meant Jayden was still alive l.

Furthermore, she had seen those eyes. And that somehow gave her a hundred percent assurance that he survived the explosion.

"Oi!" she called out, tone sharp but edged with curiosity. "You gonna get up or what?"

For a moment, nothing responded.

Then… burst!

A hand shot up through the snow at the crater's edge, clawing for purchase. Then another. Jayden hauled himself up, shoulders heaving, his shirt shredded completely off, his torso marked with angry scorch lines. His skin still steamed, his hair singed, but he was standing. Whole.

Ava didn't even seem surprised in the slightest. She already knew he would survive the blast unscathed.

Moments before the sphere exploded, Jayden had assumed the partial lupine form. And at the last second, used telekinesis to summon a wave of the snow from the ground that buried his body and shielded him from the direct impact of the explosion.

He shook snow from his arms, rolling his neck with a grin that was both cocky and defiant. "That hurt, y'know." he admitted, brushing soot from his chest.

Ava's eyes narrowed, though her lips curled upward. She stepped closer. "You know," she said slowly, "If I hadn't seen your eyes before the blast, I might've been shocked you survived that. But now?" She smirked, brushing invisible dust from her own shoulder. "I'm not."

Jayden raised a brow. "What are you talking about?"

Ava smirked. Her chuckle was soft, but edged with revelation. She walked toward him with deliberate steps, her gaze never leaving his. "I was interested in you from the very start, Jay. And I knew you were different the moment we met. But I didn't think you were this different."

Jayden's frown deepened. "Different, how?"

Ava stopped just a few feet away, her eyes glowing faintly blue, her smirk widening like a secret finally being spoken aloud. "Different, as in… not human."

Jayden's heart skipped a beat. His lips parted, ready to deflect, but Ava cut him off, her voice steady and sure.

"Admit it." She leaned closer, eyes narrowing with a predator's certainty. "You're a shapeshifter. Or to be more precise…"

Her smirk was razor-sharp now. "You're a lycan."