My Special Ability is Growing Muscles

The ruins of Blackthorn Keep stretched before them like the skeleton of a long-dead beast. Charred walls leaned drunkenly, ancient battlements half-collapsed, and shattered gates yawning wide like broken teeth.

Just like Captain Helios warned them, the ruined fortress was just like that, a ruined battlefield left as a relic of the ancient Orc civil wars of the past.

What populated the ruins were just the remnants of that war, and yet just the remnants were enough to cause them so much trouble.

Afterall, almost all of them were still unrefined F Rank talents.

Still barely sixteen years of age, they were greenhorns in the grand scheme of things and yet they stepped across the cracked courtyard with weapons drawn.

They were freshers, and yet on their first mission they were already participating in war. The supply caravan was scheduled to deliver supplies to the human outpost at the frontier facing the Demon domain.

Their performance so far was not tidy, but they were trying their best.

Instructor Helios had barked orders at them hours ago. "Sweep the ruin, scout it, and clear a path for the caravan".

Hours in, they were still locked in, trying to execute the orders.

The supply caravan waited in the distance, ox-beasts pawing nervously at the soil. If the students failed, if the ruin wasn't secured by nightfall, the caravan's journey would halt which could potentially affect the outpost expecting supplies.

Besides, staying another night in this ruined fortress could potentially endanger the caravan itself.

And so, the students had to succeed.

Kairo walked with Platoon Three, his sack of dried meat thumping lightly at his hip. Every muscle in his wiry body coiled with tension, his instincts stretched taut with adrenaline.

By now, they've fought against wave after wave of constructs. The clashes were brutal, the injuries made them gnash their teeth, but they were doing a good job of clearing the fortress so far.

But then, finally, they experienced something else, not constructs anymore.

It began with a sound, the sound of bones clattering across stone.

From a broken archway, shapes emerged, shapes of long dead Orc warriors reanimated by seeping glyphs carved into their bones… Undead!

Their empty eye sockets glowed with dull crimson light, their jaws unhinged as a chorus of deathly roars rattled the rookies.

Not just them, other constructs emerged behind the Undead.

The Undead were nowhere as strong as when they were alive, but the mere visage of them rattled the students so much that they staggered back, some outright choking on screams.

Even Kairo felt a chill crawl down his spine.

Selene Duskbane, somewhere across the keep in Platoon Two reacted first as she raised her pale hands. Her Moonveil Sorcery shimmered to life as a silver arc erupted from her and bisected the first undead in a clean sweep.

Watching the Undead fall down dead, twitching, the others found strength.

Selene didn't stop there as she activated her second special ability, [Phantom Mirage]. It unfurled as illusions began dancing among the undead, sowing chaos.

Instantly, her platoon steadied and the others took advantage.

Adrain, leading Platoon One, whispered an incantation and time froze.

BZZZ!

A construct locked mid-swing shattered into fragments as he detonated it with Celestial Dominion. His team advanced behind him, their movements in perfect synch, his composure radiating calm.

In Platoon Three, Valek Drakar snarled as his blood chains lashed out like vipers. They coiled around skeletal ribs, crushing them with wet cracks.

His Obsidian Serpent coiled behind him, hissing and drinking spilled blood to grow larger. It did not care if it was Undead blood.

Kairo clenched his fists, waiting patiently.

When two undead broke past Valek's chains, he surged forward, shoulder driving into them. His knuckles slammed bone apart, muscles flexing unnaturally tight as bursts of his raw strength forced gaps in the Undead formation.

He didn't bark orders, not yet, he simply filled the spaces Valek ignored.

The sweep became a grind.

The first Platoon carved methodically, constructs freezing mid-charge as Adrain dismantled them piece by piece. His team advanced like gears in a clock.

The second Platoon became a dance of moonlight and illusions, Selene weaving phantoms that made her allies strike sharper and faster as the undead swung at air.

The third Platoon labored.

Valek was powerful, yes, but his leadership was jagged and arrogant. The formation buckled until Kairo slid into the gaps, steadying the terrified students with brief and sharp commands that they could follow.

They didn't even realize they were following him instead of Valek, they just fought, desperate to clear the ruined fortress and survive.

The fourth and fifth Platoons fared worse, the students screaming as constructs tore into their ranks. Injuries quickly piled up, and then the first casualties bled into the dirt from these platoons.

Still, by late afternoon, they had cleared a safe path through the keep.

Word soon reached them deep in the ruin that the caravan was moving again as relief rippled through the platoons.

For a heartbeat, the ruin seemed quieter.

But Kairo's gut twisted as his enhanced senses detected the unease first. The quiet wasn't safety, it was pressure before a storm, and he was right.

The first sign was the rumble as stones trembled underfoot.

The rumble was unlike anything they had experienced and were used to since; this was more in numbers, and countless times more harrowing.

The vibration sent their teeth clattering as their imagination ran wild.

Then from the eastern wing, they appeared as dozens of constructs emerged, their gears grinding, and their eyes burning with unnatural glyphs.

They were not alone though as from the western catacombs, undead poured forth from the depths of the ruined fortress, crimson light blazing brighter than before. Their screams blended with the grinding roar of steel.

Two forces, constructs and undead surged together into the central hall where the platoons regrouped.

This was not enough to justify the dread that Kairo felt before they emerged, and the answer soon came.

At the head of the two forces strode two nightmares.

One was a D- Rank Orc Warlord Undead, towering, its cursed axe dragging sparks as glyphs crawled across its bones.

Its mere presence and aura seemed to squeeze the air, stealing the oxygen.

And on the other side was a D Rank Juggernaut Construct, this one even stronger than the Orc Warlord. Its titanic hammer-arms smashed walls as it moved, each blow like an earthquake.

It glared at the students, its eyes indifferent but burning with murder, then it charged…

"…!"

The students froze as all the confidence they've gathered since from their grueling victories evaporated like mist.

Fear thickened like a quagmire in the air.

But then, someone reacted.

"Look alive!" The C Rank instructor roared, his aura blazing like a furnace as he leapt, intercepting the Juggernaut mid-charge, steel clashing against steel.

CLANG!

The collision was thunderous as sparks split the ruin.

His order thundered back to them as he tumbled away with the Juggernaut.

"The Warlord is yours! Show me you deserve to live as Awakened!"

The Undead Warlord lifted its axe, roaring with a voice that shook the stones of Blackthorn. Undead soldiers swarmed behind it, constructs grinding forward.

The students had no choice but to brace though every instinct in them screamed otherwise, common sense said staying frozen meant suicide. Their ranks formed shakily, weapons steady in trembling hands.

Kairo rolled his shoulders, knuckles bleeding already from the warm-ups.

Facing a D- Rank as an F+ Awakened was suicide, but as luck would have it, he was not alone. But the sad truth was the Orc Warlord was also not alone.

He could feel it, the razor's edge where survival and death balanced.

"So this is our true test". He muttered, his eyes narrowing as the Warlord's shadow engulfed them.

The Warlord moved.

WHOOSH!

The axe fell, and the ruin roared alive!