NOVEL NEXT Chapter 185: Trial
"Welcome, Death Necromancer."
Damien froze.
His eyes widened slightly, just for a breath. His hand, still faintly glowing with the last traces of death energy, dropped to his side. He hadn't said anything. Hadn't announced himself. And yet...
He sensed it.
"Whoever or whatever is watching... knows what I am."
But only partially.
Not the Sovereign, just the necromancer.
Damien let out a silent breath. His mind, always racing, pushed through a dozen scenarios in a heartbeat. If the voice knew he was the Sovereign of Death, this would not be a welcome.
He would have been erased. Or caged. Or devoured.
But it had said "necromancer."
And that meant whoever was watching didn't know the full truth.
That realization filled him with quiet relief and a rising tension.
"My identity as the Sovereign of Death must not be divulged until I am strong enough to defend myself against them." Damien decided firmly in his heart.
"I have waited long for you," the voice continued. "You walk the line between decay and memory. You reach with one hand into the grave and with the other, reshape what lingers."
Blackie glanced toward Damien, confused. Rage Monkey blinked. Neither of them moved.
Because it wasn't speaking to them.
It was speaking to him.
"This is the true inheritance," the voice said, still calm, still impossibly old. "You stand on the threshold. One trial, and my legacy here on earth will be yours. The power I shaped beneath death's shadow."
Then the tone shifted. Darker. Colder.
"Fail… and you will be broken. Undone. You will serve in silence as one of mine until the sun's last breath."
The air around him had shifted. It wasn't hostile. But it was aware. Watching. Studying.
Rage Monkey took a half-step closer to him. "This is not the fun kind of test. Master, maybe we should… reconsider?"
Blackie nodded in agreement. "Thousands died in the red inheritance trial before it was finally claimed. If black is its true inheritance trial, it would be prudent if we return after we become stronger."
Damien's heart was steady.
His necromantic core continued to revolve deep within, a slow churn of refined death energy. Every second he stood here, he felt the pressure increase.
Not in a crushing way, but like he was being weighed by something old and exacting.
But at the same time, his instincts and his gut were screaming in excitement. Deep within him, he knew that this trial was something he could overcome.
Not easily. But definitely doable.
He looked toward the sky, then nodded once.
"I accept."
There was no dramatic flash. No burst of light. No immediate change.
Just a long silence.
Then the grass around them began to ripple.
A field of obsidian spears erupted in a ring, surrounding Damien alone.
Blackie and Rage Monkey were pushed outward by invisible force, flung across the landscape like feathers caught in a storm.
Damien remained standing.
The voice returned, quiet now.
"Begin."
The spears burned with voidfire.
And the trial began.
Inside the obsidian ring, the world began to unravel.
The soft twilight overhead peeled away like fabric, revealing a void of shifting gray. Damien stood alone, surrounded by silence.
And then the voice returned.
"First Trial: The Trial of Life."
"You wish to command death. But first, you must understand what it means to live."
"Death here is permanent. Survive."
The voice disappeared, and so did the ground.
Damien dropped. There was no falling sensation, no wind screaming past his ears, just motion through the void. He wasn't descending through space but through state, shifting from one layer of reality into another.
Then came a flash of green light, swallowing him whole.
He landed hard on rough, cracked stone.
The air was thick and foul, humid like a rotting jungle, but sharp like acid. There was no sun above him, only a green, sickly glow leaking from cracks in the sky. The ground steamed slightly underfoot.
He had barely drawn in his first breath when it hit.
A searing fire raced through his lungs. It rolled down his throat, slithered into his chest, and exploded outward like a web of glass shattering in every direction.
Poison.
Not a simple toxin. Not something natural, not something Earth-born.
This was alchemical, crafted, refined over millennia, tuned to assault everything at once.
It didn't just attack his body, it attacked his mana, his will, his essence.
Damien staggered slightly.
But only for a moment.
He forced himself upright. Already, his body was reacting.
[Silver Grade Body: Vitality Overload Engaged.]
His skin began to shimmer, light pulsing faintly beneath the surface. His blood surged like a river under pressure.
The poison was drawn toward his bones, where dense necrotic reinforcement began binding the toxins and holding them.
His cells didn't just fight back, they consumed the foreign invaders, temporarily sealing them inside cellular pockets until his immune system could respond.
It worked.
At first.
For the next ten minutes, Damien stood still as stone, unmoving, enduring the toxin's assault with disciplined breath and full internal control. The pain flared again and again, but his Silver Grade Body withstood it.
He felt the acidic burn in his limbs. His stomach roiled. His eyes watered but remained clear. He channeled the pain into stillness, using meditative focus to reduce unnecessary strain. Every second, the poison advanced. Every second, his body repelled it.
But after thirty minutes…
Cracks began to show.
The shimmering beneath his skin flickered. His breath began to hitch. His pulse sharpened, then stuttered. He felt it…
A patch of cells in his liver giving out. A cluster of white blood cells collapsing under pressure.
The poison was learning and upgrading itself!
"This is bad." Damien thought to himself.
His Silver Grade Body had limits. It could resist for a time. But this… this was designed to wear down even the hardiest flesh.
He dropped to one knee.
Spots danced across his vision. The poison was attacking his mana circuits now, cutting off internal flow. Muscles began to seize. Reflexes slowed.
Damien hissed through clenched teeth, his entire body locked in a state of spiraling tension.
Every breath he took dragged fire deeper into his lungs. His heart pounded like a war drum gone wild, and he could feel it, feel the poison sinking deeper, coiling through his veins like serpents made of acid and shadow.
"If I let it spread, I die." Damien realized.