NOVEL NEXT Chapter 187: Pressure
"Second Wave: Pressure."
The moment the words settled into the atmosphere, Damien felt it.
It did not come in a rush. It was not sudden.
It unfolded with a deliberate slowness, like the turning of a celestial gear, vast and uncaring.
Pressure descended from every direction, not simply from above, but from beneath, from all over around him.
The very idea of space tightened, folding inward, as though reality had begun to condense into a single, suffocating point.
His knees buckled almost immediately, and he slammed into the ground with a force that fractured the stone beneath him.
His fingers clawed against the cracked earth, trying to brace himself as his back arched under the invisible weight pressing down on him. His jaw locked tight, and his breathing faltered. Every inhale became a struggle. Every exhale came as a wheeze.
This was not physical weight. It was not the mass of rock or metal or gravity as he understood it.
This was dimensional pressure, an artificial manipulation of spatial density that compressed every atom, every mana thread, every flicker of vitality.
It felt as if the universe had turned its gaze on him alone, deciding that he no longer deserved volume, no longer deserved space to exist.
His bones groaned beneath the force. His ribs creaked audibly, each breath a gamble between pain and suffocation.
His skin rippled with the strain, as if it were trying to hold together a body on the verge of molecular collapse. Muscles seized. Veins collapsed. Mana circuits flickered dangerously, some of them shutting down entirely under the pressure that made even internal energy flows rebel.
Any ordinary mana-awakened being would have died in seconds. Their bones would have shattered. Their lungs would have flattened. Their mana core would have ruptured, spilling volatile energy into an already failing vessel.
This was not a test of strength. It was a test of… of structural defiance!
Damien was not ordinary. But that did not mean he was immune.
His silver-grade body held, but just barely.
Cracks began to appear along the edges of his jawline, hairline fractures that shimmered with faint silver light. His joints screamed in protest. Blood vessels burst behind his eyes, clouding his vision in red mist. His eardrums throbbed as the pressure reached into his skull, compressing everything within.
He could feel it pushing into his thoughts.
Thoughts began to slow, concepts grinding into molasses, as if the pressure was beginning to compact his mind the way it compacted his body. His memory stuttered. His breath hitched. His vision wavered between lucidity and blackness.
His hand slammed into the ground to support himself, but even that felt wrong. The stone no longer felt solid. It felt like ash collapsing beneath his weight.
He could not think clearly. He could not move easily. Even pain became difficult to register, because it was no longer singular, it was everywhere. It bled into every fiber of his being, so consistent that it almost ceased to feel like pain and more like simply existence under new rules.
But in the center of it all, something still moved.
Deep inside his chest, his necromantic core continued to revolve. Slowly, yes. But it moved. And as it moved, it pulled death energy into itself, cold, precise, and ever-aware. It was not crushed by pressure. It thrived in stillness. Where everything else panicked, it calculated.
Damien latched onto that motion, using it as an anchor.
He forced his internal mana to stabilize, wrapping threads of death energy around his organs.
Not to shield them, but to reinforce them. He wove a web of death energy around his lungs, his spine, and his heart. The death energy did not fight the pressure. It adapted to it. It wrapped around him in tight coils, mimicking the compression, lending structure where his own body began to falter.
Each breath became a conscious act, guided by that energy.
Each muscle twitch was redirected, filtered through undead discipline, minimizing unnecessary motion and strain. His flesh became less organic and more refined, as if each cell was reforging itself with a memory of unbreakable bone.
And then, his silver-grade body responded.
It had endured the poison. It had been pushed to the edge. But this was different. This pressure triggered something deeper.
It began to restructure.
His muscle fibers re-knit with a density twofold higher than before.
His bones compacted, reinforcing with layered latticework that allowed for greater pressure distribution.
The soft tissues of his lungs and throat thickened with microscopic fortifications. Even his mana circuits changed, threading around each other in tighter spirals to withstand environmental interference.
Pain flared again as the transformation took place, bones popping, sinew tightening.
But it was a focused pain now. Directed. Productive.
He grit his teeth, locking his jaw against the scream that tried to rip free.
He pressed one foot down against the fractured stone.
It trembled beneath him.
He pressed harder.
And it held.
Slowly, Damien lifted himself upright.
His body groaned, his back creaking like strained metal, but he did not falter. Blood poured from his nose, from his ears, but he forced himself to ignore it. His limbs shook with the effort, his vision blackened at the edges, but he planted one foot forward. Then the other.
And then he stood.
The pressure shuddered.
A breath passed.
The air rippled, the sky pulsed once, and then the weight vanished as if it had never been there.
Damien remained still, his breath coming in slow, shallow draws. His body ached in every possible way, but his eyes… his eyes were clear.
And the system responded.
[Status Updated]
[Silver Grade Body: Structural Resilience Enhanced]
[Dimensional Pressure Resistance +35%]
[Vital Load Tolerance Expanded]
[Mana Circuit Compression Efficiency Increased]
He didn't smile, but he felt it. A quiet shift deep within, subtle and undeniable.
Something fundamental had changed. The pressure hadn't just tested his strength. It had forced his body to adapt, and in doing so, pushed him further along a path few could survive, let alone walk.
He had not merely endured the trial. He had learned from it. Grown through it. That pressure was refinement, a forge without flame.
"So that's how it works." He thought, his gaze distant, contemplative. "This trial isn't just about survival. It's about transformation. Every wave tears something away, then dares me to rebuild stronger."
He took a long, steady breath, shuddering through clenched teeth as the last tremor of strain rippled down his spine. He let it go, exhaling the remnants of fear, panic, doubt. His focus sharpened.
And just in time.
The world beneath his feet shifted again.
Without warning, the voice returned, echoing through his bones with dreadful finality.
"Third Wave: Consumption."
And Damien fell.