NOVEL NEXT Chapter 240: Across
As Damien stepped forward once more, the pressure around him shifted with eerie finality. The howling storm of emotion, memory, and grief that had tormented him across the Sky Bridge suddenly vanished, as if exhaled from his soul and carried off into the abyss below. In that silence, something deeper and more insidious rose within him, not chaos, but stillness.
His heart, once burdened by guilt, no longer throbbed with sorrow. His chest, once burning with rage, now sat hollow and calm. All the fury toward Europe for its betrayal, all the hatred for the beasts who devoured cities and families, all the cold disdain for the Bloodbanes who had cast him out and abandoned him to obscurity… Gone.
The pain had been peeled away with surgical precision.
And without it, what remained?
For a moment, Damien faltered. His feet remained planted, his gaze fixed not on the next step, but on the unseen space within himself.
If he no longer burned with hatred, if he no longer carried grief like a blade, what then propelled him forward? What fueled his pursuit of strength if vengeance had been stolen from his chest? What was left in a man who had built his power upon the bones of wrath and sorrow?
His eyes closed briefly.
And in that moment, he found his answer.
It was not hatred that had carried him this far. It had not been anger, nor even vengeance, not truly. Those were shadows, camouflage for something deeper.
He had walked this path because the world demanded change, and he had subconsciously decided long ago that he would be the one to bring it. Not for revenge, not for blood, but because someone had to.
His desire to protect. His desire to lead. His refusal to let fate be dictated by old powers and older gods.
That was his foundation.
Anger and vengeance were the strong towers built upon that foundation.
And with that truth anchored in his heart, Damien took another step. The Sky Bridge pulsed beneath his foot. The trial accepted his answer.
Behind him, the echo of his footsteps was soon swallowed by a rising wave of noise. The drow had begun to cross.
Cries rang out in all directions, cries not of battle but of internal collapse.
Anguish and terror, sobs and growls, the weight of countless inner demons brought forth by the bridge's merciless light. Each step became a battlefield. Visions swirled around them, and the proud warriors of the twelve houses staggered beneath the assault of their past.
To the shock of many, Nyxara stood frozen at her very first step.
The most powerful of them all, the calm and untouchable prodigy of House Umbra, was gripped by invisible chains. Her eyes stared ahead unblinking, her lips pressed into a thin line, her body trembling ever so slightly.
She did not scream. She did not falter. She simply remained still, caught in some memory so devastating that even her towering strength could not move through it with ease.
Lyrisa, meanwhile, advanced steadily, her pace slower than Damien's but precise and disciplined. Her blades remained sheathed, her posture controlled. Her eyes were heavy with emotion, but her expression showed no break in focus.
She had seen death. She had killed. And now, she was remembering.
Then, without warning, the tranquility shattered.
A pulse of dark energy surged across the bridge, lancing toward Lyrisa from the crowd behind.
A spear-shaped beam of refined darkness howled through the air, aimed precisely at her spine.
Lyrisa moved without hesitation, dropping into a low roll that carried her to the side in a burst of agility. The beam hissed as it passed by, burning a jagged line into the bridge floor where she had stood a heartbeat ago.
Without rising fully, Lyrisa flung a small silver blade backward in the same motion. It spun in a wide arc, striking with deadly accuracy. A sharp gasp, then a thud. One of Vathrian's allies from the Fifth House dropped, her body already beginning to dissolve under the bridge's silent judgment.
A second dagger followed the first, this one embedded deep into the shoulder of another attacker. Lyrisa kept moving, her eyes now cold, her steps sharper, less meditative. The bridge had become more than a test of will.
It had become a battlefield.
Sparks of magic ignited across the narrow stone path as drow from different houses turned upon each other. Spells streaked through the air, brilliant with flame, ice, shadow, and venom.
Projectiles screamed over heads. Knives flashed between ribs. The quiet procession turned into a frenzy of long-range bloodletting as each group tried to remove competition under the guise of survival.
A bolt of violet flame forced Lyrisa to dive again. She landed hard, one knee skidding against the bridge's surface, a trail of blood marking her path. She snarled and countered, throwing another dagger into the chest of the caster who had nearly caught her. That drow crumpled silently, her body vanishing without ceremony.
She rose with a grimace, blood already soaking through a rip in her side. Her breath came heavier now, her vision tinged with red. She had killed three attackers, maybe four. But she wasn't unscathed.
Damien turned his head just slightly at the sudden burst of chaos behind him. He had heard the energy discharge, had sensed the shift in bloodlust. But he did not turn back. He did not stop.
The strongest would survive. And Lyrisa was strong.
She would endure. She had to.
The bridge began to quiet once more, its stones echoing only the steady shuffle of those who remained. The skirmish had lasted only a minute. No more. But it had changed everything.
Of the ninety-seven who had entered this trial, only forty-three still walked the bridge.
Some had fallen to their past. Others had fallen to knives. All were gone now, taken by the chasm below.
The survivors stood or walked or stumbled, breath heavy, bodies burned, minds weighed down. But they remained.
And Damien was nearly across.
The bridge was long, but not infinite. And now, there were fewer footsteps echoing in the distance. Each one louder. Each one more meaningful.
The third trial was nearly complete. But the cost of reaching the end was beginning to show.