The deeper they went, the more the Abyss revealed its savagery.

Grotesque creatures roamed the pale desolation freely, hunting, feeding, clashing over pools of white-grey water. The pools pulsed faintly, infused with the white mist.

The monsters that drank from them mutated, their bodies warped by the Abyss’s power. Limbs stretched beyond proportion, bones jutting through flesh like broken spears.

The first to notice them were a pack of tusked beasts, their massive frames covered in jagged plates of stone. Their eyes burned with dim white fire, intelligence flickering behind the madness.

Kael’s voice was calm, unshaken. “Stoneboars. C-rank mutations.”

The beasts bellowed and thundered forward, stone hooves cracking the ground with each charge. The earth trembled beneath their weight, dust clouds rising in their wake.

This time Kael didn’t move. His gaze flicked to the others, expectant.

“Your turn.”

Thomas, Elara, and Ironwood stepped forward.

The Stoneboars roared, their tusks glowing faintly as earthen spikes erupted from the ground. The spikes burst upward like jagged teeth, forcing the defenders to scatter.

Elara raised her hand, her golden light sputtering under the weight of suppression. The radiance that once blazed like a star now flickered like a dying candle.

Dozens of radiant bolts formed, sharp but trembling, and rained down upon the advancing beasts. Several impacts seared their hides, leaving smoking craters in the stone plating.

But the monsters pushed through, unshaken. Their rage burned hotter than her weakened light.

Beside her, Thomas’s flame compressed the flickering fire into a solid blade of molten red. His jaw clenched as he gripped it with both hands, the weapon’s heat barely contained.

Each swing cleaved across the Stoneboars’ armored plates, sparks scattering. His breath came ragged from the strain, sweat beading on his forehead.

Ironwood braced himself, his skin hardening, his arms turning to gleaming steel. The transformation rippled across his body, but slower than usual, fighting against the suppression.

His fists slammed into one monster’s face, sending cracks through its stony tusks. But his knuckles bled where they should have broken stone clean, the Abyss stealing his strength.

The clash was brutal.

Every strike felt heavier. Every defense collapsed quicker, their powers strangled by the oppressive atmosphere.

The suppression turned what should have been a simple C-rank skirmish into a desperate fight. Adrian could see it in their movements, each attack cost them more than it should.

Behind them, Adrian stood with Kael, arms folded, watching. His Source manifestation continued drinking the mist, but he remained still.

Kael’s gaze slid sideways, studying him. The boy’s composure was unnerving, as though this chaos meant nothing to him.

Kael said nothing, but his eyes narrowed slightly. Most would be fidgeting, eager to help, or terrified by the violence.

As Adrian watched their fight, he understood now what Elara had meant. This is the grind. The slow, agonizing process of growth through suffering.

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Every moment under this weight was suffering. For them, each strike forced mana tighter, each defense compressed it further like a vice.

So he didn’t move. He didn’t intervene, though his fingers twitched with the urge to help.

But if he did, this trial would be meaningless for them. Their breakthrough depended on this struggle.

Elara’s light cracked and guttered, but she pressed forward. Her bolts found gaps in the stone armor, burning through to flesh beneath.

Thomas’s blade grew unsteady, but his strikes became more precise. Each cut targeted joints and weak points with deadly accuracy.

Ironwood’s steel form wavered with every impact, but he held the line. His body rang like a bell with each blow, but he didn’t yield.

But slowly, painfully slowly, their bodies adapted. Their mana compressed further under the strain, every drop refined by desperation and will.

The Stoneboars fell one by one, their bodies crumbling against the defenders’ persistence. Stone plates shattered, revealing the mutated flesh beneath.

The scent of blood and mana spread through the mist, and it drew attention.

Then a scream split the air.

From the skies descended a flock of twisted, birdlike creatures. Their wings were translucent, their veins glowing with sickly green poison. Drool hissed from their beaks, every drop corroding stone.

“Venomwings,” Kael said grimly. “B-rank mutants.”

Mutants were always stronger than the monsters outside.

They dove, spitting streams of toxin that sizzled as it struck even the monsters below. The Stoneboars shrieked, poisoned and stumbling.

Elara staggered, her light dimming, her skin already greying from the venom’s touch. Thomas coughed blood, his flame blade flickering.

Ironwood’s steel cracked as green rot ate into his flesh.

With the Venomwings’ poison saturating the battlefield, their movements slowed further. The air itself became toxic, burning their lungs with each breath.

This was no longer training. It was lethal.

Adrian’s eyes sharpened. His parents faltered, their bodies betraying them as poison coursed through their veins.

Their lives dangled before him.

Kael shifted, ready to act—

—but Adrian moved faster.

[Temporal Veil] surged. Time slowed around him, the world blurring as his perception tripled.

In the blink of an eye, Adrian appeared beside his parents and Ironwood, his hand snapping out. Space folded with a sharp crack, reality bending to his will.

The three defenders blinked away from the battlefield, reappearing safely beside Kael before the S-rank could even shift.

Then Adrian turned back to the monsters. His expression was cold.

White-grey mist surged around him, condensing into power as he lifted his hand. His voice was quiet, steady.

“Gravity Snare.”

The ground howled. A dome of crushing force exploded outward, its range vast enough to encompass the entire battlefield.

The Venomwings screeched as their wings snapped like twigs, slamming them into the ground with bone-crushing force.

Stoneboars were flattened where they stood, their tusks shattering as their bodies buckled. The stone plates that had protected them crumpled like paper.

Dozens of monsters were crushed to pulp. The Venomwings screamed as their bodies ripped from the sky and slammed into the stone below.

The ground cracked like glass under the weight.

In a heartbeat, the sky cleared.

Every bird lay shattered. Most of the Stoneboars were nothing but broken husks, their forms barely recognizable.

Silence.

Every eye turned to Adrian. The boy stood amidst the carnage, white-grey mist still coiling around his form like living smoke.

Ironwood stared, his jaw clenched, voice hoarse. “How…? Even Lord Kael couldn’t… not here. We’re suppressed. All of us.”

His steel form flickered, the metal struggling to maintain cohesion in the oppressive atmosphere.

“How are you doing this?”

Adrian himself stood stunned. He hadn’t meant this, the spell had been meant to restrain, not obliterate.

He’d only wanted to hold the birds, buy time, heal the others. But the Abyss had turned his spell into something monstrous.

“I don’t know…” Adrian admitted, “For some reason… I’m not suppressed. This place doesn’t weaken me.”

He looked around at the devastation, his manifestation still drinking deeply from the ambient mist.

“It makes me stronger.”

The others were silent. Even Kael’s expression had shifted, his usual composure cracking as he studied Adrian with new intensity.

Then Adrian lifted his hand again, emerald smoke flowing from his palm like liquid light.

“Breath of Life”

The mist spread across Elara, Thomas, and Ironwood. Their poison burned away instantly, green veins fading from their skin.

Flesh knit. Scars faded. Wrinkles softened as years seemed to melt away.

They gasped as strength flooded back into them, not just healed but renewed, younger, reforged. Even their faces seemed younger, their exhaustion erased as if they had simply shed years.

The three stared at their own hands, their restored bodies. Elara flexed her fingers, golden light blazing brighter than before.

They had heard the stories from the Sea Wall, but experiencing it was another thing entirely.

But there was no time for thanks.

From every direction, more roars echoed, heavier and closer. The ground trembled beneath countless steps, sending small stones skittering across the pale landscape.

The Abyss had noticed them, and its monsters were coming.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep