The surroundings changed into a vast plain.

Green grass, caressed gently by a breeze, extended to an infinite point on all sides.

Orion looked around him, only to notice that he was alone.

"What do I have to do now?"

His answer came from a deep voice, speaking from everywhere at the same time.

"The last trial consists of two phases."

Diramoi explained the last trial, as he had acknowledged Orion being a worthy individual.

"You will begin by surviving waves of creatures in this plane as created. For your information, they are immune to all sorts of damage. It is purely a test of your survivability."

"What about the second phase?"

"You will fight yourself."

A frown formed on his face.

"That's what you meant when by 'fight for your life'..."

"Indeed. It is up to you to resist the first phase, and enter the last in perfect conditions. As a little piece of information, your mother barely made it out, only for her to awaken her potential at the last second."

Surprised, Orion opened his eyes wide.

"Mom did?"

"Now, you should begin. I don't think it is wise to postpone the last trial any longer. May you survive until the very end."

The rough voice stopped talking, leaving Orion to a deafening silence.

"I should be fine."

He closed and opened his hands, confirming that he could use his power.

"While I can only bring a fraction of light magic out, it is enough to heal. I still can't use neither dark nor void magic, which is pretty bothersome, but whatever."

"Now, where are those enemies?"

Orion looked around, but nothing seemed to move, or at least, nothing worth mentioning.

*Cut*

Suddenly, a cut appeared on his arm, which began to bleed.

"!"

Leaping backward, Orion looked at his arm, before healing it. He placed his hand on his wound while looking carefully at his surroundings.

Nothing looked different.

Until something attacked his back. Orion, pushed by the sudden impact, rolled on the grass.

"What is happening?! There's nothing around me!"

Confused, he heightened his senses, in case he had missed something.

'Rustling grass, that's all I hear.'

No sounds of walking, no breathing, no presence, absolutely nothing.

'I don't understand.'

With fast head movement, he scanned once again the plane.

"!"

Orion felt a sudden ripple in the air, right in front of him, aimed at his throat. He crouched to dodge it, and with a swift spin of his waist, kicked the air where the 'thing' that attacked him was supposed to be.

'Nothing...'

His foot kicked in the air without showing any resistance.

*Cut*

Another cut appeared, this time on his leg. He also felt a pressure on it, similar to someone grabbing it and clenching their hand around it.

While remaining calm, Orion acknowledged that his tactics were completely useless in this very situation.

'Invisible enemies, intangible enemies, one-way strikes... this is a first.'

Pulling his leg from the clutch, he stood up and hurriedly composed himself.

'First, I need to find a way to identify where my enemies are. There's no doubt about it, they are more than one.'

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Focusing his senses on feeling the ripple he felt before being attacked, he closed his eyes.

'...'

"!"

Orion dodged out of the way by letting his body fall sideways, yet, a cut appeared on his chest nonetheless.

'There was more than one strike.'

Healing the cut, he began to think.

'The more I wait, the more enemies will appear, that's what my instincts are telling me. From what Diramoi said, a horde of enemies is probably what will attack me.'

'I need to find a way to-'

*Stab*

Something pierced his shoulder, cutting his thinking short. Orion grabbed his shoulder in pain while withdrawing.

"Kh!"

While healing his injury, another attack came from behind. Something stabbed his right thigh from behind, forcing him to kneel on the ground.

"!"

Orion clenched his teeth and hurriedly healed. He stood up, and began to run in a random direction.

'If I run, then they shouldn't-'

*Wham*

His face fell first in the grass, before his body rolled once again in the grass. An invisible force pulled on his legs, making him trip over and crash.

Frustration began to grow in his heart, yet, he kept it sealed. With a long breath, Orion stood up, and looked around him.

'Great. I'm surrounded.'

He could feel it. There was no escape anymore. While he was being introduced to the difficulty of this trial, the number of enemies ranked up exponentially.

While closing his eyes once again, Orion switched his way of thinking.

'If I can't see them, I just need to feel them.'

A white aura enveloped his body, before it began to expand in the shape of a dome. Everything in a five meters radius entered the magic was scanned.

'...'

His sixth sense activated, Orion began to 'see' the things attacking him.

Dark and shapeless forms approached him, baring their sharp claws at him. One of them, from the distance, threw its arm-like tendril, to slash at him.

Orion, with his eyes closed, bent backward to let the tendril move past, before crouching out of another attack.

This time, one of the shadowy figures rapidly closed on him and slashed at his back after he had dodged.

With a frown, he kept moving out of many attacks. The more he dodged, the more those 'things' attacked.

Long-range, close-range, he had to dodge everything. Still, surrounded by thousands of those things, some attacks were unavoidable.

One such attack sneakily happened when he was dodging two ranged attacks. A sneaky shadow leaped through the dome in the blink of an eye, closed the distance between it and Orion, and stabbed him on the right side.

Orion ignored the pain while putting some distance between him and the shadows, avoiding the other strikes launched at him in the process.

His wound closed as if it never happened, but the pain was slowly eroding his mind.

Surrounded by creatures he couldn't see nor attack, with no idea on how long he had to hold on for, and enduring a terrible amount of physical pain, Orion was at his wits end.

The point of the last trial was, in a way, the culmination of everything he had seen.

...

After surviving for what seemed like an eternity, Orion became accustomed to the rhythm of attacks.

(Left, slash. Back, ranged piercing attack.)

With swift movements, he avoided the attacks, and turned his face toward the right.

(Front, leg swipe. Right, sudden leap.)

Suffering again and again from the same attacks, the pattern slowly revealed himself to him. Finding it out was what helped Orion minimize the number of attacks landing on him to a great extent.

Now, he simply followed his muscle memory, and let his body do the rest.

(Upward, slam. Left and right, double ranged piercing attacks.)

Whispering the orders of attacks as if in a trance, the attacks came exactly as he expected.

While he had lost track of time, Orion decided to turn this trial into a training session. He listened closely to his muscles, and carefully managed his stamina.

Taking the little breaks between attacks to breathe in and out, micromanaged every movement of his body to make each one as fluid and effortless as possible.

More and more enemies attacks, increasing the pace at which he had to dodge, yet, these creatures were unable to cause more than grazes to him.

Around Orion, the land was covered in shadow. Through his sixth sense, he couldn't see past a meter around him, as they came closer and closer to him, while still putting some distance not to overwhelm him.

Orion realized that if this was a real situation, he would be submerged by the terrifying number of creatures in a blink of an eye, ripped to shreds by their claws.

'Thank the world, it is only a test.'

It was what he thought when he acknowledged the dangers of this trial.

In fact, all the trials so far put the knowledge he obtained to its limit.

*

The first trial, to have faith in his own qualities.

The second trial, analyzing his surrounding carefully and precisely.

The third trial, how to manage his energy correctly.

And the fourth trial, to trust in himself, and to push forward, in the name of power.

*

Orion's eyes gleamed with a dark hue. His gray colored eyes darkened as time went on.

Without realizing it, his body, which was covered in white magic, changed to a darker color. Nothing changed on him, but his body was accumulating the surrounding darkness.

What he was unable to know, was that the shadows that grazed him had a part of their body absorbed by him in the process.

He was too focused on the rhythm to notice.

Rapidly, his whole body became covered by the same darkness the beings attacking him were formed from.

Only his eyes, glowing through the dark void, were visible.

In shape and form, Orion turned into one of the creatures. Dark tendrils erupted from his back.

Time suddenly stopped. Everything turned still. The shadowy beings dropped to the ground, forming puddles of dark matter that merged into a sea of darkness.

In the middle of it, stood a single creature, almost indiscernible from the ground. Only its eyes made it noticeable.

The grass turned black, the sky became red, and the wind stopped blowing. From the creature's body, bubbles appeared to grow on its body, before its body split in two.

Suddenly, from the dark shape, Orion came out. He jumped out from the being's body, and distanced himself.

Tendrils wrapped themselves around the opened chest of the 'thing', and repaired its body, while its gray eyes fell on Orion.

"So, is this the last part of the trial?"

When the gap in its torso closed, the dark entity hugged its body, before letting out a shriek that caused Orion to take a step back.

"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

The creature's back began to swell, before its tendrils pierced it. They ripped its body apart, releasing two pairs of in -black draconic wings.

Two horns sprouted from the sides of its head, right above the ears. Its gray irises took the shape of a reptile, while a long tail dropped to the ground, making a loud thud the moment it appeared.

It absorbed the darkness into its body, before outlining a shape and form that was closely resembling Orion.

In fact, it was exactly like Orion, except it looked demonic in nature.

"..."

When done, the other Orion, glared at the real one.

"Fighting myself... sounds interesting in practice."

Orion cracked his knuckles, and stretched while he had the chance to.

"The others won't believe me."

He said to himself, before throwing himself toward his demonic clone.