Numerous voices were still echoing by Arin’s ear. Some were curses, others were mockery but they all had one thing in common, they were all against Arin. The first thing that Arin saw when he entered the Sephirah Trial was the same landscape as earlier except for a blood-red sky, with the sand exchanged for a sea of bones. Arin still had his shirt covered up his face but seeing that the environment didn’t need him to act like this, he wore it properly.
The very same altar showed up alongside the identical sequences of shapes and symbols, as far as Arin could tell everything was the exact same. He went forward to check if the pressure plates would still be the same as last time and there it was, the first significant practical change in the puzzle, the pressure plates were exchanged with eight gaping mouths filled with countless teeth.
One of the people that Kian brought forward immediately proclaimed, “Sir Arin, we’re here to serve as observers. Please tell us your thoughts and we’ll test it out for your method for you.”
Arin checked one of the many gaping mouths and wondered what the difference would be this time. He tore off a fraction of his shirt and dropped that cloth fragment into the gaping mouth. Once the cloth fragment touched one of the teeth, the mouth closed and activated the altar.
Arin looked at the altar change shape, similar to how it worked in its normal form. This confirmed Arin’s guesses, although a Sephirah Trial changes a normal Trial into something much more sadistic and eerie, it still holds the core concept of its original form. As shown even though the pressure plate turned into a gaping mouth with numerous teeth, it still activated in the same way as the last Trial.
“Sir Arin!” The same person came out once again. “Please, tell us you do something else. If you anger the Sun God then we’ll be in great trouble. Remember, the goal changed from unlocking the altar to appeasing the Sun God so the Perfect Clear method won’t be the same for both Trials.”
“There’s still a completion rate in a Sephirah Trial?”
“Yes there is so I suggest you-” The man speaking suddenly felt something off and dodged forward, feeling a sharp blade slash through the back of his neck. Even though he reacted as fast as he could, it still tore through halfway his neck.
He came right in front of Arin and looked back at the four people brandishing their blades. He wanted to warn Arin but for some reason, he lost all feeling in his body. He immediately realized and so did Arin.
“Your nerves got cut off. Safe to say, you’re not improving any time soon,” Arin covered his mouth with his hand, accurately pinpointing what kind of position he was in. He saw that the man that almost got his head severed tried to say something but all that came out were muffled grunts.
There wasn’t even a need to guess what happened, a betrayal. It was clear and concise to the point that he slowly backed off, making some distance, stopping at the edge of the altar. There were now four enemies brandishing their own weapons toward Arin.
“Nothing personal, just business.” A middle-aged man pointed his sword right at Arin. His sword wasn’t engraved in anything elegant nor did it have an amazing quality to it, it was nothing more than iron on a handle.
Arin kept his mouth covered with one hand while the other one was crossed. He was analyzing how to go about handling this situation. He briefly looked up at the sky, the previously yellow sun twirling in the air was now dark orange, with a malicious eye seemingly enjoying the entire situation below.
One of the four, a female, came closer to pierce through her companion’s head with her daggers, ending his misery. She innocently exclaimed, “You didn’t even take his weapon. Tsk, tsk, tsk, is this really how a Labyrinth Solver’s son should act?” She took the longsword strapped on the dead man’s waist and dangled it, provoking Arin’s response.
“He’s nothing but an orphan he adopted.” A youth slightly older than Arin smugly said. “Of course, he wouldn’t even be able to understand something so basic.”
“Kya, you can’t say something so vulgar!” She playfully slapped the youth’s back as she teasingly looked at Arin.
As Arin heard their obvious taunts, he was undeniably angered. He knew that this was a blatant attempt to anger him into recklessly rushing in, the worst part was that it worked. He looked around to see if anything could ever impede his next moves and when he saw that everything was clear, he made his move.
“What the- surround him!” The middle-aged man saw Arin rushing into danger without a care in the world and ordered the people all around him. The three traitors immediately followed his orders and spread out.
Arin didn’t care at all about what tactics they were using as he directly rushed in at the middle-aged man. He saw Arin rush in like a lunatic and prepared his stance, slashing downward at Arin once he came close enough, unfortunately for him, Arin stopped at the edge of the blade’s reach.
“How did-” The middle-aged man felt that his blade hit nothing and immediately pivoted his stance backward, trying to change his sword’s position into something more favorable. “What are you doing? Attack!”
“Sure, pops!” The girl immediately came to Arin’s side as she held two daggers in her hand. The one in her right hand held in a reverse grip was aiming to tear open his stomach, letting all his organs fall out while the one in her left hand was held normally, preparing to react to Arin’s movements.
The youth felt that they were overestimating Arin as he didn’t even bother making his move. “Hah, what a waste of time.”
The last person, an old man, was preparing his short bow as he aimed at Arin’s back. He took it seriously and as soon as his bow had his target in his sights, he unleashed a bow striking true to his aim.
As there were two attacks coming right at Arin, the middle-aged man found the opportunity to gain his balance and strike Arin from the front.
‘With this, he should be dead… wait… is he? Is he smiling?’
Arin’s mouth was in an extremely wide grin, if it were to completely ignore the context of the situation then one would think that he was having the time of his life. His blood was boiling, compared to how tame he was when he was around his father, acting like a spoiled child, this was one of the times when he felt like he was himself.
Arin quickly calculated within his mind, out of the three attacks, the easiest one to handle was the arrow. It already had its predetermined trajectory, all he needed to do now was stay away from that path. He turned his back on both the middle-aged man and the girl and immediately ran back, focusing on the old man first.
The arrow slid past his side, hitting nothing. The middle-aged man and the girl obviously missed their attacks as well and Arin moved away at that opportune moment. The middle-aged man immediately shouted out, “Walter, stop him!”
The youth who was snarkily watching the entire scene scoffed. He looked down on Arin completely, compared to someone like him who had seen the darkness of the world firsthand and trained under people who lived their days as if it was their last, Arin’s presumably pure and safe lifestyle would clearly make him falter under these conditions.
The youth took out his longsword, the same type as the middle-aged man’s. He saw Arin immediately running toward the old man so he came up to block Arin off. “That’s it? So much for being a Labyrinth Solver’s child, you’re too weak.”
Arin’s eyes were bloodshot as he tried to ignore Walter’s taunts but as much as he hated to admit it his taunts were working. His blood was pumping and his vision was turning red, he wanted nothing more than to tear Walter limb from limb but he still had to prioritize taking the archer out.
The old man jumped back, nimbly taking another arrow from his quiver and precisely aiming at Arin’s legs. The reason for this was simple, the middle-aged man and the girl were running right behind Arin. If he were to miss and hit one of his comrades then this would be a terrible result. Another arrow escaped his bow, aiming to strike down his foe before him. Arin had to dash to the side, this movement let him completely dodge it.
Walter jumped in front of Arin in time and slashed by the side, aiming to open Arin’s guts. Arin couldn’t back off at this point, if he jumped back then the middle-aged man and the girl would catch up to him, and with their numbers advantage, he wouldn’t be able to fend them all off.
This made Arin have no other choice but to meet Walter’s sword head-on. Walter’s slash was coming in so with a terrifyingly excited expression, Arin backed off.
“Psycho!” The girl screamed out loud.
“What?” The middle-aged man saw Arin back off, and jumped back, catching him off-guard. He had his sword’s point behind him, letting him run in closer without mistakenly injuring anyone he didn’t want to. Now that Arin jumped back and his sword wasn’t in a position to defend himself, he questioned why he made such a suicidal move.
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The girl had her weapon close to her so she wasn’t in the same predicament as the middle-aged man so it was all up to her to handle Arin. She saw Arin face them with obvious intent to take this battle head-on without any weapons. This completely went against everyone’s expectations.
Arin saw the girl aim for his heart, opting for an instant kill, trying to stop the battle even before it began. As for Arin’s response? This blood-raging monster in human skin reached out his hand, aiming to grab ahold of the girl’s head. His unbelievably stupid move actually did make sense, Arin’s reach was longer than the girl's, at most, she would be able to leave a hollow mark on his chest while he could grab ahold of her head. With Arin’s grip strength that could crush bone, it was safe to say that he could easily handle her.
She saw her life flash before her eyes and realized the same thing that Arin did, she would get caught before she could end it all. This made her instinctively back off, a survival instinct that Arin didn’t seem to have.
“Oh shit!” The girl with daggers immediately noticed that this was exactly what Arin was aiming for. All this entire time, he had never stopped his momentum at aiming at the middle-aged man. She stepped on the ground, stopping her momentum from backing off yet it was too late, Arin had what he wanted.
Arin was currently face to face with the middle-aged man, as the middle-aged man was right in front of Arin, he could see his smile turn even more frantic, filled with malicious intent and carnage. Arin grabbed the arm that the middle-aged man used to hold his sword and… gripped tightly, breaking bone.
“Argh! Bastard!” The middle-aged man screamed in pain as his hand was broken. The next following scene just showed just what kind of monstrous strength Arin had. Arin gripped the sword as the middle-aged man’s fingers were crushed in between. It seemed to have been turned into a paste as Arin had a firm hold on it.
With a maddened look in his eyes, Arin met Walter’s blade, dragging the middle-aged man’s body alongside it. The pure sheer force was enough to rip his broken hand away from the sword, causing the middle-aged man’s body to meet with Walter, knocking him off balance. Arin didn’t stop his counterattack as even Walter’s blade was no match for his sword, unreasonably being waved away.
The girl had already come forward, trying to strike at Arin once more with great momentum. “Fuck me…” Arin’s slash didn’t get stopped by the middle-aged man’s body dragging it back, not by Walter’s firm blade clashing with it nor with the girl’s body, cutting it in half. His strength couldn’t be stopped by anything they could throw at him.
The old man clearly saw everything with his razor-sharp vision. He saw three of his teammates unable to stop Arin’s sword strike as it even left an extremely deep cut on the stone platform. With such overwhelming strength, he weakly laughed, “There’s no point.”
The old man looked up at the dark sun above, its one malicious eye enjoying the entire scene in front of it. A few pulses appeared within it that could’ve meant anything but for some reason, the old man seemed to have related this movement to joy, cruel unabashed joy.
He looked back at Arin sighing in disappointment. Walter was under the middle-aged man’s body, both feeling the brunt of that impact as their bodies collided. As for the girl, she was cut in half at her chest, leaving her upper and lower body detached from the ground. As the three of them were still lying on the ground, Arin took the sword in his hand and threw it behind him.
Arin came forward to the girl and grabbed her by the hair, raising her up high as her organs were falling down. She couldn’t even gather even strength in her arms to take one last desperate attack against Arin, leaving her completely hopeless to whatever Arin wanted to do. She didn’t understand what Arin was trying to do here, she was already dead soon enough, so there was no other point than to-
All of a sudden, Arin reached his hand below, pushing apart her guts, tearing through her lungs, and gripping her heart firmly. He let go of her hair and only held her up by her heart, the pain of your entire, or at least half your body weight, be handled by such a delicate organ as the heart was indescribable. Her face drenched in pure agony was the only thing one could relate to how much suffering she was in.
The girl couldn’t scream and her consciousness was fading away so what Arin was doing was nothing but torture and carnage for the sake of pure enjoyment. Walter got rid of his mentor’s unconscious body off of him and immediately ran up to Arin, screaming out his lungs as he tried to get revenge.
Arin saw Walter running in at him and threw the girl’s upper body right at Walter. As her body fitting Arin’s arm like a sleeve was shot out, all that remained in his hand was her lifeless unbeaten heart. Walter gritted his teeth and roared out the feeling of cutting off his lover’s body himself. As the girl’s body was cut apart once more, Arin met Walter’s sword, with a curious look on Arin’s face.
It was clear, this monster was enjoying it. He didn’t even bother taking a weapon because he knew, no, he intentionally didn’t take one. As for why? It was obvious. Arin didn’t take a weapon because he felt that he could kill them, no, he didn’t take a weapon because he felt that it was more fun taking them on like this. As for the result?
The old man saw Arin demonically laugh at Walter’s breaking sanity. Every time Walter slashed, Arin would block it with ease, saying a few words afterward, further mocking the poor youth.
“Walter… is it?”
Walter gritted his teeth and tried to keep his tears from affecting his sword strikes. He kept on unrelentingly slashing away yet each strike was easily blocked by Arin’s own sword followed by a few more words of mockery.
“Were they important?” Arin used his own sword and pressured Walter’s sword down, preventing him from moving his sword any further. Walter’s sword was clamped down through sheer peerless force. As Walter was completely defenseless, Arin used this opportunity to lean in closer to do nothing but laugh in his face. Walter’s burning desire to fight back with his all might was evident in his eyes, even though they were stained with blood and tears, he was firm in his movements.
Walter gripped tighter, he had looked down on Arin and he paid the price, even so, in his mind, this was too much. With all his strength, he tried to break Arin’s hold on him, hoping to let his sword free to no avail. Seeing Walter struggle desperately to escape his crutches, Arin let him go as he mused himself with playing with the person who mocked his relationship with his father.
Walter was at his wit's end, how could have everything gone this badly? They were at the cusp of slashing Arin down when he, all of a sudden, turned the tides with one strike. Walter held his sword tighter as he used every technique ingrained into him by the middle-aged man and kept on slashing away despite how futile it was.
A heartless smile appeared on Arin’s face as he threw the girl’s heart right at Walter’s face. This made him choose a decision that even though he knew was pointless was ultimately something that he treasured. Walter dropped his sword and caught the girl’s heart in his arms, giving up all resistance as he fell to the ground while hugging it.
“Maxine…” Walter muttered as he broke.
“That’s it?” Arin leaned down as he taunted Walter even further. “Hahahaha! So, that’s all you amount to?”
Walter didn’t even bother to respond to Arin’s cruel words, he knew that he was going to die here so there was no point in fighting any longer. His trembling hands mimicked a heartbeat as he crawled over to Maxine’s torn upper body. He set them side by side and placed her heart within these two mangled body parts. After doing so, he leaned over and hugged the corpse.
Arin snickered, Walter was now mentally broken down, exactly what he wanted. As Arin was about to finish everything up, a loud vigorous sound echoed within this dreary landscape.
“Walter, run-” The middle-aged man used one of the girl’s daggers and ran out to strike at Arin’s chest, hoping to finish his task and end everything once and for all.
Walter looked up, hearing his mentor’s voice calling out to him only to be met with a heartbreaking scene. Arin dropped everything he had on hand and caught the middle-aged man’s hand with his own. He then forcefully made the middle-aged man stab himself with his own weapon. The middle-aged man tried to gasp for air but couldn’t his throat was filled with blood. As he looked at Walter kindly, Arin grabbed his head and crushed it apart, bits of bone and brain matter filled Arin’s hand.
Walter had no more tears to run nor any sanity left to take, “Why not just kill us?”
Arin looked back at Walter with the same ever-so-sadistic grin on his face, “Then I wouldn’t have my fun, now, wouldn’t I?”
“Oh.” Walter took his own sword and slashed his own stomach, letting his own guts spill out. Such a quick and rapid motion showed that he was fully committed to this action without an ounce of hesitation.
“To make someone as stubborn as Walter to commit suicide… you’re not better than the devil himself.” The old man already gave up, not even bothering to shoot another arrow at Arin’s direction for he knew that if he angered this inhumane creature in front of him then he might be broken down the same way.
Arin felt his blood stop boiling as his mood started to calm down, he had his fun and it was finally time to solve this Sephirah Trial once and for all. With how much time he had wasted and with how little time he had left, he needed to pick up the pace.
But before Arin could get even closer to the old man to ask questions, the dark sun above him suddenly gave out an eerie sharp clang. The insidious eye from within the sun looked at the old man, beaming down a light reminiscent of the normal Trial’s Perfect Clear except that it was the only thing it had in common. If the beam of light from a Perfect Clear of the normal Trial was filled with light and hope, this beam of light was filled with misery and longing for an end.
The old man’s body was gazed upon by the Sun God as everything the old man had, from the very fiber of its existence seemed to have been taken away, leaving nothing but a fragment of a memory behind. Arin saw just what kind of light this was and felt suppressed by the nihility of everything the light stood for, not even his cruel tendencies could overcome the merciless erasure that it had, truly the power of a God.
As soon as Arin blinked, he disappeared, instead of touching a golden core, as soon as his goal was met he was rewarded. Kian was there to greet him and immediately check whether he had any kinds of injuries but thankfully there were none.
“I knew those four were good for something.” Kian hugged Arin tightly, not even bothering to care how mushy he looked. “Those Federation bastards finally did something right for once.”
“Four?” Arin was knocked out of his daze by the mention of four people. “I didn’t get quite to see but… there was an old man, right?”
“Old man? No, there shouldn’t be. The oldest should be a guy named Mercas with his two students, Walter and Maxine. After that is one of my people, he’s-”
Arin waved his hand, trying to get his father away from him. “I get it.” All of a sudden, he felt something within his grasp, he looked at it and saw that it was a pen, a fountain pen to be exact. He didn’t know how it got there but for some reason, it felt just right.
A sudden rush of information swarmed Arin’s mind. This was called the Emperor’s Note, its function was for everything that it wrote to be eternal and ephemeral, even the paper it's on would be indestructible by any normal means, even time. A completely useless Fragment in the sense of combat but it would be extremely highly regarded in other departments for writing highly important documents and recording historical events.
“A pen.” Arin looked at the elegant black-golden pen in his hand and sighed. “All of that for a mere pen.”