It was far from a pleasant experience. Mentally or physically. Years of Ewan’s torturous tutelage had made me no stranger to pain, but this was different.

My understanding of Blood grew in leaps and bounds, the way it flowed and coursed, the manner in which arteries and veins branched and divided and merged over and over again, reaching every corner of my body, perfusing it, filling it with life.

The bolder I grew, the more drastic my surgeries could become, as increased knowledge of the crimson ichor’s pathways led to ameliorated control through the song. Blood was the mechanism through which Entropy traveled, and deepening my understanding of its myriad routes made my powers stronger, made me able to access them more quickly, and efficiently. Given time, I was able to restrict, or redirect its passage, a necessary prospect to ensure I didn’t exsanguinate myself during my somewhat grotesque experimentation.

And yet, throughout, the malaise remained.

There was a strange sense of wrongness about it, about cutting apart one’s own flesh. Even beyond the unsettling sight of exposed innards and the shuddering signals sent by flailing nerves, there was something about my physiology, laid bare, that felt almost…

Alien.

Unbecoming. When I saw the parts that made me, well, me, there was something in the very deepest recesses of my mind telling me that this was all wrong, that this didn’t belong, that I didn’t belong.

Did all Brutes feel this way? It certainly didn’t do much to help the nightmares I’d suffered, back then.

But it did wonders for my control.

I understood Draconic Blood well, now. Very well. So well, in fact, that it had become my most efficient Blessing. Why, for anything smaller than a simple dismemberment, I could practically use it for free. On its own, it’d never be as good as it was with my direction, but it was a start.

A natural Brute might still overpower me, but, unlike them, I actually understood the power.

It was the reason why Fang was so valuable to me, why our relationship was closer than any of the others. As a Shard that could act with autonomy, my Soulbound Weapon might well have been the closest I’d ever come to experiencing how powers worked for a normal Blessed.

Save, of course, for one.

My active Shards were, in a way, Gifts. Additional capabilities, not inherent to my most basic power. As such, my struggle to properly use them was only appropriate. After all, they weren’t really a part of me.

But ADMINISTRATION was.

Like all Blessed, my primary Blessing was me. The two of us were bonded, now and forever. It didn’t require any input from me to act. It never had, and I’d never needed to know how to use its main puissance–the ability to copy Shards.

So why wouldn’t it speak to me?

Aside from its bizarre outburst at the gates of Talos, my true Blessing was completely silent. Unreachable in the song, and invisible in my sea. I knew that Major Shards could significantly influence their Hosts. What, then, might a Noble Shard be capable of?

And why wasn’t it attempting to influence me?

I shook my head, in a vain attempt to clear it. My primary Blessing’s silence was a constant, pressing concern. Our lack of discourse was a two-way street; I lacked sufficient proficiency in the song to properly converse with the thing, and that worried me. It worried me greatly.

For all I knew, the Shard could be evil. What if it was a megalomaniac, concerned only with the gathering of further powers, the progression of its own twisted growth? From what I’d seen so far of Vox’s Broadcast, the higher-ups in the gestalt didn’t exactly strike me as the humanitarian type. And why should they be? After all, human beings were like insects to them. Stupid and short-lived. Scarcely even sentient.

Another problem, another source of anxiety, another one I could do nothing about.

Ultimately, using the song to control Fire, or Lightning, or any other such effort was no less difficult than directing one of my active Shards, and complexity compounded with every additional task.

If using a Blessing was as difficult as executing a perfect combination with the sword, then manipulating two at once was akin to attempting the combination, on one foot, whilst reciting the alphabet backwards. Each additional effort required an exponentially increasing Entropic finesse, and while two wasn’t an impossible task, it was far from comfortable, either.

So, whilst I did need to get the fuck out of here, and quickly, I couldn’t move as fast as I had before.

To do so would risk dismemberment by the lasers, and while Draconic Blood would no doubt repair me with ease, using it would necessitate dropping one of my two current foci. I didn’t trust myself to wrangle three outside of Bullet Time’s augmented personal perception. I’d either careen from the sky and die, or I’d suffocate, requiring the Brute Blessing to heal me again, creating an infinite cycle in which I gradually asphyxiated, high in the air.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Not the worst way to die, I supposed, but not far from it.

Cracking my neck on either side, and girding my loins mentally for the task ahead, I cautiously drifted forwards towards the undulating laser array.

My progress was slow, and miserable.

Was this what our march through the decaying jungle had felt like, for my companions? If so, I was amazed they’d lasted as long as they did. The song wasn’t strong enough to remove all heat from the air, leaving me uncomfortably hot and sticky, sweat perpetually coursing down my form to drop into the superheated air below, evaporating in an instant.

The intense perspiration drove me to dehydrate quickly, over and over again, and required me to make consistent landings at the sporadically placed pillars and consume ever-more of my thankfully massive water reserves. Thankfully, the sea of lava wasn’t as rough as the prior ocean, and though the pillars’ floors were red-hot, Draconic Blood could effectively repair what little damage they dealt me through my song.

The drifting beams grew ever-so-slightly faster with each league of progress I made, such that soon enough it became necessary to flex Bullet Time when I approached a particularly dense cluster of them. Perhaps I could have survived without the enhanced perception granted to me by the Shard, but as any injury could mean my death, I didn’t dare to risk it.

Each time was an agonizing exercise.

Operating three powers at once only became more difficult as I tired and my Entropy reserves drained. The pain of such an effort never dimmed, either. I barely pushed on the Blessing at all, allowing a mere thimbleful of Entropy to enter the thing, and still each exercise made my soul ache and my head pound angrily.

When, after nearly three hours, I finally reached the room’s end, I could have wept.

Maybe I did. It was difficult to tell, what with all the sweat.

Gasping for breath, I dropped down to the smooth white ground, and the heat abated. Finally, I allowed my concentration to lapse, releasing the song as I exhaled shakily.

Immediately, I crumpled to my knees.

I hadn’t realized just how great the pain had grown, just how tightly I’d tied my mind into knots, and the sweet relief of relaxation granted me a sudden and shocking euphoria with its absence. A strangled, grateful, hysterical laugh escaped my throat as I cradled my throbbing head in both hands.

The cursed lattice of squares glowed dimly in the cherry-red luminescence cast by the burning slag behind me. Five solid green, one blinking. Again, the words whispered in the back of my mind.

Are you ready, Hero? For the next test?

“Fuck yourself!” I screamed, abruptly, before drawing back, surprised by my own outburst.

My headache flared, flushing me with a fresh, intense agony and I squeezed it ever-tighter between my palms. My teeth were clenched. My vision was blurry. I’d been awake for almost two days straight, by now, and the last hours of exertion were too much. My composure was evaporating.

In this state, I’d never survive the next room.

I looked around me. There were less than twenty feet between myself and the bubbling sea, but I could survive here without the song to protect me. Barely, but I could. And I was safe here. I understood these trials well enough by now. Nothing would threaten me from here.

I needed to get some rest.

As soon as I’d decided to do so, my eyes began to droop heavily, some subconscious muscle I didn’t know I’d been holding taut finally releasing. My surroundings faded away, growing darker and darker as I fully collapsed on the ground, prone, not even a sleeping bag separating me from the unnatural, machined white tile.

The void swallowed me up, but I tried hard to welcome it, praying with all my might to the Triumvirate above and Titans below that Knossos might grant me an uninterrupted slumber.

Dimly, incoherently, I thought I saw a silver wolf standing sentinel over my fetal form.

~~~

I awoke groggily, blearily blinking sleep-encrusted eyes in an effort to recapitulate some semblance of higher cognitive function.

And immediately squinted in annoyance, the glaring brilliance emitted by nearby magma causing my tender temples to pulse anew, rubbing salt in fresh wounds. I shielded my eyes and winced away, glancing downwards towards my obsidian timepiece, the sole source of sanity granted to me within this manufactured hell.

2:13:17.

I blinked once more, this time in surprise. I’d been passed-out for almost 13 hours.

I’d slept like a rock, untroubled by nightmares or any manner of dream at all, really.

I pulled myself gently to my feet, rolling my shoulders, stretching and enjoying the plasticity of mended muscles and soothed tendons. Even on hard metal flooring and immersed in a sauna, it appeared that Draconic Blood would always ensure I got thoroughly restorative rest.

I smiled. Indeed, the pain of teaching the Blessing had proven worth it.

I hopped back and forth, balancing on the balls of my feet, rolling my shoulders. I snapped my fingers and Fang’s delicate bone-white sword form slapped into my waiting palm. Gently, I started to flow through my stances, unhurriedly shifting my body from one move to the next.

I felt…good.

More so than I would have imagined. Not particularly refreshed, given the persistent sheen of perspiration that coated my body, but certainly recharged. Had the fatigue been wearing more heavily on me than I’d realized? Or, perhaps the Priest truly had answered my prayers.

I stopped my practice, and snorted.

“Yeah, right.”

More likely than not, the Priest didn’t exist at all. And if he did, he didn’t rule here. This was Knossos’s desmesne, and I doubted praying to its father’s mortal adversary would do me any favors with the World Titan.

I looked up, and the next room’s symbol blinked lethargically, just the same as it ever had.

Are you ready, Hero?

The whisper was calmer this time, quieter, yet seemed all the more real, so real it made me start for a moment, and look around. But my surroundings had not changed, and besides, these susurrations were a far cry from the screeching metallic blare of the second floor’s Champion.

No, there was no voice at all, I decided.

“Nothing more than my own nerves,” I murmured, uncertainly. “Self-doubt.”

A tendril of anxiety knotted in my gut. I didn’t have any choice but to proceed. Perhaps, if I’d been unhurried, I might have remained here for longer, attempted to reach the Marble stage for a far better chance of survival. I had enough supplies for months, after all, and Personal Storage eliminated any risk of them going bad. Given enough time, and practice, I might have even learned to combine Blessings.

But time was a luxury I didn’t have. Vox’s escape grew nearer with every passing moment. My companions needed my help. So I gathered my wits, straightened my back, placed a palm upon the blinking matrix, and was roughly yanked across space and time, ejected into the sixth room.