Consciousness returned to Jelani like a hammer to the skull. Jelani’s eyes snapped open, his hand automatically twisting to summon his blade before his mind fully registered where he was. The familiar weight materialized in his grip, but there was no enemy to face. The French man was gone, leaving only the bitter taste of defeat in Jelani's mouth.
He felt a growing pain in his back and forehead that he hoped he could ignore. He opened the general timer for the trial and his mood worsened.
[12:58:41]
Thirty plus minutes gone. He'd been out cold longer than he'd like to admit. A voice in the back of his mind warned that any blackout was serious business, but Jelani pushed the thought aside. He'd taken hard hits before, he wouldn't make an excuse to lay here defeated.
"Fuck!..I-I'm good," he muttered, more to convince himself than anything else. But when he attempted to stand, his body had other ideas. A sharp pain shot through his lower back causing his legs to buckle slightly. He caught himself against the boulder behind him, breathing hard through clenched teeth as the world tilted and swayed around him.
"Just need a minute," Jelani insisted, even as his legs trembled beneath him. The dizziness wasn't helping – everything seemed to be moving a half-second behind where it should be, like a video with delayed audio.
The defeat sat heavy in his chest, a weight more crushing than any physical injury. Jelani had lost fights before, he didn't usually go looking for fights but he had a slick mouth at times and it would get him into trouble. This sometimes ended with him getting jumped by dudes who didn't like him but this was different. This hadn't just been a loss; it had been a lesson in humility delivered with surgical precision. The French man hadn't just beaten him; he'd exposed every flaw in Jelani's technique, every limitation in his training.
He wanted to be angry. Anger was familiar territory, a fuel he'd burned his entire life. But when he reached for that familiar fire, he found empty reserves. Twelve hours of running on fury and determination had left him hollow, empty of everything except pain and the creeping voice of doubt.
"What was that last attack?" he wondered, trying to distract himself from the deeper questions gnawing at his mind. "The way it pulled the energy from my blade, sent it back amplified..." His thoughts drifted to the skill shop, to the crossed-out abilities he hadn't been able to choose. "Counter Strike. Had to be. Ahsar got Sharpen Strength, so..."
The rationalization died in his throat. He could tell himself it was just about the skills, that having Counter Strike would have changed everything. But the French man's movements told a different story – years of formal training versus Jelani's cobbled-together knowledge from weekend classes and YouTube videos.
He let his head fall back against the stone, eyes fixing on the shimmering barrier ahead. The gothic zone timer appeared in his vision: [16:20]. At least he hadn't slept through his window of opportunity. But as waves of pain radiated through his body, that seemed like cold comfort. His stomach felt hollow, his muscles trembled with fatigue, and somewhere deep in his mind, a voice whispered that he might have been better off if the Trawlls had found him while he was unconscious.
Would things have been different if he'd swallowed his pride? If he'd let the French man's perceived condescension slide? The questions burned, but not as much as the reality that he might have sacrificed his shot at real power over ego. He could almost hear the words of his mother in his mind telling him that sometimes it was better to walk away.
"Nah. Fuck that. I stood my ground and that’s what matters. He attacked me for no real reason when I clearly couldn't understand what that man was saying." He thought defiantly.
"I’m not going out like this. Maybe number one is out of reach, but i’ve still got a chance at awakening."
He pressed his hands against the boulder, trying to force himself upright. Each inch felt like a mile, his back screaming in protest as he slowly levered himself into a standing position. The idea of a rematch was laughable now – he'd be lucky to make it up the mountain at all. But he had to try. Had to move forward.
The walk to the barrier felt endless, each step carrying the weight of his failures. When the sacrifice scroll appeared, he offered his last Trawll core without ceremony. One more threshold crossed, one step closer to... what? Victory seemed like a distant dream now. Maybe survival would have to be enough.
Beyond the barrier, vegetation gave up its fight against elevation. The bare rock face of the mountain's final stretch loomed before him, a testament to what awaited those who reached too high. A scroll materialized in his vision:
"You've entered the third and final phase of the trial."
Then:
"Can you embrace the reflections that bind you in shadow in order to reach the light?"
The cryptic message hung in the air like smoke. Reflections could mean mirrors, but all Jelani saw were multiple switchback trails snaking up toward the summit, each bend disappearing behind jutting rocks and small cliff faces. The spire seemed closer now, its harlequin green light pulsing like a heartbeat against the dark sky.
He dismissed the scroll, pushing aside the urge to analyze its meaning. He'd spent enough time today trying to decode mystical bullshit. No spectral knight appeared to explain the rules, no robed figure offered new skills. Whatever awaited him on this final stretch, he'd face it with what he had left – which wasn't much.
His sword materialized in his grip, the action automatic now. The blade's familiar weight offered little comfort. Each rocky outcropping, each blind corner ahead promised ambush.
The path ahead showed signs of... something. Erosion patterns scarred the stone, but not natural ones. These looked more like acid burns, places where the rock had been eaten away. Small pools of translucent green jelly gathered in depressions, catching the ominous moon light above.
The trail led him to a straight section, several feet wide, with a sheer wall rising on the left. Child-sized holes dotted its surface, dark mouths leading deep into the mountain's heart. Jelani's curiosity warred with his common sense.
He tried to move past them, keeping his eyes forward, but movement caught his peripheral vision. Clear mist began seeping from one of the holes, followed by a viscous slime that seemed to pour itself onto the ground. At its center, something brown and folded pulsed like a naked brain.
"What the hell is that?" Jelani raised his sword, watching as the slime began to grow, to take shape. Limbs sprung out from each corner of the slime. It was his shape.
The formless mass sculpted itself into a transparent version of him, complete with his current stance and the outline of his clothing. Where its left hand should be, the substance extended into a blade. Droplets fell from its extremities, sizzling where they hit the ground.
He opened his threat radar and it displayed: [Echo Slime]. The red aura surrounding it set off every warning bell in Jelani's head.
It matched his movements, mirroring his cautious approach. He decided to go for a testing strike within range of it but his blade passed through with minimal resistance. The creature's form rippled, fragments of acidic jelly spraying outward, but it quickly reformed.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
The brain floating in what passed for its head seemed the obvious target. Jelani went for a diagonal strike hoping to end this quickly, but the organ simply shifted position, dropping into the thing's chest. It slid backward with unnatural slug-like smoothness.
Something wet burned against his skin. Where drops of the creature's substance had landed, his clothes began to slowly dissolve. "Shit!" He frantically wiped at the spots, watching small holes appear in the fabric. "Can't let that stuff touch me."
The slime stopped mimicking him, its featureless face somehow managing to convey intense focus. As Jelani considered his next move, he felt his head pulse as a thought invaded his mind – his voice, but not his words:
"I'll never be strong enough to feel safe in this new world. I should give up now."
The thought felt foreign yet familiar, like something buried deep being twisted and then thrown into the forefront of his mind. Jelani tried to shake it off, to focus on the fight, but another thought followed:
"Why do I keep acting like I've got what it takes to be someone at the pinnacle of the world? I'll probably end up like my brother and most other young dudes in my city. Dead."
The words hit like physical blows. Kamari's face flashed through his mind – not the kid he'd failed to save, but his brother. The memory of finding pieces of him left on their doorstep, of his mother's screams, of his father's silent rage. The helplessness of that moment, the beginning of his obsession with gaining power...
"No!" Jelani's grip tightened on his sword. "That's not me. That's this thing, trying to get in my head." But even as he said it, doubt crept in. Were these really foreign thoughts, or just buried ones being dragged into the light?
Jelani lunged forward unwisely, fighting through the pain in his back. His blade cut another arc through the slime, but again the brain shifted away at the last moment. The creature retaliated with his own movement pattern – a signature combo he'd developed in his backyard training sessions. He barely dodged, nearly losing his footing as his spine screamed in protest.
Another thought invaded his mind, this one cutting deeper:
"I'm not built for this new world order. Everyone knows that might makes right from now on. There are radiants with a five-year head start on me. I'll never catch up to them."
"STOP FUCKING WITH MY HEAD!" The words tore from his throat, raw and desperate. Physical pain he could handle. Burns, broken bones, whatever. But these thoughts... they touched something he'd spent years building walls around.
Rage took over. Jelani activated Enhanced Slash, ignoring how the movement sent fresh agony through his back. Green energy blazed along his blade as he drove it through the creature's chest, finally catching the brain before it could shift away. The slime collapsed into a puddle, leaving behind a glowing core.
Victory was short-lived. Two more masses of green jelly oozed from holes further up the path, already beginning to take his shape. Jelani tried to run, but his body betrayed him. Sharp pain lanced through his side, forcing him to clutch at himself as he stumbled forward.
He pushed on, trying to outpace them as they formed, but more thoughts crashed through his mental defenses:
"I understand why Riina and I fell apart. She would have never been able to stay in a relationship with a nigga who could never protect her."
The words burned like acid, worse than any physical touch from the slimes. That door in his mind, the one he'd kept locked since things ended with Riina, threatened to burst open. All the doubts, all the fears about not being enough, about failing to keep her safe in this new world of monsters and magic...
Rage surged again. Jelani spun around, activating another Enhanced Slash. He went for a horizontal sweep, trying to catch both slimes' brains in one strike. But they shifted at the last second, making him waste the core for nothing. Worse, the attack sprayed acidic jelly across his arms. He barely got his face covered in time.
The burning started immediately. As he frantically wiped the caustic substance away, he saw more slimes forming ahead. They had him boxed in.
Desperation forced innovation. The cliff face to his right looked climbable – these things didn't seem like they could follow him up. Fighting through the pain, Jelani began to climb. His feet slipped several times, each jolt sending fresh waves of agony through his spine, but somehow he made it.
The view from the higher path stopped him cold. Several hundred feet up, on a parallel trail, the French man was surrounded by slime variants of himself. His swordsmanship was still solid, each strike precisely severing the brains of the creatures around him. But his movements were slightly erratic, desperate. Even from this distance, Jelani could see he was cornered.
A spark of hope tried to ignite in Jelani's chest. Maybe this wasn't over. Anybody could fall to their own demons.
Then another thought invaded, this one striking at his core:
"I'm too afraid to face my own thoughts and cant face the enemies around me, yet I'm still arrogant enough to think I can take the lead."
The thought cut off as Jelani spotted another slime forming behind him. One of the earlier ones were slowly climbing the wall – apparently they could follow him after all. His only option was to keep moving, to try to outpace them. Maybe, just maybe, he could figure out a way to take the lead.
Pure wishful thinking. One of the slimes ahead shot forward with unnatural speed. Jelani turned his shoulder at the last second, avoiding its slime blade, but the follow-up attack – a replication of a combo he typically used – caught him across the midsection. Acidic jelly splashed across his torso, eating through more of his work shirt.
While frantically wiping away the caustic substance, he activated Hex on the creature. Its movement halted for a precious second as the green smoke surrounded it, long enough for him to drive his blade through its form. But instead of piercing the brain, his sword hit open air as the slimes form liquified into the ground. After a few seconds its form started to quickly become gelatinous again.
He noted this occurence. Hex would buy him seconds of survival , but he didn't have enough cores to Hex them all and he had the cooldown to wait for between uses. His back injury also made it hard to capitalize on those brief moments. As more slimes closed in from every angle, Jelani's mind raced.
He raised his sword, the weight feeling heavier with each passing second. The scroll's words echoed in his mind: embrace the reflections that bind you in shadow in order to reach the light. These things weren't just copying his movements – they were weaponizing his own doubts against him.
"Does it want me to embrace these doubts?" he wondered. The idea seemed counter intuitive to what he’d always done. He’d been taught all his life that real men should never acknowledge their weaknesses. He knew it was an outdated way of thinking, but he wasn't from a silver spoon fed background so he’d done what got him respect from his peers. Suppress pain and focus on growth.
The slime that had been climbing after him reached the path and lunged, abandoning its blade-arm for grasping hands. Jelani tried to strike its brain mid-lunge, but like all the others, it simply shifted the organ away. The creature crashed into him, enveloping him in its acidic embrace.
The scream that tore from Jelani's throat wasn't voluntary. Liquid fire seemed to consume his upper body as the creature's substance ate through what remained of his clothes. He dismissed his blade instinctively, hands plunging into the molten jelly to grab at the brain, but it slipped through his fingers like smoke.
More slimes approached from all sides. Through the burning pain, Jelani caught another glimpse of the French man on his path, still surrounded. These things were drawn to their darkest thoughts, their deepest fears...
The realization hit him like cold water. Every phase of this trial was forcing him to face a different aspect of what kills ambitions. Here at the final stretch of the mountain the thing that could kill his ambition was himself. He considered that he might need to accept these doubts but he had no idea how that would affect the slimes
With acidic slime slowly eating away at his skin and more creatures closing in, what did he have left to lose?
Fighting to keep his head above the dissolving creature, Jelani focused on centering a thought in his mind: "’ I’m an arrogant son of a bitch! I know that deep down I've been afraid this whole time! So what?"
Jelani cringed at this mental admission but the slimes paused – just for a fraction of a second, but it was there. In that moment, Jelani felt something he hadn't noticed before: a psychic tether between him and the creatures, like a rubber band stretched to its limit.
"I doubt myself all the time," he continued, each word dragging truth from places he'd buried deep. "So I make impulsive moves to avoid being paralyzed in fear! It could get me killed one day but it feels good as fuck to win when the cards are stacked against me!"
The creatures froze longer this time. Jelani seized the moment, summoning his blade for a decisive thrust into the brain of the slime holding him. The creature collapsed, leaving behind a core in a puddle of liquified remains.
Standing there, his upper body covered in weak acid burns and his shirt in tatters, Jelani felt naked in more ways than one. The remaining slimes studied him with their featureless faces, as if waiting to see what other truths he might reveal.
He didn't give them the chance. Using their momentary stillness, he scrambled up the steep slope beside him, choosing the direct route over the winding path. But even as he climbed, he knew this was just a temporary reprieve.
These things weren't just going to let him go. Not until he faced many of the shadows he'd been running from.