For All the ruckus caused by the triplets, breakfast itself turned out to be a silent affair and who would dare to peep when the king was as angry as he was today. The shuffling of feet and small eye glances around the room from everyone besides the King and queen were the only indication of how uncomfortable they were in all this. But who would voice out their opinions in such an environment, their attention was all focused on hopelessly repelling their father's suffocating aura and simply not being crushed by it and the worst part about it was, they were all failing.

As Elijah looked up at his brothers he saw their auras flashing in an effort to protect them, Cayden's light yellow aura bobbing up and down around his person, David's own silver aura doing the same but despite all this, despite the amount of focus and intent they put into their protection and the countless lessons they received on aura control, they were simply outmatched. How were they expected to succeed such power and might? It was pure lunacy.

The worst part in Elijah's mind was that this was nowhere near his father's full might. No not by a long shot, if anything he had heard from his instructors was true, then this was merely him holding himself back as much as possible. How were any of them supposed to compete with that? Just how?

The grating sound of a chair as it slid across marble tiles suddenly brought Elijah out of his stupor and pushed his consciousness back to the present. He wasn't surprised as the King simply stood and made his way out of the dining room to begin his day, not bothering to spare a glance at his wife and kids, almost like their presence was not important to him that day.

Elijah met his brothers’ eyes and while their eyes betrayed worry, his held nothing but rage. And so, as soon as the king left the room, Elijah excused himself and departed as well. He seemed to hear his mother calling out to him but he refused to respond and simply stalked his way through the palace. He made his way through the many twists and turns, through the many rooms that littered the halls of the castle and found his way to a simple looking door. The exact door he was looking for. He opened it and behind it lay a flight of stairs seemingly heading into an underground room of some sort.

Elijah simply walked down these stairs, exuding a confidence that only someone familiar with this place could produce. He fearlessly walked into the dark room and went to stand in what he knew was its centre.

“Luminos.” His voice echoed across the entire room and with little delay, a light shined on his figure and it rippled to cover the entire room from his position to reveal an empty space all around him. It was just him and the bricks that made up the room, or so it seemed.

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“Illusion sets. Second Rank, full functionality. Auric beast type, corrupted. Auric beast species, randomise. Number of beasts per wave, incremental but starting at two. Condition of failure, incapacitation or aura depletion. Finalise orders and produce.” After he had seemingly spewed a random set of different phrases, the walls around him glowed blue with what seemed to be tiny inscriptions connected lining their bricks. What followed next could only be described as miraculous.

Two beasts materialised facing Elijah. They were the size of large dogs, their joints showcasing sharp splinters protruding from where their limbs met. Dull red eyes staring at him with long vertical pupils lining the iris Claws sharp enough to puncture and tear steel were seen flexing on their paws. Their teeth littered their snout, with elongated fangs standing out among the rows of man-eating teeth. They weren't as bad direwolves but the blood dogs were a formidable species to go up against. If this were any other day, he would have wielded his sabre and looked to cut them down but today was different. No today he was here to vent and what better way to vent than to use your fists.

“Begin illusion.” As his voice fell the two beasts in front of him suddenly growled at him. Their eyes targeting their prey and seemingly scanning for any weaknesses to exploit.

And so, with a predatory smile lining his lips. Elijah jumped into battle. His fist cooked back as his arc in the air reached its apex and he started his descent right in between them and as he touched down, his fist, fueled by his momentum tore a hole into the floor and as he looked up to inspect the damage, he found that the two beasts had completely moved out of harm's way standing at either side of him, one to his left and one to his right. And they were both staring at him, circling him like prey.

After a few seconds of waiting in tense silence. The battle recommenced, this time it was the blood dogs that made the first move silent agreement, they both decided to pounce on him from either side. Looking to close off his means of escape. Gritting his teeth, he got up once again and sprinted towards the beast to his left and released a quick uppercut to its snout followed by a quick punch to its right rib in quick succession felling the beast and giving himself some time to face the second one.

Wasting no movement, he leapt backwards, rotating his body and meeting the second beast with a back kick right on its neck, causing it to shift its direction and falling away harmlessly from him.

He couldn't celebrate too quickly though because the first beast had quickly recovered and was already on him, swiping at him furiously with its enormous claws, Elijah found himself forced to hurriedly dodge them so as to not get any damage to his person, looking for a weakness to exploit in its attack patterns but just as he was about to take his chance he was heard a whistling sound behind him and he performed a quick roll to the right to avoid the hit. Facing the two beasts he found himself smiling but he didn't want to spend time on these two beasts, he had more to get through. And so reaching into his aura, he pulled out his black flames and set them to cover just his fists and legs. The temperature of the room increased drastically, but Elijah didn't mind it, the wolves on the other hand took a step back in apprehension of this new development revealed by their opponent and Elijah found that he liked it. He liked it very much.

“Let's get this out of the way, shall we. I really do have much bigger beasts to fight. And I tire of this farce of a match.” He said with a maddened grin lining his face. And with that statement, the two beasts had just realised that they were never the predators in this battle. They were the prey all along.