Rise of the Devourer-Chapter 7Book 4: — Trial of Will Pt 1

Reality snapped back without warning. One moment he had been standing in the trial circle surrounded by friends and palace magicians, the next, he found himself here.

In a cave. A vast, dark, and eerily silent cave. Larger than any natural formation he had ever witnessed. Mist drifted through the space in languid spirals, following invisible currents and eddies. The vapor caught and reflected hidden lights within the fog, creating a subtle glow that illuminated the surface enough to barely see things. Stone walls vanished into darkness and uneven grounds stretched in all directions, marked by formations that might have been natural rock or something more deliberate. Arches suggested a ceiling somewhere above, lost in darkness and mist. It was only his superhuman perception that let him see the ceiling all the way up, or else he’d have thought he stood in some open void.

The oppressive stillness made the place truly unsettling. It pressed against his skin, muffling even the sound of his own breathing. The air hung thick and silent around him. Noah thanked the fact that he had [Abyssal Awareness] with him, or else he’d be walking blind through all of this, and that would’ve been a whole lot worse.

What [Abyssal Awareness] did not help with though, was the persistent feeling of eyes looking at him from somewhere in the darkness. He could’ve done without knowing that.

"Dark cave, fog, eyes watching from the shadows," Noah muttered. "Lovely, I’m on the set of a bad horror movie."

His words seemed to disappear in the mists, the cave muffling any sound. He moved deeper into the cave, picking a random direction to go in.

Each footstep produced a soft crunch on the ground below that struggled to reach his ears even with his heightened perception, heightening the creepiness of the place. The deeper he ventured, the thicker the atmosphere became, though not with heat or pressure. It settled into his thoughts like a physical presence, as if each breath drew something heavier than oxygen into his lungs.

Memory fragments. Fractured emotions. Half-remembered dreams and nightmares.

Noah froze in place, as his gut began to sink with dread.

He realized something terrible. Not through sight or sound, but through pure instincts, the primal awareness that had kept him alive all this time.

Something big was watching him.

The attention felt different from Zax's aura—a focus that was simultaneously more and less personal than the threats he was accustomed to facing. It regarded him with the dispassionate interest of a scholar examining a specimen: patient, methodical, utterly inhuman.

Noah had seen an Ascendant before. But whatever this was… felt bigger. It gave him the same feeling he’d felt when he’d first met Hellion. But harsher. Crueler. Like it wanted to twist him.

Noah felt his survival instinct scream at him to flee. Some primal human part within him, whatever that still remained, urged him to drop to the ground, press his forehead against the stone, and make himself small and unthreatening before this cosmic gaze.

Instead, Noah clenched his jaw and forced himself forward.

The mist thickened as the path curved left, the vast cave narrowing steadily. A low, thrumming sound made his bones vibrate and his vision blur. Through the fog ahead, he glimpsed movement.

Turn back. Turn back before it’s too late.

The thought crept through his mind, weaving itself so seamlessly with his own inner voice that he almost didn't recognize it as foreign. Why was he doing all this anyway? Why face unknown trials when he could simply... stop?

Noah faltered. His legs felt heavy, as if the ground itself kept pulling on them. The path behind him seemed safe, familiar. He could turn around, retrace his steps, and walk away. The others still had a chance after all. They could win the tournament, and complete their quest. He didn’t have to take on the burden all by himself.

He shook his head sharply and activated meditation. Taking a deep breath, he felt the cold wave of mana pulsing through him awaken his mind with a chill. The trial was planting fear inside of him. Not terror, not the suppression of aura, or absolute power—that was already there, but it wasn’t enough. And so it puts fear instead. Directly inside his heart.

I wonder how screwed I’d be without the General Resistance Zax trained me to have.

Noah could feel his resistance counteracting the worst of the effects. But clearly not enough to stop it entirely. He had prepared for something more straightforward, horrifying nightmarish monsters to fight, or simply a test of standing against the force of a powerful aura. But this would be far more insidious.

He focused on the mana flowing through his body, centering his consciousness. Drawing upon his inner reserves, he pushed back against the alien voice invading his thoughts.

Noah charged forward, cutting through the darkness. He split his attention between the oppression of the aura pressing down on him, and the mental attacks of fear that continued to push against his mind.

But as he moved further in, the presence pressing against his mind surged forward with renewed force.

A vast, inhuman laugh echoed through the darkness, like a predator watching it’s prey. Noah felt a chill go down his spine, as he felt a large presence shifting in the shadows. Whatever was out there, it was no longer trying to hide.

The mental pressure intensified, making him gasp as his resistances began to buckle. His thoughts scattered, and for an eternal moment, he lost all sense of identity, location, and purpose.

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

For one long moment, the boundaries between self and void blur and fade. Who was he? Why was he here? The darkness called… and it’s voice lured him in. Ah… maybe he should just sleep—

A brilliant light blazed within his soul.

[Septah’s Blessing] has activated.

The light cut through the mental storm like a beacon, providing a fixed point of reference in the chaos of his fractured consciousness. His thoughts began reassembling themselves, each fragment of his identity clicking into place.

I am Noah. I have a purpose. I will not surrender.

He surged forward, gritting his teeth as reality snapped back to him. Pure momentum carried him through the psychic pressure and mist, fueled by anger and an absolute refusal to yield.

The path curved again, following the cave's contours, growing narrower and narrower till it barely could fit him.

And there, at the end of his path, he finally saw it.

A stone pedestal rose from the cavern floor, its surface carved with shifting symbols that seemed to writhe in his peripheral vision. Above it, a metallic sphere hung suspended in the air, rotating slowly on its axis. The object pulsed with faint luminescence that matched the cave's ambient glow, its surface covered in barely visible patterns—geometric designs that folded in upon themselves in impossible configurations.

Noah approached cautiously, extending his senses to detect traps or hidden threats. The sphere appeared harmless, but in a place like this, appearances were meaningless. He reached out tentatively and channeled a small amount of mana into the floating artifact.

The response was immediate.

The orb pulsed once, then split open along previously invisible seams. It unfolded like a mechanical flower, revealing an interior far more complex than its simple exterior suggested. The inner mechanisms were both crystalline and organic, pulsing with their own rhythm as they reconfigured themselves.

When the transformation was complete, Noah found himself staring into an eye.

An actual eye, complete with iris, pupil, and all the biological components that should never exist in an artificial construct. It dilated as he watched, focusing on him with ancient, alien intelligence.

The world held its breath.

Above him, beyond the cave's ceiling and layers of stone, something immense stirred. Noah felt it like ice flooding his veins, a colossal presence suspended in the void between worlds, motionless yet utterly focused on this single point in space and time.

The eye in his hand seemed to glimmer with predatory glee as another eye, a much larger one, appeared somewhere far above him.

Recognition struck him like a punch to the gut.

The Watcher.

The primordial god of the endless cosmos, the watcher of souls and bringer of madness gazed down across impossible distances, and Noah felt its attention slice through him. He felt seen, as if every part of his body and soul were bare, under the scrutiny of a cold analytical patience beyond mortal comprehension.

Then the whispers began, soft and insidious. freewebnoveℓ.com

Who... are you?

The voice wrapped around his thoughts, seeping into the spaces between conscious and unconscious mind.

A hero? Or perhaps a monster wearing a hero's mask?

Each word probed his sanity, searching for weak points in his mental defenses.

You know the truth in your heart.

Noah stepped back from the pedestal but the world around him had changed. The cave walls were cracking and crumbling, revealing twisting nightmarish landscapes. As the stone barriers fell away, multiple pathways opened before him.

Some new routes blazed with colors that existed only in dreams, hues without names in any mortal language. Others descended into darkness so absolute it seemed to devour light itself. One path spiraled upward in a helical twist that vanished into a canopy of stars. Another curved downward into what resembled the circulatory system of some titanic creature, veins of molten rock and flowing metal pulsing with alien life.

Some roads shimmered with fragments of memory, scenes from his life projected onto the mist like ghostly slides, playing in endless loops along their lengths.

Only one path remained unchanged: the route by which he had arrived.

Noah stepped back onto it. The fog thickened around him as he retraced his steps, but it no longer impeded his progress.

Do you remember the boy? The whisper returned, softer now, almost gentle.

The mist swirled and shifted, gray giving way to green, brown, and crimson. A forest materialized around him, leaves rustling in a breeze he couldn't feel.

Noah saw something ahead on the path that made him stop, his breath catching in his throat.

A younger version of himself—perhaps ten years old—knelt beside a blood-stained boulder. The boy's hands were raw and split, knuckles scraped to bone. Claw marks raked across his ribs, the wounds still weeping. At his feet lay a juvenile mountain lion's corpse, not that much bigger in size than the boy, with its skull crushed by repeated impacts against the stone.

Vague memories returned to him. On some hiking trip in the past, back when he’d still been in school. He’d been… with one other boy when they’d gotten lost and soon encountered this.

He remembered now. Remembered how the boy had looked at him afterward. Not with relief to have survived. No, he had felt afraid.

Perhaps he had been right.

The forest scene dissolved, replaced by another vision. Noah saw himself now. Older, taller, and far more inhuman. Behind him stretched a trail of corpses, a path through time littered with the remains of his kills. Monsters, humans, beings that defied classification. An endless path covered in blood that he had spilt.

This is who you are, the mist whispered, perhaps with approval. A predator that devours everything in its path.

Noah stood motionless, heart hammering against his ribs, jaw clenched tight.

How long before you turn on... your friends?

Above him, beyond forest and mist, the presence pulsed with focused attention. When it spoke again, the whispers were gone, replaced by a screeching alien voice that grated his sanity.

CHILD OF HUNGER AND DEATH. HARBINGER OF THE END.

STOP FIGHTING WHAT YOU ARE.

The eye above dilated further, and Noah watched in horror as the pupil began splitting down its center. Jagged fangs arranged in concentric circles, lining the maw that seemed to lead inward to infinity.

Noah turned and ran.

The ground fractured with each footfall, reality itself was shattering around him. Shards of memory rained from above, each containing a moment from his life. They shattered against stone, mixing past and present into chaos.

With each heartbeat, the maw drew closer, its pull intensifying as its structure continued unfolding. He could hear it now, the sound of chaos, the kind of noise entropy would make if it could scream.

Noah vaulted over a crumbling ledge, sliding across the disintegrating ground that cracked at his touch, rolled to his feet, and kept running. The world continued to shatter as the watcher gave chase, and Noah’s foot caught on something. A gap where reality had simply ceased. The ground cracked around him like thin glass and he plummeted downwards, into the waiting maw of the giant eye.

The Watcher swallowed him whole.