Kaelen’s tone shifted, becoming deadly serious as he prepared to explain the final rules.

  "You have access to 20%," Kaelen continued, crossing his massive arms over his chest. "But that is your absolute limit, and your body cannot sustain it for long. For now, do not exceed 10%. Learn to flow it through your limbs to harden your skin, or focus it into a single point to pierce your enemies. Distribution is the key to survival."

  Suddenly, the atmosphere shifted. The air didn't just turn cold; it became heavy, crushing. A wave of pitch-black energy, dense as obsidian, erupted from Kaelen. The entire Void shuddered, the floating islands groaning under the sheer force of the pressure. Kai felt like an ant standing before a collapsing skyscraper.

  "This," Kaelen growled, his eyes glowing with an abyssal light, "is only 10%, or even less, of my released Jonk. Remember this feeling. When your Jonk is superior to your opponent's, their attacks become mere stings. You don't just fight them with a blade; you fight them with the sheer weight of your existence."

  The black aura vanished as quickly as it had appeared, leaving Kai gasping for air, his head spinning from the aftershock. As long as he felt Kaelen's Jonk activated, he felt a sensation worse than vomiting. It felt strange; you couldn't explain it in normal terms. Before he could recover, Kaelen grabbed him. The Master moved so fast that Kai didn't even feel the transition to a new area. This guy amazes me more and more, Kai thought, dazed. How fast is he to move like that without even activating his Jonk?

  They stood at the edge of a jagged, circular rim that looked like the mouth of a volcano, leading down into a darkness so thick it looked liquid.

  "What is this?" Kai asked, his voice echoing in the vast silence.

  "Your entry exam," Kaelen replied, his eyes fixed on the abyss. "To become a Void Watcher—not a leader, not a grandmaster, just a soldier of the dark—you must prove you can breathe in the depths. This is the Pit. You will be thrown in, and you must survive for five minutes. Nothing more, nothing less."

  "Five minutes?" Kai scoffed, clutching the hilt of his sword. "That sounds easy."

  "Time is a lie in that pit ,boy" Kaelen rumbled, a dark glint in his eyes. "Five minutes down there will feel like an eternity in your mind. Down there, the things that shouldn't exist are hungry."

  Before Kai could protest, Kaelen kicked him.

  Kai plummeted. He fell through the freezing air for what felt like hours. The air had a strange smell that he had never encountered before, something that wasn't human. The wind screamed in his ears until, suddenly, he hit the bottom. It wasn't stone; it felt like landing on a pile of cold, damp silk. It was pitch black. The only things visible were them.

  Forms began to peel away from the shadows—curved, abstract shapes that defied geometry. They had no thickness, like living paper cutouts made of nightmare, their only features being rows of glowing, jagged yellow eyes. They didn't growl; they hissed like steam.

  Kai’s heart hammered against his ribs. Determination, he reminded himself. Kaelen said it feeds on will! He tried to ignite his Jonk, aiming for 10%, but his fear acted like a wet blanket. He couldn't even spark 1%. The monsters began to circle, their flat, two-dimensional bodies flickering in and out of existence.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  I won't be the weak kid anymore, Kai hissed through gritted teeth. I won't be the one who cries over a bad grade or a bully! He wasn't fighting for a noble cause yet—he was fighting for himself. It was a raw, selfish determination, but it worked. A surge of red energy traveled down his arm and into the blade. He managed to stabilize it at 5%. It wasn't the 10% Kaelen ordered, but it was enough.

  A tall, spindly monster lunged, its abstract face twisting into a silent scream. Kai was terrified; after all, he was just a teenager, just a human, but still Kai didn't retreat. He stepped into the strike, swinging the sword in a desperate arc. The blade sliced through the creature’s paper-thin midsection, cutting it clean in two. For a second, Kai felt a rush of victory. But then, the two halves of the monster simply flowed back together like ink in water. It lunged again, slamming a shadowy limb into Kai’s chest.

  Kai braced himself, focusing every ounce of Jonk into his skin. Harden!

  The impact sounded like a hammer hitting a stone wall. Kai was sent skidding back ten meters, his boots carving furrows in the dark ground. He stopped, gasping, waiting for the pain of broken ribs. It never came. He looked down at his chest. There wasn't even a scratch. The monster’s superior speed meant nothing if it couldn't bypass the weight of Kai’s Jonk.

  The boy who had once cried over a bruised knee looked up. A slow, terrifying grin spread across his face, mirroring Kaelen’s predatory smirk, not because he wasn't afraid, but because he realized he had a chance. "My Jonk is heavier than yours, isn't it?" he whispered to the shadows.

  He didn't wait for them to attack again. He gripped his sword, his eyes reflecting the yellow glow of the monsters, and charged. His grin widened as he felt the impact. His Jonk was heavier, denser. But pride is a dangerous thing in the Pit.

  He gripped his sword, funneling every drop of his 5% energy into the blade until it hummed with a dark, vibrating intensity. He lunged, aiming to cleave the nearest monster in two. But the creature didn't just stand there. It flickered—moving with a liquid, abstract speed that Kai wasn't ready for. The monster slipped past his guard and hammered a shadowy fist into Kai’s midsection.

  Since Kai had moved all his energy into the sword, his body was as fragile as a normal human’s. The air left his lungs in a violent spray of crimson. He was sent flying into the oppressive darkness, his back slamming into a jagged outcrop of Void-stone.

  "Damn it..." Kai wheezed, clutching his side. The skin was already purple and swollen, but deeper down, he felt the sickening grind of broken ribs. The Void seemed to pulse around him, sensing his weakness, trying to swallow him whole.

  Distribute, he thought, his teeth gritting against the agony. I have to split the energy. He began to flow the Jonk between his sword and his shattered ribs, dulling the pain.But there was a difference between simple determination and Total Concentration. Kai’s eyes changed. The fear of death was replaced by a cold, mechanical necessity to win. Suddenly, he pushed. He didn't just use 10%—he couldn't sustain that. Instead, he used it in a burst. A 10% Dash.

  BOOM.

  To an observer, Kai simply vanished. He reappeared behind a monster, his sword a blur. He slashed dozens of times in a single second, a whirlwind of steel and red energy. But as he stepped back, panting, he saw the nightmare: the creature was already knitting itself back together.

  "Why won't you stay dead?" Kai hissed.

  He watched the way the yellow eyes flickered, noticing how the darkness and the energy flow didn't just move randomly—it all converged and pulsed within the creature's head and neck. A psychotic, arrogant laugh bubbled up in his throat. It was the laugh of someone who had finally seen through the trick.

  "I get it now," he whispered, his voice dripping with newfound malice.

  In an instant, Kai entered a flow-like state.He didn't just attack; he hunted. He moved with a predatory grace, appearing behind the tallest monster before it could even turn its abstract face. This time, he didn't just slash the body. He focused the Jonk into the edge of his blade and, with one clean, explosive motion, he took the monster’s head.

  The monster let out a shriek so piercing it would have been heard streets away in the human world. It didn't regenerate. It dissolved into black smoke. Kai stood there, leaning on his sword, his chest heaving as he took a moment to rest among the remaining shadows.

  Then, Kaelen’s voice echoed through the abyss, cold and mocking.

  "Don't get comfortable, boy. It’s only been one minute."