Zarek breathed heavily, his gaze landing on Crux and the latter's landing on him. There wasn't much to be said between the two.
Crux didn't smile, he didn't gloat, he didn't even seem to get serious when Zarek appeared. With the heat billowing around him in waves, he stood at the peak of what looked like a long path and an even taller length of stairs, the burns beneath his eyes looking all the more prominent beneath the flickering lights of red gold around him.
To Zarek's back, the sound of footsteps had long stopped. Standing at the start of the so-called Trial of Fire, he caught his breath slowly, and nothing seemed to be coming to rush him.
The pain in his body was coming in waves and spikes, every inhale feeling like hot coals not just because of the steaming air around him, but also because of just how far he had pushed his body to get here.
The irony was that if Crux and Belladoll hadn't wanted to let him get this far, it would be doubtful that he could have made it at all.
There were too many C-Class threats in his enclave, and the number of teammates the two had brought was quite a few as well. In fact, it was more than Zarek expected.
They had mostly hidden well in the carnage—aside from Dalton, who likely knew that hiding wouldn't have made sense—but Zarek had spotted every single one of them.
It was clever.
They didn't care about the lives and deaths of those they had brought along with them, so there was no need to limit how many they took. Instead, they could use them as cannon fodder to ensure that Zarek and the others didn't end up with any good roles or positions to slip into.
In the end, that gave them monopoly over the enclave, and their control was nigh ironclad.
The only one they didn't control was the one Sona had to step into…
And then that left this Trial of Fire.
The moment Zarek heard of it, he knew that it was, ironically, the crux of everything. Nothing about this enclave had anything to do with real flames, and yet here was some raging tempest of fireworks ready to burn him to a crisp.
Zarek took a step forward, the heat licking against his body. It tried to latch onto his Lurker's Godsfall, but it flaked off instead, unable to find something to combust.
With one step after another, Zarek's body was quickly becoming a hot box. Trapped within his own Godsfall, he was overheating, and his sweat was unable to act as normal.
His Godsfall was strong enough to resist these flames, being in C-Class. But it wasn't nearly enough.
Another step.
Then another.
Zarek walked down the path slowly, his approach to Crux steady. Even as the pain increased, he didn't falter in the slightest.
This was the so-called Trial of Flames. How sturdy was your energy? How strong was your will?
Very strong.
—
[Charisma has shown great progress]
—
>[Charisma: D]
-
>[Charisma: D+]
—
Zarek had been in a state of perpetual suffering for more than a day already. He hadn't moaned, he hadn't whined, he had hardly flinched at all.
His Charisma Growth Potential was shockingly poor, and yet it had advanced not just once, but twice in this barely more than 24-hour period.
That wasn't a commentary on how powerful [Limit Break] was.
It was proof of just the kind of pain Zarek had been enduring every moment since that toxin touched his body.
They hardly had any idea. While they were planning out every meticulous detail, trying to drive him into a corner, trying to catch him in a moment of weakness to spring a trap on the Ashborn Demon they feared so much…
He had been scratching and clawing for his very life.
His breathing felt like countless needles were peppering his lungs.
His walking felt like his bones were fracturing with every light and delicate step.
And now he was being trapped in a hot box. Even the slightest bit of heat would have likely felt like a sauna to him now, considering how sensitive he was…
Let alone this.
Zarek made it to the bottom of the staircase, his gaze still locked onto Crux. Until now, the man had done nothing at all but stand there, unmoving. It was like he hadn't really come to trap Zarek here at all.
Step.
Zarek's leg moved and he climbed up the first step, and then the second.
He exhaled shaggy breaths, his maw opening in strings of black as though in hopes that would give him some relief, but none of that came.
It made it worse, like lava was being poured down his throat and coating his lungs in molten rock. Piercing lines of pain assaulted his mind, and even his breakthrough hadn't cleared his mind for much more than a single brief instant before it was cast into an even deeper abyss.
But he kept walking, kept moving forward, kept a steady pace.
There was a slight tremble in Crux's eyes, but nothing more as he regained his steadiness.
Zarek could tell. He had the same problem Belladoll had. They weren't Crux and Belladoll. Not truly.
The methods that Suki had used were shocking, and probably most effective on the man himself, but they were far from perfect.
However, did they need to be, when Zarek was at such a disadvantage?
Step.
Zarek made it to the final ledge, his feet still steady, his body having already lost the last drops of sweat it had left to give.
He stood face to face with Crux. Well, as face to face as you could get when about five meters or so separated you.
There was a circular field of flames, and presumably, after making it to this point, Crux was meant to let you go, passing through this field and exiting toward safety.
But Zarek had never been naive.
Crux was here to kill.