Rising god
Chapter 65: Second Test: Choice

Chapter 65: Second Test: Choice

By the fifth day, Baines had finally overcome the first trial of the haunted house, though he was unaware of the time that had passed.

Five of his allotted twenty days had slipped away, consumed by the relentless cycle of spirits, ghosts, and mummies.

Outside, the spectators grew restless. The house’s unyielding vibrations had frayed their nerves, and the group of frustrated guards, desperate to force entry, began striking the structure with bursts of aura.

Their blades, imbued with raw energy, met the walls with a defiant clang, but the house stood impervious.

Instead, their swords chipped and charred, the metal scorched as if the building itself were retaliating. The air crackled with the guards’ frustration, their efforts futile against the house’s enigmatic defenses.

Meanwhile, across the Darkan lands, a starkly different scene unfolded.

With only ten days remaining until the grand tournament, the civilians launched into a vibrant ten-day festival. The streets bloomed with color, garlands of wildflowers draped over archways, vibrant carpets unfurled along the roads, and lanterns glowing with soft, warm light.

Visitors and tournament participants, arriving from distant corners of the empire, were greeted with open arms.

The warmth of the Darkan people touched their hearts, and some, charmed by the hospitality, began to dream of staying beyond the tournament’s end.

Among the festival’s attractions was the recently cleared Mortuary Ruin. The forest surrounding it had erupted into life, its potential unleashed in a riot of strange, luminescent plants and energy-infused fruits.

Towering trees shimmered with leaves that glowed faintly at night, and vines curled around the stones, pulsing with vibrant energy.

The ruin, once a place of dread, had become one of the empire’s most breathtaking wonders, drawing gasps from tourists.

For the Darkan people, this was a triumph, another feather in their cap as a burgeoning hub of wonder and power.

...

Inside the haunted house, Baines ascended the creaking stairs to the next floor.

The first test had drained him completely, and it had taken hours of rest.

Well, that was how long it took to replenish his soul energy.

As he reached the second floor, the environment shifted dramatically, catching him off guard.

The space was a blinding expanse of white walls, floor, and ceiling, all a seamless, sterile void that seemed to swallow sound and shadow.

The starkness was disorienting, as if he’d stepped into a realm where reality itself was erased.

Suddenly, his instincts flared, his hands reflexively gripping his swords.

Clink.

A blood-red sword materialized before him, its edge glinting with malicious intent.

He parried it with the blade from Last Front, the clash ringing in the silence. As the weapon dissolved into mist, Baines realized something chilling,

’My aura is gone?’ All he had left were his physical strength and speed, maybe the part that shocked him the most was that his soul access was also blocked.

Before he could process the loss, another attack came.

Clink.

He blocked it, his muscles straining, but the assailant vanished into the white void.

"Assassin," he muttered, his voice low and tense. He sheathed the demon blade, opting to wield the Last Front sword with both hands for better control.

The white expanse offered no clues, no shadows, no footprints, just an endless blank canvas of white.

Clink... Clink...

"Two," he thought, his focus sharpening to a razor’s edge. The attacks were swift, precise, and maddeningly elusive. Then, a third strike came, faster than before.

Clink... Clink... Clink... Slash!

Pain erupted in his knee as a blade bit deep, blood spraying across the pristine white floor.

Baines grunted, dropping to one knee, his free hand clutching the wound. Without the Eye or his aura to dull the pain or heal the injury, the blood flowed freely, staining the ground in a stark crimson pool.

And he couldn’t tend to it because,

"Fuck," he growled, bracing for the next attack.

Clink... Slash!

Another blade sliced into his shoulder, the pain sharp and searing. He groaned, his grip on the sword tightening as he forced himself to focus.

’I can’t die here,’ he thought, the words a mantra against the rising panic.

His plans, his mission, his family—all of it depended on his survival. If he did, everything went down the drain.

’I can’t die—’

A dagger materialized inches from his brow, too fast to counter. Time seemed to slow, the blade’s edge gleaming with lethal promise.

He died.

...

His eyes snapped open, his breath ragged.

The sensation of death lingered, a cold weight in his chest.

He’d felt it three times before, and each instance didn’t feel good.

However, now was different. He checked his body, no wounds, no scars. He was standing on the stairs again, whole and alive.

"How am I alive?" he whispered, his voice trembling with confusion.

He took a cautious step forward and froze.

There, on the white floor below, lay his own corpse, blood pooling beneath it.

The sight was a gut punch, his own lifeless eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. It was one thing to face death; it was another to see it embodied before him.

His stomach churned, but he forced himself to stay composed.

As if mocking him, the blood from his corpse rose, coalescing into a dozen jagged weapons, swords, daggers, spears, all shimmering with a malevolent red glow.

"Oh shit," Baines cursed, gripping his sword tighter.

Clink.

He deflected another assassin’s strike, the invisible assailant dissolving into mist. Before he could recover, the blood weapons surged forward, a deadly rain aimed at his heart.

Baines’s instincts kicked in, his body moving on pure reflex. ’Left, right, up—no, right!’ he thought, dodging and parrying with desperate precision.

The assassins struck in the gaps, their blades a blur of motion. He was holding his own, barely, when a sharp pain exploded in his back.

"Shit," he gasped, the trauma of a blade in his spine all too familiar. The blood weapons didn’t relent, piercing him again and again.

His vision darkened, and he collapsed, his life snuffed out once more.

He awoke on the stairs, his heart pounding.

The realization hit him like a hammer: the staircase was a choice.

On the stairs, his aura and soul energy were intact. But the moment he stepped onto the white floor, he was stripped of everything but his mortal strength.

It was a test of will. There was a decision to either press forward or retreat. Baines didn’t mind the idea, he hadn’t forgotten yet. He was here for something.

He leaped into the white void, swords ready.

...

"Ha... ha... ha..." Baines panted, staring at the grotesque tableau of his twentieth corpse, sprawled among the others.

Each death had been a lesson, a brutal education in survival. He’d tried everything, rolling across the floor, wielding both swords, leaping to avoid the blood weapons.

On their eleventh try, he realized the demon blade had proven most effective, absorbing the blood attacks, neutralizing their threat.

That left the five assassins, something he’d deduced by the fifteenth try. He could block their strikes now, though not without sustaining minor injuries.

"I’m done," he muttered, a faint smile tugging at his lips. But before he could savor the moment, his vision vanished. The white void became an impenetrable black.

"What?" he gasped.

Slash... Slash... Slash.

He awoke on the stairs, shock coursing through him.

"It wasn’t over?" The loss of sight had left him vulnerable, and the assassins had capitalized on it.

He returned to the floor, this time absorbing the blood weapons with the demon blade. After ten minutes of deflecting daggers, his vision went dark again. Prepared this time, he still died.

On his next attempt, he focused on his other senses and began to adjust.

"I can hear their movement," he realized, catching the faint whistle of air displaced by their blades.

Clink.

He deflected a dagger, but another caught him off guard. Death came swiftly.

By his fiftieth try, he could track the assassins by the subtle changes in the air, dodging and parrying with growing confidence.

On his fifty-fifth attempt, he had mastered it. He could dodge without his sight and even react comfortably, only for his hearing to vanish.

"Shit," he muttered. "After getting used to something, they take it." The house was relentless, stripping away each sense as he adapted.

Undeterred, he returned, and after another round of deaths, he decided to focus on smell.

The air was thick with the coppery tang of blood. It was so overwhelming at first, as it was his focus.

There was nothing in the air except blood.

It took ninety deaths to acclimate to it, to distinguish his own scent from the assassins’.

And to his dismay, they smelled identical to the blood weapons, blending seamlessly into the environment.

’Shit,’