The training hall of Nova Star was a dome of obsidian, polished and sterilised to perfection. Every movement and sound echoed on the polished stone vibrantly.
Kareem cracked his knuckles slowly, the sound feeling deliberately taunting. It echoed in every corner of the chamber like the toll of some ancient war bell.
He hadn't taken on any savage form. No beastly transformation, no monstrous enhancements. Just Kareem—towering, disciplined, focused.
His black combat gear was sleeveless and slightly worn. Muscles coiled beneath his skin like hot steel, pulsing and ready to pummel them.
He grinned but not out of joy, but calculation.
"Let's make this fun. Two versus one."
Shin's eyes narrowed. The greenish hue of his Venus Jade shimmered over his frame like a thin second skin. Five flytrap stalks emerged from his back, twitching with an intelligence of their own.
Beside him, Edoran shifted into his new form, longer, serpentine, and eerily silent. The scales across his body held a faint metallic gleam, an oil-slick shimmer in the hall's soft lighting.
It was from a snake like savage he had killed in Star Wraith which now lived again through him. His fangs pulsed with paralytic venom, potent enough to freeze nerves on contact.
Shin glanced sideways. "Are we doing this for real?"
Edoran didn't answer, but the flick of his tail was all the signal Shin needed.
Kareem rolled his neck.
"Ready?"
Neither replied.
Shin vanished first. A blur of movement, faster than the eye could track. The flytraps lashed forward like vipers, their jaws clamping shut mid-air with thunderous snaps.
Kareem barely moved. He casually sidestepped the first, ducked under the second, and caught the third with one hand. The tendril writhed in his grip.
With an effortless yank, Kareem pulled Shin off his feet. Shin barely had time to register the motion before Kareem drove an elbow straight into his sternum.
The sound was like a tree snapping in a storm, completely resounding off the walls. Shin's body crumpled and skidded across the polished tiles.
But Edoran was already airborne, his lithe body weaving like a ribbon through smoke.
His form was near-invisible, blending against the walls, flickering like a mirage. He struck from below with his fangs extended, aiming for Kareem's exposed flank.
Kareem turned at the last second and slammed his forearm into Edoran's jaw. The snake-form tumbled mid-air, slammed into a column, and dropped hard.
"Too slow," Kareem muttered. Then he yawned.
Edoran hissed, slipping back into a ready stance, the impact already bruising the scales on his left side. Shin reappeared on the opposite flank, coughing blood but still wearing that signature smirk.
"You always were a bastard."
"I try."
They launched forward again, this time together hoping for a better result.
Shin stayed at midrange, letting his flytraps whip around like a cage of steel vines. Kareem moved like he was dancing but not dodging wildly, but shifting just enough, deflecting with forearms, elbows, knees.
His footwork was crisp, mathematical. Edoran weaved in and out of the chaos, darting in low, slicing at Kareem's calves, striking at his sides.
Edoran's fangs sank into Kareem's left calf. Venom pulsed instantly, an electric surge down the leg.
Kareem winced but just barely.
Edoran felt a thrill of triumph.
'Paralyzed. He's got to be paralyzed now—'
But Kareem moved anyway, without any changes.
"Nice try."
He gripped Edoran by the snout and spun, using Edoran's entire serpentine body like a flail. The snake collided into Shin mid-strike, and both were hurled into the wall like rag dolls. Shin's breath exploded out of him. Edoran's tail twitched, nerves misfiring from the impact.
Kareem let them drop and flexed his leg. The paralysis was spreading—his muscle control twitching. He looked at the skin around the bite, already turning a faint blue.
"Effective," he said. "But not enough."
He exhaled. Just one breath.
Energy surged outward, like a pulse of pure heat. He had finally activated his core right then. Still, he did not turn into a savage.
The venom boiled in his veins, then dissipated and burned away by the sheer density and power of the core he used.
The core's power showed what kind of horrible savages he had vanquished.
Shin groaned, rolling onto his knees. "What the hell are you?"
"Just a simple worker."
Edoran circled again. His snake form didn't have brute strength, but it was agile, slippery and precise. His mind raced.
'Strike the pressure points. No frontal contact. Keep low.'
Shin yelled, and all five flytraps launched forward like spears. The air cracked with their speed.
Kareem didn't flinch.
The first hit his left shoulder. It bounced off.
The second latched onto his waist. He twisted, snapped it in half.
The third, fourth, and fifth came in a swirl of emerald and thorns. Kareem leapt, spinning mid-air and twisting through the flurry like a dancer. He grabbed two stalks as he landed and ripped.
Shin flew forward involuntarily, off balance.
Kareem met him with a knee to the face. Mid-air.
The sound was sharp, immediate. Blood sprayed as Shin crashed onto his back, his jade armor cracked and leaking essence.
Edoran didn't hesitate. He launched himself on Kareem, his coil tightening around him. His serpentine body wrapped tightly around Kareem, locking his arms, his torso, his legs. The hold was brutal.
His fangs drew back, ready for another injection.
"Tight grip," Kareem noted, voice calm.
"But not unbreakable."
His core flared again.
The force was immense, it was an implosion turned outward. Edoran's body was ripped off of Kareem, blasted backward across the hall. He slammed into a pillar, curled up instinctively, then hit the floor with a sickening thud.
Edoran didn't let up.
He coiled tighter around Kareem's chest, compressing his ribcage, making it harder to breathe. His tail lashed up and slammed against the back of Kareem's knees in rhythm, trying to buckle him, to force a stumble.
Every scale on his body flexed with pressure. He struck again. This time not with fangs, but by constricting hard enough to crack bone.
Shin stirred, saw the opportunity, and forced himself to move. His jade was flickering, on the verge of failure, but two flytraps still answered his call. They darted toward Kareem's exposed back like daggers.
"Now!" Shin shouted.
The flytraps struck, one digging into Kareem's shoulder, the other snapping tight around his thigh.
For a second, just for a second, Kareem was pinned.
Edoran's eyes flared. He twisted, venom ready.
'One shot. If I hit the neck, he might actually fall—'
But Kareem's voice cut through the chaos, quiet and unfazed.
"Good coordination," he said.
And then he flexed.
Not just muscles. His core flared. Resonance rippled like a living shockwave. The energy detonated outward, shredding Shin's flytraps mid-air, ripping Edoran's grip open like a torn rope. Both of them were flung back, limbs ragged, bodies breaking.
"Your venom's good," Kareem said, shaking his leg. "Next time, inject it deeper."
Edoran could barely respond. His ribs felt like jelly.
Kareem moved. But not like before.
This time, he vanished.
No sound. No blur. Just gone.
Shin barely managed to lift his head before Kareem appeared in front of him.
One punch.
It was a clean, perfect and devastating punch.
The flytraps collapsed immediately. Shin's jade cracked down the center like a broken egg. His body soared through the air, weightless, and crashed into the far wall as a crater formed where his body hit. He didn't get up.
But Kareem wasn't done.
As Edoran pulled himself up, his body shaking. Kareem was already on top of him. A fist to the gut folded the boy in half. A follow-up hammerfist sent him sprawling.
Then Kareem grabbed Edoran by the neck and slammed him through one of the stone tiles, embedding him halfway in the floor.
"Still holding back," Kareem said. "You think your pain threshold is the limit? It's not."
Edoran hissed, tried to coil around his legs again, but Kareem stomped his tail and pinned him in place. Blood leaked from Edoran's mouth.
He opened his fangs and spat one last venom burst.
Kareem ducked, slid in a blink, and uppercut Edoran's jaw with terrifying precision.
Edoran's form broke entirely, as he reverted to human mid-air before slamming into the ground like a puppet with cut strings.
Silence.
Somewhere across the room, Shin groaned.
Kareem stood tall, untouched.
He walked slowly toward the two crumpled bodies. Not with arrogance, but gravity. Like a soldier walking a battlefield after victory. He looked down at them, not in disdain, but reflection.
"You're not weak," he said. "But this…"
He gestured at their wrecked forms.
"This is the difference between someone who trains to win… and someone who's survived monsters far worse than men."
Shin, barely conscious, chuckled. "You're insane…"
"Probably." Kareem knelt beside him and offered a hand.
Shin slapped it away. "Screw you."
Kareem smiled faintly and turned to Edoran.
Edoran twitched. Tried to speak. Blood dribbled from his lip.
"You can reach," Kareem said. His tone softened just slightly.
He tapped Edoran's forehead with two fingers.
"Your body remembers more than your mind accepts. That collar of yours… it may push you down but you have to rise up against it.
He stood, towering over them both like a statue of wrathful mercy.
"Rest. In two days, we will go again. No savage forms. Just your core. I will invite Tobias and Lily as well to tag along."
He turned, walking away.
"And this time…" he said over his shoulder, "I expect you to hit me hard enough to bleed."
Each of his steps echoed like a drumbeat.
Funeral bells, Edoran thought.
He exhaled, at last. The ceiling above spun in slow spirals. Pain flared in every nerve ending.
Shin stirred beside him, coughing again.
"You alive?" Edoran croaked.
"No," Shin rasped. "Just too angry to die."
They both laughed, short, sharp and broken.
The training had only just begun.