Marcus widened his eyes when he saw the remains of the battle, only 4 slaves were the ones alive...
'How is this possible?'
He walked forward and scanned each of them, his mere presence was enough to frighten them and make them bow their heads down, unable to move or run away.
"You, what happened here?"
Marcus glared at a man with a supple face, the man was skinny and weakened, it seemed like he suffered both physically and mentally.
"I- , dead... all died. It happened too fast."
The man spoke in a shaky voice, not even daring to look up at the fearsome warrior.
"Who did it?"
"I don't know sir..."
The man seemed to have something to hide, as if reluctant to share out of fear.
Marcus decided to let it slide, the words of a slave were useless to him after all.
'Was there another essence bearer here?'
When he left he was sure that his men would end up winning the fight, he felt rather sad to have miscalculated such a possibility that led to the deaths of his comrades.
He started to check the battlefield and analyze it, it indeed seemed like a more fearsome warrior assaulted the other mercenaries, this was proven by the cut marks on one of his comrades back, and then flawless sword slashes against multiple hooded men, much different from the ones killed by the mercenaries, as if they were weaker in power and thus could not reach too deep but still managed to be precise and deadly.
'Weird.'
The hints of the battle stopped at some point but there was no track to show that the intruder left the scene.
It soon started to rain, Marcus looked up and clicked his tongue, what bad timing.
"Prepare you 4, we are going to keep going forward."
Despite the unfortunate fight that had taken place, Marcus intended on taking his mission to the end, at least that would honor the duties for which his comrades had died.
The slaves arranged themselves and were ready to head onward, they waited for the essence bearer to lead them but the lean man seemed to be in the middle of a ritual, he was taking the swords of his fallen comrades and placing them in front of them with the hild upward.
He examined the zone once again, in search of the last sword, finally he found it, corpses surrounded the bloodied sword, as if displaying the true worth of the one who wielded it.
What a pity that man was dead.
Marcus leaned down to pick the sword, however, just when he was about to grab it a sharp pain erupted from his ankle.
With a shocked expression, Marcus jumped away from whatever had caused him the pain, he landed on both his feet and could feel the uncomfortable stinging sensation of the wound.
Marcus' ankle had been cut, a deep wound caused his teeth to grit in pain, he could barely step on his right foot now.
"Hahaha... I got you!"
A childish laugh mocked the seasoned warrior. When Marcus turned around, he saw a young kid with inky black hair and blue eyes that was slowly getting up from the ground, the boy had faked his death right beside the sword, managing to cut Marcus' ankle.
"You..."
Suddenly, Marcus could link the events together, the short individual in front of him was most likely the one responsible for the strange deaths of his comrades. The boy seemed to have been a slave as well, the 2 metal shackles clearly showed that, however there was no chain binding them together, it had been cut by the strike of a sword most surely.
Although Marcus was a Mystic Luminary, he chose to not rush towards the threat immediately, his instincts were screaming at him that this boy was dangerous, he was already wounded critically by him after all.
"Are you an essence bearer? How come you have no mark?"
Marcus tried to stall for time by asking those questions, he was also quite curious about it since they did check all the slaves for any affinity towards any god, they were all normal humans from what he knew.
The boy stood up and picked the sword he had used as bait, slowly approaching his enemy while a large grin decorated his face.
"I have no mark because I am not an essence bearer.... yet."
Marcus could not process the last word that had been said as he was met with a clash of swords, he grunted in pain because he was forced to put his weight on the injured foot.
Levi did not expect to push him over with just this attack, he knew not to underestimate the lean warrior.
Marcus pushed forward and raised his right arm up, threatening to slash downwards and rip the vicious slave in halves. Despite the ferocious force and speed he showed, Marcus hit nothing but air, the boy had dodged to the side, as if expecting the strike.
Levi prepared a slash of his own, aiming to cut the man's abdomen from the side.
Albeit a bit surprised that his attack missed, Marcus was already getting ready to dodge the sword, that is when he realized that his movements got slower, sluggish and delayed. He did manage to dodge a deadly strike but a deep wound was still present on the left side of his abdomen, blood painting his clothes in red.
'Good!'
After countless fights against the seasoned warrior, Levi obviously analyzed the deadly battle style of the man, to the point he could dodge some attacks with his eyes closed. That is why he chose to cut the man's right ankle, he noticed that Marcus put his weight on it quite a lot of times, either to dodge or to deliver an attack.
At this rate, Levi would manage to win quite easily, his opponent already received 2 strikes which impaled him considerably.
Alas, it was not going to be that easy.
Marcus' muscles bulged and tensed up, he exhaled heavily and focused his eyes on the target in front of him, the essence bearer started to rely on his tricks.
Levi squinted his eyes and frowned, he did not think that Marcus would fight him seriously this early, but it was to be expected, the essence bearer would not take him easy just because he was smaller.
Enduring through the pain of walking, Marcus dashed forward, closing the distance between him and the boy in an instant. The sword's edge threatened to cut the boy's neck from its root but when Marcus swung, he clearly felt that it was shallow and empty, the boy had jumped back just in time and got away with only a small cut.
Without wasting any time, Marcus throwed attack after attack, he completely ignored the mess he was making of his right foot and only focused on killing his opponent.
However, none of his attacks hit the enemy, the boy seemed to always dodge at the limit or parry the attack and try to launch a deadly strike of his own.
It almost seemed like the 2 fighters were entangled in a beautiful dance. The boy moved swiftly, dodging and dashing to the side to slash at his enemy, as if he was a snake trying to coil around his opponent's body.
The battle went on for almost 5 minutes and Levi was growing tired, was this plan not going to work either? It seemed that he only slowed the man down to the point where he could keep up with his powered up state. His muscles were already spasming from all the movement.
'Damn it!'
Levi was sweating profusely, he got a moment of rest but it was not going to last long.
Marcus rushed forward and gave a battle cry, somehow the man seemed more desperate to kill his opponent. Levi was taken aback by the sudden change in his pattern but quickly adapted by dashing forward, maybe it was reckless from his side but Levi intended to lose his left arm and pierce the man's stomach, that way he would end up victorious first, hopefully.
Marcus seemed in a frenzy to kill the little warrior in front of him, as if in a rush to end him as soon as possible.
The lean warrior swung downward and Levi dodged just as little so the strike landed on his shoulders, it seemed like the warrior did not expect Levi to do such a reckless move and in the next moment the boy's left arm was cut off and the warrior's abdomen got pierced by the sharp sword.
Bestial screams filled the expanse of the battlefield, red liquid was painting the ground in crimson a split second later. The pain felt unbearable for Levi, having his arm cut off was a new experience and it was not pleasant in the slightest, he was losing a lot of blood and started to feel afraid that he might be the first one to die, this was the closest he's ever gotten so he was not going to allow himself to die first.
He strengthened his will and regained the vigor in his eyes, moving the sword stuck in the essence bearer's abdomen to mess up his insides.
Marcus spurted out a mouthful of blood and bit his lip, he suddenly felt weak and powerless, as if falling into a debuffed state.
'Shit... the effects are over.'
Levi did not stop and continue to push and pull on the sword.
"Die! Die!"
At one point in time, both of them stopped moving, both lost quite a lot of blood and were unable to move or feel anything at all.
Levi fell down on his back, looking up at the night sky with hollow eyes.
'It's over... right?'
The test did not end right away, this scared Levi and made him overthink as he was tiredly breathing on the ground.
He spent more than 4 months in this hellish cycle. It's true that Levi felt like he gained a lot of combat experience and strengthened his mentality as well, but it would be too cruel if this was not the purpose of the trial and it was all in vain.
There was a limit to how much the boy could endure.
With mixed emotions, Levi closed his eyes and fell into a deep slumber.
.
.
.
Ophirax was slithering around in panic, the boy which he chose as his apostle had been unconscious for over 4 hours, this was getting dangerous.
It was obvious that the essence had taken a different approach to test the boy compared to the usual means but this was too odd, at first the boy's condition seemed fine, it was as if Levi was asleep.
However, after the 2nd hour the essence in the boy's body started going rampant, chaotically moving and destroying his insides little by little.
"Boy you better not die here!"
Sadly, the inky snake could not do anything at all to help Levi, he could only hope that the boy was indeed as talented as he saw him.
Without great expectations, Ophirax decided to check the condition of his apostle once again, in the next moment his small eyes bubbled in joy.
The energies inside the boy had calmed down, this could only mean one thing...
"He did it... phew."
The snake sighed in relief and bent his head down, now there was only one more thing to happen that would put his heart at ease, that being the boy waking up.
.
.
.
Levi struggled to open his eyes, his mind was a mess, although he had died multiple times already, blood loss was always the most fearsome and confusing one.
His eyes shined with a newfound clarity, they seemed deeper as if hiding a much more powerful force behind them.
'What's this?!'
He was alarmed and flabbergasted the moment he saw his surroundings, they were familiar but also not quite, it was dark and cold but he was not really influenced by it, as if he was in a different body.
"Mortal! You're finally awake!"
Brought back to his senses by a majestic voice from his side, Levi looked over to Ophirax and strengthened his fists tightly, as well as gritting his teeth as a way to not burst in tears, Levi was back, he survived and passed the Serpentine Essence's test, more than that, he was happy that he was finally out of that cycle.
"Congratulations boy, you are now a Nascent Novice!"