---
Asmodeus opened his eyes, blinking against the faint light. The first thing he saw was Dreamer's masked face looming over him.
"Didn't I enter a portal to face my fear? Why am I… lying on the ground now?" he asked, his tone flat yet sharp with suspicion.
Dreamer chuckled, his voice echoing unnaturally in the room. "The moment I decided to put you all through the trial, I dragged every single one of you kids into my Dream Domain. You've been sleeping since then."
"By the will of Lucifer…! How powerful are domains if even a pseudo-domain can do this?" Asmodeus exclaimed, his eyes narrowing.
Dreamer simply shrugged, leaving Asmodeus to assess his surroundings.
The room appeared simple—wooden walls darkened as though charred, the floor and ceiling a pristine white that gleamed in the dim light. Yet its true nature was anything but simple. Its size defied comprehension: one blink, and the walls closed in, suffocatingly tight; another blink, and the room stretched endlessly, vast as the horizon.
Suppressing the urge to mock Dreamer's bizarre taste in décor, Asmodeus turned his attention to the 3,508 children sprawled across the room. All were in a deep, unnatural sleep. Some looked peaceful, their chests rising and falling rhythmically, but others were ghastly pale, as though they'd slipped beyond the veil of life.
Among them, one boy stood out.
He was small, barely a meter tall, with a skinny build and dark hair. His skin, pale as moonlight, would have made even the most beautiful of women burn with envy. Though his eyes were hidden behind his closed lids, the oppressive aura around him was unmistakable.
Within five meters of the boy, the air was thick with despair. It clung to the space like a living entity, suffocating and oppressive, as though the gloom itself had gained sentience.
Asmodeus narrowed his eyes, marking the child in his mind as someone of potential. Turning away, he seated himself cross-legged and closed his eyes, settling into meditation. To an outsider, the sight of a one-year-old calmly meditating in a room full of unconscious children would have been absurd.
Dreamer watched from the shadows, smirking behind his mask. "Now we wait," he murmured.
---
You, my dear reader, might think: Wait, wasn't the first trial supposed to last until 2,508 children died? Didn't Asmodeus complete it based on his abilities? How does this make sense?!
And you'd be right.
Dreamer had planned to create an eighth trial for Asmodeus—something beyond the Sins Trial. But fate had other plans. Dreamer had been injured. You see, to manifest fear in his Dream Domain, he had to withstand the children's terror himself. But Asmodeus, ever the wildcard, had imagined Pride's... well, Pride, disrupting Dreamer's carefully laid plans.
Even Asmodeus would have died instantly if not for his unique combination of abilities: his talent, the dragon bloodline coursing through his veins, and the strange crimson energy he'd unlocked during the early stages of the Trial of Fear.
After all, Asmodeus was no longer the Monstrosity he once was. In fact, he wasn't even a C-rank Awakener yet. At best, he was a lowly E-rank after completing the first trial. Yet his supreme control over energy allowed him to survive.
But Asmodeus wasn't showing all his cards. He revealed only enough of his abilities for others to view him as a prodigy in energy manipulation, not the reincarnated demon who had lived billions of years.
It wasn't humans that Asmodeus feared—it was Jin. The thought of Jin piecing together the truth and hunting him down was what truly gnawed at his mind.
---
Now, you're probably wondering: How, by all the gods, did he unlock an extension of his talent?
Well, it's simple—at least for an ancient being like him.
As previously mentioned, talents are created by the system using an individual's existence as a blueprint—a culmination of all memories, desires, and goals across their lifetimes. Cool, right? But here's the catch: Dreamer hadn't told the full truth.
Some of you sharp-eyed readers might recall Dreamer mentioning how "after learning to control mana, they managed to create talents." This implies that talents weren't originally divine gifts but constructs born from mana manipulation.
And that's why some people are bad at using their talents. If a talent were perfectly tailored to someone, how could they fail to wield it effectively?
For Asmodeus, unlocking an extension of his talent was the result of deeply understanding his body, his self, and the laws governing his existence. The deeper this understanding, the more powerful the talent becomes.
While Asmodeus remained a mere ant compared to a B-rank or S-rank Awakener in terms of raw strength, his grasp of laws was unparalleled. He could debate the essence of corruption itself with a demon of that law, let alone a human limited by 58 years—or 1,000 years if they dabbled in forbidden worship of demons.
---
Asmodeus's meditation was interrupted by Dreamer's voice.
"You've done well to survive the Trial of Fear. But don't let it go to your head, kid. The trials will only get harder from here."
"I'll be sure to act appropriately terrified," Asmodeus drawled, his tone dripping with sarcasm.
Dreamer chuckled, the sound low and ominous. "Cocky as always. Don't forget—you're not the only one in this game. Some of these children will grow to be your rivals."
Asmodeus cast a glance at the sleeping boy he'd noticed earlier, his lips curling into a faint smirk. "We'll see."
The room pulsed faintly, the wooden walls seeming to breathe as the children remained lost in their slumber. Somewhere in the vast expanse of his mind, Asmodeus reflected on the trials ahead, his thoughts veiled in a shroud of calculated ambition.
And so, they waited.
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A/N: this humble story teller desires that the reader donate some powerstone even if its one....