Kael stood at the threshold of the trial chamber, his pulse steady despite the weight of what was coming. He had made his choice, rejecting the Overseer's offer of servitude in favor of something far more dangerous—the unknown.
Ryven stood beside him, arms crossed, his gaze fixed on the chamber beyond. "You sure about this?"
"I don't see another option," Kael muttered.
"You had another option."
Kael glanced at him. Ryven wasn't smiling.
"You could've accepted his offer, played along, learned what he knows, and waited for the right moment to break free," Ryven said. "Instead, you're running headfirst into something that's probably meant to kill you."
Kael exhaled, his fists clenching. "You ever seen a man turned into a Harvested?"
Ryven's jaw tightened, but he said nothing.
Kael continued. "That would've been me the moment I outlived my usefulness. The moment I made it clear I wouldn't kneel. This trial isn't a choice. It's a statement."
Ryven let out a short laugh, shaking his head. "Then let's hope you don't get yourself killed making it."
The doors hissed open.
The trial chamber was unlike the others. It wasn't an enclosed arena or a battlefield littered with hazards. It was… a storm.
Dark clouds churned within the chamber's ceiling, lightning flashing between them, illuminating a floating platform of jagged metal in the center. The air was thick with electromagnetic energy, dense enough that Kael could feel the pressure in his skull.
Atop the floating platform, a figure stood waiting.
At first glance, it looked human. But as the lightning flashed, Kael saw the truth.
The Stormborn Ascendant wasn't human. Not anymore.
It was a living conduit of energy, a being wrapped in an exosuit laced with veins of pulsing blue electricity. Its skin—where it wasn't armored—was scarred and burned from years of exposure to raw energy. Its eyes burned like twin arcs of lightning, and the air around it rippled with power.
The moment Kael stepped forward, the Stormborn Ascendant raised its hand.
Lightning crashed down from the storm above, striking its outstretched palm.
It absorbed the energy as if it were nothing.
Then, without a word, it attacked.
Kael barely had time to react before a bolt of pure energy tore through the air toward him. He twisted, dodging just in time to feel the charge burn through the air beside him. The ground where he had stood exploded into molten slag.
His instincts screamed. This wasn't like fighting the Reapers or the Warlord. This was something beyond any opponent he had faced.
The Stormborn Ascendant wasn't using stored power—it was fueled by the storm itself.
Kael lunged forward, trying to close the distance before another blast came. He channeled his energy, feeling the static around him, and sent a surge of electromagnetic force through his legs, propelling himself forward in a burst of speed.
He reached the floating platform, landing hard, his boots skidding across the metal. The Stormborn Ascendant was already moving. Faster than anything Kael had seen before.
A clash of lightning met metal as Kael barely blocked the first strike, his arms shaking from the impact. Sparks flew as his electromagnetic field strained against the sheer density of the Ascendant's charge.
He lashed out with his own energy, sending a pulse of electricity into his attacker's chest. But the Ascendant didn't flinch.
It absorbed his attack.
Kael's breath caught.
The Ascendant gripped his wrist, and before he could react, a surge of raw energy tore through his body.
Pain unlike anything he had ever felt. Every nerve screaming at once.
His vision went white.
Then black.
Then—
He hit the ground hard, body convulsing from the aftershock. His limbs wouldn't respond. His mind was sluggish, his energy drained faster than he had ever experienced before.
The Ascendant loomed over him, raising a hand crackling with enough power to turn him into ash.
Kael fought to move. Fought to breathe.
He couldn't.
His power—his lifeline—was gone.
The Ascendant's fist came down.
Something deep inside Kael snapped.
Not fear.
Not desperation.
Something primal.
The lightning slowed.
No—he slowed it.
Kael felt it, in that fraction of a second. A thread between himself and the raw storm energy around him.
A connection.
The Ascendant had been pulling from the storm's charge. But storms weren't owned. They were free. They could be claimed.
And in that moment, Kael claimed it.
The lightning reversed direction, flowing into him instead of against him.
His body arched as the energy surged through him, filling every cell, reawakening his senses in a way that felt different than before.
This wasn't just absorbing electricity.
This was becoming part of it.
The Ascendant staggered backward, its once-limitless flow of energy interrupted, redirected, stolen. Its movements faltered for the first time.
Kael rose to his feet, his hands glowing with a light that wasn't entirely his own. A balance between the storm and himself.
The Stormborn Ascendant charged again.
This time, Kael didn't retreat.
He met the attack head-on, their fists colliding with a thunderclap that sent shockwaves rippling outward, shattering parts of the floating platform beneath them.
The next exchange wasn't a battle of strength. It was a battle of control.
The Ascendant struck again and again, but each time, Kael absorbed and redirected the energy, taking what was given and feeding it back into himself. A constant, shifting loop of power.
For the first time since the fight began, Kael saw hesitation in the Ascendant's movements.
It realized—too late—that it had given him everything he needed to win.
Kael let go.
The energy he had taken, he released in a final, devastating pulse of pure lightning, driving his fist straight into the Ascendant's chest.
The force tore through its armor, sending it hurtling backward, crashing against the metal with a deafening explosion of sparks.
When the light faded, the Stormborn Ascendant lay motionless.
Kael stood over it, breathing hard, his body still pulsing with the storm's energy.
The chamber was silent.
Then, the Overseer's voice echoed once more.
"The Trial is complete."
Kael exhaled.
He had won.
But as the storm above him began to fade, he knew—
This was just the beginning.