Veyra and dusa had sat down silently, their backs pressed against the rough bark of a frozen tree.
The forest around them was quiet, the kind of heavy silence that didn’t feel natural.
Neither of them spoke at first.
They didn’t need to.
Both won knew that anything they said would only circle back to the sa question.
Still, their eyes wandered toward the massive hive-tree that towered in the distance.
Sowhere in that hell, Azel was fighting for his life.
They waited for the sound of an explosion.
Minutes dragged like hours.
dusa clenched and unclenched her hands in her lap, her jaw tight.
The silence was suffocating, and though she forced herself to stay still, she wanted to act.
Her mind raced with plans, all of which ended with her sending in a drone to check on him.
Yet her lips remained pressed shut.
Her last spider-drone had been destroyed before even reaching the hive.
"...Do you think he’ll be okay?" Veyra finally asked, her voice small.
It was the fifth ti she had asked in the past hour.
"I don’t know..." dusa replied quietly, giving the sa answer she had given all four tis before.
Her voice was steady, but her chest burned with unease.
She wanted to believe.
She had to believe.
But she didn’t know.
Neither woman noticed the repetition.
Their thoughts were locked too tightly on Azel.
And then it ca.
A series of explosions ripped through the air.
The ground trembled beneath them, snow falling from the branches overhead.
A wave of searing heat rolled outward, carrying with it the stench of charred wood and burning toxins.
dusa and Veyra’s heads snapped toward the hive at the sa ti.
"That’s it," dusa whispered.
They didn’t wait another second.
Both won sprang to their feet and sprinted through the snow.
Their boots crunched against ice and frost as they ran.
The mont they cleared the shrubbery and had a full view, their breath caught in their throats.
The hive-tree had tipped sideways.
Flas devoured its bark, crawling upward like rivers of molten oil.
The once-looming colossus that stretched into the sky now looked fragile, its body swaying, ready to collapse.
But it wasn’t the tree itself that stole their words.
It was the hive.
The structure that had once pulsed with sinister life, teeming with buzzing wings, was now a massive torch of destruction.
Explosions rippled through it in waves, crimson flas bursting out of its walls as if sothing inside had been soaked in oil.
Chunks of the hive tore free, falling like burning teors, and the air rang with the sound of wood cracking and resin screaming as it lted.
The hive finally snapped from the side of the tree.
It tumbled downward in slow, horrible inevitability, splitting apart midair as the fire chewed through it.
Each impact shook the ground, a rolling thunder that made their knees tremble.
And then...
A blurry figure leapt out, launching from the collapsing wreck just before it hit the earth.
A split-second later, another explosion tore through the base.
The full weight of the hive slamd into the frozen ground, breaking apart into ash and fire.
The rising flas had finished what Azel had started so there were no stragglers remaining.
dusa gasped. "There—!"
Azel crashed to the snow a few dozen paces away, rolling with the force of his landing.
He ca up coughing violently, his chest heaving, smoke clinging to his skin and clothes.
His cloak was torn in places, edges scorched, but it still glowed faintly as he took it off.
Sitting a little away from the flas, he tilted his head back and looked at the inferno.
For a mont, he just stared.
He admired his work.
’Maybe being an Arsonist isn’t so bad.’ He thought.
And then the system screen materialized...
[You have completed your trial outstandingly...]
[Rewards are being calculated...]
[You and your comrades are now being teleported to the Boss Fight.]
Azel blinked, still coughing, and lowered his gaze.
He barely had ti to register the glowing letters before he was slamd from behind.
"Oof—!"
dusa and Veyra crashed into him, their combined weight knocking the air out of his lungs.
He fell back into the snow, pinned by their desperate embrace.
Both won wrapped their arms around him, clinging as though letting go ant losing him forever.
Their bodies trembled, relief pouring out of them in silence.
Azel’s first thought was that they were supposed to be grown won.
The scene looked more like children clinging to their father after a nightmare.
But he didn’t push them away.
Instead, his hand rose, hesitated for a heartbeat, and then lowered onto their heads.
He gently patted both — dusa’s purple strands and Veyra’s silver hair.
dusa let out a shaky breath, burying her face against his chest.
Veyra, anwhile, felt her heart pound wildly. The mont his warm fingers brushed her scalp, she shivered.
Her lips parted slightly, and her eyes softened.
’I see why she enjoys it,’ she thought, realizing why dusa always sought out Azel’s touch.
The world didn’t wait for their embrace to end.
A sudden glow enveloped the three of them.
Brilliant, blinding light wrapped around their bodies, lifting them gently off the ground.
The trial was over.
The flas, the snow, the silence of the dead hive — all of it disappeared in an instant.
...
"For Winter!!!"
The battlefield shook with the roar of hundreds of voices.
Warriors charged across the frozen plain, weapons raised high as they surged toward the mountain-sized beast that lood in the distance.
The Boss.
A snow titan whose body was clad in shifting ice and steel-like fur.
Every step it took crushed n into the ground.
Azariah stood among the chaos, his blade gleaming.
His lips were pressed together, his eyes scanning the battlefield again and again.
No matter how far he looked, he could not see Azel.
His suspicion had only grown sharper over the hours of fighting.
Where did the boy go? He couldn’t have run away, so maybe he was in a trial? He too had been subjected to one, anybody that carried divinity would be taken to a trial with any person closely in contact with them.
’I just don’t know how long it will take,’ Azariah thought grimly.
His grip on his weapon tightened.
He couldn’t waste ti worrying.
He would simply have to trust and fight.
He prepared to kick off the ground, aura flaring around his body.
And then the battlefield changed.
A pillar of blue light shot down from the sky, washing over the plains in brilliance.
Warriors stumbled, shielding their eyes.
The snow itself seed to glitter in response.
At the center of that light — three figures appeared.
Azel.
dusa.
Veyra.
They landed still locked together, hugging each other tightly in the middle of a battlefield soaked in blood and frost.
Azariah’s eyes widened, then narrowed. Relief surged, but so did exasperation.
His son had survived yet his timing, as always, was absurd.
Azariah’s face scrunched in irritation.
He exhaled sharply through his nose, forcing himself to focus on the towering beast ahead.
"Always making sigh..." he muttered.
And then he shot off into the fray.
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