Fucking Jumpscare!

when Jean got in the darkness he didn't have time to talk when two lines of narrow golden light suddenly appeared in the darkness before him. Immediately after, the two narrow lines of golden luminance slowly opened and two eyes appeared.

Phoenix: Greetings, human. Welcome to the trial grounds. You are the first challenger without the Phoenix bloodline in these past thousand years

Jean: Well, I don't want to be a challenger…

Phoenix: hm? Then why are you here for?

Jean: I wish to possess your divine soul…

Phoenix: and you think that I would give it to you without a challenge? Or even accept?

Jean: So, what do I need to do?

Phoenix: The challenge will become harder, more harder than anything you ever imagined, but I have two questions before we start.

The first question is why do you need my divine soul?

Jean: well, that's a loooong story, so I will make it short… God put me in this body and to create mine I need ingredients that will make my body strong enough to contain my powers

Phoenix: God? are you talking about the Gods of Creation? True Gods?

Jean: No no, It isn't just a title, he litterally calls himself like that, and it's probably that he is even stronger than those you mentioned

Phoenix: Interesting… Someone who could be stronger than the monarchs of the Primal Chaos Dimension…. So there is life outside this dimension?

Jean: You don't have idea… So what is the second question?

Phoenix: what would you do if I say that if I become your divine soul then the Phoenix essence will leave and everyone in the village dies?

Jean: wait what? I... No! I refuse to do something like that to unfortunate people like them!

Phoenix: then would you free them of their curse?

Jean: that's the third question and why are you making me deciding to make this fucking challenge?

Phoenix: well, I was here for many thousands of years, now that I see someone who could entertain me what do you expect me to do?

Jean got a sweatdrop from the demeanor of a prideful divine beast but started talking

Jean: ok ok, I will do your damn challenge, but at least tell me where I could find a divine soul…

Phoenix: I... Think you could find one at the Azure Dragon God, he is the only one who could give you the Divine Soul because the other spirits of divine beasts is busy with a town, but you need to be careful, his challenges are even more dangerous than mine…

Jean: ok, when do we start?

Phoenix: very good, we will start after I said the rules and explained what are the challenge, the trial has three stages in total, respectively:

First stage: Purgatory Flame Demon;

second stage: Arrows of the Phoenix;

third stage: Corruption of the Heart's Flame.

If you wish to forfeit during the trial, you may shout out at anytime and I'll immediately let you leave the trial grounds. You may die if you forcibly endure the trial... I wish you success.

now the scene distorted again around himself and it became entirely another world, The ground under his feet appeared to be a deep red color; as if it was paved by terrifying red-hot steel.

The ground was uneven; disorderly boulders were scattered around and mountains of varying heights were layered one after another. Even the mountain's surface was crimson, as if it could spew out flames which could reach the heavens at any time. Looking upwards, the sky was also a field of deep red.

Stalks of ember were distributed across every direvtion on the fire-red colored ground. Some of yhe embers were only a few inches tall, while some had even shot up for over ten meters in height. The temperature should be really hot, but Jean only felt comfortable.

Suddenly some meters in front of him, a giant body appeared, it's entire body was in flames, he was a whole thirty-three meters tallm and had two ferocious eyes on either side of its head, in the top, there were also two horns of fire that were ten meters long and a golden mark that shined from the middle of these horns.

Jean jumped from his sudden appearance and yelped before swinging his arm who had a Ki blast, because he got scared, he couldn't control the strength of it and it exploded against the poor demon who was only at the True Profound Realm who flew with the Ki blast backwards, then it suddenly expanded and exploded leaving only a giant crater in the place he should be.

Jean: Fucking monster! at least tell me where you appear! shit... I almost got an heart attack... This is even worse than that time i played Five Nights at Freddy's 4...

the phoenix and Jasmine inside the pearl sweatdropped at his demeanor, but the phoenix recovered first and took him in the second stage, it was just a boundless, barren plain without a single blade of grass.

Suddenly he heard a loud and clear cry of a phoenix and Jean looked up, he found innumerable amounts of red dots that were incoming towards him, he didn't seemed worried and put up a Ki barrier around him

Jean: Yeah... I'm not stupid, the fire may not hurt me but I bet those things explode *Boom*

when he finished talking one of the incoming little phoenix crashed to his barrier and exploded, but the force of the explosion couldn't even scratch the barrier and so countinued until there were anymore red dots in the sky.

Then everything became black again and he found again the eyes of the phoenix staring at him, the moment he made eye contacts with it, Jean noticed that the eyes twitched a bit and concentrated away from his eyes, then it started talking again

Phoenix: That greatly surprised me; was that the power you were talking before?

Jean: Yep, it is Ki, it uses the life force of the livings to make someone stronger, I can use a really little fraction for this body because otherwise it will explode...

Phoenix: well, I seen you have more strength than even the sovereigns here and I can't make the challenge harder because I don't have much powers compared to the original phoenix, but this challenge is different than the first two, it involves the choices within your heart, are you prepared?

Jean: Yes....

Phoenix: then, let's begin...