Chapter 13 - The Fourth Trial

Lewin let out a sigh.

'In the end, i went and did it...' He though.

'Well but i think i couldn't help it, meh, whatever, no use complaining, let's just watch what happens now.'

....

After the time was over, the dragon spread it's wings and flew above the altar, stretched one of it's claws and grabbed Laila, ripping her melted skin from the floor, making she shriek in pain for a moment.

the dragon turned around and landed before the giant stone altar and placed laila on the ground.

Laila had endured imense unbearable heat for 5 straigth hours, so when she was released from her torture, she gave to her knees and a couple of relieved tears started to form at her eyes as she wildly kissed the ground, thanking the heavens that it was finally over.

The dragon took a look at Laila and smirked a little.

'So even she can shed tears huh?'

The dragon then reached to it's back and retrived a piece of gold.

"Human, you were the first, and only human to make it to the end of this trial, so, take this as a reward" The dragon said offering the piece of gold to Laila.

laila quikly wiped her tears and stood up taking a deep breath to recover from the shock.

Even though her skin had regenerated, her feet was still standing on a scorching surface able to melt skin for 10 straigth minutes, so her feet clearly still hurt, but she still swallowed her pain and walked to the dragon's hand and grabbed the gold.

The dragon retrived it's hand and looked at Laila for a moment.

"Insect, what was that that happened on the altar? How were you able to regenerate your skin blood and even hair that burned from the fire?" The dragon asked. For it, stepping so low as to ask a punny creature like this insect a question was humiliating, but it was too curious, so the last thing it cared about right now was pride.

Laila faced the Dragon for a moment and then looked at one of her hands.

She recalled the feeling that she felt on the last 10 minutes of the trial. What exactly was that really? It came out of nowhere, and like a blessing saved her from falling on the altar, that in the worse case, would have killed her.

She looked at the dragon again and answered. "I... I don't also know..." she said hesitantly, not knowing what the dragon would do to her if she didn't knew.

The dragon heard the answer and just stood there, analising Laila, trying to figure out if she was lying or not, but in the end, it concluded that Laila was as confused as he was about that event.

'It seems like this species do have something interesting about them, i should experiment more!' It though, but after that though, the dragon used it's inborn ability and cleared the area, looking at all places where the other humans died.

'It would be nice to experiment a bit more with them, but i don't have many subjects to test...' The dragon though. While the dragon pondered about what to do, it's eyes wandered around the area and eventually it landed on one of it's hands.

'Should i jump straigth to "that"? It may be a bit extreme, but if i do this, i can already go in my way and try to find more subjects to experiment on....' The dragon was lost in deep thoughts.

After a while like this, the dragon then shrugged and looked at Laila. 'Either way if she passes this trial or not, i don't care, i can just consider this a failed experiment'

"You finished the third trial, and now there are only 1 last trial remaining, do you wish to continue?" The dragon asked.

Laila looked at the dragon and started to think. Was it really worth it? Even though gold was indeed a valuable resourse and can be selt to buy Tomas and Gharrar's freedom, if she wasn't able to get it, she wuld just die.... But not that it mattered much anyway, when Tomas was caught, she was already determined to free him no matter the cost, so if there was a chance for her to get the money to free him, she would take it.

"I will continue" She replied. One more trial, just one more, just a little bit, and she's will be a step closer to freeing her friends from their cruel fates.

The dragon nodded it's head in understandment. "So as you wish, but, before the trial start, i may warn you, the reward for this last trial won't be gold, but something far more precious" the dragon said.

Laila froze on ehr place, something more valuable than gold? Was it diamond? or some kind of rubby or emerald? She wasn't sure, so she decided to ask "More valuable than gold...? What could it be?" She asked.

The dragon smirked. "A bright future, if you pass my last trial, my fourth trial, you're gonna gave a bright and promissing future" It said standing on it's rear legs and spreading it's wings.

Laila was frozen again. Not diamond nor emerald or ruby, but a "Bright Future"? What's that even supposed to mean?

Laila was just about to ask the dragon what this "Bright future" was, but the dragon suddenly started to talk, not letting she speak.

"So, the trial shall now... BEGIN!!" The dragon announced bitting at it's waist, making blood start to leak out of it, and the dragon quikly waved it's hand, throwing blood at Laila's direction.

The blood, even though it was very little for the dragon, was like a whole barrel of blood was being spilled over her.

She quikly lofted her hands to protect her eyes and mouth, but the blood came before she could properly cover them making the light red blood enter her mouth, nose, eyes, and soak all her body with red(She was naked because her clothes burned).

When the blood went on her mouth she had a swallowing reflex, and because of the blood on her nose, she started to cough uncontrolably.

after recovering a bit from the strange event that had just happened, she looked up to the dragon, just to it starting to take flight, leaving just a couple fo words for her.

"Try to survive that. I am gonna be cheering for you" It said as it disappeared from thin air.

Laila was confused by that, and raised one of her hands in the direction where the dragon was previously.

But then, she felt something throb from inside her arm as a strange feelling of pain that cabe from the tip of her finger to the core of her soul.

Laila took a single look at her arm, and then she saw her arm slowly twist and distort like it was becoming a giant hearth, and a second latere, it became a mouth, and then a tail, a teeth, and it continued to change and twist making she grunt in agony.

She tried to take a step back, but just when she did, her foot also started to change, and it climbed to her waist, and her torso, and soon, her whole body, including her head, started to mutate and change into many parts of diverse shapes, sizes, textures and colors.

It was hell, this whole proccess. If the trial of the flames was torture, then this fourth trial now.... It was a combination of all the five layers of hell into a single moment.

The moment it started, she though she was goin to die.

Everytime she spine twisted, she would beg it to stop, when her brain was pierced, she could swer she saw the other side, when she was split open, her consiousness would disappear for a blessed 2 seconds before she came back to reality and be tortured again.

As she cried and begged it to stop, her voice and tone changed after every change, it would be a roar, a cry, a scream for help, or just a incomprehensible sound coming from the depths of her soul.

And she stayed like that for 2 whole weeks.

......

"ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?!?!?" Lewin complained as he once again use Soul Essence and prevented Laila's soul to leave her body.

"DAMN DRAGON!!! I DIDN'T KNOW HE COULD DO THAT!!!" He yelled.

After Lewin heard what the dragon had said about a last trial, he used Soul Essence and slowed the world to 1s:2h, like this, he could more easily deal with wathever happened in the globe, and fortunately he did that, or else, Laila would have died a long time ago.

"But really, what the hell is this, why's her body distorting so much??" Lewin asked aloud as he had got a hang at how to surpress Laila's body and sat at his chair to relax a bit.

"I thnk i never regretted doing something so much in my entire life, I fucking spend 6.4% of my soul essence on this piece of shit!! I am gonna personally build a hell world just to torture you for eternity!!" He proclaimed, but after taking a look at his reserves, the idea quikly disappeared from his head.

31.2%

He was spending a lot of Soul Essence into mantaining Laila alive, but good thing more creatures were dying on the globe, otherwise he would be completely depleted of Soul Essence.

Lewin sighed.

"God, how i am supposed to save enough Soul Essence to myself if things continue to go down this hill?" He complained.

"You know what? Fuck it, after i am done with Laila, i am gonna leave the globe here for a couple days to save Soul Essence, this is the best choice." Lewin said as he once again waved his hand and prevented Laila from being completely split into two.

Lewin continued taking care of Laila, preventing her to die, and little by little, her body stoped distorting.

After noticing that, Lewin took a closer look at Laila's situation

Laila was laying on the same place where her fourth trial had started. She laid there like a broken doll staring with a hipinotized stare at a snail that was passing by while she drolled.

Lewin was in a lost of words, it seemed like her body had made it, but she lost her mind in the proccess of suffering those mutation.

Lewin placed a hand on his chin and though back to when he was preventing her to die from the dragon's blood mutations, maybe it would be better if he had just removed the blood from Laila's body, maybe with that he could have saved a little more Soul Essence and spared her from much suffering.

The reason Lewin didn't remove the blood earlier was because he wanted her to overcome this situation on her own, because he was only preventing her to die, all the rest was up to her, and he though it would be better for her.

Lewin thogh for a moment, then sighed again. 1 day had already passed since she came back to normal, but still absolutely no reaction coming from her.

Lewin was starting to get annoyed at her. "I already spent my Soul Essence to give her a chance to live, and she just lays there motionless for a entire day?!" He stated. "Well whatever, now that i am here anyway, so let's go util the end" He said as once again lewin manipulated his soul essence.

.......

Laila was laying on the ground, completely motionless, her mind had been lost long ago on the first 2 weeks of this hellish trial.

She had felt so much pain and despair, that all she wanted to do now was lay there forever and wait time pass.

And that was exactly what she was doing.

Util, she heard steps coming closer to her.

"Tch Tch Tch, how pathetic, to think someone i deemed worthy of my blessings would just lay on the ground whinning over some pain instead of jumping of hapiness for leaving such a predicament as that one alive, you're really ungrateful huh?" Many voices spoke at the same time.

When Laila heard that, she reflexively looked around, trying to find the origin of this voice.

"Jumping of happiness? Why? For aquiring traumatizing and miserable memories" Asked Laila.

"No, for aquiring experience" Replied the voices that now sounded much closer to her than before.

"Experience...?" Questioned Laila.

"Yes, experience, life isn't like agame where you simply go walking without stop util you find the end of the game, Happiness. To get happiness, you need experience, experience not to shame yourself, experience not to make wrong doings, experience to follow rules and experience to prevent suffering. All of that is experience you need to aquire happiness" The voices replied.

At the reply Laila froze for a moment, amazed by what these strange voices were talking about. but together with surprise, came anger, and a bit of annoyance, who the hell was this, that came out of nowhere, spoke up to her, and tried to give her a speech about life

For once in what seemed like ages, Laila tried to get up from her position and looked at the direction of the voices

"You sound extremely wise, bu who do you think you-.... are..." She stoped in the middle of her sentence when her eyes landed on the origin of the voices that were talking to her.

Right before her eyes, a man-like creature with a body that glowed in the light of a thousand stars holding a spear was standing in front of her, the creature had a thousand voices that sounded like a whole city was talking at the same time and a strange purple like aura covered it.

"Me? I am the great one"