Cornea slipped off him with a lazy, feline grace, smoothing a wrinkle from her nightgown as she spoke.

  “Ten days from now,” she said, “the Sanctuary holds its trial. I want you to enter it.”

  She turned to leave—

  —and Arlen grabbed her wrist.

  “Why?” His voice trembled, anger and confusion tangled together. “Why are you betting your life on mine? This is fight. You don’t gain anything from my revenge. You could’ve just watched from the shadows. Why risk yourself?”

  Nyx materialized in front of him in an instant, her killing intent dropping like a guillotine.

  But Cornea lifted a hand, and Nyx froze.

  Cornea looked back at him—her eyes, for a heartbeat, losing their playful, seductive curl and revealing something vastly darker.

  “Arlen,” she said quietly, “you are not the only one who has a score to settle with a god.”

  Arlen instantly released her wrist.

  For a moment, for just a breath, Cornea looked nothing like the sultry queen of demons.

  She looked like a calamity barely held together.

  “But that,” she continued smoothly, regaining her smile, “is my burden, not yours. All you need to know is this—after you kill Chronos, there is

  god whose head I want.”

  She gave him a wicked wink on her way out.

  “I hope you survive Nyx’s training.”

  The next morning, Arlen found Nyx waiting for him just outside the obsidian corridors.

  “Um… Miss Nyx? What kind of training are we doing today?”

  She didn’t answer.

  She simply turned and walked.

  He followed… until they stepped into a massive, circular arena—

  —and hundreds of monsters turned their snarling faces toward him.

  Beasts with bone-lined jaws.

  Serpents with burning veins.

  Demons twice his size, drooling acid.

  Arlen’s legs nearly gave out.

  Nyx finally turned to face him, and her eyes were full of barely restrained hatred.

  “A human brat,” she hissed, “sleeping in the Queen’s bed… drinking Her blood… touching Her hand…”

  Her voice trembled with rage.

  “I will accept that.”

  Arlen raised his hands defensively. “W–wait, I didn’t ask for—”

  Nyx grabbed his collar and yanked him forward so hard he choked.

  Arlen staggered back, pale. “B–but if I die—Cornea dies too!”

  “Do not speak Her name so casually!”

  Her voice boomed with demonic force.

  “You want to know what your training is?” she whispered in his ear—

  —and then her fangs sank into his neck.

  Pain shot through him like lightning.

  His vision flashed white.

  After a few long seconds, she pushed him away like trash.

  “There. A regenerative ward.”

  She licked the blood from her lips.

  “Now even if your limbs are torn off or your skull is crushed, you will regenerate… You will not die, even if you beg for it. as long as I keep watching.”

  Her smile sharpened into something sadistic and hungry.

  “And trust me,” she said softly, “I be watching.”

  Then, without warning—

  She kicked him.

  Hard.

  Arlen flew across the arena, landing among the snarling crowd of monsters.

  Nyx’s voice echoed from above:

  “You don’t leave this arena,” she said, “until you’ve killed every last one of my pets.”

  Arlen’s heart dropped into his stomach.

  “And if you need food or water,” she added with a cold, cruel smirk, “eat their raw flesh. Drink their blood. The more you kill… the stronger you become.”

  She raised her hand—

  —and every monster roared at once.

  “Now—”

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Her eyes gleamed.

  “Die, you pest.”

  Ten days passed.

  Ten long, merciless, soul-grinding days.

  Arlen could no longer remember how many times he had died.

  How many times his bones had snapped, his throat had been torn out, his limbs ripped off only to grow back a moment later.

  How many times he had sunk his teeth into monster flesh because hunger dulled his vision.

  How many times he had used a demon’s femur as a club, a horn as a spear, or its blood as the only water he had.

  Somewhere between the fifth and sixth day…

  death stopped frightening him.

  Somewhere around the eighth…

  he realized he no longer screamed when he was torn in half.

  And on the tenth—when he stumbled out of Nyx’s arena, drenched in blood that wasn’t his—

  there was no fear left.

  Only exhaustion.

  And a quiet, fragile resolve holding him together like cracked glue.

  Behind him was a mountain of corpses.

  Hundreds.

  Maybe more.

  Nyx stood at the edge of the arena.

  Her eyes still held hatred… but beneath that hatred, something else glimmered:

  acknowledgment.

  A hint of hope.

  “Not bad,” she muttered, arms crossed. “For a mere human.”

  Arlen almost collapsed.

  “You learned to use your demonic blood better than I expected,” Nyx continued. “I didn’t think you’d survive… and you actually completed the training.”

  She turned away, her cape fluttering.

  “Go take a bath. Eat something real. Tonight, I take you to the Sanctuary. Rest until then.”

  Arlen nodded numbly.

  He dragged himself to his assigned room, stumbled into the bathroom, and switched on the shower.

  Hot water poured over him, washing away blood, grime, and the stench of monsters.

  But not the memories.

  He stared at his shaking hands

  —hands that had killed

  —and killed

  —and killed again.

  His chest tightened.

  His breathing hitched.

  Tears—unwelcome, trembling—mixed with the water and vanished down the drain.

  Then—

  Warm breath brushed his ear.

  He jerked around—

  —and nearly slipped.

  “Relax, little hunter,” a smooth voice purred.

  Cornea was standing behind him in the shower.

  Inside the stall.

  With him.

  Her nightgown had vanished, replaced by nothing but steam and skin.

  “H–How did you— I locked the door!” Arlen yelped, scrambling for the nearest towel.

  Cornea laughed — low, musical, dangerous.

  “Do you really believe a little door can keep me out?” She stepped closer, uninhibited, eyes sharp as diamonds and warm as fire. “Besides… before you came along, this room belonged to me.”

  “I—I’ll get out,” Arlen stammered, reaching for the curtain—

  until her fingers curled around his wrist.

  “Stay.”

  Her grip was gentle, but unyielding.

  Oddly…

  the moment her hand touched his, the shaking in his fingers began to settle.

  Cornea tilted her head, studying him with a softness he didn’t expect.

  “If you can still get this flustered,” she said, her voice as smooth as silk and edged with something like affection,

  “after ten days of killing, dying, and bathing in blood…”

  her thumb brushed his knuckles—

  “…then you haven’t lost your humanity.”

  The words hit him harder than any monster had.

  A simple reassurance.

  But it held him together more tightly than flesh ever could.

  Her eyes brightened with a rare sincerity.

  “Now, Arlen,” she whispered, “prepare yourself. Tonight is the trial.”

  A slow smile curved her lips — pride, hope, and danger blending into one expression.

  “I have placed all of my hopes on you.”

  Night fell like a veil of obsidian silk over the underworld.

  Nyx led Arlen through a corridor of shifting shadows, past pillars carved with the faces of long-dead demons, and toward a place no demon had ever described to him — a place that wasn’t quite the underworld, nor any realm he’d known.

  Reality bent.

  Space twisted.

  And suddenly—

  They stepped out into a different dimension.

  A void-lit sky.

  A floating platform of ancient stone.

  And in front of them…

  A colossal door.

  Not metal.

  Not wood.

  Something older — carved from fragments of existence itself.

  Nyx folded her arms.

  “We wait,” she said, her voice sharper than usual. “Someone else is inside taking the trial. You will enter once the gate decides.”

  Arlen swallowed.

  The air here felt heavier.

  Like the entire cosmos pressed on his lungs.

  “…Nyx,” he asked, “what kind of trial should I expect?”

  Her expression did not change.

  “No one knows.”

  He blinked. “…What?”

  “Anyone who fails the trial,” Nyx continued, tone flat, “is ejected from the opposite gate. Their memories wiped clean. They return to their home realm as if they had never stepped foot here.”

  A cold sweat crawled down Arlen’s spine.

  “Then… no one remembers what happens inside?”

  “No.”

  Nyx’s gaze turned to the door — and for the first time, he saw a flicker of respect.

  And fear.

  “Only one thing is known,” she murmured. “The gatekeeper — Solon — judges all challengers.”

  “Solon?” Arlen asked.

  “A being who was once a fragment of Aethel’s own soul," she said. “Which makes him a sacred relic in human form.”

  Arlen inhaled sharply.

  “A… living sacred relic?”

  “Yes. And unlike the relics wielded by gods…” her voice lowered,

  “…Solon be wielded. Not by god, demon, nor any creature born of existence.”

  Her eyes narrowed.

  “He is currently the strongest being alive in all the cosmos. He does not eat. He does not sleep. He simply guards the Sanctuary… and tests challengers once every thirty days.”

  A deep groan echoed from the door.

  The massive slabs split open with a thunderous rumble — wind howling out from within.

  Nyx stepped back.

  “The last challenger failed,” she said simply. “He has been erased.”

  Arlen stared into the yawning darkness beyond.

  Nyx looked at him, her expression unreadable.

  “Your turn. Good luck, human.”

  He stepped forward.

  The doors slammed shut behind him.

  Darkness swallowed everything for a moment.

  Then—

  A voice.

  Ancient.

  Gentle.

  And immeasurably heavy.

  “Greetings… half-human, half-demon child.”

  The blackness peeled away like curtains.

  At the center of a vast white hall stood a man.

  Old.

  White-haired.

  Walking stick in hand.

  But Arlen could feel it —

  an aura greater than gods, demons, or anything he had ever sensed.

  “I am Solon,” the man said, smiling faintly. “The Gatekeeper of the Sanctuary.”

  He walked closer, each step echoing like a heartbeat of the universe.

  “It is my first time seeing a human enter these halls. But if the gate permitted your entry… then it seems you carry blood.”

  Arlen bowed instinctively under the crushing presence.

  Solon’s ancient eyes sharpened.

  “Before your trial begins,” he said softly,

  “tell me…”

  The air trembled.

  “…why do you seek power?”

  The question struck Arlen like lightning.

  He clenched his fists, “I seek power for getting my revenge.”