'No!' Max roared within his own thoughts, the words echoing against the fog of fatigue. 'I cannot faint here. Not now.' He forced his eyes open wider, his teeth grinding as he summoned every shred of willpower left in him. Through the haze, his gaze locked on sothing ahead.
Far in the distance, barely visible through the shifting air, was the faint outline of a ruin. Its jagged structures stretched upward like broken teeth, a city long dead but still standing. The sight was vague and blurred, but it was there. A goal. A promise of sothing beyond the endless wasteland.
And because he could see it, he refused to let go. He could not lose consciousness now, not when the trial site he had been searching for was finally in sight.
"Don't give up!" Evan's voice cut through the crushing weight, loud and fierce. His eyes locked on Max, desperation mixing with determination. "There is a ruin ahead. It has to be the trial site!"
Nina, her hands trembling as she clutched the Fate Compass, nodded quickly. Her breathing was heavy, but her voice was steady. "The compass is pointing straight at it. The ruins must be the place of the trial. You cannot stop here. You have to keep going!"
Max did not need their words to know he could not give up. His vision swam, and his body threatened to collapse under the pressure, but his will refused to bend. He ground his teeth until his jaw ached, summoning the storm within his blood.
"Storm King's Inheritance—Heaven's Wraith!" he roared. Power exploded from him as arcs of red lightning wrapped around his body, flashing violently against the violet wasteland. His muscles burned with the force, and his veins throbbed as though they would burst, but the lightning dragged him forward. His movents were halting and slow, closer to a crawl than a run. The inheritance that should have carried him across miles in a heartbeat was reduced to a desperate push, forcing his legs to move one step at a ti.
The strain clawed at him, threatening to tear him apart, but his eyes burned with refusal. "It's not enough…" he growled, his voice hoarse as sparks cracked across his body. "Then… Storm King's Inheritance—Extre Speed!"
Another surge of power burst forth. The red lightning flared brighter, turning violent and unstable, like a storm about to shatter the heavens themselves. The arcs raged around him, searing the ground where his feet struck, and his body jerked forward with renewed force.
The oppressive weight still bore down rcilessly, but now his pace quickened. His crawl beca a stagger, his stagger beca a stride, and though his speed was far from the storm-born flight the inheritance promised, it was enough to carry him forward.
The ruin lood faintly in the distance, its jagged outline growing clearer with every agonizing step.
The weight pressed on Max like an entire world trying to bury him alive, but his body blazed with power. The arcs of red lightning from Heaven's Wraith surged across his scaled fra, wrapping him in the berserk force of the Storm King's Inheritance. His legs trembled with every step, yet the power refused to let him collapse.
At the sa ti, the flow of Extre Speed coursed through him, layering its sharp precision over the raw violence of the first inheritance.
The two powers clashed and rged within him. Normally, they would have launched him across mountains in a single breath, but here in the violet wasteland, the pressure crushed their full potential.
Instead of tearing through the land like a storm, his body lurched forward in heavy strides, each step carving deep cracks into the violet ground. The lightning flared brightly with every movent, the red arcs snapping outward as if trying to shatter the invisible force pressing him down.
Step by step, he crawled against the crushing weight. The combined inheritance pushed his body forward, not in bursts of blinding speed, but in slow, steady progress. His pace was far from graceful—his shoulders hunched under the burden, his breath ca ragged, and his legs moved like he was wading through an endless sea of stone. Yet he continued. His aura burned violently, refusing to yield.
The ruin grew clearer with every agonizing step. What had once been a vague outline on the horizon now took the shape of shattered walls and broken spires, the remains of a city long buried in ti. Its jagged silhouette cut through the violet haze like a promise of survival.
Lightning snapped louder around him as he closed in, his body flickering between staggering strides and surges of unstable speed. The closer he ca to the ruin, the more his will hardened. Though the wasteland fought to drag him down, Max's power and persistence tore him forward, step after step, until the ruined site lood just ahead.
Yet the pressure did not relent. If anything, it grew more crushing the closer Max drew to the ruin. Each step felt heavier than the last, his stride slowing to the point where it seed his legs might lock beneath him. The closer he ca, the more it felt as if the wasteland itself was trying to deny him entry.
'I need one more push,' Max thought, his expression calm even as his body scread under the weight. He refused to panic. The ruined site was right before him now, its outline no longer vague. What at a distance had looked like jagged ruins revealed itself to be sothing else entirely. The shapes resembled small houses of mud and packed earth, arranged in a strange, deliberate pattern that whispered of a forgotten civilization.
'Infernal Demon Transformation!' The words echoed in his mind as he unleashed his most fearso state. His black scales shifted into deep crimson, his hair burned into a dark red, and his eyes glowed like molten rubies. A suffocating aura erupted from him, black and red energy swirling in waves that made the ground tremble. The air thickened with the raw presence of a predator that should not exist in the mortal world.
Evan and Nina, carried within the forcefield, felt it imdiately. Their bodies shivered against their will, their hearts pounding violently in their chests. The aura of the Infernal Demon Transformation was so overwhelming that it set off primal instincts of fear. Even though the power was not aid at them, they felt the urge to bow or run, but neither was possible. They could only watch.
Max roared inwardly as he forced his body forward again. The transformation gave him the strength to fight back against the invisible weight pressing down from the wasteland. Each of his steps sank deep into the violet soil, cracks spreading outward with every impact. His figure wavered, but the aura of the demon form blazed, holding him upright as the lightning and draconic power within him fused with the infernal energy.
He crossed the final stretch of barren ground with sheer willpower, his vision blurring at the edges. At last, his foot struck the threshold of the strange settlent. He had entered the ruined site.
The mont his body crossed into the boundary, the crushing pressure lifted. Relief struck him like a wave, but his body could no longer hold on. The red glow in his eyes flickered, the aura of his transformation collapsed inward, and his knees gave out. Darkness rushed into his vision as his consciousness slipped.
Just before his eyes closed fully, he caught sight of sothing moving in the distance. Small silhouettes erged from the earthy houses, their figures short and broad, their movents deliberate and cautious. They were dwarf-like beings, stepping out into the dim light, their outlines the last thing Max saw before he finally succumbed to unconsciousness.
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