Harley had spent his entire life running from two things: the terror of being the weakest, and the quiet dread of being merely average. He refused to let his existence collapse into either of these conditions.
But what to do?
No matter how much a person prepared to rise, if an opportunity doesn’t present itself, one would simply become stuck.
Yeah, some luck is involved, but Harley didn’t get into this trial with luck. He knew that this trial was meant to kill him, so he pushed forward all the way here, for a dream of a distant peaceful sky.
When the Harvest selected him for the trial, he made a single vow—he would not die as fodder for someone else’s ambition. He would survive. He would become someone worth remembering.
But survival had never looked like this.
Standing on the Island of Bones, surrounded by an endless sea of monstrous remains and creatures that defied counting, Harley watched in frozen horror as Vernox transformed into something inhuman.
BOOM!
A violent explosion erupted from deep within the colossal skull. Dust and bone fragments rained down as a monstrous silhouette emerged from the blast.
Horns curved like blackened scythes. Red leathery wings unfurled with a snap of displaced air. Iridescent scales rippled across skin that was no longer human.
Harley’s breath caught in his throat.
Whatever Vernox had become... it was no longer a human like he thought.
*Grrrr...*
The loud rattling of bones in the air took back Harley’s focus and that was when he remembered that he was facing a literal army of monsters just a while ago.
He leapt forward, twisting his body hard with a swing of the sword, cleaving the skeletons that were the closest to touching him.
Harley fell, rolling down the shallow slopes towards Vernox. He raised his head, looking back at the creatures advancing much more slower than before, as if wary.
The wish locket had a blue glow around it as Harley raised the sword, pointing it at them. He pushed forward, slicing them and making sure that they kept their focus on him.
Behind himself were explosions, loud thuds, the sounds of cracking all over and over behind him. The sounds of growls and froaring flames reached his ears, but he could not turn his back.
*Creaaa!!*
One of the flying creatures extended its legs, grabbing Harley’s shoulder and ripping the light shoulder guards to shreds. Harley gritted his teeth, continuing onwards.
As Harley slashed and hacked at the weak skeletons coming at him over and over again, he was chanting the verse to subjugate the story fragments over and over again. He has no other focus than to slash and hack at the creatures coming.
*WAAAAAAH!*
A loud wail came from behind Harley, sending a pulse all around the island. The creatures in front of him all backed away slowly looking towards the space behind Harley.
Harley spun on his heel, chest heaving, sword still dripping with bone dust. The wail had come from the heart of the island itself, a sound like a scream of a monster. The smaller monsters—skeletons, bone constructs to, and shambling horrors—hissed and retreated in a slow, unwilling tide, their empty sockets fixed on something rising from the shattered skull where Vernox had emerged.
A colossal shape unfolded from the crater, taller than the ancient ribcage arches that formed the island’s skyline. It was a baby giant, barely out of its cradle by the standards of its kind, yet already a mountain of rippling muscle and glowing flesh. Its skin shimmered with living light, veins of liquid gold threading beneath translucent hide.
Two eyes burned like twin suns, and from its open mouth spilled rays of pure radiance that melted bone to slag where they touched. This was no mindless beast. This was a creature born of the island’s oldest story fragment—light incarnate, raw and merciless.
It was the godsworn, the one they were after.
Vernox—wings spread wide, horns gleaming under the pulsing sky. A low, draconic growl came from his mouth as flames leaked from his lips.
"So the trial finally shows its teeth," he growled, voice layered with the rumble of an earthquake. "Come then, little monster-child. Let us see whose light burns brighter!"
The baby giant answered with a roar that split the air. It seemed pissed off, swinging a fist with everything it had. Vernox met it head-on, claws raking across the giant’s forearm in a shower of sparks and luminous blood. The impact hurled shockwaves across the island, toppling skeletal spires and sending Harley shaking despite the distance.
The battle erupted in earnest.
Vernox moved like living thunder. He soared, wings beating hurricane winds, and unleashed torrents of fire—crimson and violet, laced with the iridescent power of his transformed state. The flames crashed against the giant’s chest, charring skin and forcing the creature to stagger. But the baby giant healed almost instantly, light knitting flesh back together even as it retaliated.
Beams of concentrated radiance lanced from its palms, carving glowing trenches through the bone ground. One of the beams shot from the creature’s eye, cutting Vernox’s wings mid air.
Vernox crashed into the bones of the island, immediately getting up to look at the monster with bleeding lips.
They clashed again and again. Minutes stretched into what felt like hours. Vernox’s tail whipped like a siege engine, cracking ribs on the giant’s side. The baby giant answered by slamming both fists into the earth, summoning pillars of golden light that erupted beneath the half dragon and hurled him skyward. Vernox twisted mid-air, horns glowing, and dove back down with the force of a meteor, driving his clawed feet into the giant’s shoulder. Bone and light exploded outward. The giant howled, but its eyes only burned brighter.
Harley kept moving, sword flashing in a desperate rhythm. The smaller monsters had mostly withdrawn, yet a few still lunged at him, drawn by the sweet scent of his flesh like mosquitoes to flame.
He chanted the subjugation verse under his breath between every strike, the words weaving threads of story fragments into his blade. Each kill fed the locket, its light pulsing hotter. He could not stop moving. Not yet. Not while the true war raged behind him.
’Come on Vernox!’ Harley wished it to be over already.
Vernox pressed the advantage. He had driven the baby giant to its knees, one massive arm hanging limp, golden ichor steaming from deep gashes. Vernox’s chest heaved, wings tattered but triumphant.
"I have to finish this quickly," he snarled, raising a clawed hand wreathed in swirling orang flames.
He walked closer to the creature slowly, but surely. However, he soon found himself losing consciousness, his vision was getting blurry.
"No... Harley..." Vernox tried to call out one last name before he fell to the ground.
Then the giant’s eyes flared supernova-bright. A single, focused beam of golden light—thinner than a spear yet hotter than dragonfire—lanced out and punched straight through Vernox’s left arm, just below the shoulder.
"Gah!" Vernox was shocked. Assuming he didn’t roll a little he would have been wiped out right there.
...
It felt like all hope was lost, seeing Vernox fall to attacks that seem to shoot out of the giant’s pupils.
Harley gritted his teeth, forgetting how he got to the ground in the first place. He found the silver sword he had used most of this trial beside him and he picked it up, and looked at the creature, whose wound was getting regenerated.
’Come on, come on, come on...’ Harley gritted his teeth hard enough to cause blood to drop from his mouth.
It was at that moment, that Harley was assaulted with a torrent of notices from the Oracle.
{You have killed a scheme 4 human}
{You have killed a scheme 2 human}
{You have killed a scheme 4 human}
{You have killed a scheme 2 human}
The messages kept coming like a flood, overlapping each other. Harley smiled, knowing what this is about.
Then, he raised the sword once more, and chanted the verse he had used almost throughout the entire trial.
"Kneel, and be remembered."
A large torrent of essence flowed into his body, and for a moment, Harley felt like he could bring down a God. He ran forward with great speed towards the creature.
Passing Vernox, he leapt, raising the sword up and finally chanting the only verse he knew about the sword.
The edges seemed to shimmer with an invisible glow and Harley came down on the giant with the sword, straining his already wrecked body to the limits.
"DIEEEE!!!"
Almost at the final moments, the eyes of the giant opened once again, but Harley’s sword just about to pierce it.
*BOOM!*
The entire island shook as an explosion rattled the entire place. The bright light and the shockwave from the explosion simply evaporated the skeletons nearby putting an end to their misery.
Vernox, who saw this move with only a half closed eye, smiled as he was hit by the heat wave too.