Attempt 67. The storm raged overhead. Typhon descended in a chaotic flurry of jagged shadows.
Adam didn't sprint this time. He closed his eyes for a brief second. He felt the wind rushing past his face, the heavy resistance of the atmosphere dragging against his coat. He realized that every time he moved, he was fighting the air, relying on brute, muscular force to push through the space.
Don't fight the current, Adam thought, relaxing his tensed muscles. Become part of it.
When the horror lunged, Adam didn't dive rigidly. He pivoted on his heel, dropping his center of gravity. Instead of pushing against the air, he let the atmospheric pressure guide his movement. He slipped past the massive shadow, his body gliding with an eerie, frictionless fluidity.
It felt as though the air had turned into a liquid current, as if the space adapted to his new realization, and he was cutting through it with no effort.
He moved like water. Typhon roared, sending a barrage of conceptual spikes from all directions. Adam darted, weaved, and drifted across the infinite mirror. He didn't lose speed when he turned; he used his momentum to snap into right angles, his steps leaving absolutely no ripples on the water below.
The suffocating exhaustion didn't set in. He was in a state of absolute, fluid alignment. He was no longer running from the storm. He was swimming through it.
Hours bled into one another. Ten hours. Eighteen hours. Twenty-three hours.
Typhon grew frantic, expanding its form to swallow the entire domain, but Adam simply slipped through the small gaps in its form, untouchable, untethered, and completely free of friction.
When the twenty-four hours finally concluded, a profound silence fell over the domain.
The conceptual horror simply halted, broke apart, and dissolved into a gentle shower of starlight. The dark sky cleared, revealing a brilliant, cosmic aurora.
Adam stood perfectly still on the mirrored water, breathing easily. He had done it.
The mirror surface beneath his boots shattered upward into glowing light. From the floating shards, two ethereal silhouettes emerged, circling each other in a mesmerizing dance.
Adam stepped forward, and the environment warped. He was instantly transported back to the grand corridor of the Palace. The door of Pisces was now wide open, its interior dark and empty.
Hovering in the air right in front of him were the two entities. They were not dogs, but twin, ethereal black and white fish, they were about the size of a big dog, glowing with a soft, bioluminescent light. They swam through the air of the corridor as if the atmosphere itself were a deep ocean, leaving faint trails of starlight in their wake.
"YAAAAAAAAY!" Little Lion shrieked, popping into existence and spinning wildly around Adam’s head. "YOU DID IT! YOU BEAT THE STORM!"
Adam smiled, a genuine, exhausted smile, reaching out a hand. One of the ethereal fish swam gently into his palm, nuzzling against his fingers. It felt smooth, cool, and entirely frictionless.
Little Lion puffed out his tiny chest, hovering proudly beside the two floating creatures.
"Meet Alpherg," the mascot announced, his voice ringing with genuine pride. "Your twin ethereal fish and the ultimate frontline brawlers. They treat the atmosphere as their personal ocean, swimming at bullet-like speeds to act as living missiles that shred through flesh and armor with razor-sharp fins. You rarely need to worry about defending them; their bodies are coated in a frictionless, supernatural 'slime' that causes enemy strikes to glance off harmlessly and makes them physically almost impossible to grab or restrain. "
Little lion suddenly stopped, he was hovering and started spinning on himself.
Oh no, oh no, I don’t remember the rest of the description, Ill lose all my aura if I don’t remember the rest of the description.
Adam stood up, grabbed him and nudged him, the two fishes were circling around him and gently punching him with their heads.
"OOHH IT WORKED, I REMEMBER THE REST NOW, UHM UHM", he took a deep breath before continuing, his eyes closed.
"In the air, they completely defy standard physics, using their tails to execute instant, right-angle momentum shifts without losing any speed, making their flight paths very hard to predict or parry. Finally, their lateral lines detect changes in air pressure, allowing them to instantly track fast, hidden, or invisible targets even in pitch darkness or heavy smoke."
Little Lion grinned, winking at Adam. "Don't overthink them; just unleash them into the sky and let them hunt, you can also control then with your thoughts, you have to get used to it."
Adam started clapping and the two fish started moving in circles fast as if matching Adam’s energy.
"Great explanation, you really are a smart big lion."
Little lion had a wide grin smile in his face.
"When are you…", before little lion continued his sentence, he opened his eyes as the loud sound came in, he turned and Adam was already swallowed by the second door, starting the next trial.
Adam didn’t waste time. His body felt heavy with the phantom exhaustion of all the deaths, but his eyes were sharp. He turned away from the twin fish swimming peacefully around his shoulders and walked directly to the door on the far right, the one bearing the constellation of the celestial ram.
He pushed the heavy stone doors open.
The transition was instant. The grand corridor vanished, replaced by a narrow, crumbling bridge suspended over a terrifying, bottomless cosmic void. The air here was thin, crackling with raw energy.
"THE TRIAL OF THE GOLDEN RAM!" Little Lion’s voice boomed from the heavens, still trying to sound ancient and terrifying. "THE MYTH: THE DIVINE RESCUER SENT BY THE GODS! BUT ITS FLEECE COULD ONLY BE CLAIMED THROUGH PROFOUND SACRIFICE! IT REPRESENTS RECKLESS COURAGE!"
At the far end of the narrow bridge, a blinding, golden light erupted. It wasn't a conceptual storm like Typhon; it was a physical, overwhelming force, a massive, golden ram. And it was charging straight at him.
"THE TRIAL: UNSTOPPABLE MOMENTUM!" Little Lion squeaked, dropping the booming act. "You are stripped of all your powers, Adam! No gravity! No Resonance! You must stand your ground and block the Ram! If you flinch, yield, or take a single step backward, you…"
Before the little lion finished his speech the Golden Ram collided with Adam completely shredding him into pieces.
"Ow I miscalculated the timing, I was supposed to finish my speech before it killed you, SORRYYY!!!", Little lion added.
Attempt 12.
Adam stood on the bridge, his chest heaving. He had tried lowering his center of gravity. He had tried bracing his legs perfectly. He had tried leaning his entire body weight into the strike.
The Golden Ram hit him. It felt like being struck by a speeding train made of solid steel. He was pulverized, yielding instantly.
Darkness.
Attempt 26.
Adam was violently ejected from the trial. He crashed onto the hard floor of the palace corridor, coughing and gasping for air. His mortal body was completely undamaged, but the psychological toll of being physically obliterated twenty-six times in a row was leaving him hollowed out.
He lay on his back, staring up at the vaulted ceiling. "How... how is this even possible?" he wheezed. "I don't have my gravity in there. I don't have the physical enhancement of my Resonance. I'm just a normal human. Flesh and bone can't stop a force like that. I can't get physically stronger inside the trial. It's completely impossible to block it."
Little Lion floated down, hovering gently above Adam's face. The mascot tilted his head, his large, glittering eyes uncharacteristically serious.
"Do you want a hint, Adam?" Little Lion asked softly.
Adam closed his eyes, the phantom ache of a shattered spine lingering in his back. He let out a long, exhausted breath.
"And you waited for me to get obliterated twenty-six times before saying so.", Adam screamed back at him.
Little lion grinned, proud.
"Please... please do so.", Adam added.
"You are trying to block it with your muscles," Little Lion said, floating down to sit directly on Adam's chest. "But the Ram doesn't care about your muscles. The myth says the fleece is claimed through profound sacrifice. It's not a test of physical strength, Adam. It's a test of your mental weight."
Adam opened his eyes.
"When the Ram hits you, it is measuring your resolve," Little Lion whispered. "If your mind is light, you will be blown away. How heavy is your resolve, Adam? What are you willing to stand in front of?"
Adam lay there in the quiet corridor.
Mental weight.
His mind drifted back. He stayed laid back for an hour, thinking.
He remembered the sky above the City of Light turning a bleeding, apocalyptic red. He remembered the absolute, paralyzing helplessness of watching his home turn to ash. He remembered the suffocating terror in Noah's eyes. He remembered the Mouthless man driving a stone hammer into his chest, forcing him into the dirt while Zeren screamed.
He had spent months running. Running from the guilt of the people he couldn't save. Running from the overwhelming, god-like power that made him feel microscopic. He had been fighting with the desperation of a survivor, frantically trying to dodge the end of the world.
No more, Adam thought.
He sat up. The exhaustion was gone. The frantic, erratic beating of his heart slowed to a deep, steady rhythm. The memories of his trauma didn't crush him this time; he pulled them inward. He accepted the weight of his failures, the weight of Evelynn’s sacrifice, the weight of Noah’s despair. He gathered it all, letting it forge a core of absolute, immovable iron within his mind.
It was a resurrection. The terrified boy from the City of Light was gone, replaced by a profound, unshakeable mental peace. He was no longer a survivor running from the storm. He was the wall that would break it.
Adam stood up. He didn't say a word. He walked to the door of Aries and stepped inside for the twenty-seventh time.
Attempt 27.
The cosmic bridge crumbled away into the void behind him. The air crackled. At the far end, the Golden Ram materialized. It lowered its head and charged, a blinding wave of obliterating kinetic force roaring toward him.
Adam didn't brace his legs. He didn't cross his arms. He stood completely relaxed, his posture open, his breathing perfectly calm.
He watched the unstoppable force close the distance. Ten meters. Five meters. One meter.
Adam simply exhaled and extended a single, open hand.
The Golden Ram collided with his palm.
CLANG.
The sound echoed through the cosmos like a massive bell.
There was no explosion. Adam didn't yield a single millimeter. His boots didn't even slide on the stone. The massive, overwhelming force hit his hand and simply... stopped. It broke against his absolute mental resolve like a wave breaking against a mountain.
For a moment, the Golden Ram remained frozen against his palm, its blinding light illuminating Adam's perfectly serene face. Then, the force dissipated, crumbling into a shower of soft, golden starlight that drifted harmlessly over his shoulders.
The void vanished.
Adam found himself back in the grand corridor. The door of Aries was wide open, completely dark inside.
He lowered his hand, feeling a profound, quiet stillness in his soul. The mental peace he had found inside the trial remained, anchoring him.
"WAAAAAAAAAH!" Little Lion shrieked, popping into existence and vibrating with so much excitement he looked like a blurry red ball. "ONE HAND! YOU BLOCKED IT WITH ONE HAND! That was the coolest thing I have ever seen in my entire, majestic life!"
From the dark doorway of Aries, a new figure stepped out. It was the actual Golden Ram itself, the very same majestic beast of pure, obliterating energy that had just charged at him. Its fleece radiated a heavy, immovable golden light, and its massive, curling horns gleamed. It bowed its head deeply to Adam before dissolving into a shower of golden sparks, the power settling firmly into Adam's resonance.
"Meet Hamal!" Little Lion cheered, doing backflips in the air. "Your Golden Ram! He is the ultimate, unstoppable vanguard! He doesn't do defense; he is all about pure, overwhelming brute force! When you summon him, you can unleash that exact same devastating charge that just hit you! But the absolute coolest part? His charge doesn't just crush physical matter, it violently disrupts the enemy's soul! A strike from Hamal shakes the very stability of their power, bypassing their physical defenses to hit them right in the soul itself!!"
Adam looked at his hand, then up at the cloud-covered staircase leading to the second floor, as it started to dissolve.
"Hey, little lion, do you think I can beat the ones in the upper floor."
"Absolutely not.", Little lion responded with a slightly more serious face.
Adam looked at little lion’s eyes and was able to see absolute certainty, even with his silly behavior, Adam knew he could trust his judgment.
"Alright then, time to go back to the real world. Someone there is waiting to be saved."
"Go get them, I’ll be cheering you up from here", Little lion said with a happy and excited voice.
Adam’s vision, started to slowly fade, as he was awakening back in the real world.