Chapter 50: Combat Simulation!
The suppression collars clicked off with a sharp, synchronized hiss.
Three shadows burst from the open panels. Soren immediately dropped his weight, shifting his grip on the Ironwood spear as his eyes tracked the motion. He cataloged each target in a fraction of a second.
’Vorpal Hares.’
They shared the general silhouette of a rabbit, though they matched the size of large dogs and lacked the harmless nature of a typical herbivore. Powerful muscles bunched under their patchy fur, built entirely for explosive leaps. Long incisors gleamed under the facility illumination, and six uneven eyes fixed on him with pure hunger.
One circled left. Another right. The third hung back, its many eyes blinking out of sync.
Soren didn’t give them a chance to coordinate. Pushing hard off his back foot, he closed the distance to the leftmost beast in two rapid strides. The creature reacted instantly, its powerful legs launching it into a spiraling leap straight for his throat with its jaws wide open.
The Ironwood spear intercepted the attack mid-flight. Soren drove the weapon upward, the cold-iron blade piercing deep into the monster’s exposed underbelly. As momentum carried the carcass down the shaft, he executed a sharp twist, throwing the weight aside to keep his weapon clear for the next strike.
’One.’
The second hare seized the opening, darting low from his right flank. Its teeth snapped toward his ankle, aiming to sever the tendon. Soren pivoted on his lead foot, driving the butt of the spear down in a vertical strike. The weighted end crushed the creature’s spine with a distinct crack.
’Two.’
The final hare had used its companions’ deaths as cover, circling behind him with silent patience. It launched itself at his exposed back, claws extended toward his neck.
Soren reacted in an instant, letting his knees buckle into a controlled crouch as the hare sailed over his head. In the same fluid motion, he reversed his grip and thrust the spear upward behind him. The blade caught the creature mid-descent, impaling it cleanly.
’...Three.’
Silence returned to the combat hall.
Soren straightened, flicking the dark blood off his blade. His breathing remained perfectly even, his heart rate elevated but completely under control. He looked up toward the observation deck, where Vahn stood watching behind the transparent barrier.
The examiner’s expression hadn’t changed.
"Wave two. Begin."
Four panels slid open this time.
The next creatures to emerge were far larger and heavier. They resembled hairless primates, equipped with elongated arms that dragged along the metal floor. Thick, calloused knuckles left faint scratches on the reinforced surface as they moved. Their faces were entirely flat and featureless, broken only by a single vertical slit that pulsed with every breath.
’Brawler Gibbons. Built to absorb punishment and dish out crushing force.’ Soren recalled the info in his mind as he prepared for another battle.
The gibbons fanned out into a loose semicircle, their pulsing face-slits tracking his every movement. The first lunged without warning, sweeping its right arm in a wide arc aimed directly at his ribs. Soren backstepped, feeling the rush of air brush against his chest. Before he could counter, the second beast was already moving, hammering its left fist down toward his skull.
He sidestepped.
"Boom!"
The blow cratered the alloy floor where he had stood a heartbeat earlier.
’They are coordinated.’ Soren analyzed quickly. ’Each attack covers the other, leaving minimal openings. Then...’
He choked up on the spear, shortening his grip to better handle the close quarters. With a quick feint toward the first gibbon, he forced its guard up, then pivoted sharply to drive his blade deep into the second creature’s shoulder joint.
"KREEE!"
A horrible shriek erupted from the monster’s pulsing slit as its arm went entirely limp.
But the third and fourth were already closing. A massive knuckle slammed into his newly purchased armor, right over his ribs. The obsidian-threaded leather absorbed most of the impact, dispersing the force across his torso. Soren still felt his breath driven from his lungs. He rolled with the blow, using the momentum to create distance.
Thankfully, the armor and his Ironclad Body dulled the worst of it.
He planted his feet and reassessed. The wounded gibbon hung back, one arm useless. Three remained combat effective.
’Alright, time to finish this.’
Soren surged forward and targeted the one who had struck him.
The creature raised both arms to guard its featureless face. He swept the spear low instead, the Cold-Iron blade slicing through the tendons behind its knee.
It crumpled with a guttural wheeze.
The remaining two hesitated for a fraction of a second. But it was more than enough for Soren. His spear found the throat-slit of the nearest one, punching through cartilage and out the back of its neck. He ripped the blade free and spun, driving the butt spike into the final gibbon’s face-slit as it lunged.
The creature collapsed, twitched once, and went still.
The wounded one tried to drag itself away on one arm and one leg, leaving a dark smear across the alloy floor. Soren crossed the distance and ended it cleanly.
He stood amid the carnage, chest heaving now. Sweat dripped from his chin. His ribs ached where the blow had landed, but Accelerated Regeneration and Pain Resistance did their work in time.
After he managed to catch his breath and was ready to fight, Vahn’s voice echoed once again.
"Wave three. Final wave."
The overhead lights flickered and dimmed, casting the combat hall into a twilight gloom. Deep shadows pooled in the corners and stretched across the floor like spilled ink.
Three pairs of pale, luminescent eyes opened in the darkness.
The creatures emerged from the shadows themselves. Their forms were indistinct and wavering like heat mirages. They were wolf-sized, with sleek bodies covered in short charcoal fur. Their paws made no sound against the alloy floor.
Shadow Stalkers were apex predators within their weight class, perfect assassins whose signature ability made them nightmares to track. They could merge with any shadow and travel through it as if through water. Worse, they could emerge from a target’s own silhouette.
The center Stalker dissolved without warning. Its body simply liquefied into the darkness beneath it, vanishing from physical sight entirely.
Soren’s instincts screamed. He activated Quick Step, and his form blurred by two meters to the left. Claws raked through empty air where his spine had been a heartbeat earlier. The Stalker materialized briefly from his own shadow, pale eyes gleaming, before melting back into the darkness pooling beneath a dented floor panel.
The remaining two Stalkers began circling, their pale eyes tracking him with predatory patience. One would feint, drawing his attention. The other would reposition. Somewhere in the gloom, the third waited within the shadows themselves, choosing its moment.
They were hunting him like true predators.
Soren forced his breathing to slow. Iron Will suppressed the spike of alarm trying to creep into his chest. He instinctively understood: panic meant failure, and failure meant death.
’...I guess it’s time to get serious.’
He took a deep breath, channeling his cold ice mana to his weapon. The Ironwood shaft grew cool beneath his fingers, and faint wisps of vapor began curling from the Cold-Iron blade.
The remaining two Stalkers circled wider, sensing the shift.
Soren steadied his stance and waited, trusting the simple rule he had learned: never chase shadows; let the enemy commit first. His eyes swept the hall once more before dropping to the darkness pooling around his boots.
When a ripple stirred in the shadow at his feet, he was already moving. He twisted his hips and snapped the spear forward, the blade vanishing into a streak of white light. His Frost Piercing Thrust drove clean through the emerging Stalker’s chest. The creature barely had time to shriek before jagged ice erupted from the wound, spreading across its torso in a single breath.
Its limbs locked mid-lunge, pale eyes frozen wide, and he twisted the spear sharply to shatter the frozen body against the alloy floor in a spray of frost and dark blood.
"Huff... One down..."
Soren straightened slowly and swept his cold gaze across the remaining shadows.
"Two more to go."