The world crumpled like a balled up piece of tissue paper. Shapes folded in on themselves until Alex’s vision was nothing more than a black dot. Then it unfurled, yanked back into a flat plane in a snap, and everything had changed.

Alex stood in yet another place. The black sand dunes had vanished. In their place was — for some reason — more sand. Unlike the previous time, this sand was yellowed and packed in a flat disk. Sun beat down on Alex’s shoulders from far overhead, and stone walls rose in a wide ring around him. Empty stands behind the walls to reach up to the cloudless sky above.

He was in an arena.

And, standing on the other side, was Shawn.

The giant had shrunk. He was still enormous, but Alex’s relative size had increased from that of an ant to a slightly large Pomeranian. A smile lingered on Shawn’s face as he looked down at Alex.

“You were faster than I expected.”

“I get that a lot,” Alex said. Then he paused. “Wait.”

The corner of the giant’s lip twitched. “I’m sure you do.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Alex said. He cleared his throat. “Was I the fastest?”

That elicited a rolling boom of laughter that may as well have been thunder. Shawn shook his head.

“Not even close, boy. Not even close. You weren’t even the fastest today. But you were fast.”

Someone was faster than me? Does he mean Claire or Alyssa? Or are we not the first group that’s found Shawn?

“Who?” Alex asked.

“Perhaps I’ll answer if you perform well enough. Not everything is a competition, you know.”

“But this is. And by saying you’ll give me an answer if I perform well, you just made it into even more of one. A bit hypocrical, isn’t it?”

The smile on Shawn’s face grew wider and he nodded. “I never said I wasn’t. Being hypocritical is probably my favorite part of administering a trial that I myself made up. In the end, there’s no fairness here. No justice. This is a world of my making, little grave robber. And if you want your prize, you will play by my rules.”

“Fair enough,” Alex said with a shrug. “I’d probably pull some bullshit if I were in your spot too. But I did pass the first part of your trial, right?”

“You did,” Shawn said.

“The hell was the point of it? To show that I would allow Rot into my heart or something? Was your boss’ last name Nurgle?”

“It was to see if you were capable of doing anything other than killing,” Shawn replied. “There is more to power than sheer brute force. And now, for the second and final portion of my trial, we will see if you are capable of killing.

“You keep saying trial,” Alex observed. “Not the Rotkeeper’s?”

Shawn shook his head. “No. That prize is rewarded solely for the one who finds the deepest spot of the Ancestry. I can offer prizes to all who defeat my trials. But there is only one True Legacy, and that will go to the one who faces the remnant of the Rotkeeper himself.”

“I don’t suppose you want to tell me where he is?”

“Perhaps you should focus on surviving my trial first,” Shawn suggested. “You have not yet finished — unless you wish to end your attempt here? Should you desire, this is your chance to leave. Your only chance. I will bring you back to the courtroom, and you can choose a reward from what I have to offer.”

Alex pressed his nail into his palm until it drew blood. A prickle of pain stung at his hand. This wasn’t another fake-out. Either he was really here or Shawn had taken extra care with this new illusion.

“And if I refuse?”

“Then we fight,” Shawn said. “You prove your mettle. I will keep score. So long as you manage to survive, then the quality of the reward you can receive will increase in accord. And I will add that the results of this fight will be very real. I only need one test of character.”

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Is seeing if someone will let a zombie bite them really a test of character? I suppose it counts when the guy you’re serving puts rot in his name.

“Sounds fun to me,” Alex said with a shrug. “No way am I planning to call things now. We’ve barely even gotten started.”

“Then let’s see if you can back your words up with any ability,” Shawn said. He reached out with his right hand. Coils of deep murky red slithered through the air around his hand to form into a huge scythe.

Alex lowered into a fighting stance. He summoned all three of his monsters in the same motion. Princess bubbled up from the ground behind him as Glint’s claws carved through reality to his right and Spark rose up from his shadow.

I need to keep my distance. Shawn can probably kill me with a single punch, even with the changes to my body. That guy is fucking huge, not to mention his stage. But as long as he doesn’t get anywhere near me—

Shawn swept the scythe through the air.

A ripple of black smoke swept out in its path and streaked toward Alex in a blur.

He threw himself into a roll, hitting the sand with a grunt and coming up running as his monsters all exploded into motion. Another wave of black magic was already heading in his direction.

Spark grabbed Alex by the shoulders and launched him into the air before swapping places with his shadow, avoiding the magic before it could touch him.

Alex sailed through the sky for a moment before plummeting back down. Princess was there to catch him. He landed in her hands with a spray of black sludge, the viscocity of her body absorbing the force of their collision.

She lowered him to the ground in the same motion, and Alex was running again as if nothing had happened.

A mixture of annoyance and amusement twisted within him as he mentally adjusted his fight plan.

Shawn, the massive giant capable of squishing a man with little more than a thought and two fingers, was a caster.

“What do you stand for?” Shawn’s voice rolled through the arena like crashing thunder. He drove a foot down into the ground. A rumble tore through the earth as waves of black light exploded up from the ground in concentric rings that expanded out from where he stood.

Princess wrapped herself around Alex a moment before the magic struck them.

Her body exploded like a bomb had gone off. Sprays of sludge streaked past Alex as Princess was torn apart, revealing the glossy white ceramic components that ran throughout her. Two of her masks shattered on the spot, but the third head buried itself deep within herself and managed to withstand the blast.

Alex darted out from his temporary cover, drawing on his magic. He didn’t bother trying to use Mirror Image. Shawn’s attacks covered too much space. A few illusions weren’t going to help him here.

Glint, who had taken cover behind both of them, darted out in a blur of mirrored blades. He covered the ground between him and Shawn within a second. And, even as the giant brought his scythe sweeping down, Glint leapt.

He streaked right past the path of the cut and right for Shawn’s face.

A grin split Alex’s lips, only to freeze an instant later as Shawn swung his free hand, batting Glint from the sky like a pesky moth.

The Glasmir hit the ground with a crunch. He died instantly, his power flowing out to pour into Alex.

Shit. He’s fast. Why is everything big fast? You’re supposed to choose one! You can’t both!

“Ow,” Shawn said, looking down at his hand. Blood rolled down his palm where he’d struck Glint. There were several deep gouges in it. “What is that little thing made out of? I’ve never seen a monster like it, and I’ve seen a lot of monsters.”

“Just glass,” Alex replied. “You ever hear of Newton?”

“A mage?” Shawn asked, clenching his bleeding fist.

“Something like that,” Alex replied with a wry grin. “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction… or some shit like that. To be honest, I just thought that one sounded cool. Boils down to — don’t smack sharp shit really fast. It’ll hurt.”

“How sage. I’ll keep that in mind,” Shawn said. He looked from his bleeding hand to Alex. “Which of this do you think this counts as a point for? Technically speaking, I think I inflicted more damage to myself than you did.”

“Hey, you swung at him. You could have dodged,” Alex pointed out. “Seems like a point for me.”

“Mm. So it does,” Shawn said with a nod, as if asking the person he was testing whether they had scored a point or not was a perfectly fair question. It wasn’t like Alex even knew the exact rules of how the fight went. Shawn had never actually said what they were. “Let’s up the difficulty, then.”

Shawn spun his scythe in a circle and drove it into the ground. A deep, bone-shaking thrum rolled through the arena as if the world had been turned into a struck drum.

The force of the magic rattled Alex’s teeth. His hair stood on end as electric energy filled the air all around him. Warning bells rang in his head and a wave of apprehension exploded within him, washing over the adrenaline and dragging his gaze upward — where a black meteor was hurtling straight down toward him.

He threw himself to the side. There was no time to cast Funhouse or try and get any of his monsters to reposition him. They were too far. Even the lunge wasn’t quite enough. The meteor was too big.

The magic was going to hit him.

Something deep inside Alex’s stomach lurched. A sudden wave of exhaustion drove into his chest and ripped the air from his lungs.

He hit the ground in a roll as a deafening crash rolled out behind him. A huge wave of wind and sand slammed into his back. It tore him from his dive and sent him skidding across the ground amidst a spray of sand that pelted his back and stung his exposed flesh wherever it could — but he hadn’t been flattened. He staggered back to his feet, heart in his throat.

How did that miss? I know for a fact I didn’t dive far enough to avoid it.

The meteor was only a few feet behind him.

“Huh,” Shawn said, a note of interest entering his voice. “I didn’t expect that. You’re an Incarnation.”