The trench had grown impossibly vast, stretching in every direction like a wound in the ocean floor.
Even Kuro's enhanced senses, tuned to every current and pressure ripple, struggled to map the space. Shadows moved without source, rocks floated like leaves caught in some unseen whirlpool.
The ancient presence was everywhere. Its awareness pressed against Kuro from all sides, probing, testing, calculating.
He could feel the remnants of the Strider's instincts thrumming within him—alert, hungry, cautious—but even they paled against this being.
Then the Abyss spoke—not through thought, not through pressure, but through the trench itself.
The walls flexed. Jagged stones elongated. Water surged upward and downward at once, ignoring physics. Currents bent around Kuro as if the ocean itself had taken a breath and held it.
Trial begins.
A massive maw opened beneath him, lined with jagged crystalline teeth. Pressure waves radiated outward, threatening to collapse his shell. Kuro twisted, activating Phase Ripple. He moved through the current like a knife through fog, narrowly avoiding being torn apart.
> [Neural Overload: Warning.]
[Shell Integrity: Compromised—Stress Level Critical.]
[Adaptive Response Required.]
Tentacles lashed out, striking a jagged crystal formation. It exploded, shards slicing the water, each spike a piercing note of pain against his shell.
The Abyss laughed—or whatever that was—its sound resonating directly in his nervous system.
Another movement—another strike. This time, not from the maw, but from the currents themselves.
Water surged like liquid blades, slicing across his tentacles, tearing tissue, testing the limits of his reinforced shell.
Pain blossomed, hot and red behind his neural sensors. He hissed in frustration, every instinct screaming: Retreat.
But retreat was impossible.
The Abyss demanded trial.
And trials were never fair.
Assimilation Reflex
Kuro focused. He could feel the Strider's traits within him, chaos waiting to be disciplined. He allowed them to surge forward, shaping instinct into precision. Barbs extended, sensory spines firing in anticipation.
He lashed, a blur of gold and black. Water split, currents tore apart, and Kuro struck the first test: a crystalline tentacle rising from the abyss, solid and jagged. He snapped it with precision, the echo of destruction vibrating through the trench.
> [Test Passed: Micro-Level Reflexes Adaptive.] [Stamina Drain: 14%.]
[Neural Strain: Moderate.]
The Abyss didn't react—except to escalate.
Walls began to shift, currents intensified. Tentacles sprouted from the trench floor itself, crystalline, jagged, sharp as razors. Each lash forced Kuro to dodge, counter, react.
Pain tore at his neural pathways with every movement. Yet, he adapted. Each strike he countered, each dodge he executed, the Phase Ripple made him faster, sharper, closer to perfection.
Corruption Edge
Then, the Abyss tested more than skill.
A pressure spike tore through Kuro's body, a psychic probe that reached into his mind, scraping against memory, fear, and instinct.
It was not meant to kill—yet. It was meant to corrupt.
He felt it—the pull of instinct from the Strider. The old, broken hunger. A voice whispered in his mind:
Let it take over. Let it be easier. Let go.
Pain, desire, and instinct clashed. Kuro's consciousness screamed.
He had learned, though. He compressed the foreign hunger, binding it, locking it away.
But neural strain shot through him like lightning, tentacles twitching, shell plates cracking slightly under pressure.
> [Instinct Lock Active: 92% Efficiency.]
[Neural Feedback: Severe.]
Kuro gritted every bit of consciousness he had left. He had survived worse.
He could survive this.
The trial continued. Currents bent, debris floated, pressure shattered and reformed.
Kuro's body ached, but each motion made him more than before. His senses sharpened, reflexes honed, instincts aligned.
Every pain was data. Every strike was evolution.
Far above, the amber eye observed.
It had not moved, not struck, not yet. It waited. Watching. Judging.
And Kuro understood: the trial wasn't survival.
It wasn't combat.
It was proof of worthiness.
One final pulse of the Abyss rolled toward him. Pressure, psychic energy, the very water bending into a sword.
Kuro braced. Phase Ripple ready.
Tentacles coiled. Shell flared.
And he struck.
Not with brute force, but with precision, instinct, and evolution combined.
The pulse fractured against him, mana ripping across his reinforced shell. Pressure ripped the water apart—but Kuro remained intact, bending the Abyss around him, shaping the trial into a reflection of himself.
The amber eye widened—if a thing that ancient could widen anything.
Acknowledgment radiated outward, subtle but undeniable.
He had survived.
He had evolved.
And the Abyss… had noticed.