<h4>Chapter 80: Everything was pain</h4>


    Trevor’s face looked like he was going to cry when they arrived at the edge of the Bedrock of Chaos.


    He had never personally stepped into the Bedrock of Chaos, as he had no reason to. But he knew no one had attempted the journey and made it out—no one apart from Roman—and that was because he was stronger and faster than the average werewolf, and Lazer was a magical wolf.


    It was easy for Lazer and Roman, working together, to scale through all the challenges on the path that led to the God Realm almost unscathed. It was a special privilege given by the Moon Goddess herself. But now, Roman was about to attempt the dangerous journey all alone, without the help of Lazer.


    Right in front of them stood arge waterfall that was scary enough to discourage mortal men and beasts from approaching, but right in the middle was a portal to the Bedrock of Chaos. As Roman moved without fear toward the center, Trevor could only pray, knowing there was no stopping him.


    As soon as Roman walked into the portal and appeared on the other side, he let out a deep breath. This was child’s y. He had done it so many times in the past, but now something was different, and he knew it.


    Six deadly challenges awaited him, and at that moment, he was staring at the first one.


    The ck spire loomed like a dagger stabbed into the heavens, its surface gleaming under the pale light of the twin moons. Roman’s breath fogged the air as he tilted his head back, studying the shifting wall of death that awaited him. The obsidian structure moved—its jagged des sliding like the gears of a monstrous machine, reshaping every few seconds. No pattern. No mercy.


    He could smell the blood of past challengers embedded into the stone, their deaths whispering warnings through the wind.


    This was suicidal. Still, he ced a hand against the obsidian and began the climb.


    The surface was hot—unnaturally so. With each pull, his palms were sliced open by hidden barbs that retracted just a second toote. The spire moved against him, shifting upward every time he gained a foothold, forcing him to jump, to lunge, to risk everything on every motion.


    A jagged shard lunged from the wall and tore across his back. Blood sttered in an arc. He growled, one hand slipping—but he mmed his ws into a crevice, ignoring the scream of torn muscle.


    He couldn’t stop. He wouldn’t.


    Midway up, his left leg seized. The gash from an earlier swing hadn’t healed—it pulsed with fire, ck veins crawling around the wound. He bit down on a cry and kept going.


    Suddenly, the wall twisted.


    The whole section beneath him copsed inward like a jaw, trying to devour him. Heunched upward, barely catching a ledge. Obsidian spikes ripped through his thigh. He roared, dangling by one arm, blood dripping down.


    The spire was testing him.


    Not his strength. His will.


    Every breath wasbored now. His fingers trembled. His wolf was silent, curled deep inside him, flickering like a dying ember.


    "You’re not done," Roman snarled, more to himself than anything.


    With a guttural roar, he hurled himself higher, smashing through a cluster of rotating des. They caught him across the ribs and chest—but he didn’t stop. He couldn’t afford to. Tessy was out there. The goddess held answers. And this trial was just the beginning.


    As he reached the summit, his body broke through the finalyer of the spire with a crash. He copsed onto the t obsidian tform, heaving, slick with blood and sweat.


    His vision blurred. His wounds refused to close.


    But he was alive.


    And the next trial awaited.


    Roman didn’t know how long hey on the obsidian summit. Time didn’t pass in this ce—it dragged. Every breath scraped his throat. Blood pooled beneath him, thick and ckened. His body begged for rest, but the spire trembled beneath him, warning him the tform wouldn’t hold forever.


    He forced himself upright.


    His shirt was in tatters. His chest was a canvas of cuts, some still oozing. His leg burned where the spike had torn through muscle and grazed bone. Without his wolf, he was healing like a mortal in this ce.


    He growled low and headed toward the arch that had appeared at the far end of the tform—formed of ancient bone and pulsing shadow. The wind howled through it, carrying a shrill whine that pierced his skull like an arrow.


    As he stepped through, his vision dimmed.


    Then the howl began.


    At first, it was just a low vibration in his bones, like a storm approaching. Then it built—wave after wave of excruciating sound crashing into him. It wasn’t natural. It wasn’t even sound. It was a frequency, tuned only to tear through the soul.


    He dropped to one knee instantly, hands clutching his skull.


    Lazer howled inside him—not in rage. In pain.


    Roman’s eyes widened. The creature within him, the powerful beast that once shook empires, was retreating... hiding. The Ironhowl wasn’t just hurting him—it was strangling his wolf.


    The cave around him was pitch-ck stoneced with glowing runes that pulsed in time with the howl. Shadows shifted between the rocks. Movement. ws. Glowing eyes.


    He staggered forward.


    Each step was like moving through syrup. His muscles fought him. His hearing began to distort. His sense of smell died. His instincts—gone.


    A beast lunged from the dark. It was twisted, malformed—a predator born of blood magic and raw hate. Roman barely turned in time. It mmed into him, jaws wide. He threw it off, but not before its ws raked down his side.


    He struck back.


    Slow. Sluggish.


    Another beast pounced. Then another.


    He fought them off, his ws shing, his teeth bared. But he was slower than usual. Each dodge was mistimed. Each strike felt heavy.


    He killed one by snapping its spine with a vicious roar. But the second mped its jaws around his forearm, crunching through muscle. The third drove its ws into his shoulder.


    Roman dropped to one knee again, blood pouring freely now.


    The howl intensified.


    Another beast leapt.


    He caught it by the throat mid-air and mmed it into the wall, crushing bone. He howled—not with power, but rage. Pain. Desperation.


    He fought like a man possessed, dragging his broken body forward, ripping through the final guardians one by one, fueled only by stubborn will and fury.


    When he stumbled out of the Ironhowl Maw and into the pale light beyond, he dropped to his knees, his body shredded.


    He didn’t even remember thest beast falling.


    His vision blurred again, but he remembered there were still three trials left.


    Roman’s breath became shallow, raspy—each inhale scraped like broken ss in his lungs. The air beyond the Ironhowl Maw was nofort. It was still, suffocating. Even the wind seemed afraid to move here.


    Ahead stretched a field of ash and stone, ckened by time and fury. The sky above was bruised purple, thick clouds. And from those clouds... the gods fell.


    With no warning, a shadow dropped from the heavens.


    Boom!


    The earth cracked where itnded—a massive figure of raw power and rage. A spectral giant, armored in molten gold and etched in lightning, stood in the crater. Then, with no sound, it vanished into mist.


    Another fell.


    Then another.


    Every ten seconds, a divine executioner plummeted from the sky. No pattern. No mercy. No pause.


    Roman cursed under his breath.


    This wasn’t a gauntlet—it was a graveyard.


    Still limping, with blood caked on his skin, he stepped forward into the field.


    BOOM!


    To his left, a god mmed into the ground. The force lifted Roman off his feet and hurled him backward. Hended hard, breath knocked from his chest.


    Ten seconds.


    He rolled. He ran. A third god fell where he’d just been.


    The gauntlet wasn’t just about speed. It was about presence. The gods could sense strength, could feel hesitation. They fell not randomly, but strategically—to crush anyone weak, anyone broken.


    Roman was both.


    His body screamed. His knee gave out more than once. He was slower than ever before, vision swimming, timing off. If his wolf were with him, he would’ve moved like wind between raindrops.


    Instead, he dodged one fall just a breath toote.


    CRACK!


    A god’s hammer grazed his side. Just a graze. But it shattered three ribs, flung him into a jagged stone.


    He coughed up blood, ears ringing. Couldn’t breathe.


    Another one dropped.


    He rolled. It missed—but the shockwave sted a gash across his back, reopening wounds from the spire.


    He needed to move. He needed to think.


    But all he could do was crawl now. There was no shelter. No end in sight.


    "Tessy..." he rasped.


    A name. A lifeline.


    He thought of her eyes—fierce and defiant. The only thing in his cursed life worth bleeding for. The only thing worth dying for.


    He rose, even as pain tore through his spine.


    The gods kept falling.


    But so did he—forward, dragging one foot, then the next, weaving between thunder and wrath. A falling giant’s axe sliced inches from his face. Another mmed into the stone where he stood a heartbeat ago.


    His body was broken.


    But still—he refused to stop.


    He copsed at the far edge, right as the final god fell behind him, shaking the earth onest time.


    Roman didn’t move.


    Not because he couldn’t...


    But because everything was pain now.


    Everything... except his purpose.