His body descended deeper and deeper until he landed atop the surface of the nightmare. The instant his body made contact with the lightning, he jolted up, his pupils shrinking to the size of needles.

  "Aaaarrrrrrrrrrgh! Arrrrrrrrrghhhhh!"

  Several cries of agony escaped Eclipse's throat. At that moment, he felt as if he were being stabbed by tens of thousands of blades. Immense agony coursed through every fibre of his being and caused his entire body to convulse violently. His vision became a shade of crimson, and he couldn't acknowledge any of his other senses aside from the soul-rending pain he was experiencing.

  Celestia looked down at him expressionlessly as he endured a fate worse than death. She saw him convulsing, his eyes completely white as thousands of lightning tendrils coursed into him at every moment. He scratched himself like a madman, he screamed his throat out like a demented wild beast, and shook uncontrollably as he slowly sank into the sea of lightning.

  Or rather, she tried to be expressionless. Eventually, a crystalline tear rolled down her cheeks. About now, she couldn’t even hear Eclipse’s screams anymore. He had drowned too deep into this deathly pit.

  She dropped to her knees as tears flowed out of her eyes like a leaking dam, “No… why, why why… why didn’t I stop him? What if he becomes… like me…?”

  Celestia choked on her tears as she cried there for a long, long time.

  After several hours, she soullessly stood up, her black pupils drained of life, and she made her way back down the mountain, “No… I won’t stop you from making the choices you want to make. I don’t have that right…”

  1 Day Later

  Chael waited patiently beneath the towering tree, the passing hours marked by the changing hues of the sky. The sun's descent into a vermilion horizon brought a sense of restlessness to him. He scanned the landscape, hoping for any sign of their return.

  Finally, a solitary figure emerged in the distance, trudging wearily towards him. It was Celestia. Recognizing her silhouette, Chael's heart leaped with relief and he hurried forward to meet her.

  "You're back." Chael shouted out as he neared her. "Where's Eclipse?"

  Celestia's demeanour shifted from one of gloom to joy at Chael’s eager greeting.

  “I’ve sent him somewhere for training.” Celestia explained. Her tone was heavy with implications as she couldn’t bear to tell Chael what Eclipse was going through this very moment. "He's working towards gaining a power that rivals that of a Tenelux."

  Chael's enthusiasm dimmed. "How long will he be gone?"

  "It could take up to two years," Celestia replied. Her voice was still tinged with a hint of regret.

  "Two years?!" Chael's expression fell. "Hmm, so I won't see him for that long?"

  Celestia nodded. "Just so you know... after his period of training, Eclipse would be exponentially more powerful. This 'training' he's going through right now makes everything else you two have gone through up until now seem like child's play… and I’m not exaggerating…"

  Chael's resolve ignited at Celestia's words and determination wrote on his face. He straightened his posture and gripped the hilt of his Odachi, “I can’t waste any time then.”

  Celestia looked deeply at Chael. The powerful resolve in Chael’s eyes slightly moved her deeply, but she hid her shock with a sneer, "You two really are cut out from the same cloth, huh?"

  "What do you mean?" Chael raised his brows.

  "Forget it. Let's get right to training! You don't want to lose to Eclipse, do you?"

  Chael didn’t say anything, but the ground under his foot sundered apart as he rocketed towards Celestia.

  He thrust out his Odachi towards her.

  In an instant, the tip of his sword was inches from Celestia’s neck and countless tree roots had already surrounded her, blocking off any chances of escape.

  Celestia smirked, “Getting a little too cocky now, are we?”

  With ease, she flicked the tip of his Odachi with her finger which sent him flying backward across the landscape. Chael's eyes widened in shock as he struggled to regain his balance and his mind reeled from how she had managed to do that.

  He had put all that he had into that thrust with such a powerful weapon yet all Celestia did was flick it at the tip to not only deflect the attack, but to send him flying back.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  He scowled slightly as Celestia ripped apart the tree roots surrounding her with nothing but her bare fists. Before all of the wooden fragments could scatter, she advanced towards Chael with an inconceivable speed, her movements predatory.

  In an instant, she was upon him and with blinding speed, she closed the distance between them and delivered a devastating punch to his gut. The force of the blow drove Chael into the ground with bone-crushing impact, leaving him gasping for air as agony rippled through his body.

  “Argh!” Chael coughed up blood and bodily fluids, his vision swimming as he struggled to comprehend the sheer magnitude of Celestia's power. Her presence loomed over him like a dark cloud, emanating a dangerous Anima Pressure that sent shivers down his spine. She had never given off such a malevolent and dangerous pressure before.

  Celestia got off of him and grabbed his ankle.

  “What are you-”

  Celestia didn’t give him a chance to talk. Her grip tightened around his ankle which sent jolts of pain through his entire leg before she lifted him off the ground and mercilessly thrashed him against the ground.

  Chael's body writhed in agony with each brutal collision, his muscles screaming in protest as he struggled to endure the relentless assault.

  That wasn’t the end of it. She lifted him off the ground once more and thrashed him again.

  And again.

  And again.

  With every bone-jarring impact, he felt his will to fight draining away and replaced by a crushing sense of hopelessness and the desire to survive. With each impact, the force grew stronger, sending shockwaves rippling through the earth and leaving behind countless jagged craters in their wake.

  As he lay battered and broken beneath Celestia's relentless onslaught, Chael's mind raced with doubts and fears. He had never felt so outmatched, so utterly powerless in the face of his opponent. Not since his encounter with Dragos and his ally all those years ago.

  Just when he thought he couldn't take any more, Celestia's voice cut through the chaos chillingly.

  "The real training begins now." she declared coldly. Her words sent a shiver down Chael's spine.

  Despite the pain and exhaustion, a flicker of determination sparked within Chael's heart. He knew that he couldn't afford to give up now, not when Celestia had deemed him worthy of using such a level of power against him.

  As Celestia raised him to thrash him once more, she immediately dropped him and backflipped away and just as she did, several dozen roots erupted off the ground and guarded Chael while simultaneously shooting towards Celestia. The roots were coated in the faint glow of beige qi, the signature colour of Chael’s qi.

  She sneered before grabbing the roots and tore them in half with her bare fists whilst eyeing Chael demonically.

  Chael took his time to orient himself and got ready once more, this time with a lot more caution and determination, “Ahahaha! Let’s do this, you crazy old hag!”

  Celestia grinned and she appeared in front of him in the blink of an eye and launched a flurry of attacks which Chael just about parried and deflected with maximum concentration. He blocked the final attack and used the shockwave to jump back to create space between him and Celestia, panting with a slight smile playing on his lips.

  “Kahahah! That’s the spirit, you fucking brat!” Celestia smirked devilishly, her dark pupils reflecting the golden beige surging from Chael’s body and blade.

  The two assumed this position for a few seconds before charging at each other simultaneously.

  At this very moment, amidst the relentless fury of the sea of lightning, Eclipse lay in a state of torment with his body wracked by agonising pain. With each passing moment, the searing heat and buzz of the lightning tore away at every fibre of his being, leaving him trembling in a fetal position. His skin was marred by bloody scratches, self-inflicted in a desperate attempt to alleviate the unbearable suffering.

  For Eclipse, time seemed to lose all meaning within this hellish thunderstorm. He was locked in a perpetual cycle of torment and regeneration, his body continuously ravaged and then miraculously healed by the relentless onslaught of the sea of lightning. Despite the excruciating agony, Eclipse remained resolute, his willpower the only barrier between him and the brink of oblivion.

  He couldn’t tell whether a day passed, a month, a year, or whether everything he was experiencing had all happened within a fraction of a second.

  Time slowly passed, and with it, the volume of matter within the sea of lightning slowly decreased. If one inspected this bizarre phenomenon from a birds eye view, they’d see the sea of lightning swirling and condensing in one particular point.

  That point was a boy, his teeth grinding against themselves as he felt the pain of several life times every minute.

  As days turned into weeks, Eclipse's strength ebbed and flowed with each cycle of destruction and renewal. His once earth-shattering roars of pain had long since been silenced and was replaced by the eerie silence of his trembling form amidst the chaos.

  Throughout this ordeal, Eclipse remained oblivious to the passage of time, his focus consumed by the struggle to endure the onslaught of the sea of lightning. Yet, unbeknownst to him, his very being was undergoing a profound transformation. Unbeknownst to him his bodily strength, Qi and the density of his own anima was astonishingly undergoing an explosive rise during this whole process.

  Under the cloak of night, Chael lay battered on the ground. His breaths were shallow and laboured. Celestia sat atop him with a bottle of alcohol in hand, wearing a very distant and cold expression. The blood moon cast an eerie glow on the scene, highlighting the bruises and cuts that were all over Chael's body.

  "You're weak." Celestia told him grimly, "Far too weak!"

  Suddenly, a low growl echoed through the air as Shadow approached cautiously. His fur bristled as if sensing the tension in the air.

  Celestia glanced at Shadow with a cold stare, her eyes devoid of warmth. Shadow continued growling at Celestia, not used to this new side of her at all. This, coupled with the state that Chael was in right now, and the absence of his owner, all he felt was unease.

  "You’re barely a C-class Bestia… You have to be worthy of your owner," she murmured, her voice icy. Without warning, Celestia teleported right in front of Shadow and seized him by the nape of his neck. "Otherwise, you'll just burden him."

  She was right. With how rapidly Eclipse and Chael would be growing, Shadow would be a third wheel getting in the way if he remained as weak as he was.

  Shadow whimpered and struggled against her grip, but Celestia's expression remained stone cold. It was impossible to tell what she had in mind at the moment.

  "I'll take you somewhere now," she declared as she began to move, “to a place called the Dark Autumn.”