The SSS class adventurer is a divine cleric-Chapter 69: Alira’s trial [3]

Then came a voice.

But not the one from the system, neither was it a human nor was it a beast. A voice of an evil spirit. It was the voice she hated the most. The voice that haunts her everyday, gnawing at her soul slowly bit by bit.

Pulling her back to reality.

It did not speak, it resonated, vibrating through the marrow of her bones, through the hollow spaces between her ribs. Ancient. Thunderous. Not loud, but inescapable, as if the earth itself had formed the words.

"Do you regret not dying with them?"

The question hung in the air like a blade poised at her throat.

Alira did not answer.

Her breath hitched not once but twice, but her face remained a mask, carved from stone and stubborn silence.

"Do you still carry the guilt of surviving?"

Again, she said nothing.

But her body betrayed her. Her teeth clenched, her jaw locking so tight the muscles stood in stark relief beneath her skin.

The tendons in her neck strained, her fingers curling into fists, nails biting into her palms hard enough to draw blood.

A low growl rolled across the plains, a sound that was less noise and more of a presence, shaking the ash beneath her boots. The air thickened, charged with something primal.

The ash shifted.

And then.

It appeared. The unwelcomed nightmare.

A silhouette emerged from the mist of her memories, materializing like a nightmare given form.

A beast of impossible grace and terror, its movements fluid, predatory, each step a deliberate promise of violence.

Ashmane.

It was massive, its body rippling with power, its fur shimmering with an unnatural, almost celestial luster, each strand alive with the braided essence of fire, wind, and lightning, flickering and twisting as if the elements themselves were trapped within its pelt.

Three tails lashed behind it, each one a weapon of pure destruction: one wreathed in flames, another crackling with electricity, the last slicing the air with razor-edged gales.

Its eyes burned like twin suns, golden and pitiless, searing into her with an intelligence that was anything but beastial.

And its fangs long enough to impale a man cleanly through, still glistening with the phantom wetness of old blood.

A flicker of text materialized in her vision, the system’s cold, detached appraisal:

Level: ???

Name: Tyrant Ashmane

Like a wraith given form, she vanished in a blur of shadow and vengeance. Twin daggers, one black as sin, the other silver as moonlight flashed through the air as she closed the distance in a heartbeat.

CLANG!

Her first strike rebounded harmlessly off the beast’s shimmering pelt, the impact shuddering up her arms. Before she could react, a massive paw wreathed in hellfire swiped at her torso.

Alira twisted mid-air, her body a coiled spring of lethal intent, flipping sideways in a whirl of shadow and steel.

Her boots hooked onto a jagged spire of bone, the impact sending cracks spider webbing through the ossified structure as she launched herself forward like a living projectile, daggers gleaming with murderous purpose.

The strike landed but it was futile and meant nothing.

Her blades might as well have been feathers brushing against stone. The monster didn’t flinch. Didn’t bleed. Didn’t even pay any attention to it.

But Ashmane’s reply was immediate, quick and swift.

A cavernous maw, wide enough to swallow a warhorse whole, yawned open, a pit of glistening fangs and pulsating darkness, its gullet radiating the stench of half-digested corpses and lightning-scorched meat.

The bite came faster than thought, faster than breath, the jaws snapping shut with enough force to pulverize steel.

Alira vanished.

<Blink>

She reappeared a hair’s breadth outside death’s embrace, the residual wind of the bite ruffling her hair, only for the beast’s tail, wreathed in storm-force winds, to already be arcing toward her skull.

<Shadow Walk>

Her body dissolved into smoke just as the tail shattered the ground where she’d stood, the shockwave hurling rubble like shrapnel. She rematerialized, knees bent, fingers clawing into the dirt for balance—

As dark energy pulsed through her veins like liquid night. The shadows answered, threading through her muscles, her bones, the very air around her.

Space itself shuddered as she slipped between moments, between breaths, her form flickering like a candle in a hurricane.

The beast’s next lunge came, jaws like a bear trap, fangs crackling with electricity, but she was already gone, her blades carving a vicious cross-cut across its flank mid-dodge.

Steel met hide, creating a spark.

Then silence followed.

Yet still nothing.

Not a drop of blood. Not a single severed strand of fur. Not even a scratch.

Ashmane’s answering roar split the world apart.

Lightning detonated from its mane in a cataclysmic storm of blue-white fury, each bolt searing the air with the stench of ozone and charred flesh.

Alira moved in a blur of desperation and defiance twisting into a backflip as the tempest exploded around her.

The edges of her cape caught fire, flames licking hungrily at the fabric, the searing heat blistering her skin as she narrowly escaped being reduced to cinders.

She hit the ground hard, boots carving trenches in the dirt as she skidded backward, earth spraying in her wake like shrapnel. Her lungs burned. Her muscles screamed.

Still too strong...

"You still hesitate."

The voice wasn’t just in her head, it was inside.her bones, vibrating through her marrow like a curse.

"Your blade trembles. Just like before."

"No," she hissed, teeth clenched so tight her jaw ached. "Shut up!"

But the voice didn’t stop. It grew, slithering through her mind like poison.

"Your parents died because of YOU. You took the power your mother had. You KILLED them. You are not worthy. You’re a deserter. A RUNNER! A COWARD!"

"NO!"

A scream tore from her throat, half rage, half shattered agony, raw enough to draw blood. She launched forward again, daggers gleaming with desperate fury.

"Give up. You will never avenge them... because YOU murdered them. MURDERER!"

The voice twisted, gnawing at her sanity, feeding on the fractures in her soul.

And then, Ashmane moved.

It pounced, a tidal wave of muscle and malice, its massive form blotting out the sky.

Alira reacted.

<Mist Step>

Her body dissolved, melting into vapor as the beast’s claws raked through empty air.

She rematerialized beneath its belly in a killing position, daggers angled upward in a lethal strike.

She plunged them deep.

Nothing. No tear of flesh. No hot spill of blood.

Her blades glanced off the beast’s fur as if striking diamond.

Ashmane didn’t even flinch.

And the voice laughed.

"It’s futile."

Ashmane reacted. It leaped up high into the air and whipped.

<Wind Carve>

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