Far above the hunting grounds, the floating projection holding Trafalgar’s battle had already stolen the full attention of the four directors.

The sand worm rose amid broken dunes and exposed stone, its mouth stained dark from the wounds it had taken below. Across from it, Trafalgar stood in black armor with Maledicta lowered at his side, measuring the altered terrain with the patience of someone who had already decided this would end only one way.

Selara let out a soft breath through her smile. "So he went under. Huh. More creative than I gave him credit for."

Eryndor’s mouth twitched. "That’s the best part. He’s not trying to impress anyone, he’s literally fighting to kill it."

Althea said nothing at first. Her attention remained fixed on the projection, on the blood around the worm’s maw, on the way Trafalgar had emerged carrying far more damage to the creature than his rank should have allowed. When she finally spoke, her tone stayed even. "It is still above him."

Kaelen gave a small nod. "Prime rank." His voice carried no drama, only fact. "The highest-ranked monster in this trial."

Selara’s amusement thinned into something closer to admiration. "And yet he’s still there."

"Because he wants first place," Kaelen said. "And the way he’s moving, he might actually take it."

Eryndor unfolded his arms. "He took a hit from me and kept going. A worm’s not going to be what stops him."

Back in the desert, Trafalgar’s breath ran steady inside the helmet, though the fight had already cost him more mana than he liked. The worm had dragged him under, nearly crushed him inside its tunnels, and shown him exactly how ugly the difference between Flow and Prime could feel in a real battle. Reading its pattern had helped. Understanding where to kill it had helped more. Neither changed the fact that one mistake now would still get him swallowed whole.

The exposed ridges of stone jutting through the desert gave him what the dunes had denied before: firmer footing, broken sightlines, and places where the beast’s body would have to commit harder when it came up. The blood darkening its mouth meant the damage was real. The inner seam he had found underground was real. The problem was forcing it open far enough, and keeping it open long enough, that a finishing strike would actually land.

The worm came first.

Its body plunged back into the sand and vanished so completely that the desert looked empty for half a breath. Then the ground trembled under Trafalgar’s boots. A line cut through the surface, wide and vicious, racing beneath him before curving away. Testing distance. Trying to find whether the change in terrain had slowed him, whether the fight below had shaken his timing.

Trafalgar answered by moving when it wanted stillness.

[Crosswind Edge] flashed from Maledicta and tore low across the desert, peeling sand away from the creature’s path and blasting a long wake through the surface. The compressed crescent did not strike flesh. It did something better. It denied concealment for a breath and showed him the true angle of the charge.

There.

The worm burst upward from his right in a towering arc, bringing half the dune with it. Trafalgar stepped across the nearest ridge of stone and cut diagonally the instant the exposed throat line passed within reach.

[Morgain’s Last Dusk]

Mana flooded Maledicta until the air around the blade began to quiver with a high metallic hum. The ascending cut that followed did not simply wound. It tore. The slash climbed through the side of the worm’s neck in a brutal rising line, splitting plated ridges and flesh together before leaving a dark wound that refused to close.

The creature screamed and crashed back into the sand hard enough to fracture the stone beneath Trafalgar’s boots.

Good.

One.

Its regeneration would not be graceful now.

He did not let himself enjoy it.

The beast was still stronger. Still faster below the surface. Still carrying enough mass that even a glancing collision could break half his body if the angle turned bad. Prime rank was not a title. It was a wall. He had cut into it, yes, but the wall had not fallen yet.

The sand rolled behind him.

Trafalgar pivoted just before the second emergence. The worm came lower this time, not trying to swallow him immediately but using the front of its body like a battering ram. Maledicta met it in a hard clash that jarred through his arm and shoulder, the impact driving him back a full stride over the stone. His boots held. Barely.

The worm twisted, mouth opening wider as if the failed crush could flow straight into a bite.

Trafalgar gave it a step.

Then another.

He wanted that greed.

[Arc Slash] spilled from Maledicta in a dark-blue wave and struck across the front of the maw, not deep enough to matter, but enough to irritate, enough to force the opening wider. The beast followed exactly as he wanted, surging after him in a burst of rage, and Trafalgar answered with steel rising through the center of that commitment.

[Morgain’s Last Dusk]

The second hum cut through the desert. The ascending strike ripped through the opposite side of the mouth this time, carving up past one row of hooked teeth and opening another savage line that would not knit shut. Dark blood sprayed across the stone and hissed where it hit the heated sand.

The worm recoiled with a violent twist, flinging a storm of grit into the air.

Two.

Now the damage was beginning to stack properly. The flesh around the maw had been torn once below, twice above, and the neck carried a wound that would not seal. Every forced opening made the next one uglier.

The worm disappeared again.

This time the desert held still longer than before. No immediate movement. Heat, wind, and the distant sound of sand slipping down broken slopes.

Trafalgar did not chase.

He stood where the stone broke through the desert floor and listened through his body instead of through his ears. The tremor came faintly, deeper than before, circling out.

It was thinking.

He needed that. A beast driven only by pain would lunge stupidly and die too early, before the battlefield was set the way he needed. A wounded predator trying to regain control would choose its next strike carefully. That was what he wanted.

The surge arrived from the front at last, but slower at first, almost restrained. Trafalgar saw the line beneath the sand and understood the shape of it one heartbeat before it broke the surface. This was not another rising bite. The worm was trying to come through low, drag across the stone, and catch him in the follow-through once his footing shifted.

He moved late on purpose.

Its front smashed through the surface in a long violent burst, mouth already opening as it crossed into the path he had given it. Trafalgar slid along the edge of the exposed ridge, the world narrowing to noise and grit and monstrous momentum, and turned his body with the cut he had been holding back.

[Morgain’s Last Dusk]

The third strike rose with a vicious metallic whine and split through the already-damaged region at the mouth’s edge, tearing deeper than the first two had. Flesh opened. Teeth shattered. The wound ran up into the soft inner seam before the worm could fully wrench away, and when it finally did recoil, part of its maw stayed open for a fraction longer than it should have, spasming under the accumulated damage.

Three.

That was enough.

The beast plunged back under the sand in blind agony, carving a violent trench through the desert as it buried itself. The ground shook with every meter of its retreat. Blood soaked the shattered ridge where Trafalgar stood, black and thick and slow to sink.

He exhaled once.

His mana was lower than he wanted. His arm felt the cost of every heavy clash. The worm remained alive, furious, and fully capable of killing him if he misread what came next. None of that changed what he had accomplished. The mouth could not close cleanly now. The throat seam would open wider the next time it committed to swallowing him. And because the beast was hurt badly enough to hate caution, it would come harder than before.

Exactly what he needed.

The desert went quiet.

Trafalgar lowered Maledicta and planted his boots on the firmest section of exposed stone. He did not shift. Did not waste motion. Mana began gathering through the armor, through his body, through the blade itself, not explosively, but in a deep, controlled draw that made the air around him grow heavier by degrees.

Under the sand, the tremor returned.

Closer.

Broader.

The surface swelled in a straight line this time.

It was coming to devour him head-on.

Trafalgar remained where he was, black armor drinking the desert light while mana folded inward around Maledicta in silence.

’Come on,’ he thought. ’Open that mouth one last time.’