The chamber breathed like a living thing. Blue light pulsed along the walls in slow waves that rose and fell with the sound of Kaizer’s heartbeat. The Wolf God stood at the far end, half in shadow, eyes like coins of molten gold. Its fur shifted between black and silver, each strand moving like smoke in a wind that did not exist. The stone beneath Kaizer’s feet felt cold enough to bite through bone.

  The voice slid into his mind without sound. Begin.

  The air changed first. It thickened, grew heavy, then pressed inward from every direction. Kaizer tried to inhale and found only a thin knife of air that cut his throat. The pressure folder his body in on itself. Knees buckled. Teeth rattled. A ringing started in his ears, sharp enough to draw tears. The world narrowed to weight and darkness and a terror so old it made thought feel like a useless trick.

  Warning. Divine Pressure Detected.

  Consciousness Threshold: Critical

  The message flickered in front of his eyes, then snapped away as the pressure doubled. Kaizer screamed but no sound came. He felt his ribs creak. Every nerve told him to crawl, to bare his neck, to grovel. The instinct to submit rose like a black tide, for this was alpha. He clamped his jaw shut until he tasted blood. He did not crawl, would not bow. He shook where he stood and hated himself for shaking, but Kaizer stayed, would not fall, feet pressing deeper and deeper into the ground.

  Memories forced themselves into his mind as the force pressed ever inward. Nights alone under a blue computer glow. The smell of leftover takeout left open in his room. The looks his boss gave him when he asked for a raise, knowing he wouldn’t get one. Faces of strangers in the tutorial clearing. The screams and fleshy thuds. The taste of his own vomit in the grass. The weight of failure, the weight of everything he had never done.

  The pressure tightened. Vision tunnelled. The chamber shrank to a circle of stone and a creature larger than any wolf that had ever lived. Kaizer’s knees finally hit the floor. He clawed at the stone and found no purchase. He spat blood and tried to stand. The Wolf God’s aura pressed him down again. He felt very small. He was prey. The word pulsed in his skull like a drumbeat.

  PREY.

  A small light flickered inside him, burning at the very idea. A tiny, ugly spark that had never done anything but complain. Prey? It whispered. Today, you will not be Prey. He planted a boot and forced one foot under him. The pressure met him like a wall. Muscles shook. Sweat ran cold into his eyes. His spine felt like glass. He pushed anyway. The weight grew. The spark grew with it.

  The Wolf God watched. Its eyes did not blink. Its breath did not fog. It simply looked, then let the aura fall heavier, waiting for Kaizer to break. Kaizer did not break, he rose. One degree. Another. He felt something tear in his lower back, hot as a knife. He did not stop. He got his other foot under him, every breath laboured. He made his body a lever and pried himself upright, inch by inch, until the world opened from the floor and he could see the creature’s eyes level with his own.

  The pressure stopped as suddenly as it began. Kaizer swayed. Sound rushed back, his chest heaved. Cool air flooded his throat with the burn of a winter morning. He wiped the blood from his lips with the back of his hand and stared back at the god. The wolf God inclined its head, a motion so slight he almost missed it. The silver in its fur brightened, then dimmed. Fine, stand then, let’s see what you’re really worth, the voice said.

  The god moved and was at him before thought had time to form. A smear of shadow, a surge of silver. Kaizer threw himself sideways on instinct alone. Claws hit stone where he had stood and carved four deep grooves that smoked at the edges. The air filled with the smell of scorched rock.

  Kaizer rolled and came up on one knee. He had no weapon, his hands felt like a joke. The wolf came again, a blur of muscle, fur and heat. He ducked under the swipe and felt fur brush his face like a passing flame. Pain lanced across his cheek. He tasted blood.

  Instinct Alignment: 12%

  The words were small, almost unnoticeable, but they landed like a spark on dry tinder. Kaizer did not try to think, he let his body move on its own before his mind could protest. The wolf lunged to take his throat. Kaizer shoved his forearm into the beast’s mouth without thinking. Teeth slammed shut and pain caused his vision to blur white. The force of the bite threw him onto his back. Fangs crushed down into muscle and bone. He heard the crack before he felt it. Blood sprayed. Heat left him in a flood.

  Kaizer screamed and kept screaming until there was nothing left but a raw sound scraping his throat. The wolf shook him excitedly like a dog shakes a bone. Something in his shoulder tore. His right hand went numb. The world tried to tilt away but rage hooked into it and dragged him back.

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  Kaizer’s left hand found the wolf’s eye by pure luck and hate. He drove his thumb into it. The eyeball was wet, hard and slick. The god’s head jerked. Teeth tore free. Blood ran down his wrist. The wolf’s paw hit like a hammer. He spun, crashed into the wall, and slid down it in a smear.

  Instinct Alignment: 24%

  Physical Limits Surpassed.

  The god’s injured eye leaked silver light that ran like mercury. It did not bleed like an animal. The light drew back into the wound and vanished. The eye cleared. The wolf blinked once and the injury was gone. Kaizer staggered up. His right arm hung useless. He could feel the bones grinding under the skin. Every breath was a hot nail. His vision had a black border that pulsed with his heartbeat. He set his feet anyway.

  The wolf circled left, Kaizer mirrored. The god feinted to draw a flinch. Kaizer didn’t budge. He had nothing left but movement and hate. The wolf charged again, low and fast. Kaizer met it with his knee. Bone met muzzle. A jolt ran up his spine like a lightning strike. He grabbed for the throat with his good hand. The fur under his fingers felt like cold water and steel wire.

  For a heartbeat, he held. For a heartbeat he felt the pulse in the creature’s throat like a drum. The wolf twisted, rose, and the world turned over. Kaizer hit the ground on his back. The wolf fell on him, heavier than a car. Claws sank into his belly. He felt skin open, blood streamed into the air. Kaizer scratched for the wolf’s face and got a grip on the upper jaw. The wolf pushed down to pin him. Teeth grazed his forehead. He pushed up with everything he had. His shoulders screamed, ribs cracked. His useless arm flopped against the stone like a dead fish. He tried to twist his hips to throw the wolf off, for he refused to call it a god.

  Instinct Alignment: 38%

  The wolf’s voice pounded and pried through his head.

  Fight, everything you have. Become the beast you are.

  Kaizer’s throat opened and a sound rang that did not belong to a man. He slammed his forehead into the wolf’s snout. Pain exploded behind his eyes. The god rocked back a fraction, surprised. Kaizer twisted and bit into the side of the wolf’s muzzle. Fur filled his mouth. His teeth, unusually sharp hit skin like cured leather. He bit anyway. He tasted something copper and cold. He bit until his jaw hurt and his gums bled. The wolf roared, a sound that made the chamber tremble.

  The wolf’s head snapped sideways. Teeth closed around his useless right forearm, lower this time. The bite came with a slow pressure, deliberate and absolute. The god locked its jaws and pulled. Kaizer grabbed at the wolf’s fur with his left hand and felt strands come away like wet silk. He kicked at the wolf’s belly and found hard muscle. The wolf, pulled again, and again, harder each time.

  The skin on his forearm tore first. The sound was wet and thin. Tendons stretched like hot wires. Kaizer saw white, pain shot up his arm. Kaizers arm came free at the elbow with a spray of blood that painted himself and the floor. He did not feel pain, adrenaline coursing through his body. He only saw a shape that was once his arm in the wolf’s mouth and a jag of white bone at the end of his arm.

  Pain finally overcame him. It found him with teeth and hot hands and climbed up his shoulder. He screamed as his voice broke. He pressed his arm stump against his abdomen by instinct, blood oozed out of the wound. Kaizers head spun. All went white, a voice entering his mind.

  [You have sustained a critical injury]

  The wolf chewed once and swallowed his arm. Its eyes never left his face. The silver in its fur brightened, then dimmed again, as if in approval. Kaizer crawled, unseeing, unthinking. He crawled forward, toward the wolf. He grabbed at its leg with his left and sank his teeth into the wolf’s tendon. The taste of the god’s flesh hit his mouth like a shock. Silver mercurial blood burned his tongue. Kaizer didn’t let go, he bit harder, teeth gnashing against bone.

  As if uncaring, the wolf dragged him across the floor like a rag. Kaizer held on. The god flung him against the wall. Stone cracked behind him, but Kaizer didn’t feel a thing. Words appeared in the corner of his vision.

  Instinct Alignment: 61%, Partial Bestial State Achieved.

  The words hovered and were gone. Kaizer didn’t even notice them, something had snapped inside him, heat rose from his body, vision going red. The world around him smelt like a map that only he could read. The air told him where the wolf would step before it even moved. The tremor in the stone, weight shifting, Kaizers blood pulsed, heart becoming a slow rhythmic drum. The wolf god charged again, intending to finish the fight. Kaizer did not retreat, he surged forward to meet it, low and close. He went under the wolf’s bite and slammed his left shoulder into the wolf’s chest. He drove his head into the throat where the fur was thinned. He grabbed a foreleg and pulled with all of his strength. For a heartbeat, the wolf slid, slipping on Kaizers blood. Kaizer clamped his teeth at the base of the throat and bit down as hard as he could. He felt the skin give, he tasted cold mercurial blood yet again, this time, he thought he hit a vessel. Kaizer swallowed, drinking the blood like a drug.

  The wolf’s claws rakes his back in four lines that felt like fire. The god roared and flung him away, yet again. He hit the floor, rolled and somehow, still managed to stagger to his feet. The wolf circled. Its breath slightly heavier, blood dripping from its throat in a thin line that steamed on the stone. The wolf dipped its head in a fraction of a motion that seemed like a nod, watching as Kaizer attempted one last charge.

  Silence fell like a curtain as the wolf god stuck it’s paw out to stop Kaizer from falling. The pressure in the room eased. The light long the walls steadied and stopped beating blue. Kaizer had fallen unconscious, his body still moving on it’s own, attempting to attack the wolf. A message rang through Kaizers skull, carrying approval.

  Enough, sleep.

  Kaizers body went limp. The wolf took a step backward and looked at him as one beast looks toward another in respect. Not prey, not human. Something in between.

  You don’t know what you are yet, you’ve tasted it but only time will tell.

  Kaizer swayed as he woke. He spat blood onto the stone and slowly rose to his feet. The god’s head lowered until its muzzle touched the centre of Kaizers chest. There was no pressure, only a coolness that sank through his skin, muscle and bone. A faint silver ring spread from the touch and rippled out across the floor, then faded.

  You came here from nothing, with nothing. You stood, bled, bit and fought in a frenzy. The voice said. This is your first lesson. Teeth, use what you have, mould your body. Learn to carry yourself as a beast. The creature’s eyes closed for a breath in contemplation before it spoke, not in his mind, but using it’s gravelly voice. “You have two choices. Leave, and be rewarded with completing this stage, or continue the hunt.” The walls shifted, revealing two paths. The Wolf God shifted, turning once in a slow circle and a pressure came off the wolf once more, this time white light swayed across Kaizer, his wounds closed, his right arm becoming a stump. “Make your choice” the Wolf stated. Kaizer heard the systems voice reverberate in his mind.

  [Trial Segment Complete. You have been judged as a candidate; do you wish to proceed?].

  Kaizer slowly pushed himself upright. He took a breath and walked through the door marked candidate.