"The trial is simple; just kill this moon-beast for me, and then you can join my personal squad!"
Things had moved so fast after him leaving Kaines's room. Someone wearing the Mars military uniform had called him to get him to a special place.
Ray saw a message from Marin on his phone: "Good luck."
He didn't respond and followed the Mars army group.
To reach their destination, they had blindfolded him. "They really don't want me to know anything..." He sighed and waited for them to finish their journey.
After some time, they guided him through a building, which was soundproof. "I can't even hear my breathing. Is it a void or just a simple soundproof base?"
"An elevator?" His companions didn't answer his question. Yet he felt his body moving down.
Ray didn't mind them, but a mystery in his mind made him feel that something was wrong. "Why is so much security needed for me to see Aria? What the hell is she even doing on earth?" In his previous life, at this point in time, he had no connections with the military.
Since the great war against Beholders on Mars, about two hundred years had passed; now barely any major battles happened there.
His blindfold fell to the ground as he entered a hall with only dark walls. All around the room people with white uniforms and a broken planet mark on their chests were starting at him.
"The uniform of the Goddess squad army..." Ray had seen those clothes many times and had slain many with that uniform. Most of them were stronger than him for now.
In the middle of the room, the woman he hated for most of his whole life sat on a small chair, drinking tea.
Ray walked toward her, but the closer he got, some sort of field deflected him; even the smallest step was like pushing his body to the limit.
"Her spiritual field is real... It's her real body..." He thought to himself.
"Oh, you are here."
Suddenly the force disappeared, and Ray could breathe easily again. "Her voice..." His eyes trailed the movement of her mouth.
The world itself around was glitching; for a blink she had a genuine smile, the world changed, and her face was changed into an emotionless expression with red eyes, but then she returned to her usual form.
"You called for me, my lady." Ray didn't dare to move closer to her; a ten-step distance was more than enough for now.
The kettle itself flew on top of her glass, pouring her some tea. When she drank some, her form changed.
This time it was a complete transformation; Ray saw her white dress turning into a black dress while any human expression left her face.
"The trial is simple; just kill this moon-beast for me, and then you join my personal squad!"
She got straight to the point, but Ray was more confused than ever. "What is a moon-beast..."
Moon-beasts were mostly spiritual creatures that roamed around moons, feeding from their light. On earth they were unknown, but Ray had heard about them.
"It's a spiritual creature; I don't have any way to harm it. The true test must be how much I can stay alive."
A white portal opened in front of him, and a creature out of the horror stories came out of it; its face had no mouth or eyes, just an empty area. His black body was smaller than a human, but its whole skin was black, shining with a silver aura.
"I have no weap..." The creature screamed, and Ray had no way but to cover his eyes with his hands; even then he sensed an enormous pain in his brain.
From the scream, cracks appeared on the ground around them.
Before he could comprehend what was going on, he saw the moon-beast disappearing. His blood wings grew as he flew back, but it was too late; its claws found his chest.
Ray didn't have time to even think; he just left his body to his instincts while he searched for a weakness. His blood magic stopped the blood loss from the injury, but the torn flesh made it hard for him to breathe.
"Its speed is near the speed of light. There is no way to surpass it at speed." His mind still was calm even with the injury on his chest.
The creature disappeared again. This time Ray moved fast but barely dodged its claws; a swish sound filled the room, and Ray was thrown away, hitting the wall on the other side.
"Cough..." Blood was all that was in his mouth; he spat it on the ground. His body shook from excitement: "Its natural magic is moon magic..."
He no longer cared about impressing Aria; his focus was only surviving.
"It's ready..." He turned around; he saw the light of the beast before it appeared next to him, and he charged toward it.
He saw the light of its claw, and as he used his hand to block it, blood and flesh flew in the air. "I can't reach you in speed, but where you are going to attack is simple."
Ray controlled his wings and dissolved them into their basic form of fluid; they turned into chains around the moon-beast's body.
The swish sound came again; he saw a glance of it. "Too fast." The tail of the creature struck his face.
Ray wanted to scream, but no sound came out of his throat. One of his eyes was gone before he could understand it. "I have to finish it..."
From his previous escapes, his blood was poured all over the ground. All of them rose from the ground, shaping a bubble around the creature.
"Die..." He pointed his hand toward the blood bubble. All the magic left in his body was consumed to increase the density of the bubble in hopes of crushing its body.
Ray fell on his knees; with his blurred vision, he watched as his last hope was fading away. Steam rose from the bubble, and soon it was torn apart by the moon-beast as its body was shining bright enough to blind his other eye too.
He just waited there for his opponent to finish their fight. "Just stop it already, you fucking psychopath..." He was sure that Aria was going to interfere.
Before the moon-beast was able to land the finishing blow, a pink aura surrounded its body; in an instant its body exploded, with its pieces falling all around them.
Ray saw the feet of a woman walking close to him.
"You failed..."
Ray couldn't care less, as he was happy that he was just alive with his plan working.
From the start, he didn't plan on joining the Goddess squad. But now, the higher-ups in the military saw him in a new light. "Now, I'm on their radar."
He smiled as his mind faded away into the sea of darkness.