The air over the western continent felt like molten iron.
Every breath Rayon took hissed against his lungs as if he were breathing gravity itself.
Beneath his boots, the ground sank slightly, dust curling into the air and refusing to fall — suspended, heavy, trapped by the invisible pull of the land's curse.
He'd spent the last two days testing the terrain, gauging the limits of his movement. Even with the monstrous vitality coursing through him — the regenerative fire, the adaptive body, the bottomless stamina — this place humbled him. Each punch he threw felt as though he were dragging the weight of a mountain with it.
Still, Rayon smiled. A faint, cutting thing.
"This is good," he muttered. "Pressure builds monsters."
Behind him, Azelar stood by the old hut, watching. The wind bent around him in a strange, deliberate arc — as though it feared to touch him. The old man's expression was unreadable, but his golden eyes gleamed faintly.
"You intend to train here?" he asked, voice calm but deep enough to make the air vibrate.
Rayon wiped a sheen of sweat from his jawline. "If the land wants to crush me, I'll crush it back. But… I'll take your permission first. You've been here longer than I've been alive."
Azelar chuckled — a dry, thoughtful sound. "Permission? No one has asked me that in centuries. You may train here, boy, but…"
His tone sharpened, eyes narrowing. "You will follow my conditions."
Rayon raised an eyebrow. "Conditions?"
Azelar stepped closer, the ground sinking slightly under his weight, the gravity pulsing harder in response to his will. "If you can adapt to this — twentyfold gravity — I will increase it to forty. If you endure that, I'll raise it to sixty. And if your body still refuses to break, I'll raise it again to eighty. And should you survive all of that…"
He paused. The corners of his mouth turned upward. "Then I will teach you something no one else has ever learned. A technique I created centuries ago — one I could never pass on because no heir survived long enough to earn it."
Rayon tilted his head, intrigued. "And what's it called?"
Azelar's gaze grew distant. "The Axis of Creation."
Even Erethon, who had been hovering near Rayon like a lazy shadow, went silent.
"You mean that technique," Erethon muttered. "You still remember it, old man?"
Azelar glanced at him, recognition flickering through his golden eyes. "You know of it, don't you, Erethon? It's not a technique made for mortals — it's the shaping of existence itself through will and mass. The body becomes the center of a world, and everything else… obeys its gravity."
Erethon whistled. "That's a fancy way to say 'you tried to become a god and your bones nearly exploded.'"
Azelar didn't deny it.
Rayon smirked. "Sounds fun."
"Fun," Azelar echoed, amusement fading to grim approval. "We'll see if you still find it fun when your spine begins to scream."
Three days passed.
The forest around Rayon no longer felt like wilderness. It had become his crucible.
He trained without pause — his movements deliberate, brutal, disciplined. He ran through dense woods that bent under their own weight, every step pounding through the soil like thunder. He forced himself to fight the wind resistance that felt like moving through syrup, throwing punches until his muscles tore and mended in seconds.
The 20x gravity became his companion — the invisible adversary that never rested.
When he grew tired, Erethon would taunt him.
"You're slowing down, little monarch. Did the earth win?"
"No," Rayon would growl. "It's just learning what it's up against."
On the fifth day, he was sprinting up a slope of black rock, each stride cracking stone beneath his feet. Sweat steamed off him; his aura rippled like a violet mirage.
At the summit, he stopped and looked down at his own hands — steady now, not trembling.
"I've adapted," he said flatly.
Azelar appeared behind him without a sound, his cloak dragging the air down with it. "Already?"
Rayon nodded once.
The old man raised his hand, and the pressure of the land doubled instantly. The forest bent. The air screamed. Fortyfold gravity crushed down like the wrath of a planet.
For a split second, Rayon's knees hit the ground. Blood ran down his face.
Then he pushed up again — slow, deliberate — until he stood straight, muscles straining but not breaking.
Azelar's expression didn't change, but his eyes gleamed with faint approval. "You adapt quickly."
Rayon smirked through gritted teeth. "Adaptation's my second language."
Erethon laughed softly. "And arrogance is your first."
Another week bled into the next.
The forest had grown silent, watching him. Even the monstrous beasts that roamed the outer borders of Azelar's domain stayed back. They could feel it — that the young man training beneath the crushing gravity wasn't prey.
He was a new law being written into existence.
When the gravity reached sixtyfold, Rayon's movements became blurs of raw kinetic precision. He no longer moved like a man; he moved like a force of nature — each strike exploding air into shockwaves, each breath tearing clouds apart.
The ground cracked under him whenever he exhaled.
Azelar watched in silence, arms folded. For the first time, there was a shadow of disbelief in his eyes.
"You shouldn't be able to withstand this much," he said softly.
Erethon answered instead, smirking. "He's not supposed to be able to. But you forget what he houses. Insanity doesn't obey balance — it rewrites it."
Azelar turned his gaze toward Rayon, whose aura now shimmered like a broken mirror reflecting every color and none at once.
"Then perhaps," the old man murmured, "he's more than just a vessel. Perhaps he's becoming a Primordial himself."
By the twelfth day, Rayon stood beneath eightyfold gravity.
The world around him had caved into stillness. Even sound bent slower here, dragging like liquid. His movements looked impossible — each punch, each breath, each pivot echoing like thunder in molasses.
But he stood.
Alive.
Unbroken.
Azelar approached him at dusk, the horizon bleeding orange across the blackened forest.
"That's enough," he said finally. "You've reached the threshold."
Rayon turned, shirt shredded, his expression calm. "That's a hundredfold, isn't it?"
The old man nodded slowly. "It is. You've earned the technique."
He extended his hand, palm glowing faintly with golden light. "The Axis of Creation. The art of becoming the center of all force. Where your will draws the world toward you — and your defiance bends its laws."
Rayon watched the old man for a long moment. Then, finally, he accepted. The power flowed through him — not as energy, but as weight. Reality thickened. The stars above seemed closer. The air vibrated with restrained chaos.
Erethon's eyes flared. "Oh, you just made a mistake, old man."
Azelar frowned. "What?"
Rayon opened his eyes. His grin was razor-sharp.
"Now the world's gravity… is mine."
The forest shuddered — the land itself bowing.
Azelar's breath caught, half in awe, half in dread.
"Good," he whispered. "Then let's see if you can keep it."