The Psychopathic Beast Emperor-Chapter 80: Challenging the Disk of Mind

Well...

He was dropped.

Bahamut hit the ground like a poorly wrapped parcel.

Stone cracked. Dust puffed. Dignity evaporated.

He groaned, rolling onto his side, limbs refusing to cooperate as the suppressors hummed smugly against his nerves. His fingers twitched. His legs followed a second later, heavy, distant, as if they belonged to someone else who had made very poor life choices.

A shadow fell over him.

"...Good to see you back," a calm voice said from above.

Bahamut squinted upward, vision still skewed, blindfold humming softly as it tried to re-interpret reality. The silhouette sharpened.

Elder Silvia stood there, hands folded within her sleeves, wings tucked neatly behind her back. She looked down at him with mild approval, like one might regard a tool that had survived being dropped from a height.

Behind her stood Sel.

Ren was perched on Sel’s shoulder, ears upright, red eyes gleaming with unhelpful amusement.

Sel stepped forward quickly and crouched, sliding an arm under Bahamut’s shoulder.

"Easy," he murmured. "You’re heavier than you look."

"That’s the fault of Senior Apollonia," Bahamut wheezed. "She hates me."

Sel hauled him up, Bahamut leaning heavily against him until his legs decided to remember how walking worked.

Elder Silvia turned without waiting, already moving toward the open field.

"Come," she said simply.

They followed.

The floating stone platform awaited them once more, suspended in the open air like an insult carved from rock. It hovered silently, unmoving, just far enough above the ground to feel unreachable without being dramatic about it.

Elder Silvia stopped and turned.

"Your punishment," she said, tone neutral, "has been postponed for today."

Both boys stiffened.

"For now," she continued, "you will attempt to approach and make contact with the Disk of Mind."

Bahamut blinked. "That’s it?"

Elder Silvia’s antennae twitched.

She reached out and plucked Ren cleanly off Sel’s shoulder with one hand.

She held him by the scruff with alarming gentleness and very alarming authority.

"You will continue," she said, eyes never leaving Bahamut, "until I allow you to stop."

Ren froze.

"...Understood," Sel said carefully.

Bahamut swallowed. "Crystal clear."

Elder Silvia stepped aside.

"Begin."

They moved forward together.

At first, nothing happened.

Bahamut even had time to think, Huh. That was anticlimactic.

Then they crossed the invisible boundary.

The world slammed downward.

Gravity tripled in an instant.

Bahamut’s knees bent violently, feet digging into the stone as if the ground had suddenly decided to claim him. Sel staggered beside him, teeth gritting as his calm aura shattered into focused resistance.

Their bones screamed.

Muscles protested.

The air itself felt heavier, pressing against their chests, making each breath an act of defiance.

And then...

A force shoved back.

Not wind. Not pressure.

Rejection.

Bahamut felt it collide with his chest like an invisible wall, a cold, absolute no. His body was pushed backward despite his effort, feet scraping against the ground, sparks flaring where stone met sandal.

Sel planted a staff he had equipped instinctively, the butt cracking the floor as he held his ground, but even he slid back an inch.

Ren, still held by Elder Silvia, stared wide-eyed.

’That’s not gravity,’ he thought. ’That’s ego.’

Bahamut laughed, hoarse, breathless, and unhinged.

"Oh," he said, teeth bared as he leaned forward against the crushing force, suppressors whining in protest. "It pushes back."

The Disk of Mind remained silent.

Unmoved.

Unimpressed.

Elder Silvia watched them closely, her expression unreadable, her antennae swaying slowly as if tasting their resolve.

"Do not resist blindly," she said coolly. "Approach with intent. The Disk does not respond to strength alone."

Bahamut took another step forward.

His foot sank into fractured stone.

Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth as he grinned wider.

"Good," he muttered. "I hate things that give in easily."

Sel inhaled deeply beside him, centering himself, aura tightening like a drawn bow.

Together, they leaned into the pressure.

The platform did not move.

It didn’t even bulge.

...

Five hours later, the world had narrowed to three things.

Weight, resistance, and breath.

Bahamut no longer remembered when the trembling started, only that at some point his legs had stopped shaking and started locking, muscles clenched so hard they felt fused to bone. Sweat soaked through his clothes, ran down his spine, pooled at his boots, and still the gravity did not care.

Every step forward felt like trying to walk through the memory of a mountain.

Sel was no better.

His breathing was measured and disciplined, but the strain showed in the way his shoulders trembled, in the faint cracks spider-webbing across the stone beneath his feet. His staff had sunk halfway into the ground, not by force, but because the floor itself had begun to yield under him.

The repulsive force surged again.

Bahamut was hurled backward this time, not flung, but denied, his body sliding across the stone until his back hit the invisible boundary and he collapsed to one knee.

He coughed.

Blood splattered the floor.

He laughed anyway, a broken, rasping sound.

"...Still a jerk," he muttered toward the Disk.

Sel staggered, caught himself, then finally dropped to one knee as well. His aura flickered, steadied, and flickered again.

Above them, unmoving, the Disk of Mind hovered in silence.

Elder Silvia had not moved once.

She stood at the edge of the field, Ren still in her grasp, watching as if time itself were a resource she owned in excess. The lantern-light glow of her eyes never left the two boys.

Five hours.

No food.No water.No rest.

Only pressure.

Only refusal.

Bahamut tried to stand again.

His body disagreed.

The suppressors screamed, not audibly, but through his nerves, adjusting, recalibrating, punishing. His vision swam. For a split second, the world fractured, and behind the Disk he saw it again.

An eye. Vast, and vertical.Unamused.

His heart skipped.

He slammed his fist into the ground to stay conscious, stone shattering beneath it.

"Again," he growled, forcing one foot forward.

The repulsion surged.

This time, it didn’t just push him back.

It crushed him down.

Bahamut hit the ground flat on his back, breath punched clean out of his lungs. The gravity pinned him there, ribs screaming, vision dimming at the edges.

Sel reached for him instinctively, and was thrown back a full meter, skidding across the stone before stopping just short of the boundary.

Silence fell.

The Disk did not move.

The pressure eased, just enough.

Elder Silvia finally spoke.

"That is enough."

The gravity snapped back to normal.

Bahamut lay there, chest heaving, fingers twitching uselessly. Sel pushed himself upright slowly, legs unsteady, pride bleeding through clenched teeth.

They had failed.

No excuses. No technicalities.

But... 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

Elder Silvia stepped forward.

As she passed the invisible boundary, the Disk reacted.

Just barely.

A faint hum rippled through the air.

So subtle that anyone else would have missed it.

But Elder Silvia’s antennae stilled.

She looked at the Disk.

Then at Bahamut.

Then at Sel.

"...Interesting," she said quietly.

Ren, still in her hand, leaned forward, eyes glowing faintly.

’It flinched,’ he thought.

Bahamut let out a weak, breathless laugh from the ground.

"See?" he croaked. "Told you... jerk."

Sel managed a strained smile.

They hadn’t touched it.

They hadn’t reached it.

Elder Silvia turned away.

"You failed," she said plainly.

Both boys braced themselves.

"But," she continued, wings rustling softly, "you have broken the surface."

She released Ren, who immediately hopped over to Bahamut’s chest and sat there, ears drooping.

"Five hours," Elder Silvia said. "Most do not last one."

She glanced back at them, eyes sharp.

"Recover. Tomorrow, you try again."

Then she walked away, already dismissing them from her thoughts.

Bahamut stared up at the sky, chest rising and falling, pain singing through every nerve.

He grinned.

"...It noticed me."

Sel exhaled slowly, exhaustion finally claiming him as he sat beside Bahamut.

"Yes," he said quietly. "And that’s the dangerous part."

Above them, the Disk of Mind hovered, silent once more.

But no longer indifferent.

And just when he thought it was all over, the system screen flashed with his daily quest.

"Just kill me already..."