(The next day...)

The sun was reaching its highest point over the rocky mountains to the west, casting short, sharp shadows on the bare stone walls. There, Thorr stood in a clearing surrounded by boulders and craggy formations, his muscles tense and his senses alert. He had spent hours repairing and reinforcing his shelter after the collapse, but now he knew that he had to go beyond mere physical strength if he was to overcome this test.

(Flashback)

(Cavescity, one year before Spyro began his adventure out of the swamp...)

After the events in Wildgreen Valley Thorr began to grow, focusing on his ideal of being strong, because he didn't want to be left behind in a battle, he didn't want to feel helpless or useless. However, in the rest of his life, his decision to be much stronger and more disciplined had never allowed him to connect with more young dragons (that, and there weren't many young people his age in those times).

At that moment, Thorr managed to break several very hard rocks by mixing his physical strength and his power of earth. Just when he finished destroying the last rock, his grandfather approached him (the weight of the years was showing in his body, and, probably, he would not last more than a couple of years).

"You should stop now, Thorr" his grandfather told him, "You try too hard"

Gorak pointed at his grandson's paws because, despite the power of earth and his physical strength, he showed wounds from hitting the rocks so much.

"This is nothing grandpa..." Thorr told him, "I can still go on. I swear that I will become the strongest earth guardian"

He was going to continue, but Gorlak put a paw on his grandson's shoulder.

"Being so disciplined and serious all the time is not the way" he told him, "You must balance your life between effort and rest. The Guardians do act as teachers and protectors, but they also form a team together. If one day you want to be one of the Guardians, there will be other companions who will need you, but you will also need them: their personalities, their values, their dreams... all of you will become a team, and you must share the same desire. You must open yourself to your friends"

Thorr was in doubt. Meanwhile, Gorak took a stone in his claws and squeezed it lightly. When he opened his fist, this stone had turned to dust, to the amazement of his grandson.

"How?"

"To do this, you have to connect with the same earth, with your own element" his grandfather told him, "When you understand that, you will be able to have more strength than you already have, both physically and mentally"

(End of Flashback)

"Connect with the earth" he remembered his grandfather's words.

Thorr took a deep breath and sat down on a flat rock, closing his eyes to concentrate. At first, all he heard was the roar of the wind and the distant clatter of crumbling stones, but slowly, he focused his attention on the ground beneath his claws. He placed his paws firmly on the earth, feeling its rough, cold texture.

First, he tried to sense anything that moved. At first, he felt nothing. Frustrated, he smacked the ground with his tail, but stopped immediately.

"Control your impulses, Thorr. You can't always solve everything with force," he reminded himself, taking another breath to calm himself.

Internal silence was his initial response, until, slowly, a weak, wobbly sensation reached his senses. Something small was moving beneath the earth, an almost imperceptible pattern. It was a group of lizards moving between the cracks.

"There you are..." he murmured with a faint smile.

Without opening his eyes, he began to practice small movements. He extended his energy into the ground, moving small amounts of sand along the cracks. It was just a slight tremor, but it was a start. Maintaining this connection was exhausting, though, and he couldn't help but feel like something was wrong.

"It's like I'm only touching the surface... Like the true voice of the earth is just out of reach," he thought, his expression frustrated. He felt like something essential was missing, a deeper connection that he had yet to reach.

Eventually, Thorr decided to try something bigger. He found an unstable boulder near a slope, almost on the verge of a collapse. Touching it, he tried to understand its structure. It was as if he could imagine the layers of minerals and fractures that made it up, but without precision. He frowned, frustrated by the lack of clarity.

Suddenly, a sharp movement shook the slope. The ground began to crack, and Thorr noticed that stones were beginning to slide. He stood up suddenly, knowing that he had to act quickly.

"I can't let this crumble!" he screamed, planting his paws into the dirt. He focused all his strength on keeping the ground stable, but the tremors were too intense. He gritted his teeth and used his club-like tail to hold a rock that threatened to fall on him. Still, he felt the ground give way under his weight.

It was time to rely on something other than his strength. With his claws pressing firmly against the ground, he closed his eyes and tried to feel how the minerals and earth interacted with each other. Slowly, a clearer picture emerged in his mind, but not completely. He could sense the faint lines in the structure of the ground and the small fractures that caused the movements, but he felt the details slipping away.

"Oh, wow. Still not enough... what am I doing wrong?" he thought as he directed his movements. Following the clues he had, he strategically moved small amounts of earth to stabilize the slope, combining strength and control.

With a final effort, Thorr used his muscles to push a large block of rock out of the way, allowing the structure to return to a state of balance. He breathed deeply, feeling a mix of relief and exhaustion.

However, as he sat on the ground covered in dust and dirt, he clenched his claws in frustration, but faintly remembering how those days when he promised himself to be strong left his paws similar to how they were now: wounded and hurt.

Now somewhat calmer, Thorr allowed himself a brief respite as fatigue built up in his muscles. He looked at his paws, wounded and hurt, remembering his grandfather's words:

"You must balance your life between effort and rest. And not only that... you must open yourself up to your companions, your future friends."

Gorak's face flashed through his mind, followed by images of his companions: Ray, with his eccentricity and relaxed attitude, always finding a joke even in the most tense moments. Edel, confident and empathetic, showing an almost sisterly affection. And Jhonny... shy, sometimes insecure, but with a will that Thorr recognized as admirable.

He wondered if they saw him as a guy who was too serious, even boring. Could he be capable of being more than a strong and reliable companion? Could he be someone to trust, someone to share with?

Before he could delve deeper into his thoughts, the ground trembled sharply beneath his claws. He jumped up, alert, as a deep sound, like the echo of a crumbling rock, reverberated through the clearing. Before his eyes, a crack began to open in the ground, and from it emerged an imposing figure: a golem of dark stone, its surface as black as the night sky.

It was unlike any creature Thorr had faced before, even unlike the golems Spyro had fought in the past. Its form seemed irregular, as if it were composed of obsidian that fused together in a terrifying design similar to the destroyer that had nearly brought about the end of the world back then. It had no eyes, and a lava-like energy rose from its chest.

Thorr tensed his muscles, ignoring the exhaustion.

"I will not back down," he muttered to himself.

Using his mana, he shaped sharp rocks from the ground and launched them like spears at the golem. The impact echoed like thunder, but when the dust cleared, the spears had barely scratched the creature's surface.

Growling in frustration, Thorr punched the ground hard, creating a massive stone fist that he drove at his enemy. The golem barely flinched, and one of its massive limbs destroyed the attack in a single movement.

"What are you?" Thorr muttered between gasps, as he felt the stinging pain in his paws.

He couldn't give up now. Focusing the last of his energy, he coated his barbed tail with mana, giving it a crystalline glow. With a roar of effort, he charged at the golem and struck with all his might.

The impact resonated loudly, but the creature didn't even falter. Instead, it launched a brutal counterattack, forcing Thorr back as he felt his energy rapidly ebbing away. Every muscle in his body protested the effort.

"This is madness," he thought as he assessed his options. There was no point in continuing the confrontation; he needed time to regain his strength. Without a second thought, he spun on his legs and began to run, dodging the golem's blows as he searched for a way to escape.

The chase was intense. The golem moved its limbs with surprising speed for its size, ripping rocks from the ground and throwing them at Thorr. Rocks crashed around him, kicking up dust and fragments that made it difficult to see.

Finally, Thorr spotted a narrow crack between two boulders. It was a risk, but he had no other choice. With a last effort, he launched himself towards the opening and slipped inside just as a giant rock crashed behind him, partially blocking the entrance.

Inside the crack, the air was cold and the space cramped, but he was safe, at least for now. He leaned his back against the rock, breathing heavily. The golem's roar echoed outside, but he couldn't reach it. He tried to crawl deeper into the hole.

"I can't keep going like this..." he thought, as he felt exhaustion drag him like an unstoppable current. After walking for a while, he leaned against a wall, panting from exhaustion and pain, "Damn, if only I were better..."

But then he remembered the look of the golem, dark stone, somewhat transparent and abnormally hard... It must have been made of one of the most resistant minerals: obsidian. And, if this was so, then it would be impossible for him to destroy, since he had never reached that level. He was cornered, at any moment that beast would open the crack and trap him.

"If maybe I had listened to my grandfather..." he thought as he closed his eyes, "If I'm going to die, I would at least want to see him and my parents..."

However, as he closed his eyes and accepted his possible fate, he felt different: he could perceive every external movement of where his body rested, driven by the jolts of the golem. Still, leaving that beast aside, he could hear something: it was soft, somewhat small, and it moved quickly (surely because of the roars of the obsidian golem).

"What is it...?" he wondered, but then, even though it seemed incredible, he recognized it, "Wait, it's a... rabbit?"

It was amazing, it was as if he could almost see in his mind how that animal ran, every time it moved, he could perceive the small steps that left some ripples, like when a stone touches a water surface. And not only the rabbit: he could perceive several small animals running, as well as the path that was between them and the young dragon.

"Is this... listening to the earth?" he wondered, "I see... this is what my grandfather meant. Well, now, please, friend earth, give me strength"

Despite being against the sword and the wall, cornered by that obsidian beast, Thorr could perceive how the friendly earth gave him energy little by little, his mana was recovering, he felt full of energy. However, he was still injured... until he had an idea.

The obsidian golem continued to try to catch its prey until... a great earth tremor lifted it backwards. When the smoke cleared, the young earth dragon could be seen with a green aura (of its element) shining brightly around its body.

For its part, the obsidian golem recovered from the jolt, letting out a guttural roar that echoed throughout the grounds. With heavy movements, he raised one of his massive arms and brought it down towards Thorr with a force that shook the ground.

However, the young dragon reacted quickly, driven by his renewed connection to the earth. He moved nimbly to the side, letting the monster's arm strike the void. The furious creature lashed out with another attack, but Thorr dodged again with elegance, letting the attacks miss again and again.

As the monster raised its arm for another devastating attack, Thorr saw his chance. Just before the blow came down, he slid precisely to the side and, with a quick turn, landed a precise blow against the golem's elbow. The vibration resonated like a deep echo, and a crack formed in the dark rock.

The golem tried to raise its arm for another attack, but the crack expanded with a deafening crack. The limb crumbled, falling in pieces in front of the young earth dragon. The monster staggered, furious, and raised its second arm in a desperate attempt to catch the young dragon. Thorr was ready, however. He leapt back, dodging another heavy blow that caused the earth to split under the impact.

Without missing a beat, Thorr lunged forward, sliding his claws down the golem's remaining arm. One well-placed blow was enough to fracture the limb, and as it tried to raise it again, the arm too crumbled in a shower of obsidian shards.

Now, the obsidian golem, despite having lost its arms, was still standing. Each of its footsteps made the earth rumble, fracturing the ground into fissures that threatened to swallow everything around it. Thorr panted, watching as the colossus continued to advance, imposing.

Suddenly, an image crossed his mind: a memory of his grandfather during one of his training sessions.

(Flashback)

Not long after Gorak's advice to his grandson, Thorr taught him his best skill:

"Thorr, there is a special technique that only earth dragons can master. It is a whirlwind of energy, a true earth hurricane that can destroy anything in its path. But it is not only strength that you need."

"How do you do it, grandpa?"

"To control it, you must be in tune with the strength of the earth and the patience of nature," he replied, "The earth is strong, but never hasty. Relax, don't be so serious as you usually show, take everything calmly and listen to your element."

(End of flashback)

Back in the present, Thorr closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. The tremors continued to shake the ground, but he stood firm. Despite the danger, his mind calmed down. Eyes still closed, he dodged the golem's stomps, moving with a fluidity that reflected his renewed connection to the earth. Each time the golem tried to crush him, Thorr anticipated it, moving with precision.

Finally, seizing a moment of vulnerability, Thorr leapt with all his strength, landing on the giant's back. With a roar filled with determination, he struck its center point, forcing the golem to its knees, raising a cloud of dust and fragments.

Thorr descended with agility, positioning himself a few meters from the fallen colossus. His eyes glowed a deep green, and his body began to emit a luminous aura. Stones and leaves began to spin around him, as if the earth itself responded to his call.

"This one's coming for you, Grandfather," he murmured as the energy around him grew.

With a mighty twist, Thorr engulfed himself in a whirlpool that shot up into the sky. The shape of the whirlpool transformed, and at its apex appeared the silhouette of a colossal dragon made of green energy, roaring with elemental force.

The whirlpool descended upon the obsidian golem like an unstoppable force, enveloping it completely. The impact was devastating: the creature began to crumble from its core, its obsidian fragments reducing to fine dust that scattered into the air. The attack had shattered it on a molecular level.

When it was over, the ground fell silent. A light shower of pebbles fell softly, as if the earth were breathing a sigh of relief.

Thorr, exhausted from the effort, staggered a few steps back before falling back to the ground. He looked up at the clear sky and let out a sigh. He was dizzy from the whirlpool's spin and his muscles ached, but a smile spread across his face.

"Grandpa... I think I did it," he muttered before closing his eyes, allowing himself a well-earned rest.