Kaen's blade flickered in the firelight—hovering, silent, leveled. They barely slept after escaping Grey Veil and Emberholds skirmish. Their wounds were fresh; their breathing ragged. But tonight was about more than wounds or exhaustion. It was about potential.
Cyril, eyes burning with new passion, had asked Kaen to teach him the basics of swordsmanship.
He didn't want the sword that rested at his hip to just be there for decoration any longer.
"Swordsmanship isn't just muscle," Kaen said, voice low.
They both stood on broken stone within the dome.
"It's intention. Timing. Balance. Flow."
Cyril stared at the hilt of the cracked blade in his hand. The iron still smelled of ash and blood. He shifted his grip.
"I know flow," he said, voice tight.
"I've learned—"
"Stop talking," Kaen interrupted.
"Show me."
The challenge landed heavy. Cyril squared his shoulders.
"Alright."
He rose, holding the blade awkwardly, edge angled toward the ground.
"What now?"
Kaen sighed, rubbing a knuckle against his chin.
"Let's start with stance."
He scooted two broken pillars apart and tapped his foot on the ground.
"Feet shoulder-width. Knees soft. Blade centered. Eyes forward." He mimed the posture, swift and minimal.
"That's your foundation."
Cyril dropped his knees slightly, breathed in, found a steady breath. Foot placement, soft knees, blade pointed—he mirrored Kaen slowly.
"Don't plant yourself like a statue. You must move. Small steps. Always ready to shift in either direction."
Cyril raised the blade. The weight felt wrong in his hands. He swayed forward.
Kaen shook his head.
"Closer stance. Balance in the core. Shoulders relaxed. Grip loose but ready. Let the spine take the posture, not your arms."
They stood opposite each other. Kaen leveled a bare fist, then withdrew it, less a gesture than a punctuation.
"Tell me, Cyril—what do you think the essence of combat is?"
Cyril pondered on the question before answering.
"Survival?"
Kaen shook his head.
"Wrong, try again."
Cyril, thought deeper about it this time, but to no avail. Survival was the only thing he could think of, he thought of victory as well but to attain victory in combat you have to survive right?
Kaen let a few more seconds pass before continuing.
"The essence of combat is not survival, nor victory. The essence of combat is to kill."
Kaen let those words hang in the air for a bit, waiting for Cyril's reaction.
Kaen's words replayed inside Cyril's head hundreds of times.
The essence of combat is to kill.
The twin weavers from the arena, even Breaker, every attack they threw his way were filled with killing intent.
Each time Cyril fought in this world he never truly had the intention to kill within his strikes. He just relied on his overpowering shockwaves to steamroll his opponents, if he stayed this way and encountered someone with the same amount of explosive power he had, someone like Veyr Cindrall, he'd be as good as dead.
Noticing Cyril's realization coming to an end, Kaen continued on with his explanation.
"Two predators fighting over prey in the wild won't just stop when the other gives up will they? No, they'll only stop when the final twitch in their opponents lifeless body gives out."
"Every thrust of Veyr Cindrall's spear and each slash of the Blade Empress' sword swung with the intention to murder their opponent, no in between."
Cyril's throat tightened.
"What did you feel watching those two clash?"
"Fear. Weakness."
He shook off a memory, something roaring.
"To be completely honest—anger."
Kaen smiled a half-grin.
"Good. Anger refines your edge—but it cannot drive the strike. You must temper it with clarity. This"—he indicated their weapons—"is not a stick. Not a tool. It's a question. Each swing asks something: Who are you? What do you intend? What do you lose with each slash?"
Cyril swallowed.
"I want power. control."
"Not ambition," Kaen said.
"Aiming for mastery."
He readied his stance.
"Show me discharge—disengage, redirect, expand. Flow away from them, as the river avoids the boulder. Strike where they're not."
Cyril exhaled, feet shifting, blade tracing clumsy arcs. Kaen stepped aside. Each move was jagged. Off-timed. The blade flashed past his arm, the missing edge thudding into a pillar.
"Again," Kaen said.
They tried. Each pass smoother. Each misstep smaller.
After ten minutes, sweat-dripped, Cyril steadied: a clean swipe, foot pivot shifting weight, eyes alert. Kaen nodded once.
"Now, aggression." Kaen lunged forward, jab—no blade against bone, but intention.
Cyril mustered courage, blocked with the flat of his blade, and defined the rhythm of their clash.
In that moment—a hum humming through the shards of the crater—was interrupted.
A voice, a singular female voice —echoed across the wasteland, throwing every cultivator's mind within a thousand miles into a shared moment.
Her voice, layered, distant, but everywhere:
"Enough cultivators within the required distance of the Trial, the trial shall commence."
The words dashed through Cyril's veins. They rattled beside the hum of Flow.
"What the—" Cyril's breath caught. The air pulsed, disrupted.
Kaen's grip tightened on his blade.
Then, everything stopped.
No wind. No heat. Not even silence—just absence. Cyril couldn't even hear his own heartbeat. His eyes widened. His blade slipped in his grip. He looked to Kaen, to Miren, to the shattered dome around them—
And then everything vanished
Not violently. Not even with sensation. One blink—and the ash, the sky, the breath in his lungs—gone.
He only felt like this once, when he died
His body still stood there, blade raised, lips parted in a gasp. But Cyril was no longer in that body.
None of them were.
Every cultivator within 1200 miles of the crater, froze where they stood. Some mid-battle, some traversing in groups, some even on their last breath.
Their bodies remained untouched.
But their essence—their very selves—were drawn inward.
Pulled.
Somehow, upward.
Into the shard.
***
Inside the Trial
Cyril's eyes snapped open.
He stood alone in a vast white expanse. The ground beneath him glowed like snow in a heavy winter storm. The air smelled like nothing he'd ever smelt before—crisp, clean, and deeply unnatural. There was no wind, no stars, no sun, no dome.
No Kaen.
No Miren.
Only him.
And him.
And him.
And him.
Thousands—hundreds of thousands—of Cyrils stretched across the horizon. All identical. All wearing the same ash colored tunic, same cracked blade at the hip. Some stood calm, others panicked. A few paced. One knelt with his head in his hands.
This was a scene Cyril only saw in movies.
A wave of vertigo threatened to knock him down.
Then one stepped forward.
This Cyril's expression was harder. Sharper. Eyes filled not with confusion, but contempt.
"You think this is about control?" the Cyril asked.
Cyril didn't respond.
Another stepped forward from behind that one—this version bloodied, his hands trembling, but his smile calm.
"You've never killed with conviction, just did it because you had to, you disgust me, weakling." he scoffed.
More followed. A dozen. A hundred. All voices layered atop each other, rising into a storm:
"You want power."
"You want control."
"You want to survive."
"You want to matter."
They spoke in unison
"Then show us…show us you deserve it."
One of them lunged.
Cyril blocked on instinct. Sparks scattering across the white floor.
Another rushed in. Then three. Then dozens. A wave of himself—clones bearing his scars, his regrets, his fury—rushed forward, blades in hand, strikes clean and purposeful.
Each swing came with a voice.
"Why did you run from Dren's pit?"
"Why did you let her fight alone?"
"Why didn't you finish them when you had the chance?"
"WHY'D YOU LET REN DIE?!"
That last one took him to his breaking point.
Cyril screamed as he parried the first blade, kicked one of his copies back, rolled under a wide swing. Sweat dripped—but this wasn't his body, was it? Not his real one. His core burned all the same. Flow rushed into his limbs, crackling at his fingertips.
He retaliated—cut one of them down. The doppelganger turned right into ash.
Another appeared in its place, like the one he cut down never left.
He turned, slashed, spun. Dozens more fell—but still they came. Like thoughts that refused to go away. Guilt that couldn't be buried. Power without purpose.
Breathing hard, Cyril dropped to a knee.
"Is this the trial?" he growled to no one.
"What—what am I supposed to prove?"
Above him, the blank sky cracked.
A single black shard appeared, hovering like a sliver of night. It g glowed once with violet light.
A voice—softer now, feminine and steady—filled the space.
"Prove the truth of your essence."
All the Cyrils around him paused. Staring. Waiting.
Then a final figure stepped forward. Taller. Older. Worn not by battle, but by time. This Cyril wore no blade—but his eyes held peace.
"You fight all of us," he said, kneeling to meet Cyril's eyes,
"because you think one of us has the answer."
Cyril swallowed hard.
"Don't we?"
The older him shook his head.
"None of us are enough. Not alone."
He reached out—and placed his palm over Cyril's chest.
"Take what you must. Let the rest burn."
And like a collapsing mirror, the thousands of versions of him began to deform—breaking apart into motes of light, spiraling inward toward Cyril's body. Each breath filled him with contradiction. With rage and clarity. Weakness and defiance. Regret and love.
All of it was his.
All of it was him.
The final light vanished. The white floor cracked.
The shard above descended, burning with violet radiance.
Cyril stood beneath it, one hand raised.
"I choose my path," he whispered.
The shard touched his palm, slowly transforming into a violet necklace.
The feminine voice sounded out again, a hint of personality within it now.
"Found you~"
And everything exploded into light.
Across Veinscar Plateu, bodies stirred. Minds returned. Everyone felt like they'd just woken up from a bad dream.
Everyone besides Cyril that is.
His eyes opened again.
Back in the dome. Back in the ash. Kaen still stood nearby, his eyes wide. Miren stirred, hand twitching.
They were gone for only moments.
But in that short timeframe Cyril changed.
He gripped his blade—not for decoration. Not for defense.
But because now, he knew why he wielded it.
Kaen met his gaze.
"You okay?"
Cyril nodded slowly, he knew no one else could remember what just happened. She told him that.
"Yeah I'm good, lets pickup where we left off."