Alma was sent hurtling into the forest, his body crashing through thick tree trunks as clouds of dirt and debris exploded into the air behind him.
The old man clutched the large stone he was seated upon as though it were a crutch, his body trembling, his breath shallow and erratic. Fear—true, unfiltered fear—had overtaken him. This was nothing like the men he had killed before.
This was something else entirely.
He had never felt such terror.
He had never seen such...
Evil.
—
From amidst the settling dust, Alma rose once more, brushing dirt and shattered bark from his clothes with casual indifference. It had been quite some time since anyone had managed to launch him like that. Strangely, he welcomed it—not because of the pain, but because of the nostalgia.
Still, now wasn't the time to reminisce.
His mind retraced the moment. That old man—how had he generated so much force? That wasn't normal. That wasn't human.
Alma stepped out of the forest's edge and caught sight of the old man, still rooted in place, his wide eyes tracking Alma's every move. As Alma drew nearer, he noticed the man's breath beginning to steady, but only just. Whatever he had witnessed must have shaken him to his core.
Did he think Alma was a Beast of Ruin?
Unlikely. Alma had just slain one moments before—its towering body alone made that distinction clear. Nothing about Alma's appearance or aura should've led anyone to such a conclusion. So then... what had terrified the old man so deeply?
Alma began to approach, slowly, deliberately, each step chosen with care. Perhaps he had made a mistake—spoken too abruptly or assumed too much. Whatever had provoked this fear, Alma wanted to correct it.
But before he could get too close, the man suddenly sprang back, still visibly afraid. Alma narrowed his eyes, silently questioning what exactly he had done to provoke this reaction.
Undeterred, he pressed forward once more, persistent and calm. Then, without warning, the man lunged, his body moving with shocking speed, his fist already mid-swing.
Alma dodged effortlessly.
His eyes widened. How is he this fast?
"What did I do?" Alma asked, confused, but the old man gave no response.
Instead, he attacked again. And again. Each strike dodged with ease, Alma never retaliating, merely observing. He waited, letting the old man expend his energy. Once fatigue set in, perhaps they could talk.
Then, just as suddenly, the man leapt back, leaving Alma puzzled.
"Snake Master: Serpent of Flowing Tide," the man intoned—his first words since launching Alma into the forest.
He began to move his hands in fluid, deliberate motions before extending them fully outward. A shimmering, transparent serpent phased through his chest, coiling around his arms before shooting forward with lethal intent.
Alma raised a brow. Was he seeing things?
Then the snake moved—with blistering speed. It lunged at Alma, its fanged mouth wide open. Alma jumped away, but the serpent was relentless, attacking again and again, each failed bite increasing its speed, like a predator growing more desperate.
Alma's expression hardened as he studied it. It's getting faster.
On its next approach, he caught the creature mid-lunge, slamming its head into the ground and kicking up a fresh cloud of dust. But the snake wasn't finished.
It surged forward once more, only to be grabbed and hurled across the clearing. Twisting in midair, it recovered quickly and dove down again. Alma dodged at the last second, and the serpent smashed into the earth, raising a great plume of dirt—then fell still.
It had been defeated.
But Alma had no time to breathe. Out from the fading dust, the old man rushed in again, closing the distance in a blink.
This time, Alma didn't dodge. He met each attack directly, matching blow for blow.
The old man launched a punch, and Alma caught it in his palm. With a sharp yank, he pulled the man forward and drove his knee into his gut. Without hesitation, he grabbed the man by his shoulder and flung him toward a tree, but the man recovered, twisting midair and using the trunk to redirect himself, landing gracefully on his feet.
No sooner had he landed than he launched himself again. They clashed in a flurry of movements, strikes exchanged and countered in a blur. Alma was smiling now—laughing, even—enjoying the exchange far more than he expected.
Then came an opening: a clean strike to the jaw. Alma took it. But at the last second, the man ducked beneath his fist, avoiding the blow entirely. Alma's eyes widened.
"Mantis Master: Strike of Instantaneous."
Time itself seemed to slow around the old man as his speed surged. Within the span of 0.5 seconds, he delivered 100,000 perfectly aimed strikes to Alma's side—all in the exact same spot, all with identical speed, power, and timing.
Alma saw them all. He could've stepped aside. He could've dodged every single one. But he chose to stand there—curious, almost amused—wanting to gauge the damage for himself.
The barrage ended. Alma stood, unmoved. Not even a scratch.
The old man stared, stunned beyond belief. Not even the Bear Master had survived that technique.
Now there was only one option left. The very move that had ended the Elephant Master.
"Composite Beast," the man said.
A glowing ring erupted from beneath his feet, red along the edges with a faded, golden-yellow center. It stretched outward until it encompassed the entire mountain range.
Alma remained unaware of the ring—he hadn't even activated his Black Eyes.
"Primal Zone," the old man finished.
The Primal Zone: a state where a Master unleashes their full current power, channeling latent potential to its peak. Within the golden circle, reality bends in favor of the user. Those caught inside suffer severe fatigue, muscle dysfunction, and a breakdown of mental coherence.
But Alma remained still. Unaffected.
The old man raised his hand high and formed a fist. "Elephant Master: The Strongest Smash!" he bellowed, slamming his fist down into the earth.
The ground quaked. Tremors tore through the mountains. The earth in front of Alma shattered and exploded, the shockwave racing toward him. Mountains collapsed in succession, as though dominoes were falling, their structural thresholds stolen by the strike.
This wasn't destruction by force—it was destruction by requirement. The precise amount of energy needed to annihilate each structure was harnessed and compacted into a single point of impact.
All of that power, all of that devastation, had been condensed into one catastrophic blow—aimed solely at Alma Alastor.
The impact came. A shockwave detonated outward, reducing nearby mountains to rubble, shaking tectonic plates, and blowing snow from peaks miles away.
As the dust settled, the old man's mouth fell open.
Alma still stood, untouched.
The old man's breath hitched. His heart raced. His blood turned to ice.
"A Monarch..." he whispered.
Alma casually brushed the dirt from his shirt and arms. He really needed a shower.
"What the hell are you?" the old man asked, stunned.
Alma glanced at him with a blank expression. "I'm an adult being assaulted by a senior citizen."
The man's voice cracked. "B-but... how? How are you still alive? That was my strongest attack!"
Alma squinted, almost sheepishly. "That was your strongest move? I hate to burst your bubble, but... that was kind of weak."
The old man froze. The shock on his face didn't deepen. Instead, Alma's words simply confirmed what he had already begun to suspect.
Realizing his tone might've been too harsh, Alma quickly followed up. "Not that it lacked power. It was strong—seriously strong—but I'm just... stronger."
That didn't help.
"It's fine," the man said after a pause. "Tell me—why haven't you killed me?"
Alma raised an eyebrow. "Huh? Why would I do that?"
The man's eyes widened.
"What? Didn't you see what I did—what I tried to do to you?"
To Alma, the attacks were lackluster. He had followed every movement without using even Black Eyes, much less Evil Eyes. But objectively, the old man's techniques were far from weak. And they would never have threatened his life.
"So what?" Alma replied. "It's not like my life was in danger. I'm the one who dropped into your forest uninvited."
The old man tilted his head. "Then surely you know my technique, Composite Beast, right?"
Alma blinked. "Sorry, no clue what that is."
The man looked at him, incredulous. Now, he was certain.
"It's a technique I developed to mirror the bond between a human and an animal," the man said solemnly.
Alma raised a brow. "A bond between human and animal? What are you even talking about?"
That was all the confirmation the old man needed.
"You're not from this planet."
Alma's eyes widened slightly.
"What? Of course I'm from Earth. What other life is there out there?" he said hastily, scrambling to maintain his cover.
The old man narrowed his eyes. "At first, I thought you might've been a Monarch. But now, after everything—the way you withstood my attacks, your ignorance of Composite Beast, and your lack of knowledge about the sacred bond... it's clear."
He paused, then said, quietly but with finality:
"You are an outsider."
A single bead of sweat rolled down Alma's cheek—the first sign of pressure he had shown all fight. But not from the battle.
From the realization: He had said too much..And now... his cover had been exposed.
He should have realized sooner that revealing so much—even in innocent ignorance—could easily unravel the veil he had carefully placed over himself. His words, casual as they seemed, were enough to raise questions. But in his defense, never once in his time in California had he witnessed anything remotely resembling the kind of power he had just seen. There had been no rumors, no whispers among crowds, no obscure news articles buried under conspiracy. Nothing. Not even a hint of these so-called Masters or Monarchs, not a single piece of gossip that suggested this world held forces beyond normal comprehension—at least, none that he had heard.
So how could he have known? There had been no warning, no clues, no signs. And now, faced with these revelations, Alma found himself caught in a storm of confusion. This wasn't just unfamiliar; it was otherworldly. These terms—Masters, Monarchs, Primal Zones—meant nothing to him, and the weight they actually carried only deepened the dissonance in his mind.
But despite all that had happened, despite the barrage of attacks, the strange abilities, and the overwhelming strength displayed by the old man, Alma had never once considered killing him. The thought had never entered his mind.
"...You caught me," he said at last, his voice quiet, almost resigned. "I'm not from this planet."
The old man gave a small nod, as if this information had already been accepted long before it was spoken aloud. "I know," he said calmly. "Don't worry—I won't tell anyone."
Alma's brow furrowed. For a moment, he was taken aback. This wasn't the kind of reaction he expected. Discovering that someone wasn't of this world should incite panic, maybe even fear. But the old man stood there, steady and composed.
"You're awfully calm for someone who just found out I'm not even from this planet," Alma remarked, his tone skeptical.
The old man gave a weary smile. "Well… all of my family is dead. The ones I loved have been killed. I don't have a wife, so I can't procreate. There's nothing left for me in this life but the final stretch of it."
He paused, then added, "I've spent my years eliminating those who abused their power. Now that they're gone, I've finally found peace. So I guess... I'm okay."
Alma stood in silence. There was something haunting in the old man's words. Something familiar. This man had walked a path that Alma had been through, and perhaps, one that he himself might one day tread—a path of isolation, of solitude after victory. A future where strength wasn't enough to save you from the weight of loss.
"I'm… sorry," Alma said quietly, his voice softer than before. "That's a heavy burden to bear."
The old man waved a hand dismissively. "Don't concern yourself with me. You don't strike me as evil, and I doubt you'll blow up the planet or anything."
Alma gave him a look of amused disbelief, one brow lifting. "What gives you the idea that I would even consider something like that?"
The old man hesitated, his eyes narrowing slightly in thought. He took a deep breath before speaking. "Because you're not from this world, you don't truly understand its laws—outside of the societal ones. And that makes you dangerous. But… also potentially good."
He stepped forward, his voice taking on a deeper, more serious tone. "Let me explain how things work here. Our world functions on a hierarchy. A system of three tiers. At the very top are the Ministers. Only three exist. They embody and are bonded to the three fundamental forces of existence—Reality, Time, and Gravity. They are the apex of this structure, the rulers of the world's deepest laws."
"Below them are the Monarchs. Twelve in number, these are humans bonded to legendary creatures—beings like Dragons, Phoenixes, Leviathans, and others. Their power is immense, but their bond is key to their strength."
"And at the base of this hierarchy are the Masters. Thirty-six humans, each bonded to animals of the natural world—bears, lions, elephants, ants, orcas, you name it. They are the lowest tier, but still incredibly powerful. At least, they used to be."
Alma tilted his head slightly. "Used to be? What happened to the thirty-six Masters?"
The old man's face grew more somber. "They were corrupted. Every single one of them. They formed false bonds with their animals, manipulating the connection to exploit power without balance. A true bond divides the strength between human and creature, creating harmony. But they faked it. Twisted it. And abused it."
He paused again, the silence heavy.
"I am called the Beast Master," he said at last, his voice low. "Because I killed them all."
Alma took a breath, trying to process the magnitude of what had just been said. "That's… a lot to take in," he admitted, his voice cautious. "But…they could've been saved."
The old man's gaze sharpened. "Sometimes, kid, people need to be killed."
He held up a hand before Alma could respond. "I don't expect you to agree. My belief is extreme, and I won't pretend that it isn't. But I've watched you fight. I've spent seventy-five years mastering every known martial art, even creating a few of my own. And yet, you—on instinct—mimicked my techniques flawlessly. As if you understood them better than I do."
"There's something inside you. A kind of potential I've never seen before. Let me help you shape it. Let me pass on everything I've learned. Allow me to become your master."
Alma blinked. "That's… definitely out of the blue. I don't even know your name. And you don't know mine. What even brought this on?"
The old man gave a small, almost pleading smile. "My name is Jiang Shun. And… I want to achieve something truly meaningful before I die. Let me pass on what I've spent my whole life learning."
Alma paused, his thoughts spinning. He had never received formal training. His battles with J.I.B.R.I.L. and the Sanctum Arc had always been improvised and reactive. His instincts were sharp, but instincts could only take him so far. Skill—refined, practiced, and perfected—could be the difference between survival and death.
Jiang clearly had the skill. Alma had the power. If they combined the two…
"Yes," Alma said firmly. "I want you as my teacher... Mr. Shun."
Jiang smiled, and in that moment, after decades of wandering, of loneliness, of bearing a weight few could understand—he finally felt something again: purpose. He had no idea just how much Alma would exceed even his highest expectations.
Alma and Jiang shared a quiet smile, a gesture of mutual respect and newfound connection. In that moment, Alma took his first real step toward becoming something truly legendary. Whether that legend would be built on heroism or infamy remained to be seen—but the journey had begun nonetheless.
However, there remained a problem with Alma—one that lingered beneath every interaction, unspoken but undeniable. Here was this man, Jiang, offering up the full breadth of his life's knowledge, cultivated through hardship, discipline, and time, to someone he had only just met… and yet Alma couldn't even tell him the truth of who he was?
Jiang already knew that Alma wasn't from this Earth. But how much more would he be willing to accept? Would Alma dare tell him everything—the story of how a fabricated black hole had flung him from his reality into this one? Of how there existed other universes, perhaps infinite in number, with versions of Earth nearly identical to this one? How far would Alma go in revealing the truth? And, more importantly, how much could he reveal without disrupting the fragile trust that had begun to grow between them?
There was a fine line between honesty and overexposure—between explanation and revelation. Alma wasn't sure if Jiang's willingness to teach him stemmed from a sincere desire to pass on his legacy to someone worthy, or if Jiang misunderstood the situation entirely, believing it to be far less dire and complex than it actually was. There were too many variables, too many spiraling thoughts running rampant through Alma's mind, and yet—despite them all—he had already made one irreversible choice: he had chosen to become Jiang's student.
But now came a second, perhaps even more difficult decision—whether to keep the truth locked away forever or finally let it surface. And somehow, it felt less like a real choice and more like an error, disguised in the shape of free will. Either path he took would feel like a mistake. And yet… something within him stirred, something faint, but firm, that told him otherwise.
Drawing in a deep, measured breath, Alma lifted his gaze and met Jiang's eyes. His voice emerged, low and steady.
"There's… something I need to tell you. It's about my past."
Jiang's eyes softened, a quiet curiosity resting in their depths. He was honored, perhaps, that Alma would even consider sharing the truth of where he came from—but that curiosity was coupled with something else: confusion. What Alma offered him was dual in nature. Past and future. Cause and consequence.
"How you came to be?" Jiang asked, his voice calm yet deliberate. "Or how you are going to be? You can leave your past behind, let it rest in stone… or you can choose to let it shape the path ahead. The choice is yours."
"I've tried to let it go," Alma replied, voice weighted with quiet exhaustion. "It already happened, and there's no use pretending I can undo it by rewriting what comes next. But… keeping it hidden from you feels wrong. Dishonest. You're opening yourself up to me—offering me everything you've learned, things I imagine are deeply personal and possibly even secretive—and I can't even meet you halfway with that same honesty?"
"Truth and honesty," Jiang said thoughtfully, "are not the same. You must choose which serves you best. So… which will you?"
Alma fell silent for a long moment, his mind folding in on itself, examining the memories he had buried for years. There would be no turning back after this. If he chose to hold back, it meant he didn't trust Jiang. It meant he was only pretending to be open. The truth he held—about J.I.B.R.I.L., about the Sanctum Arc—was all he had left to conceal. All that remained untouched.
He exhaled once more, slow and steady. The first of many breaths to come.
"My name is Alma Daedulus Alastor," he began. "I was born in 1940. November 20th, to be exact. When I turned fourteen, I started having strange nightmares. Every single one featured the same figure: a man in a hat. I called him the 'HatMan.' With each night, he came closer. Not metaphorically, not emotionally—physically. In the dreamscape, he moved forward, step by step, drawing nearer."
"On the seventh night, just after I passed my eighth-grade end-of-year exams, everything changed. My parents… my best friend and his parents… they were all slaughtered. Brutally. Without reason. By people I didn't know. And something in me changed that day. I went cold—not emotionally distant, but physically freezing. I wasn't running on logic or thought anymore. Something more primal had taken over. I wasn't thinking. I was acting."
"The people who killed my family died that day. I killed them. And as much as I hate myself for it… I enjoyed it."
He paused, gaze narrowing as he forced himself to continue.
"A year later, I discovered an organization called J.I.B.R.I.L. I infiltrated their main base—a church, of all things—and stumbled upon a computer packed with sensitive documents. Back then, I still believed the murder of my family had some hidden necessity behind it, something greater. As foolish as it sounds now, I needed that belief to survive. I needed purpose, even if it was built on a lie."
"What I found… proved it had all been meaningless. No reason. No justification. My family had died for nothing. And I snapped. I let that hatred and rage guide me."
"Below the room I was in, there was a facility. Five thousand superhumans, all in containment. I killed everyone. Every last one of them. And for the second time in my life… I enjoyed it more than anything else I'd ever felt."
"And two years after that… everything changed again. A black hole opened, seemingly fabricated. It swallowed me whole. And after that... I don't know what happened. I truly don't. I woke up here."
Alma's voice fell silent. He had told the truth—but even so, the final statement wasn't entirely a lie. That black hole remained a mystery, even to him. If he couldn't understand it—then, in the most brutally honest sense—no one could.
Jiang remained quiet, eyes wide, face unreadable. His life had been one of rigor, hardship, and discipline, forged through fire and time. But even with all of that, what Alma had endured went beyond suffering—it bordered on something cosmic. Something crueler.
"I… I am sorry, Alma," Jiang said quietly. And he meant it.
Alma nodded, a faint, tired smile breaking across his face.
"It's alright. What's done is done. No sense living in the past."
But even as he smiled, it was clear: the pain lingered.
Then, Jiang's face changed—his expression softened with sudden realization.
"Hey! I was born in 1948! That makes you eight years older than me! Well, I'll be! Hahaha!"
Alma rolled his eyes but couldn't help the chuckle that escaped him.
Jiang stood up straight and bowed dramatically.
"So then… when shall we begin, old man?"
---
The first week was a challenge that Alma welcomed entirely.
Every morning, the forest stirred with movement—birds in the canopy, squirrels darting through the underbrush—and Alma rising, sore and bruised, to the sharp sound of Jiang's voice.
"Again."
His arms trembled. His legs ached from hours of holding the same stance. Sweat rolled down his spine, soaking through the thin fabric of his shirt. Still, he followed the command. Again. And again.
It wasn't just physical. It was surgical.
Jiang watched every movement with a gaze like a scalpel, dissecting flaws with a single glance. If Alma's heel was too far inward—"Wrong." If his shoulder rose too much—"Again." If his breathing broke rhythm—"You'll die like that."
Alma wasn't used to this. He had fought in chaos, survived through instinct, improvised with animal reflex. But here, in this forest, under this man's scrutiny, none of that mattered.
"You're a dancer who's never heard music," Jiang said on the third day, tapping his wooden staff into the dirt as he walked in a slow circle around him. "And that's why you stumble."
Alma didn't respond. Not because he didn't want to—but because he couldn't. His jaw was clenched to keep from cursing, or crying, or both.
And still—he listened.
By the second week, something shifted.
His body, once stiff with resistance, began to move with purpose. He noticed his feet adjusting naturally, his breathing syncing with each movement. He began to feel the flow of his own limbs—not just use them. The wild edge remained, but now it was being sharpened.
Late one night, after hours of drills, Jiang tossed him a waterskin and sat on a large rock by the fire. The flames crackled between them, softening the hard edges of their silence.
"You learn fast," Jiang said finally.
Alma glanced up, startled. Jiang hadn't complimented a single thing in days.
"Thanks," Alma said, uncertain. He took a long drink from the waterskin. "I've never had a teacher before. I guess it helps."
Jiang's eyes reflected the firelight, thoughtful and unreadable.
"I've had students before," he said, voice lower now. "None like you. Most men your age want power before understanding. You… you endure before asking."
Alma didn't know what to say to that. It sounded like praise, but it felt like something deeper—an observation of his soul.
They sat in silence, letting the night speak for them. The fire hissed, an owl called from somewhere in the dark, and the wind carried the scent of pine and damp leaves.
That night, Jiang didn't correct him once.
---
By the fourth week, Alma no longer flinched when Jiang snapped a command. He no longer braced for critique—because critique had turned into conversation.
They were no longer drills. They were exchanges.
Jiang would show him a move once—slow, deliberate, hands cutting the air like water through stone—and Alma would replicate it, sometimes imperfectly, sometimes not. When he did falter, he corrected himself before Jiang could speak.
That morning, they trained near the lake, the mist still rolling off the water in delicate veils. Dew clung to the grass, soaking through the soles of Jiang's worn sandals, but he didn't seem to notice.
Jiang swept forward with a quick shoulder feint into a knee strike.
Alma countered, slipping to the side, palms up, redirecting instead of blocking. He transitioned seamlessly into a parry, his body moving like he'd known the motion all his life.
They stopped at the same time. Neither spoke.
Jiang exhaled through his nose. A small smile crept at the edge of his mouth. He didn't say "good." He didn't need to.
They both collapsed beneath the shade of a broad oak. The mist curled off the water, cold and quiet around them.
Jiang's eyes lingered on Alma, searching.
"Tell me, Alma," Jiang began, voice low, almost hesitant, "why have you truly accepted this path? Is it because you want to become better—stronger, wiser—or because you feel you have no other choice?"
Alma shifted, the question hanging heavy in the crisp air.
"I want to be better." He said honestly. "I want to survive. And maybe… maybe part of me is just afraid."
Jiang studied him, his gaze sharp yet patient.
"Afraid of what?" he pressed.
"Afraid of what happens if I don't learn this. If I keep fighting the way I have. Improvising, surviving by mere reaction alone." Alma's voice dropped, almost a whisper. "I don't want to be someone who barely escapes death over and over again. I want to be someone who fights it... and win."
Jiang nodded slowly, but the question remained in his eyes—as if he knew there was more beneath the surface.
"Sometimes," Jiang said quietly, "we accept teachings not to become something greater, but because we're desperate to outrun ourselves. To silence doubts, regrets, fears."
Alma swallowed hard, feeling exposed.
"Do you?" Jiang asked softly, "Or are you ready to face what you really are, and fight for that instead?"
For a moment, neither spoke. The leaves rustled overhead as Alma pondered the truth in Jiang's words.
"Maybe," Alma finally admitted, "I'm still figuring that out."
Jiang offered a rare, small smile.
"Good," he said. "Because understanding why you fight is the first step toward knowing how to win."
---
The forest had learned their rhythm.
Each morning began before the sun climbed the treetops, with the sound of bare feet brushing over dew-soaked grass. Alma moved in silence, each step guided by Jiang's corrections—some spoken, some not. A glance, a grunt, or even a slight tilt of the old man's head was enough. Alma was learning Jiang's language, and it was a language of discipline.
Their sessions had intensified. What began as flowing stances and precise movements evolved into brutal sparring, controlled and deliberate. Jiang struck like a coiled serpent—economical, elegant, deadly. Alma adapted quickly, but not effortlessly. His body bore the bruises of progress.
"You're too reactive," Jiang barked one morning after sweeping Alma off his feet with a low kick. "Anticipation isn't instinct. It's discipline. That is the difference between surviving and dominating."
Alma coughed, rolling onto his side. "You didn't say anything about that kick."
"You want me to tell you how to breathe next?" Jiang replied dryly, extending a hand.
Alma took it.
---
Evenings were slower.
After the sun dipped behind the trees, they'd sit on stumps or flat rocks and share simple meals—roots, rice, the occasional fish pulled from the lake. Jiang would speak, not as a master, but as a man. He told Alma stories of his youth: brutal tournaments in Bangkok, dusty roads in Ghana, a near-death experience in the Philippines that left a scar just beneath his ribs.
"You've seen so much," Alma murmured one night, his voice filled with genuine awe.
"Seen, yes," Jiang said, stirring the campfire, "but understood? Only recently."
He didn't elaborate, and Alma didn't press.
---
The breakthroughs came gradually—then suddenly.
By the end of the second month, Alma's body responded to combat before his mind did. He parried faster. He moved without hesitation. His stance shifted depending on terrain, timing, wind. Jiang tested him constantly—random ambushes in the woods, verbal taunts mid-sparring, riddles asked mid-combat.
"What is stronger: will or form?" Jiang had shouted once, right as Alma launched a flying knee.
"Form!" Alma shouted back—only to get flipped flat onto his back.
"Wrong. The answer is both."
Jiang chuckled as Alma groaned on the ground. "Martial arts isn't just about winning. It's about understanding when to yield, and when to assert. If you lose balance in your answer, you'll lose it in your body."
---
But it wasn't all combat.
One rainy afternoon, Jiang found Alma sitting alone, staring into the lake.
"I thought you'd be practicing footwork," Jiang said.
"I was," Alma replied. "Then I realized my footing is just… off. Not just in fighting. In everything."
Jiang joined him, sitting cross-legged beside him. "The body remembers what the mind forgets. You've lived through hell. That doesn't wash away in one month, or even a year."
"I keep thinking I'll wake up," Alma whispered.
Jiang looked at him for a long moment, then placed a hand on his shoulder.
"If this is a dream," he said, "then train like it matters anyway. Better to wake up stronger than you were."
Alma smiled faintly. "You always talk like this?"
"I'm old. It's expected."
---
By the end of the second month, Alma was no longer a stranger to himself. He still feared what he could become—but the fear no longer owned him.
He was beginning to choose who he would be.
And Jiang, watching from a quiet distance each night as Alma practiced kata by firelight, knew the student had begun walking a path few could endure.
But maybe—just maybe—he would.
---
The first sign was Jiang's silence.
It was now the third month.
Jiang still moved, still instructed, still sparred—but something had shifted. The bark of reprimands was gone. The sharp snap of his cane against bark, the clipped cadence of correction—vanished. In their place was observation. Stillness. He watched Alma the way a sculptor regards marble mid-chisel, not looking for faults, but for the shape emerging from within.
When he did speak, it was never loud. No longer commands, but quiet recognitions.
"You're holding tension in your shoulders again," he murmured one morning, his voice low and nearly drowned by the rustling wind.
Alma adjusted, shifting the weight in his stance. "I know. I feel it before I move."
"Then stop carrying ghosts there," Jiang said, so softly it could have been mistaken for wind itself.
---
Jiang's movements had grown slower.
Subtle at first—a longer pause before standing, a slight tremor in the way he held his staff. He hid it well. But Alma noticed. Not because he was searching, but because by now, he could read Jiang like the forest read the rain.
He had memorized Jiang's rhythm: the length of his silence before critique, the timing of his breaths during sparring, the glint in his eyes when a lesson was about to reveal something larger than itself. So the changes, though minute, rang loud to him.
One morning, Jiang brought tea—dark, fragrant, bitter as ash—and sat beside Alma without preamble.
"Alma," he said, his tone heavier than usual, "why are you really here? Why are you still accepting this training?"
Alma blinked, caught off guard. "Because I need to survive."
Jiang shook his head slowly, eyes narrowing. "No. You've already survived. You faced J.I.B.R.I.L. agents with no technique. You endured The General through sheer will. You didn't come to me because you were desperate. You came because of something deeper."
Alma stared into his tea, the steam curling upward like a question he hadn't wanted to face. For a long time, he said nothing.
"…Because I don't want to be aimless anymore," he said finally, voice low. "I've spent my whole life running on instinct. I've felt as though my life has been predestined. That what will happen in the future is just... inevitable... I know that Instinct doesn't build anything—it just reacts, just burns. I want to become something. Someone that can't be defined through one thing."
Jiang nodded, slow and deliberate. "Then you came to me not to survive—but to learn how to exist."
Alma didn't respond.
He didn't need to.
---
Their training shifted after that.
There were fewer forms, fewer repetitions. Instead, there were long walks through mist-veiled woods, silent meditations under ancient trees, and lessons built around breath, stillness, and awareness. Jiang no longer taught solely through movement, but through presence.
Alma had absorbed and mastered everything Jiang had to offer. Every technique, every philosophy, every motion honed into muscle memory—perfected not just through repetition, but through understanding. It had taken him seventy-five years to learn through hardship and solitude. Had he possessed a teacher back then, that decades-long journey would have been shortened drastically. Any other student under Jiang's guidance might have reached the same summit in twenty years. But Alma had arrived in record time—not through natural talent alone, but through relentless discipline, clarity of purpose, and the weight of his past propelling him forward.
At this point, there was simply nothing left to teach. Jiang had emptied his vessel. Alma had filled his.
Despite the eight-year difference in their age, Alma carried himself with a wisdom that often made him seem the elder between them. He needed no further lessons in control—because control, for him, was no longer something to be taught.
It had become second nature.
"Fighting without awareness is like speaking without breath," he told Alma one morning, as they sat in the hollow of a massive oak. "Eventually, the silence will catch you."
And so Alma listened—to the sound of birds trading secrets high in the canopy, to the hush of the wind folding through branches, to the distance between his heartbeat and the world around him.
This, too, was combat—just a quieter kind.
---
One night, they sat beneath a sky thick with stars, a thin fire crackling between them like a fragile line connecting two worlds.
Alma stared upward, voice soft with a question that had lingered too long unspoken. "Have you ever loved anyone?"
The silence that followed wasn't uncomfortable—but it was long.
"I loved once," Jiang said at last. "A woman who never asked for my strength. Only my presence. But I didn't understand the difference. I thought strength was presence."
Alma turned slightly toward him. "What happened to her?"
"She left," Jiang answered, eyes on the fire. "And I stayed. Kept chasing something I thought mattered more. Power. Mastery. Until one day, I looked around and realized... I had no one left to show it to."
Alma was quiet for a moment, then said, "You're showing it to me."
Jiang didn't smile. But his shoulders eased—just a little.
"That," he said quietly, "makes it all worth it."
---
By the third week, the roles between them had begun to blur.
Alma had become the teacher as often as the student. When Jiang stumbled mid-form, Alma steadied him. When his steps faltered, Alma filled the gaps. There was no pride in it—no reversal of power. Only a shared rhythm. A recognition.
Their bond was no longer forged through instruction alone, but through something deeper—something familial.
The forest no longer saw a master and his pupil.
It saw a father and a son.
And for Alma, who had grown from bloodshed and despair, who had never known the shape of gentleness from a guiding hand, it was a feeling that bloomed unexpectedly.
And it filled a hollow he didn't know existed.
---
Toward the end of the month, Jiang handed Alma a cloth-bound book, its cover worn and soft from time and weather. The pages inside were thick with handwritten notes—tight, slanted script etched with purpose. Diagrams. Reflections. Mistakes immortalized alongside triumphs.
"What is this?" Alma asked, fingers tracing the worn binding.
"My legacy," Jiang said. "Every technique I've studied. Every failure. Every lesson I had no teacher for. I wrote it for myself. But looking back… I think I was always writing it for someone else."
Alma looked down at the pages, then up at him.
"I'll protect it," he said. "I'll learn from it. Add to it."
Jiang nodded once. "I know you will. Because now…"
He paused, voice lower than ever.
"…I no longer see my teachings in you."
"I see you in them."
---
Jiang never spoke the truth aloud, but Alma knew. He had known for days.
Time was shortening.
The strength in Jiang's hands faded more quickly now. His breath came shallower after every spar. He began to forget pieces—small at first, then larger. But still he came, each morning, each evening, to sit by the fire, to watch, to listen.
And Alma trained harder. Not just out of respect—but out of reverence. Out of love.
Because what Jiang had given him wasn't just technique, or strength, or structure.
It was meaning.
It was memory, carried in motion and silence.
It was blood made word.
---
One month passed.
In that time, Alma absorbed everything Jiang had to offer with a level of precision that left the old master in awe. Each lesson, each technique, even the subtlest of movements—Alma observed, internalized, and replicated them flawlessly. It wasn't just learning; it was natural assimilation. Jiang was astonished. And proud.
But there was one exception—Binding Energy.
Despite Alma's brilliance, this particular force remained elusive. Its complexity went beyond technique; it was spiritual, emotional. It was the only concept that resisted Alma's uncanny adaptability.
---
Over four months of living and training together, Alma and Jiang forged a bond that went far beyond that of teacher and student. They laughed. They struggled. They shared long talks under starlit skies and trained until their bodies ached. And somewhere in that time, Jiang found something he hadn't felt in decades: purpose.
To witness his first and only student that wasn't a complete egoistic prick, and to not only grasp but surpass his own techniques was both humbling and surreal. The boy—no, the young man—was unlike anything he'd encountered. And Jiang had encountered many things in his eighty-four years.
For Alma, this mentorship was more than an opportunity—it was a relief. After so many battles fought with nothing but improvised movement and natural reflexes, he was finally learning structure. Form. True martial art. Fighting without knowledge had been chaotic, effective, but reckless. Against the J.I.B.R.I.L. agents, improvisation was enough. Against the General, it almost hadn't been.
Another encounter like that could cost him his life.
---
Jiang taught him not just how to fight, but why to fight. He explained the world's hidden structure—the hierarchy of Bonds, the sacred connections between humans and beasts, and the dangers of corrupting that bond. Alma soaked it all in, his mind always hungry for more.
It was now October 11th. A full four months and seven days since their formal training had begun. In four months total, Alma had mastered everything Jiang had to give.
Jiang often said it aloud: Alma was remarkable. Not for his strength, but for his spirit. He wasn't arrogant, or prideful, or careless with his gifts. Despite clearly being stronger than Jiang, Alma remained grounded. Humble. Almost painfully so.
Through their many conversations, Alma discovered that Jiang had been born in 1948. Which meant, in an ironic twist of fate, that Alma—displaced seventy years into the future—was technically eight years older than his own master.
The weight of time hung heavily over Alma. He still couldn't fully grasp the reality of his temporal dislocation. Seventy years gone. And now, this unlikely companionship.
---
Another day passed.
Alma sat beside Jiang near the quiet blue lake that bordered the forest. The crisp autumn leaves—shades of amber, gold, and scarlet—shimmered in the breeze around them. Jiang was wrapped in a thick blanket of fur, his body hunched, a wooden stick cradled in his hand to support his trembling limbs.
Alma had noticed last month, and now, it was even more noticeable: the rapid decline. Jiang, once swift and precise, now walked with measured effort. His hands trembled. His voice weakened. His mind, though still sharp, had begun to falter at moments.
"Thank you, Alma," Jiang said softly, his voice fragile but deliberate.
Alma turned to him with a small, bittersweet smile. "You're welcome. If I could… I'd go through your training for eternity."
That brought a flicker of warmth to Jiang's worn face.
"Truly," Jiang murmured, "thank you. You've helped me become someone I can respect… instead of a forgotten failure, a rat hiding in a forest. I only hope you're content with what I've given you."
"I am," Alma said. "More than content. There will never be a moment, past or future, where I'm anything less than grateful. What you've taught me—it lives in me. And I swear to carry it forward. Your legacy will strengthen through me. Sealed in gold that nothing can stain."
Jiang's smile widened faintly. "I'm happy to hear that."
He leaned back slowly, the movement labored. "Very happy."
The signs were clear now. Alma had seen death before—but never like this. Never so quiet, so slow, so inevitable. And though he braced himself, he knew nothing could prepare him.
"Please…" Jiang said, breathing shallower with each word, "don't fear who you may become… but fear who you won't. That was my mistake… and it led me here."
He gave a dry, broken laugh. "Don't repeat it."
"I won't," Alma whispered. "I promise."
Jiang's eyes fluttered closed. He exhaled one final time. And then… silence.
Alma sat still for a long time, his heart heavy but steady. Then, gently, he lifted Jiang's frail body and carried him through the woods.
These were the same trees Jiang had walked through every day, for years, alone. And now, Alma retraced those steps, cradling the man who had changed his life.
"Most don't live to see the sunset," Alma whispered, "nor the star's rise. But you… you were the star that blinded most."
---
He entered the small cave they had prepared long ago. The logs had been arranged months before, in case the day ever came. Now, it had.
Alma laid Jiang's body atop them with care, then struck stone against stone to create sparks onto dead grass until it sparked. The fire took hold slowly, crawling along the kindling toward the logs.
He stood back, watching.
"So now I bid you farewell from the material world," Alma said solemnly, "as you join the King of Kings, and take your rightful place at His side."
Flames licked the edges of Jiang's blanket. The smoke rose slowly into the cool air.
"May your guardian angel guide you home," Alma continued, "while other angels sing your name and praise your presence, as you ascend above all heights... and are lifted into the arms of the Lord Almighty."
He took one final breath.
"Amen."
The fire roared.
Alma stayed until nothing remained but glowing embers and ash. And when the sun rose again, he was gone.
---
Two days later.
Alma walked without stopping, headed toward his home state of North Carolina. His heart was heavy, but not broken. Jiang's death had left a silence in his world, but not despair. He mourned—but he did not collapse. Because Jiang hadn't left him with grief.
He had left him with strength.
Alma had grown stronger. He no longer relied solely on anticipation and instinctive improvisation—now, he wielded true skill, honed through discipline and intent.
But strength alone didn't bring certainty.
He still didn't know who he truly was, or what he was becoming. The future remained a blurred outline, and in that uncertainty, he felt a strange new kind of weakness—subtle, but persistent. As though, in gaining clarity of form, he had opened himself to dangers that once wouldn't have touched him.
Something unseen was stirring.
And soon, it would show its hideous face.