Chapter 16- Wolves in the Graveyard
The man blinked. "What—?"
Ashen vanished.
A flicker of motion, and a gust of wind followed—a pressure wave so sudden it sheared a shallow groove into the ground behind him. Before the first mercenary could even turn, Ashen appeared at his flank, blade half-drawn.
The shockwave came an instant later.
One man crumpled with a guttural scream, his weapon arm severed cleanly at the elbow. The others staggered back in disbelief, several drawing firearms with shaking hands.
"He's fast—!!"
Gunshots rang out, but Ashen was already moving—each burst of speed a blur of impossible motion. His form danced between bullets like smoke, his blade flashing just enough to deflect one, two—then the guns clattered uselessly to the dirt.
Another slash came—this one horizontal—and the air cracked open.
A compressed arc of pressure carved a line through stone and steel alike, knocking two men unconscious before they could even scream. The last survivor dropped to his knees, breath hitching in his throat.
"W-wait! Please! I just— I'm just trying to live!"
Ashen sheathed his sword fully.
"Then leave. Before I decide you're not trying hard enough."
The man fled without another word, disappearing into the ruins.
Ashen stood alone again.
This was no longer the entrance to a forgotten depot—it was the threshold to something deeper. He hadn't come here to make a statement. He came to test himself.
But the island was already watching.
And something was watching back.
Ashen pressed deeper into Baron Hollow's interior, where broken watchtowers stood like forgotten spears against the starlit sky. Each step into the heart of the island felt like a descent—not just into ruin, but into something darker. The wind was quieter here. Oppressive.
He passed the remnants of a war not recorded in Marine logs—bones in rusted armor, banners buried beneath ivy, cannons half-sunk in earth. This had once been a fortress. Now it was a crypt.
And still, he felt eyes on him.
More than just scavengers, he thought. Someone's organized.
Suddenly, the ground shifted beneath his feet. He barely had time to react before the earth gave way—stone tiles dropping as hidden mechanisms groaned alive. Ashen's body blurred into Soru just before the trapdoor snapped fully open. But even as he landed lightly to the side, a net of sharp wires snapped toward his neck.
Tekkai surged instinctively.
The wires bit into skin and clothing, but not flesh. Sparks danced off his reinforced body as he twisted, tearing the threads apart with a clean draw of his blade. The trap disarmed, he crouched low and surveyed the mechanism.
"Steel wire. Tension-coiled. Marine tech, but... modified. Someone's been maintaining this."
A slow clap echoed from a high archway up the ruined stairwell.
"You've got good eyes, stranger."
Ashen looked up.
A man stood at the top of the steps—lean, weathered, in a long dark coat with the faint gold trim of a former Marine Commander. His face was marked with a long scar over one eye, and his left arm was mechanical—cobbled together from repurposed seastone plating and intricate clockwork.
His sword was clean. Untouched by rust.
"Name's Daiken," the man said, voice gravelly. "Once served under Vice Admiral Tsuru. Now I keep the wolves at bay in this graveyard. I don't like trespassers."
Ashen didn't move. "Then kill me, if you think you can."
Daiken's mouth twitched. "Confident. Or suicidal."
Ashen took a slow step forward. "What's this island to you?"
"Home." Daiken drew his blade slowly. "And penance."
The two stared at each other for a long moment. Then they moved.
Steel clashed like thunder.
Ashen's foot slid forward, blade angled for a precise cut—but Daiken met him mid-step with a downward slash that sparked against Ashen's weapon. The impact forced Ashen back a pace, boots carving furrows into the mossy stone.
Daiken's speed wasn't Soru, but it was close—refined, deliberate.
Ashen parried another blow, only for Daiken to rotate into a sudden palm strike with his mechanical arm. The force detonated like a cannon blast, hurling Ashen into a wall.
He struck hard, coughing as he hit the ground, then rolled into a crouch.
"You've got the strength of a warhound," Ashen muttered. "But your heart's still chained to the Marines."
Daiken's eye narrowed. "Better chained to justice than drunk on freedom."
Ashen exhaled. "Then let's see if justice can bleed."
He surged forward again, Tekkai flaring on impact as he took a deliberate punch from Daiken just to stay close—then ducked under the swing and cut upward with precision. Daiken blocked—but not fully. A gash split across his coat.
Blood followed.
The veteran swordsman stepped back, chest rising and falling.
"Not bad," Daiken rasped. "You fight like you've got a storm under your skin."
Ashen didn't respond. His blade now hummed faintly with subtle wind pressure, the result of countless hours spent refining his strikes in Shimotsuki. He didn't need to explain it. The battlefield did it for him.
---
After a few more heavy exchanges, Daiken finally halted, raising his hand.
"That's enough. I've seen what I need to see."
Ashen stood still, blade low.
Daiken looked him in the eye.
"You're not here for loot. Not to join the packs. You came looking for something."
Ashen nodded once.
"Strength. Purpose. Both."
Daiken turned toward the ruins behind him. "Then you've come to the right hell. There's a deeper camp under Hollow Fortress. That's where the real devils train—the ones the World Government erased. You want to face them?"
Ashen sheathed his sword. "Lead the way."
Daiken's footsteps echoed down the spiraling stone stairwell, the sound of heavy boots striking uneven steps worn by time and memory. The deeper they went, the less the world above seemed real. Ashen followed, senses sharpened—not from fear, but instinct.
The corridor gradually opened into an underground chamber, vast and silent, lit by flickering torches housed in seastone sconces. Ancient marine sigils still clung to the crumbling walls, half-scorched by past fires. The air smelled of sweat, blood, and dust.
A clang rang out to the right.
Ashen turned his head just in time to see a massive figure—shirtless, skin like stone—slam a practice sword into a boulder, splitting it cleanly. Another man watched from the shadows, his arms folded, eyes gleaming with faint amusement. Further down, three silhouettes were locked in a high-speed sparring match, feet blurring against the stone floor.
It wasn't a hideout.
It was a crucible.
"They're ex-Marines, bounty hunters, and ghosts the Government pretends don't exist," Daiken said as they entered the chamber. "Most came here to disappear. Others came to remember who they used to be."
Ashen's eyes swept across the training hall. Every individual here had the air of one who had killed before. More than once.
"Why bring me here?" Ashen asked quietly.
Daiken turned his head slightly. "Because I saw you survive a blow that would've folded most men. You faced me with steel in your eyes. And because strength alone means nothing if you're blind to what follows."
"And what follows?"
Daiken stopped in the center of the hall and turned to face him fully. "Sacrifice."
The word hung heavy in the air.
Before Ashen could respond, a tall, lean man with dark red hair stepped forward from the corner of the hall. His left arm was missing at the shoulder. Scars laced his exposed chest. A long blade hung at his side, worn and nicked.
"New meat?" he asked, addressing Daiken with a dry tone.
Daiken nodded. "One of the strongest rookies I've seen in decades. He's not here to play pirate."
"Good," the red-haired man said, shifting his gaze to Ashen. "We've already killed enough of those."
Ashen stepped forward calmly. "I'm not here to play anything."
The man grinned. "Then spar with me. Right now. Show me what you've got."
---
Ashen didn't hesitate.
He drew his blade, letting the wind pressure hum faintly. The man lunged, surprisingly fast despite his injuries, striking with brutal, clean technique. Ashen met the first blow head-on, Tekkai enhancing his footing, and parried hard.
They exchanged four, five, six strikes in rapid succession—Ashen adapting by the second.
On the seventh, Ashen flicked his wrist just enough to project a thin arc of wind forward.
The veteran ducked—but too late. A shallow cut opened across his cheek.
He stopped, touched the blood, and smiled. "You'll do fine here."
---
After the match, Daiken led Ashen to a side room carved from solid stone—bare save for a bench, a weapon rack, and a wall that had clearly been struck repeatedly by blade and fist alike.
Ashen sat down, breathing steady. His muscles ached, not from damage, but from the weight of everything he'd held in since leaving Shimotsuki.
He opened his status window.
---
[Status Update]
Name: Ashen Veyr
Level: Master
Strength: 8.2
Endurance: 8.9
Durability: 8.8
Agility: 9.6
Skill Proficiencies:
Soru: 78%
Tekkai: 52%
Busoshoku Haki: 34%
Swordsmanship – Shimotsuki Style (Base Form): 8%
Projected Wind Slashes (Basic): Acquired
---
He stared at the numbers, not with pride, but with a quiet calculation.
"Not enough yet," he muttered. "But getting there."
From beyond the walls, the sound of blades clashing rang out again.
Ashen stood.
Tomorrow, training would resume. And in the hollow of a forgotten island, his edge would be sharpened further—until no man, Marine, or monster could dull it again.
Ashen didn't sleep that night.
Instead, he listened—to the metallic rhythm of sparring in the halls, to the muffled grunts of pain and growth, to the silence between each beat of swordplay. Even the shadows down here felt like they had memories, carved into the stone alongside those who'd come before.
By dawn, he was in the center of the chamber, blade in hand, facing off against three men simultaneously.
They weren't ordinary swordsmen.
Two were former Cipher Pol assassins—lean, precise, utterly ruthless. The third had the stance of a Marine instructor, but the presence of a man who no longer saluted flags. All three moved with deadly cohesion.
Daiken stood at the edge, arms folded, watching.
"Push past comfort," he'd said earlier. "Or you'll die comfortably."
They came in as one.
Ashen vanished—Soru's blur crackling underfoot. The clash that followed was less a duel and more a blur of steel and reflex.
Tekkai blocked a blade aimed for his spine. A swift twist of the wrist parried another. He launched off the floor, spun midair, and used the hilt of his blade to slam into the instructor's collarbone. The man stumbled back—impressed more than hurt.
But Ashen knew he was behind in experience.
A feint nearly caught his flank. He weaved aside at the last moment, countering with a precise, wind-projected slash that forced one Cipher Pol agent to roll away. The other pressed in, a dagger aimed for Ashen's neck—Busoshoku Haki flared instinctively over Ashen's forearm as he blocked, sparks erupting at the point of impact.
He grunted. His arms ached. But his movements didn't slow.
Five minutes passed. Then ten.
Only when the instructor raised his hand did the spar end.
"You lasted longer than expected," he said, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow.
Ashen sheathed his sword, chest rising and falling with exertion. "I'm not done improving."
"No one here is," Daiken called out, striding forward. "Even ghosts like us."
---
Later, while seated in a secluded alcove with a flask of herbal tonic cooling in his hand, Ashen looked around at the room's occupants—men and women with sharp eyes and faded uniforms, all carrying stories they never spoke aloud.
"They're still loyal," Daiken said, joining him. "Just not to the same thing anymore."
Ashen glanced at him. "Then why stay hidden?"
Daiken's face darkened slightly.
"Because truth and loyalty are often enemies in this world. Some of us chose truth. Others had it forced on us."
He tossed something small into Ashen's hand—a coin, blackened and weathered.
On one side: the World Government's sigil, scorched and defaced.
On the other: a simple word carved in sharp letters.
"Vanguard."
"That was our designation," Daiken said. "An unofficial initiative to prepare for an era that the Celestial Dragons feared—a time when the world would fracture. When balance would break."
Ashen turned the coin over once more.
"Why give this to me?"
Daiken's eyes narrowed.
"Because I think you're walking into that storm. And not just to survive it. But to change it."
Ashen said nothing for a long while. Then tucked the coin into his sash.
"I'll train for one more week," he said finally. "After that… I head for Dawn Island."
Daiken's lips quirked in a shadow of a smile. "That'll rattle a few cages."
---
That night, before turning in, Ashen opened his status window again.
---
[Status Update]
Name: Ashen Veyr
Level: Master
Strength: 8.4
Endurance: 9.1
Durability: 9.0
Agility: 9.8
Skill Proficiencies:
Soru: 80%
Tekkai: 55%
Busoshoku Haki: 37%
Swordsmanship – Shimotsuki Style (Base Form): 12%
Projected Wind Slashes (Basic): Stable
Combat Intuition (Unstable Trait): Detected
---
He narrowed his eyes at the new trait—Combat Intuition. Not a skill, not something he had trained. But something that had begun to emerge.
"I'm evolving," he muttered. "And it's only just beginning."
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