"Today is the last day I will be teaching you."
The words didn't just hang in the air; they felt like a physical weight crushing the breath out of my lungs. Nine years. Nine years of blood, shattered bones, and sweat that tasted like copper, and it was just... ending? For a moment, I thought I'd misheard him over the howling wind.
"The last day?" I repeated. My voice sounded pathetic, a mere whisper against the vastness of the arena.
Lilith stood at the edge of the grounds, her face pale, her knuckles white as she clenched her fists. Atherion didn't blink. He just folded his arms, his sharp, predatory eyes dissecting me the same way they had on the day this nightmare began.
"You have learned everything I can teach you," he said, his voice as cold and sharp as the edge of a blade. He looked at my scars, at the lean, hard muscle I'd built through a decade of suffering. "Your body is strong. Your control has improved. And your instincts in battle…" He gave a faint, chilling nod. "…are finally worthy of the hell you endured."
A soft, mournful wind swept through the yard, carrying the ghostly ring of metal on metal from the distant training halls. But here, under the open, uncaring sky, the silence was suffocating. Then, Atherion's eyes ignited—two glowing points of blood-red malice.
"But today…" the temperature seemed to drop as a dangerous rasp entered his voice. "…we will see if you actually learned to survive, or if you've just been playing at being a warrior."
The world died. The air became heavy, like lead in my throat. We were outside the main gates because a fight like this—a real fight—would have turned the training hall into a graveyard.
Atherion moved first.
No—that's a lie. He didn't move. He simply ceased to be where he was.
The ground beneath him shattered into white dust, and he vanished. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped, terrified bird.
"What... was that?"
My instincts didn't whisper—they screamed in pure, unadulterated terror. I twisted my body, my spine popping with a sickening crack as I turned just in time to see a flash of silver tear through the space where my throat had been a millisecond ago. The shockwave slammed into me like a battering ram, nearly tearing the lungs out of my chest.
I need distance… now, or I'm dead!
"Wind Gale!" I roared, channeling every drop of mana into my feet and detonating it. I launched myself upward, desperate for a single second to breathe, to think, to find a way to live.
In the air, I tried to shift into a defensive stance, but my blood turned to ice. He was already there. Floating? No, he was just that fast. He was mocking gravity itself.
I barely had time to throw my sword up.
CLANG.
The blow felt like a mountain collapsing onto my skull. The vibration throbbed through my sword, through my arms, and rattled my very brain inside my head. I spiraled backward, the ground rushing up like a hungry beast. I locked my legs, skidding across the dirt, my boots burning, refusing to fall.
No hesitation. If I stopped for even a heartbeat, I was finished.
"Accelerate!"
Mana surged through me, burning like liquid fire as I matched his impossible speed. I closed the gap in a desperate blur, the world around me dissolving into streaks of gray and brown.
"My turn!" I screamed, bringing my sword down in a heavy, vertical swing fueled by nine years of pent-up rage.
He dodged with a ghost-like grace that made me feel clumsy.
"Tch… then take this!" I feinted high—a desperate, clumsy move—but that was never the real attack. "Wind Palm!"
I thrust my open hand forward, releasing a sphere of compressed force. But he didn't even flinch. He didn't step back. My attack simply dissipated against his aura like a wave breaking against a cliff.
He's a monster. A god in the skin of a man.
I saw the faint, crushing disappointment in his eyes. Suddenly, a flurry of strikes rained down on me—a blur of steel that left no room to breathe, let alone counter. There were no openings. No flaws. His sword moved effortlessly, arching and weaving like a living thing. All I could do was block. All I could do was endure.
Were those nine years for nothing? Is this where I die, in the dirt?
Facing him felt like trying to punch the sky. I was nothing more than a pebble being crushed into the dust.
Then—I heard her.
Lilith.
She was cheering for me. Her voice cut through the deafening ring in my ears, desperate and loud, even as I was being dismantled. Did it really have to go this far? Then, I sensed it. A heavy, ancient mana that felt like an ocean. Lucien. He had returned from Levren, his eyes glowing with a dark, predatory curiosity as he watched from the shadows.
[Lucien's Perspective]
Watching them, Lucien's mind raced. Over the past nine years, Felix has mastered the impossible blend of magic and swordsmanship. He is no longer just a boy; he is a creature that could reach the peak of existence. He truly is the reincarnation of the Dimension Walker.
[Felix's Perspective]
Wait… I can do that thing.
Suddenly, my vision shifted. The world turned a deep, bruised crimson. My eyes began to glow with the power dormant in the blood Lilith had given me years ago. Time felt like it turned to sludge. I could see it—every twitch of his muscle, every shift in his weight, every breath he took.
Twelve strikes coming from the left. All aimed at my vitals. All lethal.
[Atherion's Perspective]
How? Atherion thought, surprise growing into genuine, cold shock. He's blocking? Every single strike? He's not just reacting anymore… he's anticipating. He's reading the flow of my soul.
[Felix's Perspective]
My lungs burned as if I were breathing ash, my muscles felt like they were being torn from the bone. He hadn't even broken a sweat yet, while I struggled like an insect under a boot. Think, Felix! If I can't overpower him, make him trip!
"TAKE THIS!" I lunged for his throat, putting every ounce of my remaining strength into the thrust. "Too predictable—" Atherion started, but his words died in his throat. He realized his foot was sinking. I had channeled my mana into the ground, turning the solid marble beneath him into a treacherous, sucking sinkhole.
I brought my blade down on his shoulder. He blocked it, but for the first time in nine years, I saw his knees buckle. Atherion let out a jagged, wild laugh.
"Heh… hehehe! You've grown clever, brat. You've truly grown. Now, let's see if you can survive the end of the world!"
Atherion raised his hand. A swirling crimson sphere of pure, concentrated mana formed in his palm, literally draining the light from the sky. The ground shattered into pebbles that hovered in the air; the air grew so thick it felt like I was drowning in warm blood.
I can't win against that. It's too much. It's too much.
The sphere grew larger and larger, a miniature sun of pure destruction. He was no longer testing me; he was going to wipe out the entire training ground and everything on it.
I didn't back away. I didn't tremble. I stood my ground, gripping my sword until my knuckles turned white and my palms bled. Then, amid that soul-crushing pressure, I heard it.
Chirp.
What was that? I pressed my hand against my head, a memory—vivid and terrifying—flashing through my mind. Something from Han Seo-jun's past, or maybe something older... from the Nameless King. It roared in my thoughts.
Chirp.
Not again. It sounded like a bird, but why now? Focus, Felix! FOCUS!
I raised my hand and channeled every single bit of fire-type mana I had left in my core.
"FIREBALL!"
It wasn't a ball of fire; it was a screaming sun. I pushed the heat until it blazed a brilliant, blinding white. The ground beneath me started to melt into molten glass. The wind howled, pulled into the vacuum of the rising heat. Lilith was thrown backward by the pressure, and even Lucien had to shield his eyes as the shockwaves tore through the earth.
The two forces of absolute destruction—the crimson death and the white-hot sun—collided.
BOOOOM!
Then, above the roar of the explosion, a high-pitched, soul-shattering SHRIEK cut through the sky, loud enough to make the heavens bleed.