The air above the Ward hung heavy and motionless in the icy transition from night to early morning. On the open stone balcony lay the massive body of Silarias. The past few months had left their marks in the structure of his muscles. It was a chronic, leaden fatigue that had pulled deep into his bones from the daily, merciless rhythm: hauling cement, laying brick walls, and staring for nights on end at incomprehensible texts under the pale, flickering light of a lantern. The restless sleep that finally overcame him brought no recovery, but dragged his mind into a deep, suffocating abyss.
In the darkness of his consciousness, the sky broke open with the brute violence of a cosmos tearing in two. Images from thousands of years ago flashed past in a chaotic, violent stream. He saw gold mixing with pitch-black blood that floated through the air in thick strands. Silarias saw himself fighting, larger and more powerful than he had ever thought possible. He stood directly opposite the gigantic, terrifying figure of the Corrupted God. The pure presence of that entity made the laws of reality around them bend and ripple, as if space itself were glass under too much pressure. Every time Silarias stood up, tensed his muscles, and clenched his fists to deliver the decisive finishing blow, the vision crumbled under his hands like dry sand. The power slipped through his fingers; the golden glow dissolved into nothingness, and everything faded away with an icy flash into an absolute, hollow void.
In that fathomless silence, two voices suddenly resounded.
First was the deep, royal vibration of the Bansaday Flying Lion. The spiritual pressure of the lion immediately claimed the space, broke through the void with a golden resonance, and for the first time spoke his full, divine name. It was a name that vibrated with the pure power of an untamed sun, a vibration that shook his entire being from within.
“You are the chosen one,” spoke the Bansaday, whose voice sounded like the rolling of thunder over a burning desert. “The vessel has been formed, but the memory is still veiled. There is much you do not yet know, Cursed Liberator. Much that still lies hidden in the folds of time.”
Almost immediately after, the curse took hold. The golden vibration was abruptly cut off by a thick, suffocating barrier of black smoke. In the darkness of his subconscious, the shadow coalesced and formed a physical shape. Silarias looked straight into the face of his exact physical copy. The same height, the same build, but the eyes burned with the malicious, pitch-black light of the Corrupted God. A psychopathic, wide grin pulled the apparition’s face into a terrifying grimace.
“A king hiding under a traveler’s cloak,” the nameless shadow whispered, while his psychopathic grin widened even further. “Look at yourself now. Do you really think that flying cat and a pile of dusty books are going to save you from what is truly in your blood, Flamo?”
The black ink of the curse began to escalate visually. From the feet of the mirror version, thick, pitch-black veins crawled across the floor of his mind, clamping around Silarias’s legs like hungry snakes. The spiritual pain cut deep into his veins and tried to completely crush the connection to the Bansaday. The shadow took a step forward, his burning eyes close to those of Silarias.
“You are nothing more than a vessel slowly running dry,” the entity hissed. “Four and a half years on the clock, and you are practicing letters like a child.”
Silarias did not flinch. He did not react with blind rage and did not let himself be carried away by the provocation. With a slow, deep breath, he forced his internal energy flow to an absolute standstill. He did not fight against the black veins cutting into his spiritual body, but absorbed the hellish pressure with an iron focus. He accepted this dark side, the pain, and the curse as a harsh counterpart to his own being, a necessary extension of the back-breaking grind he had consciously chosen.
The nameless shadow noticed his psychological warfare dying against the unbending will of the Nobody. The black veins around Silarias’s legs began to tremble and slowly retreated. The smile on the entity’s face changed; the mockery vanished and made way for a sinister, pensive look.
Slowly, the entire scene began to drain away in a mysterious way. The gold and black hues faded, the voices became thinner, and turned into an echo that softly dissolved into the mist of his awakening mind.
Silarias opened his eyes on the stone balcony of the room. The morning sun cut horizontally across the floor. Directly in front of him stood Jeshua, who looked down at him with a deadpan, impassive gaze.
“You have a moment, but get ready,” Jeshua said coolly, as he straightened his robe. “We are going for a walk.”
Thousands of meters lower, deep underground in the sultry, candlelit bathhouse, movement suddenly shot into the marble basin. The deep, fuchsia wax had since become viscous and cold, holding Aurelius’s body like a thick, sticky cocoon.
With a jolt, Aurelius opened his eyes. He tried to move, but the solidified mass held him firmly in its grip.
“WOAAHH!” Aurelius shouted, as he began to flail his arms wildly and chunks of pink fat flew upward. “What is this?!”
The noise echoed through the stone vaults. Within a fraction of a second, heavy, hurried footsteps came running across the tiles. Sergio Waxelton stormed around the corner, his clothing disheveled and his face still marked by the heavy night, but his eyes were wide open.
“You are on time, little sleepyhead!” Sergio shouted aloud, while with a surprisingly fast movement he snatched a wooden tray from a nearby table. He came to a squat right next to the edge of the basin in one big swing, the tray balancing on his knees.
Sergio leaned forward and looked Aurelius straight in the eyes with a dead-serious gaze. “Photo, look at me. I saw nothing, you saw nothing. But I am always early, so you have a treat. Open your mouth.”
Before Aurelius could even react or wipe the wax from his face, Sergio pushed a gigantic spoon of steaming hot meat and rice straight into his mouth with a brutal, generous movement.
Aurelius’s eyes widened. The intense heat of the freshly cooked food overwhelmed his taste buds. His face turned red and he nearly died from the heat in his mouth, rolling his eyes as he tried to accommodate the steaming bite without burning his tongue. With a hefty, audible gulp, he finally forced the hot mass down his throat.
The rising anger and the confusion over the wax he had been shrouded in disappeared like snow before the sun. A blissful look glided across his face.
“OAH, this is paradise…” Aurelius brought out in a hoarse voice.
But he didn’t get much time to savor it. Sergio, seeing the approval on the boy’s face, immediately scooped the next giant bite from the tray.
“Don’t talk, chew,” Sergio said dryly, and immediately shoved a new, gigantic load of food into Aurelius’s open mouth.
While Aurelius was struggling with full cheeks, Sergio leaned comfortably back against the marble edge, took a sip from his own mug, and immediately started talking to the trapped warrior again with his slow, philosophical drunkard’s logic. “Look, the thing with the world is that most people don’t understand where the essence lies. They look for it in the stars, in big swords, but it’s in the stomach, kid. When the stomach is full, the soul can truly begin to grind…”
Aurelius began to roll his eyes wildly and pulled his face into all sorts of strange folds. With vigorous, desperate movements of his jaws, he tried to signal that the dry rice and hot meat were completely constricting his throat. He was thirsty, and right now.
Sergio got the silent hint immediately. “Ah, the engine needs lubrication! Say so, kid!”
With a smooth hand movement, Sergio pulled the cork with a loud pop from the heavy, earthenware jug he had beside him. Without hesitating, he leaned forward and filled Aurelius’s mouth to the brim in one fluid motion.
Aurelius took a large gulp to extinguish the fire, but the effect was exactly the opposite. His eyes bulged even further and his entire throat went into a spasm. The liquid burned like liquid fire through his esophagus.
“Pfieuw yo!” Aurelius coughed out, while he began to wave his hand wildly in front of his mouth and tears sprang into his eyes. “This is alcohol! What are you doing to me?!”
Sergio immediately started laughing, ram-happy, his chest thrust forward proudly as he pressed the jug lovingly against him. “Hah! Approved then! All natural, kid. Brewed myself in the quiet hours behind the kettles. That really gives your spiritual pathways a good kick in the butt!”
He set the jug back on the marble edge with a loud tap and changed his tone in an instant to something that had to resemble serious. “But that’s not important, little Photo. You have to get ready for training very quickly now. The rest period is officially over.”
As if his words were the perfect cue, a heavy, raw voice suddenly thundered through the stone hallways outside the bathhouse. The sound was so loud that the flames of the hundreds of candles around it began to flicker simultaneously.
“IS HE AWAKE YET?!” Shinto shouted from the background.
Before Aurelius could even scrape the rest of the candle wax from his arms, the massive doors of the wax-house swung open with a deafening bang. The cold outside air cut straight through the sultry vapor of the hall. Shinto stood in the opening, his silhouette sharply outlined against the early morning light, leaning on his wooden training sword.
“Photo!” Shinto bellowed with a gaze that left not a centimeter of room for discussion. “I’ll give you a small moment, and then you be ready outside!”
The pure discipline and the memory of the master’s brute strength shot through Aurelius’s body like an electric shock. The lethargy of the fuchsia wax disappeared in a fraction of a second. Without thinking, he sprang almost straight up, causing the chunks of solidified pink wax to fly around over the marble floor.
He grabbed his laid-out clothing, threw it around his body with hurried, practiced movements, and pulled the straps tight. Within a few breaths, he stood there, bolt upright, with his breathing under control and his gaze focused. The paradise of the warm food was over; the hell of sword training was waiting for him outside.
Aurelius turned around decisively, left the basin behind, and left the steaming bathhouse with firm, purposeful steps. Just as he stepped over the threshold and wanted to walk into the cold corridor, he heard the hoarse voice of Sergio shouting loudly behind him through the stone vaults:
“SEE YOU SOON!”
Aurelius furrowed his eyebrows for a brief second and didn’t understand a damn thing about why that drunken maniac thought he would be seeing him again at Shinto’s hardcore sword training, but he didn’t let himself be distracted. There was no time to think about that nonsense. He set his gaze to infinity, filtered the rest of the world out, and walked completely locked-in down the hallway, straight toward the brute discipline of his master.
Aurelius stepped onto the vast, gravel-covered training field. The early morning cold hung over the ground like a thin, white blanket, and each of his steps caused the pebbles to crunch noisily. Shinto was already standing there waiting. His massive figure was motionless, arms firmly crossed over his broad chest.
Behind him stood three other figures in a tight, disciplined row. Their wooden practice swords rested at their sides. From the way they stood, and the calm, heavy spiritual pressure that hung around them like an invisible wall, Aurelius saw it immediately: these were higher-level students.
Shinto raised his chin as Aurelius approached. His stern gaze glided briefly over the boy. “You are on time, Photo. The wax apparently didn’t make you too soft.”
He took a step aside and pointed with a short, commanding gesture toward the three figures. “These are the ones who will be your benchmark on this field for the coming time. If you cannot keep up with them, you are out.”
Shinto walked with heavy strides to the first student, a mountain of a man with a heavy scar running across his entire neck. “Boran,” Shinto began, while the giant continued to look straight ahead with a tight gaze. “Four years older than you. He did not come here to become a noble knight. Boran is the only survivor of the Slaughter of the Red Valley. As a child, while his hands were tied, he bit through the throat of a demonic shadow when his entire village was massacred. The hatred in his blood was so destructive that no normal order would train him. Here, he learns to convert that bloodlust into pure, controlled discipline.”
Boran did not flinch, but Aurelius felt the sudden heat radiating from the warrior.
Shinto moved on to the second student, a boy with ash-gray hair and deep-set, soulless eyes. “Kaelid,” Shinto spoke curtly. “Three years older. Kaelid is an exile from the forbidden shadow clans of the east. His own family tried to burn his spiritual pathways shut with hot iron when he refused to execute his own brother for a family tradition. He crawled to this temple half-dead. His sword style is unorthodox, fast, and completely focused on eliminating vital points.”
Kaelid nodded minimally, his hand resting on the hilt of his wooden sword with a calmness that gave Aurelius shivers.
Shinto walked on to the last student, a slender but bizarrely tightly-built apparition who was the same size as Aurelius. He had a cold, almost royal gaze.
“And this… Zephra,” said Shinto, lowering his voice. “Same age as you, Photo. But do not be misled by that age at all. Zephra is the illegitimate son of a fallen warlord. At twelve, he was thrown into a cage with three adult gladiators to survive for the amusement of the nobility. He slaughtered all three of them with nothing more than a broken bone. His focus has already cost more blood on this field than you can imagine. He knows no mercy, and he knows no fear.”
Zephra turned his head a fraction and looked Aurelius straight in the eyes. An arrogant, challenging glimmer flashed in his gaze. “Is this the new one?” Zephra asked with a calm, dangerously soft voice. “He still smells like Sergio’s candle wax.”
“Hold your tongue, Zephra,” Shinto cut in immediately. The heavy bass of the master brooked no contradiction. “His origin is not your concern. You are all here for one reason: to reach the absolute peak.”
Shinto walked back to the center of the field, turned around, and looked at the four boys. With a synchronous, perfectly executed gesture, Boran, Kaelid, and Zephra drew their wooden swords and dropped deep into a basic stance. The spiritual pressure on the field rose to a bizarre level in one blow.
Shinto raised one finger. “Today we start at the absolute foundation,” the master spoke, his own presence seeming to dominate the entire field. “The basic principles of the fighting arts, and the spiritual matter that must flow into every fiber of your muscles, and into the wood of your sword, to even be able to survive. If you do not understand the matter, you are nothing more than a child with a piece of a toy.”