The Black Sword

"Oww! Why does that hurt so much?" Zeeth collapsed on the floor, utterly defeated and bruised.

"You've improved so much. You spent the week doing a lot." Meres nodded, "You notice a lot more than you used to, did you study human movements a lot?"

"I had a few short battles and I wrote a lot about that. Their movements and different attacks were all I wrote about for a few pages because you gave me so many pages to write."

"Good, good. That was the whole point of giving you so many pages, so you made sure to stretch your observation to even the smallest things to note in your book. With this, you should be ready to learn how to use this Animo. Elton is ready as well, we can all get started now."

Meres tossed the wooden swords away and yanked out a few real swords. "We will begin the real training."

His eyes glinted with a sinister flicker along with his gold sword. He and Elton fought him in a constant, unrelenting battle as he yelled at them, "Your swings are too wide. Don't hold it with both hands like that when you need to swing wide. Only do that when you need more force. Pick up the pace, move around when I hit you with a hard swing." Meres was as harsh as usual, holding up incredibly well for an old man fighting the both of them at once.

By sunset, Zeeth was on the ground, panting to catch their breath and Elton removed parts of his bones for repair.

"Elton. You can… pant... do that?"

"Yes, I learned it during my week in hell. Had to get creative when I was escaping those things and learned how to take apart and attach my bones, only need to remove my magic and all joints should come loose."

Page was still meditating, Eddie and Nadaho were trying to copy all of them, meditating and sword fighting.

"This is surprising, but I think you're ready." Meres looked down at them, standing as if nothing happened.

"Ready… wheeze… for what?"

"To open the Sword Dome. you picked up observation much faster than I expected, now all you need is to use it."

"I have… so many questions. What do you mean to use it?" Zeeth recovered rapidly, taking energy from his slimes.

"It's a great skill now, observing people predict what they might do next, but right now it is still a very useless skill. Magic and long-distance attacks can't always be predicted like this so you need to learn to do this without even looking. When you become proficient enough, you can even coat your own body in Animo and constantly observe all around you and within you."

"Like when I coat myself in mana?"

"No, that is totally different. Mana can only tell where mana is, and not everything has mana. This will allow you to see everything. The training is difficult, but I don't think it will take too long."

"Why open the Dome?"

Meres became incredibly serious. "Within the dome lies the most incredible sword to be ever made. It was nicknamed the Sword of Discord. Wherever it went, chaos always ran rampant. I don't know the specifics, but I know it's dangerous."

"So why are we opening it?"

"There are dangerous beings out there learning about the sword's existence. I will not be able to protect it much longer, I am not what I used to be so it would be better to have the sword with someone I trust rather than here. The Dome is strong but any master of Animo and mana can extract the sword. It would be disastrous if one of those masters came and took it for their personal needs."

"And you trust me?"

"Yes, of course. My grandson has been rooting for you all week, and you didn't use your power for anything that harmed me, so I trust you. We'll get started on Animo training immediately."

"Great, I'm ready! How?"

"Like so." Meres took a sword and threw it at his face. The world went into a short slow-motion and he could see everything, even if his body couldn't move as fast. But he was able to see the shine on the sword and turn his head just in time for the sharp edge to fly past him. He wanted to yell back but Meres kept throwing swords at him. Without any mana, he had to keep moving his body around. Meres finally threw a black ball at him, followed closely by a sword that caused it to explode in a massive black cloud that he couldn't see through. Even more, swords came through the cloud, and without mana, he really had to focus his eyes on any change in the clouds.

'No, my eyes won't work anymore!' Zeeth thought, as a dagger flew past his shoulder and grazed him. He closed his eyes and tried to sense the incoming changes in the cloud. He allowed one razor to fly past him to get used to what it felt like for a change. It was a strange sensation, like an ultrasound reverberating from his body, but he could feel where things were coming from. He bobbed and weaved around until he came out of the fog.

Several more came at him but he bent his body around, swinging wildly but precisely to avoid the sharp edges.

"Was that Animo? I was sending all the incoming blades there without even seeing them."

"Yes, a very weak version. For now, your Animo, or also called the Nim, will activate for short periods of time to avoid life-threatening situations, but with experience and practice, it can be second nature to you and you will always have a watchful eye surrounding you. An eye much greater than any observation skill or ability since it doesn't take any mana and takes the same amount of energy as seeing does once you get used to it. But for now, it is enough."

"Enough for what?"

"Enough to get you out of my hair. Now that you can activate and control it to a certain extent, you should also be able to open the dome and take the sword. Hurry up and get rid of it so I can go on with my life."

"Why can't Elton do it?"

"Complete and total offense to the skeleton, bones, and magic just isn't enough to wield it. But apparently, you can."

"Great, let's get to it then."

"Not yet!" Meres blocked him with a massive claymore.

"What now?"

"Mentally prepare yourself before you go." his bushy, white eyebrows furrowed a little. "This is THE Sword of Chaos, you cannot simply hold it like it's nothing."

"It's fine, grandpa. He's strong enough. We've been through too much not to be prepared, he has been prepared for quite some time."

Meres still looked at him skeptically but it seemed Page's words were enough for him. "Alright then. Get along now. All you others," Meres looked at Nadaho specifically, "step back! This is dangerous."

Everyone except Meres and Zeeth went back, while Zeeth headed for the massive, perfect dome. Even from a distance, he could see his reflection, as well as the stars and the moon from a single place. The dome made of swords was both curved and straight and he could tell how dangerous it was from where he stood. Taking one step after another, the dome quickly grew larger and closer, but with each step, he could tell the amazing craftsmanship and dangerousness of the swords. When he was only five steps away, the sword quivered and those closest to him seemed to threaten him, telling him to back away.

He took another step and the swords were actively moving to surround him.

Another step, they were charging at him. He closed his eyes, knowing that seeing the reflections and details would only distract him, and felt the incoming swords, allowing them to slip by using the least amount of energy to dodge them. However, upon sensing his Animo, the swords stopped rushing at him and instead moved aside. They reached out and trapped him in the dome as well. With each step he took, the swords kept pulling away and wrapping around him like a protective layer. He felt he could open his eyes now and saw the most extraordinary thing ever. The swords were slithering and sliding like it was alive, like a hundred snakes avoiding and bowing to him.

A single dagger lit the way for him, dragging ahead of him and led him forward. He cautiously took a step forward, careful not to step on the metal weapons on the floor that moved to avoid his step as well. It led him all the way to the center of the dome, where bright yellow lines created a sphere made of triangles. At his appearance, all the swords from the dome clenched in tighter, and then blew apart and flew all around, reaching far and high. The yellow triangles flew apart with them, revealing the strangest thing he had ever seen.

It was a curved sword with a small hilt, a normal katana hovered in the center. It was covered in a thick layer of gray rock which broke apart, crumbling away, and revealed a pitch-black blade, entirely black the entire way through other than the hilt, which was green and gold. But it wasn't any typical black, it was darker than anything he had seen. Darker than the night sky above him, or the eye he swallowed when Black told him to.

It was… indescribable, like the very light around it was being sucked in from simply passing by, anything and everything seemed to fall before this sword. The view around it was curving into the sword like it had no choice.

Suddenly, a memory flashed in his mind. It was a memory from his childhood, before becoming a cyborg, he was reading an article from his 3-D projector. It was explaining the science and mystery of black holes, and at that moment he knew there was nothing to explain the sword other than a black hole in the form of a sword.

Like the space that took up the sword was simply taken out of existence. A natural urge forced him to reach for the hilt, but be incredibly cautious not to touch the black edge. Upon grasping the hilt, he could feel the nice leather and fabric hold his hand there with incredible grip and the yellow triangles absorbed themselves into the hilt. But a sudden thudding in his head made him forget all that, he suddenly had a headache where images of people holding the sword and fighting with it appeared in his mind.

The sword cut through anything like butter, be it large rocks or people. Various diverse beings were shown, each at their last moments of using the sword. A massive dragon holding it with his back leg that had the leg cut off, a woman using it to cut down hundreds of soldiers in red, but a single mistake caused a rising rock to push her hands and cause the blade to go into her head, a second woman using it to cut her hair and toss it in a river, and so on.

Far far away, somewhere dark and red, a black silhouette sat, holding onto a sword with the same shape, darkened by the shadow. Nothing surrounded the silhouette except dark red rocks, like a cage formed around it. But the moment Zeeth sword broke open, so did the sword it held, the black rocks cracking away from the exact way Zeeths sword did. Except, instead of a black blade, it was pure white, like the exact opposite of the sword Zeeth held and brighter than the sun.

Rocks crumbled away from the black silhouette's mouth, the darkness didn't reveal anything from his body other than his lean waist and sharp horns.

"Finally," it whispered with a deathly cold voice when the rocks crumbled away from its mouth.

The swords around Zeeth shot back down to create the dome, forcing him out of it and recreating the shape, all while he tried to stop the headache. But when he came out safely, he held the sword with a strange sense of comfort, as it has always been there, a part of him as his hand.

"You got the sword?" Meres asked with an approving look on his face. "It seems you were good enough."

"Well, well, well." a girl stood atop a broken wall some distance away. "It seems you've finally revealed the Sword of Discord, Meres."

"Yemisia?" Page yelled.

"Oh my, Page! You're here too, my love!"

"You are not my love."

"Well, that's too bad. I totally would have let you live with me after I took the sword."

"What are you doing here?" Meres roared, throwing a sword at her.

She took a step back and avoided it, saying, "awe, Meres, you shouldn't be so harsh. We're old friends. I've been here for a while, it's the perfect place for my skill, you were the one who attracted me here with that big sword scattering thing."

"The protection set up here must've worn off when the Dome completed its task, protecting the sword until another safe wielder." Page said.

"Hand it over and I won't kill you," she said sweetly.

"I've already told you, you will die if you do."

"Shut up, Meres. You don't know me! But you are taking this the hard way!" she cried, and soon tears fell from her eyes.

"Take her out as soon as you can, her talent is called Tears of The Fallen. Tears stream from her face and cover her with ice, limiting her movement, but each tear created summons a dead back with half their abilities, and each tear with each tear, she will be harder to defeat." Meres explained.

Nadaho tried to get Eddie to turn around, but Eddie stood his ground. Even if he had run away, the tumultuous mana outside of Page's jurisdiction would tear him apart.

"Everyone, you deal with the dead, I'll take care of Yemisia. Once she can't cry or I destroy the frozen tears, she will be helpless."

Zeeth ran forward but she had already cried three tears that each froze on her cheeks and three half skeletons rose from the ground, piecing themselves together over some hazy black blob. More began to wrap itself around the skeletons, creating a layer of rotting muscles over the broken bones, and then a layer of dead skin. One of them had one eye socket, another had two horns, the last was a human. Each began running at them with a crazed bolt like they didn't care for their own well-being. Eddie charged ahead with Page, grabbing their heads with his massive hand and crushing them like watermelons. Meres cut them down all while running at her but more of the dead sprout from the ground.