Trial

The martial ring was dead quiet, but not the peaceful kind. The kind that came before someone got hurt.

Ares stood at the edge, practice sword gripped tight in his hand. His shoulders still ached from yesterday's beating, but he rolled them anyway, trying to shake off the stiffness. This was it. This was the test Veltrissa had thrown at him like a challenge wrapped in spite.

The Echovault Core sat across from him, its surface glowing with hungry light. The name carved into its face was clear as day:

Sir Dagan Eisenklinge – Intermediate Tier, Twin Saber Flow.

No help. No making it easier. No mercy.

The real Dagan, at his strongest point in history. Full speed, full power, with every intention of turning Ares into very pretty ribbons.

Veltrissa cleared her throat as she began to speak.

"Dagan was a man who lived in one of the 18 regions of Klingeheim. He worshipped the Eisenklinge family so much that he dreamed of becoming part of it. Unfortunately, Dagan's mana potential remained dormant even after years of training. After many battles, he could never break through that invisible wall that held him back."

She paused, watching Ares's face.

"But Dagan wasn't weak. He reached the peak of intermediate level, and like no one before him, he became something special—an intermediate fighter who could kill even expert-level warriors if they got careless

She gestured toward the glowing core.

"For his many services to the Eisenklinge family, the Lord at that time granted Dagan his greatest wish—the family name and the position of Knight. Since he was such a remarkable person, it was decided that his fighting spirit should be preserved in a core for future generations."

Ares stared at the pulsing light, imagining the echo inside.

"Goodluck! You'll need it."

Veltrissa stood just outside the ring's edge, arms crossed, face blank.

Ares stepped forward, boots scraping against stone. He wasn't ready—hell, he'd probably never be ready—but it was too late to back out now. Pride was a funny thing. It kept you moving even when your brain was screaming at you to run.

The Core activated with a sound like thunder being born.

Light burst out in waves. The air trembled and shook. The echo pulled itself together from nothing, smoke and memory forming into flesh and steel. Sir Dagan stood there with his twin sabers already drawn, stance loose and ready. He looked ordinary enough—middle-aged, graying hair, kind eyes.

Right up until he moved.

"Begin," Veltrissa called.

Dagan launched forward like he'd been shot from a bow.

Ares barely got his sword up in time before the first blade crashed into it. The impact rang through his bones. The second saber came immediately after, slicing toward his gut with surgical precision. He twisted away desperately, but wasn't nearly fast enough—cold steel bit into his side, parting cloth and skin like they were the same thing.

Blood ran warm down his ribs.

The echo didn't give him time to think about it.

Dagan flowed like water finding its way downhill, every strike melting into the next without pause. Ares couldn't find any rhythm to match. Every time he blocked one saber, the other was already biting at him from a different angle. When he tried to dodge, Dagan was there waiting. When he attempted to attack, Dagan made him pay for his boldness with fresh cuts.

It was like trying to fight a storm that could read his mind and didn't like what it found there.

After just one minute—one endless, brutal minute—Ares had three wounds decorating his body. Shoulder, thigh, ribs. His breath came in sharp, painful gasps. Sweat mixed with blood on his skin.

This is too fast. Way too fast.

He tried Pulse Step, pushing mana through his legs and blinking to the side in a burst of desperate speed—but Dagan had already seen that trick. A wide, sweeping cut caught him across the back as he reappeared, sending him stumbling forward.

Ares groaned and hit the ground hard, tasting stone and defeat.

Veltrissa remained perfectly still. Silent as a statue. Watching.

Ares pressed his palm against the cold floor, using it to push himself back up. You said you wanted to be strong, he told himself fiercely. You begged for this chance. So stop whining and act like it.

He stood, legs shaky but determined.

Another flurry of attacks came at him—he managed to block one saber, ducked frantically under the second, tried to counter with a clumsy thrust—but Dagan simply spun around his blade like it wasn't even there and struck again. The practice sword in Ares' hands felt as heavy as a tree trunk and about as useful.

Panic started creeping up his throat like bile.

If I can't match his speed with my hands... maybe I can match it with something else.

He forced his breathing to slow down. Closed his eyes despite every instinct screaming at him to keep them open.

And listened. Really listened.

Not to sounds—to something deeper. The way the air moved. The rhythm hidden underneath the chaos. He started to notice patterns that his eyes had missed. Dagan always moved in three beats, like a deadly waltz. A side-step before the feint. A quick pivot before the right-hand strike. The air pressure shifted just before the steel followed.

The next time Dagan came at him, Ares moved too—but just a heartbeat early.

He didn't try to block the strike. He wasn't even standing where the blade was going to land.

Instead, he slipped into a blind spot, used Pulse Drive to shift his whole stance, and spun his entire body into a rising cut that came from an angle Dagan wasn't expecting.

His blade connected with the echo's side, the impact jarring his arms but knocking Dagan off balance for the first time.

For one precious second, the echo actually stopped moving.

But then Dagan came back with killing intent written in every line of his body.

Twin sabers crossed overhead, coming down toward Ares' skull like the world's most lethal scissors.

And Ares... saw it coming.

Not just the blades themselves, but everything that came before them. The shift in weight. The decision forming in the echo's mind. The breath that powered the strike.

Now.

He stepped inside the attack before it could fully form, dropping low and sliding under Dagan's extended arms like he was dancing with death itself.

His sword thrust upward with everything he had left.

The blade punched through the echo's ribs and emerged from his back in a spray of golden light.

For one perfect heartbeat, time held its breath.

Then Dagan flickered like a candle in wind.

And shattered into a million dancing motes of light.

Green radiance pulsed from the Core's pedestal, washing over the ring. Victory, hard-won and bitter-sweet.

Ares dropped to one knee, strength leaving him all at once. Blood painted his sleeves in abstract art. His chest felt like someone had been using it as a drum. His hands wouldn't stop trembling, though whether from exhaustion or leftover fear, he couldn't tell.

Veltrissa walked into the ring with measured steps.

She knelt beside him and examined his wounds with clinical efficiency, fingers gentle despite her usual coldness.

"You almost died," she said matter-of-factly.

"I almost saw everything," he replied between ragged breaths. "I didn't block his attack. I moved before it happened. Like I knew what he was going to do before he did it."

"You touched the edge of what you're looking for." Her voice carried something that might have been approval. "The beginning of True Perception."

Without another word, she pulled out a small box wrapped in midnight-black cloth and placed it carefully on the ground between them. The thing seemed to drink light, making the air around it feel heavier.

"The Core you asked for. Open it tomorrow. When you're alone. And be careful—it has teeth."

Ares stared at the box but didn't reach for it yet. His gaze drifted to the golden dust that was all that remained of Sir Dagan's echo.

He realized something important: he hadn't won this fight with raw strength or superior speed. He'd won with something else entirely. Something that had been sleeping inside him and was just now starting to wake up.

"What happens next?" he asked, finally looking up at her.

Veltrissa's mouth twitched in what might have been the ghost of a smile. "Next, you learn that winning one impossible fight just means they give you harder ones."

She stood and turned to leave, then paused. "But you're not the same boy who walked in here. That's worth something."

As her footsteps faded, Ares remained kneeling in the ring, surrounded by the evidence of his victory and the promise of whatever came next. The box sat before him like a door to a future he couldn't quite imagine yet.

This is just the beginning, he thought, and for the first time since arriving at the Cradle, he wasn't scared of what that might mean.