Dragoon Training (Part 2)

The wind over the eastern peaks of Drakareth carried with it a deep, bone-felt resonance. Not a song. Not a storm. But a slow, reverberating heartbeat that had no origin in flesh. It came from the earth—low, rhythmic, ancient—and it reached places long thought silent.

Within the hollows of Thundraeth's Spine, an old shrine lay buried in snow and wind. The shrine had no name carved into its stone, only the spiral insignia of the Stormcoil dragons etched into the cliffside like a scar. It had not been touched in decades. No pilgrims. No scribes. No incense trails. The braziers had long been cold, and the carved bones of the shrine's founding dragon had crumbled beneath time and frost.

But now… something shifted.

It began as a flicker. A crack of blue-white light in the deepest corner of the shrine—between ribs of fossilized dragonbone and icicles that never melted. The sigils on the ceiling, long dormant, sparked to life in a sequence too complex for the eye to follow. One by one, the braziers lit themselves—not with fire, but with wind and crackling static. And then came the rumble. Not from above. But from within.

The heart of the mountain thudded once, deep and resonant. Dust fell from the ceiling. Outside, the wind stopped entirely, as though the sky had frozen mid-breath. Then came the fracture. The base of the cliff split open with the sound of ancient stone screaming in protest. And in that moment, the shrine remembered itself—not as ruin, but as sentinel.

Far across the continent, within the forests near the ruins of Neyr'thaal, a drakebone path lit with soft golden light. The moss peeled back without burning. The roots withdrew. And the shrine stones that had once been overgrown by centuries of wild flora glowed from within as runes reformed themselves in flowing sequences. A pulse rose from the ground. It passed beneath the trees. Beneath the rivers. Beneath cities where no one yet understood why birds stopped singing and dogs whimpered in their sleep.

And then it reached Veyr'Zhalar.

Within the Aetherflame Palace, Queen Elanra turned in her sleep. Her eyes snapped open, golden irises dilating. She sat upright in her chamber, chest rising and falling with sharp, measured breath. Something had passed through her—a wave, not of fear or danger, but of recognition. Across the hall, Princess Alyxthia jolted awake with a gasp. Her forehead beaded with sweat, hair clinging to her brow despite the coolness of the night. She could hear something beneath her skin—like wings stirring inside her bones. She didn't cry. She didn't panic. She just whispered one word into the shadows of her room.

"…him."

Below the palace, deep within the sealed reliquary beneath the throne, the dragon statues—each carved in honor of a lost shrine guardian—shook as fine dust fell from their wings. Their eyes, long dimmed, began to glow. Not all at once. One at a time. As though each had heard a voice across a vast ocean and opened its eyes to see if the voice had returned.

Meanwhile, across the sea in the fortified city of Aetherreach, the strategists of the Holy Vanguard assembled in crisis only to find themselves in quiet confusion. There had been no invasion. No breach. No divine flare. And yet every long-range scryer in the palace had sensed the same phenomenon. A flare—not divine, not demonic—but sovereign. Draconic. Like the mountain range itself had exhaled. The air was heavier now. Not hostile. Just dense with the presence of something that no longer needed to hide.

In the monastery atop the Temple of Radiant Choir, Archcleric Valirien sat on his knees in complete stillness. His robes pooled around him in soft folds, breath quiet, spine rigid. Around him, junior priests watched with uncertain reverence as the glow of his meditation crystal turned from holy gold to crimson orange—shifting without his input. The pulse had reached even them. And they were beginning to understand that they were not the only ones watching the heavens.

Back in Seraveth, atop the towers of Mythral Dawn, Selene stood in her command robe, fingers pressed against the cold glass of her study's high window. The stars were still out, but something behind them had stirred. The air was too quiet. Her dragonmark—sealed since Alter's disappearance—tingled along the bone. She didn't speak, not even when Mira and Finn stood behind her, breathless from running up the stairs. They didn't need to ask.

They had all felt it.

Alter was moving.

Not just alive.

But rising.

The Dragoon camp, though only weeks old, now felt like it had roots.

The training fields still bore the scars of elemental trials, the stone ring was permanently blackened from yesterday's flame baptism, and even the trees surrounding the cliffs had begun to lean back—as if the forest itself feared what was being forged at its edge.

But today… there were no drills. No elemental gates. No ghost-step gauntlets.

Instead, every recruit stood in formation around a massive, open clearing where the cliff wall met bedrock. The air shimmered faintly. Not with magic—but with heat. A dry, quiet pressure that came not from fire—but from something deeper. Something sovereign.

Before them, a black archway had been carved directly into the cliff. There were no runes. No signage. No guards. Just silence—and the faint sound of hammer strikes echoing from within.

At the front of the formation stood Soryn Vael'Zarion.

Clad in sleeveless draconic-forged robes, the adopted prince's arms bore the glow of active forge-runes. His hair was tied high, but his eyes remained half-lidded, utterly focused on the forgefire aura radiating from the tunnel ahead. His breath was calm. He looked at the gathered recruits with a nod—approving how they had carried themselves in training even while Alter prepared elsewhere.

Then he turned and entered the forge.

Inside, the light changed instantly. The tunnel descended quickly into a massive chamber hollowed directly into the mountain's heart. There were no torches—only braziers of contained dragonflame, each one shaped like a curled talon cradling fire. At the center of the forge stood a crucible made from obsidian reinforced with mythril veins. But it wasn't the forge that made the chamber impossible to breathe in.

It was the pressure.

Alter stood at the center.

His upper body was bare, his skin laced with molten threads of draconic authority. Sparks flickered between his fingers as if lightning was braided into his blood. He stood before the anvil with Starsever plunged into the stone beside him. The entire chamber pulsed to the rhythm of his heartbeat.

Behind him, the vaults had been opened.

Raw materials gathered from across Drakareth gleamed in organized piles—dragonbone, stormglass, embersteel, wyrmhide, crystallized mana scales, and the most sacred of all: Sovereign Alloy, melted down from relics that once belonged to extinct dragon clans.

Soryn approached but did not speak. He only placed a scroll beside the table—a complete roster of Dragoon initiates, each marked with their elemental affinities, movement types, combat flows, and rune-resonance traits.

Alter nodded once.

Then the chamber changed.

Time slowed.

Space thickened.

As the crucible flared to life, the ground beneath their feet cracked outward in a sunburst pattern. Energy flowed from Alter's palms into the Sovereign Alloy like a tide of ancestral flame. The flames didn't burn in red. They were white-gold, streaked with silver and azure, spinning in slow circles as if shaping reality instead of metal.

He began with the base structure—armor cores.

Each set designed for a specific warrior. Each one infused not with uniformity—but intention. Rhed's plating was wide-shouldered and heavy, reinforced with impact-spread enchantments and heat dispersal vents. Selin's was thin and flexible, runes woven along the inner channels to assist with stealth flicker transitions and redirection momentum. Talia's armor was half-lightweight, half-impact reinforced—designed to glide through midair chaos and survive it.

He crafted gauntlets that responded to the user's elemental markers, adjusting dynamically mid-fight. He formed boots layered with runes that would anchor movement during wind surges or ignite propulsion on command.

Each plate. Each shard. Each curve—was shaped not in steel, but in memory.

He remembered every fall they'd taken.

Every blow they'd endured.

Every triumph they'd claimed in the arena.

They weren't receiving weapons.

They were receiving extensions of who they were becoming.

At times, the forging overwhelmed the forge itself.

Dragonflame cracked the containment circles. Magic rune lines along the ceiling warped and flared. Once, the crucible roared back at Alter—rejecting a composition. He gritted his teeth and changed the balance, adding a sliver of shadow-forged alloy to stabilize the core. The flame obeyed.

Soryn watched it all in reverent silence.

It was not smithing.

It was creation.

After nearly an hour, the heat dimmed.

The forge-fire folded inward like a closing flower, and the first full Dragoon set—unpainted, gleaming in fresh divine alloy—hovered in midair before slowly descending onto an obsidian display rack.

Alter stepped back.

His hands bled. His back steamed. But his breath was steady.

Soryn moved forward and inspected the armor.

It pulsed with dormant elemental resonance—attuned, waiting to bond.

He said nothing. But his eyes burned with pride.

Alter glanced toward the vault.

"There are seventy-one more to go."

Soryn didn't flinch. "Then let's finish them."

And with that, they continued.

The forge of Sovereigns had been lit.

And the armor of legends had begun to take shape.

It was past midnight by the time the forge cooled. The mountain had stopped shaking, but the heat clung to the walls like breath that wouldn't exhale. Inside the heart of the Sovereign Forge, the glow of dragonflame had receded to its core, casting the cavern in a dim gold hue. Finished armor sets now lined the obsidian racks in precise formation—each bearing the unmistakable signature of divine origin. No two were alike. No single piece was repeated.

Each one pulsed with elemental resonance attuned to its intended bearer.

Not armor for soldiers.

Armor for legends.

Alter stood near the forge wall, shoulders bare, his body streaked with soot, blood, and faint emberlines that still shimmered across his skin. The draconic veins along his arms pulsed with quiet light. He hadn't moved in over an hour. Not because he was exhausted—though he was—but because he was listening.

To the armor.

To the world.

To the flame inside each set, still adjusting, still bonding, as if deciding whether it would accept the wearer who was yet to come.

Soryn stood nearby, wiping the edge of a blade bracer with a cloth. His expression was unreadable—equal parts pride and solemnity. The work was done, but the war was not. He moved through the racks one last time, double-checking each binding glyph, each layered runeplate, every sigil placement. His movements were methodical. Ritualistic. Not a single breath was wasted.

At last, he turned toward Alter.

"She'll be proud," he said, voice low.

Alter didn't look at him. "They all will."

Outside, the cliffs were silent. The moon hung low over the western ridge, its light just starting to slide beneath the horizon. Soon, dawn would rise—and with it, the weight of purpose.

The recruits had been ordered to rest. But none truly slept.

Many sat in quiet conversation near the edge of camp. Others stood in groups by the carved stone ring where their trials had begun, staring into the smoldering embers that had once burned beneath their feet. The sky above was cloudless. A strange calm had fallen over the Dragoon camp, like the silence that follows a storm, before the sky remembers how to breathe again.

Talia sat cross-legged atop a rock, her hands wrapped in fresh gauze, staring at the stars as if they might blink back. Rhed paced near the weapons rack, fists clenching unconsciously, muscles twitching with phantom echoes of battle. Selin knelt in meditation, eyes closed, her breathing so controlled it barely moved her chest. Elira sat in the shadows, as always, her eyes scanning the treeline—watchful even now. Vellmar stood by the training pillars, head bowed, one hand resting on the platform where he had once collapsed.

They had no names for what they were waiting for.

Only certainty.

Something was coming.

Inside the forge chamber, Alter reached toward the last set of armor he had crafted.

This one was different.

It bore no sigil.

No assigned resonance.

It was not marked for any recruit.

Because this one—this final set—was for the future.

For the one not yet born of blood or choice.

He placed it at the end of the row.

Then he stepped back.

His breath came slower now, each inhale steady, each exhale like the final note of a symphony composed in fire and soul. Behind him, the entire forge pulsed once—then dimmed to a heartbeat.

Soryn extinguished the final channeling glyphs. The runes across the walls slowly faded. For the first time in hours, the mountain held still.

"It's time," Alter said at last.

Soryn nodded.

They exited the forge together.

The wind outside had picked up—soft, but resolute. The eastern horizon now shimmered with the first hint of gold as the sky prepared to open.

As the two stepped out onto the upper platform, the recruits below slowly began to rise. Not because they were called. But because they felt it.

Something had ended.

And something greater was about to begin.

The forges were silent now.

But their echo would ring forever in the armor that would carry their names through flame, through blood, through legend.

Tomorrow, they would march.

But tonight—just before the light returned—they stood as one.

The Dragoons.

Forged in Sovereign fire.

Tempered in unity.

And bound now—not just by survival—but by the will to stand together.

No matter what came next.

When the first true rays of sunlight crested the ridge, the cliffs of Drakareth were already filled with movement. Not the clatter of drills, nor the bark of training orders—but something more subdued. Purposeful. Ceremonial.

The Dragoon camp had changed overnight.

Gone were the half-formed structures and simple canvas pavilions. In their place now stood blacksteel scaffolds and dragonglass outposts. Obsidian torch pillars lined the main path, each one burning with harmless flame—a soft white blaze that shimmered with hints of color depending on who passed them.

The forge platform had been repurposed into a sanctum. A ceremonial plaza of hardened bedrock, engraved in a wide spiral that pulsed outward from the center in rings of draconic script. The armor sets—completed and sealed—had been transported there at dawn, lined upon their display mounts like divine relics awaiting their chosen.

No one had been told what this day was for.

But they all knew.

Each initiate stood in silence at the edge of the ring. Their faces bore no confusion. Only anticipation. They had endured fire, trial, loss, and resurrection. They had stood before gods and broken through illusions. But this… this was the moment they had never been trained for.

Because this was the moment where the world would name them.

At the head of the sanctum stood Alter.

Fully armored now in his Sovereignborn Draconic Plate, his silhouette stood tall against the rising sun. The angular gleam of silver-blue scale refracted light like dragon wings in flight. Starsever rested across his back. His arms, though covered, still pulsed with subtle golden veins visible beneath the enchanted plate. He radiated nothing. No aura. No divine flare. Only gravity—the kind that bent the will of time and flame alike.

Soryn stood to his left, arms folded, dressed in ceremonial forge robes. To his right, Captain Draven and the royal emissaries watched in full dress. Even a scrying projection shimmered above the cliff's edge, connecting the chamber to Veyr'Zhalar. Within the shimmering window, King Vael'Zarion, Queen Elanra, and the royal family watched in reverent silence. Alyxthia's hand was clasped over her chest. Kaelen said nothing, but his gaze never left the central circle. Ryvar simply grinned like a storm held in check.

Alter stepped forward into the center.

When he spoke, his voice was neither loud nor magically projected.

But it reached every heart.

"You were not chosen for power."

He looked at each face—not as commander to subordinate, but as fire to fire.

"You were chosen because you refused to break. Because when the world gave you a thousand reasons to fall—you gave it one reason to remember your name."

He turned slightly, motioning to the armor.

"These are not rewards. These are not gifts. These are your truths—shaped by your trials, your scars, your breath."

With a slow gesture, he extended his hand—and the flame at the base of each armor set ignited.

Every suit lit up.

Every elemental affinity sparked to life.

Fire pulsed along Talia's armor like a storm caught in bloom. Rhed's core thudded once with earth and pressure, steam hissing from vents embedded in the pauldrons. Selin's suit shimmered with frost-threaded shadow, her armor whispering even in stillness. Vellmar's chestplate glowed with internal force—the kind of power that didn't scream, but promised.

The light wasn't uniform.

It wasn't designed for spectacle.

It was resonance.

Alter lowered his hand. The fires calmed—but did not go out.

"Step forward," he said.

They came one at a time.

Not in rank.

Not in alphabetical order.

But by instinct.

Each initiate walked into the center, placed a hand on the chest of their armor, and waited. The suit recognized them—or didn't. Most ignited instantly, the armor opening to accept them. A few took longer, requiring a moment of stillness, a memory, a breath.

But none were rejected.

Not today.

Rhed approached first—grimy, battle-scarred, but solemn. His hand met the chestplate. The armor hissed as it unfolded around him. It didn't snap shut—it embraced. Plates locked into place with low, rolling thunder. His shoulders rose as the elemental flow aligned with his own. When the helm locked into position, his body surged once with controlled strength.

Selin stepped forward next. She said nothing, of course. But the moment her fingers touched the core of her armor, a ring of mist and shadow coiled around her like a viper curling to rest. The suit didn't click—it whispered shut. When she stepped back into formation, even the sunlight seemed to bend slightly around her.

One by one, they came.

Talia. Elira. Jaris. Vellmar. All the others.

The field began to glow—not with light, but with the quiet, sovereign fire of unity forged through agony and will.

And then…

The wind changed.

A breeze passed through the cliffs. It wasn't strong. But it carried something ancient. Something unseen.

Even Alter turned slightly.

Because the wind did not pass through the field.

It circled it.

It danced.

The forge recognized the moment.

The mountain held its breath.

And then—without warning—the entire sanctum ignited.

A column of fire burst upward from the center ring, not wild but majestic. It didn't burn the armor. It didn't consume the stone. It rose like a signal—visible for miles—and then folded inward, pouring into the sigil at the sanctum's core.

The ground beneath the initiates pulsed once.

The elemental markers on their forearms glowed in perfect synchrony.

And then it was done.

The flames receded.

And silence fell.

Alter looked across the armored figures standing before him.

No longer fragments. No longer potential.

They were formed now. Defined.

Flame, shadow, storm, and resolve—in human form.

He raised one hand.

And with no incantation, no ritual, no divine chorus, he spoke the only title that mattered now.

"You are Dragoons."

The sanctum remained still long after the flames had receded.

Even the wind dared not return yet.

Seventy-two figures stood clad in their new armor, the final echoes of elemental resonance still faintly pulsing beneath their plates. No one moved. Not because they were ordered to—but because something larger than ceremony had settled over the cliffs. A weight not born of fear or reverence, but intention. This was no longer training. No longer preparation. The forge was sealed. The rites complete. And the world—though not yet ready—would soon see what had been born here.

Alter stood at the head of the formation, arms lowered, golden eyes tracing the curve of the sanctum ring. Each Dragoon looked different now. Not simply stronger, or more defined. But more complete. Their silhouettes no longer looked like recruits preparing for war. They looked like the answer to it.

He stepped forward without a word and began walking the line. As he passed, one by one, each Dragoon brought a closed fist to their chest. Not in salute. But in rhythm. The sound—soft and deliberate—echoed through the open stone ring. The beat began to spread. Thump. Thump. Thump. A heartbeat multiplied across seventy-two souls. No drums. No banners. Just the pulse of unity.

Alter stopped when he reached the final row. He turned, facing them all, and drew Starsever in one motion.

The blade hummed.

But this time, it didn't glow.

Instead, it rang.

A sharp, clear note—a bell without a tower, a chime from the edge of time itself.

That sound triggered something beneath the earth.

The cliffs quivered—not in collapse, but in recognition.

A circular glyph spread outward from Alter's feet, engraved into the stone by the Sovereign's will alone. It burned gold, then deepened into a molten red as the earth beneath the formation shifted.

Slowly, impossibly, the ring platform began to descend.

Not all at once. Not violently. But like a massive gear turning after centuries of silence. Dust lifted into the air as ancient mechanisms engaged, their operation powered not by technology, but by inheritance.

The initiates didn't flinch.

Not a single one looked away.

They descended into shadow. Into silence. Into the bones of the cliffs.

And as the stone above them closed, sealing the sanctum behind them, the world above returned to stillness.

Only the scorch marks on the upper ring remained, and a single faint whisper in the wind.

"They've begun."

Below, the Dragoon platform moved through a massive vertical shaft—walls carved with layered glyphs, murals of dragons locked in stasis with the stars, and old Drakarethian scripture that hadn't been read aloud since the time of the shrine wars.

Torches ignited as they passed.

Not with flame—but with essence—responding to the presence of those who bore the mark of the Sovereign. They burned cold blue and white, illuminating faces cast in focused shadow.

No one spoke.

Until, at last, the platform slowed.

It came to rest in an underground chamber vast enough to fit a skyship—its walls lined with dragonglass veins and natural crystal grown from the mountain's inner soul. At the far end, the path opened into a vast tunnel, its entrance framed by the fanged jaws of an enormous carved drake's skull. Beyond it—darkness, and a road untraveled in generations.

Alter stepped forward alone, standing at the threshold.

Then he turned.

Behind him, seventy-two armored warriors waited, silent, ready.

He raised Starsever.

"From this point forward," he said, voice low but firm, "you carry no banner but your own. You wear no title but the one you earned. The world will call you monsters, soldiers, saviors—maybe even gods. But I call you one thing."

He paused.

Then said it.

"Dragoons."

The wind from the tunnel began to howl.

Not from pressure. But from expectation.

Alter faced forward.

And walked into it.

One by one, they followed him—no hesitation, no fear.

The Sovereign's March had begun.

Not toward a battlefield.

But toward a world that had forgotten what true warriors looked like.

It would remember soon.

The sun had barely crested the jagged ridgelines of Drakareth's southern horizon when the Dragoon training grounds thundered awake with motion. A hundred armored bodies surged as one—boots pounding into packed soil, breath turned to steam in the crisp morning air, sweat already streaking into dust as the first light met the earth.

The once-orderly fields had become a crucible of war-born rhythm. Scars from previous days were still visible—charred trenches, fractured dummies, and pitted impact zones where discipline had been carved through flame and effort.

Today marked the fifth day of training.

And it was the day of contact sigils.

From a raised blackstone terrace overlooking the chaos, Alter stood with arms folded. His Sovereignborn Draconic Plate caught the dawn like a mirror of the sun—each scale etched with faint sigils of storm and flame. His helm was retracted, revealing a youthful face carved from timelessness. Molten gold eyes swept across the gathered warriors—not with emotion, but with precision. They were prey under an ancient predator's gaze.

Below, the Dragoons stood in disciplined rows of ten, grouped by elemental affinity and movement synergy. No classes. No title lines. No division by old-world roles.

Only potential.

Only survivors in the making.

"Listen well," Alter said, voice edged with steel. The sound cleaved the wind, demanding silence. "The Elemental Runic Marker System is not a chant. Not a spell. Not a glyph on parchment. It is contact. Combat. Decision."

He stepped forward, and the very air tightened—as if it, too, awaited the next word.

"You place a marker not through thought… but impact. Through blade edge, palm strike, shoulder ram, even a feint. The rune is seeded through deliberate force—embedded where your will collides with theirs."

Whispers moved like tremors through the formation—but none dared speak aloud. They had learned. Words wasted were invitations to be noticed.

Alter raised a hand.

A flickering rune—crimson-red and edged with jagged flame—materialized above his palm.

"This…"

He vanished.

The space where he had stood twisted with afterlight.

Then came the impact.

A seismic boom rippled through the training field as a nearby stone boulder cracked in half under a single punch. Flame surged upward from the impact like a geyser of divine fury. And on the boulder's surface—halfway through its shattering—burned the embedded rune.

"...is how you place it."

The Dragoons didn't breathe.

"You will now begin the drill," Alter said, lowering his hand. "No chants. No distance casting. Just close-quarters engagement. Partner up. Attempt the marker. If it lands, it will bind to your opponent's sparring armor."

A pause.

"If it doesn't—" His gaze glinted faintly with challenge. "I'll know."

The field exploded into motion.

Pairs collided across the zone—metal scraping metal, gauntlets slamming into training gear, bodies twisting, tumbling, sweeping into grapples and sidesteps. Every Dragoon held one elemental rune, bonded to their affinity—wind, flame, lightning, stone, frost, storm. But none could activate it without contact. None could place it without timing.

A blade slash meant nothing if it didn't burn the sigil in.

A kick, a palm, a roll—intent mattered. Pressure, movement control, the decision to engage at the right breath.

From above, Alter observed like a sovereign hawk, arms folded once more.

One recruit, a swift girl from the western garrisons, darted beneath a sweeping slash. She dropped into a roll, then spun and slapped her palm against her partner's ankle mid-spin.

FWWWWWSSSHHHH.

A freezing rune bloomed instantly across her opponent's greaves—pale frost racing up the leg.

"Marker confirmed," Alter called.

The girl blinked in shock.

Then grinned.

Across the field, others stumbled—one attempting to trace a glyph mid-combat was punished by a sudden surge of flame from Alter's aura flaring overhead.

"Gesture detected," he called. "You're dead. Reset."

The sun climbed. Time passed. Sweat poured. Recruits collapsed. The ground cracked beneath repeated detonations—some success, some catastrophic feedback from failed attempts.

Elemental flashes blurred with raw effort.

Some were burned.

Some frozen.

But none stopped. Not one.

Because above them, Alter remained.

Watching. Waiting.

He wasn't merely their commander.

He was the gravitational pull that made quitting feel like death.

By midday, the field resembled a miniature battlefield—runes seared into rocks and armor, elemental burns darkening the earth. Every strike now held dual purpose: inflict pressure, and embed legacy.

Because that's what a rune was.

A moment that left a mark.

As the sun reached its zenith, Alter descended.

He stepped onto the field—and three hundred recruits dropped to one knee.

His voice softened, but the force behind it deepened.

"The Dragoon Unit," he said, pacing between them, "will be zero-class. You will have no healer. No tank. No long-range caster. You are all weapons. Each of you—edge, handle, core, sheath."

He stopped at the center.

"You will strike with blade, seal, flame, and pressure. As one. Unified."

His eyes swept across them, molten and unrelenting.

"You are not students anymore."

He raised his fist.

"You are candidates for the only force in Drakareth that touches death first—then leaves its mark."

Silence.

Then—BOOM.

Behind him, the boulder from earlier finally split fully in two.

A rune still burned on both halves.

The dawn broke soft and golden, spilling across the valley like the first breath of a calmer world. Mist clung to the fields as if reluctant to leave, curling between armored legs and rising blades like memories not yet ready to fade. And yet, the stillness was a lie.

Because the Dragoons stood ready.

Three hundred warriors—sweat-soaked, muscle-worn, but sharpened by fire—stood in perfect lines beneath the morning light. Their movements were silent. Their swords already drawn. Every one of them had felt the flame of yesterday's contact rune trials seared into their very bones.

But today… today was different.

Today wasn't about force.

It was about flow.

At the center of the vast training field, a lone figure stood.

Alter.

His coat fluttered in the low wind, the tail of his celestial armor rustling softly against his calves. His back was straight, posture like a drawn bow, eyes half-closed—as if listening not to sound, but to breath itself. Starsever's Echo—his training blade—rested across his shoulder, faintly glowing, humming with light.

Without a word, he stepped forward.

The earth hushed.

With one smooth motion, Alter dropped into a stance.

His left foot slid back, heel anchored. His right knee bent just enough to hint at movement. Blade tilted diagonally across his body, hilt low near the hip, edge rising toward the opposite shoulder. His off-hand rose like a guiding thread behind him, poised as if to trace the path of the wind.

Then he moved.

A single pivot. A gliding step. The blade cut the air in a rising arc—not with force, but with intent so pure that even the mist parted before it. There was no sound. No shout. Only the whisper of steel through morning.

He turned slightly, his voice calm and precise.

"This is the First Principle."

Another sweep, slower this time. The same arc. The same poise.

"The Opening Arc of Heaven. It is not a slash. It is a breath made visible. Control, not chaos. Precision, not power."

He turned to face them fully now.

"Watch. Then mirror. Do not imitate with haste—understand."

Then—his tone sharpened.

"Pairs. One hundred fifty groups. Stance and mirror drills. Now."

The command cracked through the field like a temple bell.

And the Dragoons moved.

They paired swiftly. Blades lifted. Stances adjusted. Metal scraped against earth as boots reset their grip. And then—the thousandfold mirror began.

Step. Pivot. Sweep.

Blade against empty air.

Again.

Step. Pivot. Sweep.

The first few attempts were clumsy. Off-balance. Out of sync. Slashes went wide, or too shallow. The rhythm frayed, like the notes of an untuned instrument.

Alter walked among them.

He said little.

But his presence corrected more than words ever could.

His aura rolled off him in soft waves—dragonic, divine, unyielding. Those who felt it straightened their backs. Adjusted their breath. A few, sensing him draw close, instinctively corrected their form before he even spoke.

When words came, they were soft—but surgical.

"Your feet float. Anchor."

"Your blade moves, but your breath is behind. Bring it forward."

"Stop thinking of cutting. Think of claiming. The space is yours."

When needed, he struck.

A flat sweep of Starsever's Echo would slam lightly against a recruit's off-shoulder—not to harm, but to re-align. The shock would shoot through their ribs, snapping the body back into place.

"The blade is a question," he murmured once, near a trembling recruit. "But your stance is the answer. Every motion must justify its existence."

Hours passed.

And then—flow began.

Slowly, the rhythm changed. Movements started to sync. Stances became mirrors not of each other, but of a single truth. Feet struck the ground not to stomp, but to pulse. The sword stopped being a weapon—and became a limb.

Step. Breath. Cut. Pull. Reset.

The field shimmered with invisible geometry—sweeping arcs of potential etched into air with every blade stroke.

Then Alter raised his hand.

The rhythm ceased.

He spoke, voice clear and unflinching.

"The Divine Heavenly Sword Style is not a lone dance. It was never meant to be performed alone. It is a formation. A windstorm given limbs. And storms do not strike as individuals. They strike as one."

He raised his other hand—and the ground pulsed.

Circles of elemental resonance lit beneath the recruits' feet—red, blue, green, white—each carved into the terrain with arcane geometry.

"Phase two: synchronized combat movement. Groups of five. Enter your circles."

The Dragoons moved.

Each formation locked into a sigil field.

Alter paced the outer ring of the field slowly, Starsever now resting against his shoulder. His voice carried across the terrain.

"You will flow. Together. If one of you falls behind, the circle shatters. If one overextends, the whole structure collapses. Your breath must be one. Your strike, one."

He raised his hand once more.

Then snapped his fingers.

The training field erupted.

From hidden rune stones along the perimeter, phantasmal enemies blinked into existence. Spectral demons. Rapid flanking wraiths. Constructed illusions—each crafted by Alter the night before.

They charged.

The Dragoons engaged.

"SIX O'CLOCK ROTATION!" someone shouted.

"PUSH THE EDGE—DISENGAGE BACK!"

"LEFT SHIELD FALLING—ADJUST TO PULL!"

The formations whirled into action.

Some flowed perfectly—gliding through motions like rotating blades. Others collapsed within seconds—out of sync, out of step, out of breath.

Alter watched it all, expression unreadable.

But his eyes burned brighter.

Because some were starting to get it.

Not just the form—but the why. The sword wasn't the tool.

They were.

Not soldiers. Not students.

They were stormfronts given flesh.

And as midday approached, the last wave of phantoms was shattered by a perfectly-timed rotating crescent slash from a five-man cell. The air crackled with dissipating energy. Breaths fell heavy. Blades trembled in overused hands.

But they were still standing.

Alter finally spoke again.

"Dragoons…"

They straightened.

"You do not fight for kingdoms. You do not fight for rank. You are not soldiers. You are not saviors."

He turned to face them fully, Starsever gleaming in the light.

"You are what stands between collapse… and survival."

His voice deepened. His aura rose.

"And by my will—you will become that edge."

There were no cheers.

Only grim, steady nods.

And in that silence, the sixth day closed.

And the storm began to take shape.

The scent of morning steel still clung to the air.

Sweat, dust, and the distant ozone tang of runes freshly activated mixed into a cocktail that clung to Cael Virellian's throat. His arms trembled from repetition. His feet ached from stance correction. But even now, long after most would have collapsed, he held position.

Blade raised. Spine straight. Breath steady—at least, steady enough.

Across the field, two hundred and ninety-nine others moved just the same. But none of them felt what Cael felt.

Because for him, this wasn't just another training day.

This was the day it clicked.

He wasn't from noble stock. Wasn't dragon-blooded. No ancestral legacy, no shrine-born prophecy. Just a frostline scout from Hollowreach—trained to hunt in silence and run before he was seen. He'd survived the demon incursion not with fire, but with shadow and snow and stubborn steps across broken terrain.

And then he saw Skyharbor burn.

And heard the rumors of a man cloaked in flame and starlight who had descended from the sky.

He didn't believe in fate. But he followed it anyway.

That's what brought him here—to the foot of the one the world now whispered about.

Kael'Zhyrion, they called him.The Stormwalker. The Sovereign's Hand. The blade that commands dragons and war alike.

But Cael didn't see a legend.

He saw a man who moved differently. As if every inch of him remembered something the rest of the world had forgotten.

That morning, when Alter stepped forward and performed the First Principle—the Opening Arc of Heaven—Cael forgot to breathe. The way the blade cut through the air… it was like watching silence bend into form.

And now, hours later, his body burned, but his mind still followed that arc.

Control over chaos. Flow over force. Precision over pride.

His partner was Rourke, a brawler from the northern flats. A tower of a man with fists like warhammers and a grin that could break ribs.

"You're getting smoother, archer," Rourke grunted, blade tapping Cael's just off center. "Almost didn't feel like I was dragging a frozen corpse through a river."

Cael gave a strained smirk. "That's progress. Yesterday you said I moved like a limp rabbit."

"Don't get cocky."

"I won't. I can't feel my arms."

They reset stance. Pivot. Breathe. Arc.

Across the field, Alter moved like wind incarnate—weaving between groups, correcting forms not with lectures, but with presence. Sometimes, just the pressure of his proximity made Cael straighten before he even noticed what he'd done wrong.

But then it happened.

"Synchronization shift!" came the command.

Alter's voice.

Suddenly, Cael wasn't just mirroring his partner. He had to respond to him. To move with him. And more terrifyingly—

To place a marker.

Cael froze for just a breath. Not from fear—but the weight of understanding.

This wasn't choreography.

This was living war.

"Elemental Marker Application: Live Drill," Alter called. "No magic circles. No spoken incantations. Contact only. One rune each. Make it count."

A shimmer appeared over Cael's wrist—a faint sigil of green wind, marked by his affinity. Beside him, Rourke's lit with a dull orange—earth.

Cael exhaled slowly.

"Ready?" Rourke asked.

"No," Cael said honestly.

"Too bad."

Then they moved.

Cael dropped low, sweeping under a feigned strike. His blade came up—not to wound, but to touch.

Tap.

The wind sigil burst across Rourke's backplate like a whispered gale.

Rourke laughed and pivoted, shoulder-checking Cael's pauldron with a thunderous thud. The earth sigil bloomed instantly.

"Tag back," he grunted.

Their spar wasn't elegant—but it worked.

"First sync confirmed," Alter's voice echoed. "Execute sequence."

Now came the real test.

Every five-man cell had to flow—rotating strikes, embedded markers, movement within the bounds of a pressure field that shifted every twelve seconds. The ground lit beneath their boots. If one foot stepped too far—red light pulsed, warning them the formation was crumbling.

Cael felt his pulse rise. His sword grew heavier. The sweat in his eyes stung. But something in his muscles remembered the flow. Step, breath, pivot. Marker, strike, hold. Let the next body rotate in.

Time blurred. He didn't know how long they flowed like that.

But when the bell rang to end the cycle, Cael was still standing.

Barely.

He dropped to one knee. Rourke offered a hand. Cael took it.

"Not bad for a rabbit."

Cael nodded, wiping his brow. "You're not a hammer anymore either. More like a mountain that learned to move."

Nearby, one recruit stumbled and fell. Another collapsed into a sitting position, clutching his ribs—but smiling.

Alter stood atop the central rise once more.

Not saying anything.

Just watching.

Judging not with harshness… but with hope.

And that's when it struck Cael.

He wasn't training them to be soldiers.

He was forging them to become the weapon itself.

To become the blade the world would need when every other defense fell.

Cael looked to the sky.

The clouds overhead had begun to part.

And for the first time, he whispered something he had never dared to believe:

"We might actually win this war."

The wind held its breath.

Dawn unfurled across the horizon in long golden strands, its light catching the edge of the highland cliffs and washing the Dragoon training fields in a quiet, ethereal glow. The field had already been cleared. No dummies. No phantasmal constructs. No obstacle platforms. Only open earth—scarred from the days prior.

The recruits stood in formation. Three hundred strong. Silent.

They didn't know why.

Only that their commander had given a single instruction the night before: "Be ready. Before sunrise. No armor. No weapons. Just your eyes. Your breath."

And now, in the stillness of the coming day, they watched as their sovereign stepped forward.

Alter stood alone on the far end of the field. His back to them. Motionless.

He wore full Sovereignborn Draconic Plate—its silver-blue scaling catching the sun like a living glacier of light. The air around him shimmered faintly with condensed aura. Starsever was in his hands, held vertically before him like a divine sigil of war and prayer combined.

He didn't speak.

Didn't glance behind him.

And yet, his presence consumed everything.

Then—

His eyes opened.

"Life Sprinkler."

In an instant, the air fractured. Three radiant golden afterimages flared into existence—one to his left, one to his right, one behind. Each a perfect, living echo of Alter himself. No flicker. No blur. They stood in full solidity—poised, breathing, alive.

Then all four moved.

Golden streaks of speed erupted in synchronized arcs, vanishing into streaking trails of celestial pressure.

They reappeared around a massive dragon-shaped training construct—one of the largest, built from reinforced mythril and ironwood. None of the recruits had seen it placed there. None had noticed it at all before now.

But now, it stood as the center of their test.

"Starfall Sword Style."

The clones struck from all directions.

Swords whipped around the target like the celestial dance of orbiting moons—high-speed slashes fired from opposite angles, each arc purposeful, silent, and lethal. Their blades didn't clang. They sang. Resonant frequencies of heavenly pressure collided into the construct, leaving glowing trails in the air.

Eight seconds.

That was the lifespan of a Life Sprinkler clone under normal parameters.

But Alter did not stop there.

As the countdown approached its limit—each clone split.

Three more golden figures burst outward from each.

Twelve new copies replaced the three originals as they vanished in mist and light.

The field exploded with movement.

The twelve phantoms moved with escalating precision—each one performing full sequences of Starfall Sword Style on their own rhythm, yet perfectly interwoven. The sheer coordination sent shockwaves across the grass. The massive construct groaned from repeated strikes—mythril plating denting under the divine assault.

Up above, the wind swirled.

The golden figures flickered in and out of existence like fragments of a collapsing constellation. Dust spun in the whirlwind of footfalls and sonic bursts.

And then—

Alter raised his blade.

His real self—standing far beyond the construct—lifted Starsever into the air. Both hands gripped the hilt. One foot forward. His draconic aura flared like a slow-burning star.

"Dimensional Slash—Omni Wave."

A silence fell over the earth.

And then—a cone of light erupted from his blade. Gleaming. Expanding. It surged forward like a comet turned blade.

But within that beam—hidden from the naked eye—were dozens of razor-thin dimensional slashes. Spaced exactly five millimeters apart, they carved reality itself as they passed.

The air screamed.

The clones were erased in the onslaught.

The construct—struck dead-center—detonated in a cascading implosion. Not shattered. Erased. Entire segments ceased to exist as if the concept of their presence had been revoked.

And where the wave passed—

There was nothing.

Just silence.

Until a breeze swept through and the mountain in the far distance—barely visible on the horizon—rumbled faintly.

A chasm had been carved into the land. Deep, clean, perfect. Extending from the base of the shattered construct all the way to the mountain's edge.

Then, Alter swayed.

Just for a moment.

One foot faltered.

But then he righted himself, exhaled, and lowered his sword.

He turned.

And the field remained silent.

Some of the recruits sprinted forward—too stunned to remember protocol, too shaken to care.

"Commander—are you alright?!"

One reached out but hesitated before touching him. The aura still lingered, warm and crackling with the remnants of a swordplay that had cleaved into space itself.

Alter nodded once.

"I'm fine," he said, voice composed but lined with fatigue. "That was Omni Wave… enhanced through Life Sprinkler clone-chain multiplication. Fully accelerated."

A pause.

"Don't attempt it."

A few laughs cracked out—weak, breathless ones.

But behind them, others still stood frozen.

They couldn't laugh.

They couldn't speak.

They could only stare at the crevasse.

At the fact that he had summoned thirty-six clones—each executing an independent divine sword style, each synchronized into a formation of breathtaking fluidity—and then layered a technique on top of it that split the world.

One whisper broke the silence.

"…He moved like he didn't need an army…"

Another, from a younger recruit, barely audible: "That wasn't a sword move… that was a judgment."

Alter turned back toward them, voice now firm. Steady.

"I didn't show you this for glory," he said. "Everything I did—every clone, every strike—was once beyond me."

His eyes scanned them.

"But I trained. I bled. I died and rebuilt more times than I remember. And now I stand here… to tell you that you can do the same. You must."

He gestured behind him to the ruined earth.

"That is the minimum. That is what the enemy will bring. So you will surpass it. Not for pride. Not for titles. But because if you don't—your comrades fall."

He pointed at the recruits.

"You are your own division. Every one of you must be sword, shield, and storm. There are no tanks. No healers. No backups."

A beat of silence.

"Only blades."

Another pause.

"Only you."

And then… one voice, small but steady:

"We'll rise."

Another: "We'll stand."

A third—louder now: "FOR DRAKARETH!"

And then—three hundred voices.

Unified. Roaring.

"FOR DRAKARETH!"

The mountains answered in echo.

Alter nodded once.

And walked away.

Sword over shoulder. Aura fading. But behind him, he didn't leave students.

He left something else.

He left a storm.

The battlefield was silent.

Not the kind of silence born from exhaustion or end-of-day relief—but a hollow, breathless stillness. The kind that lingered after a divine weapon had been unsheathed and the world was still trying to remember how to turn.

Where once stood a reinforced dragon-shaped construct, there was now only scorched emptiness—a splintered crater at the point of impact and, beyond it, a yawning ravine carved clean into the earth. The scar stretched out like a wound from another plane, glowing faintly with the unstable shimmer of dimensional recoil.

The Dragoons stood motionless, weapons forgotten, feet rooted as if afraid to disturb the space where Alter had stood just moments prior.

Then came the first voice.

"Did anyone else see that?" a recruit whispered hoarsely, as if saying it aloud might shatter the memory.

"No," another murmured from beside him, face pale with awe. "I'm still feeling it."

Their eyes drifted toward the shattered edge of the training field.

"There's a hole in the ground… a perfect one… it just keeps going. I swear I saw a ripple in the sky itself."

Someone else groaned, "Did he say… 'Life Sprinkler'? I thought he was about to cast healing rain, not summon a divine army of clones!"

Nervous laughter broke out from a small cluster of recruits.

But it didn't spread.

Because beneath the chuckles, every heart still beat too fast. Every hand gripped their blade a little tighter—not out of fear… but reverence.

It wasn't just the power.

It was the precision.

The memory of thirty-six golden afterimages moving in synchronized strikes, every arc deliberate, every angle flawless. And then—Dimensional Slash: Omni Wave. Not a cut. A conceptual erasure.

A short recruit, barely past seventeen, stared wide-eyed at the trench carved through the distant hills. "He didn't just swing a sword… he undid a part of the world."

A red-haired woman in the second row whispered, "And he stumbled afterward. That technique… it cost him."

"He bled for that control," someone else said. "That means it's real. That means we can learn it."

"Learn it?" Another recruit exhaled, wiping his face. "We're just trying to survive basic stance drills, and he's up there writing poetry with dimensional fractures."

A pause.

Then, somewhere near the middle ranks, one of the bolder recruits clapped his hand to his forehead and groaned, "And here I was complaining about pushups this morning…"

That broke the tension.

Laughter erupted—raw, wheezing, exhausted, but human.

It wasn't disrespect. It was release. A pressure valve opened after a god walked through their morning and left reality in pieces.

But underneath the humor… something deeper settled in.

A quiet knowing.

They were not being trained to survive.

They were being trained to reign.

To stand against beings that did not bleed.

To become the edge that fate itself would fear.

🏰 High Above – Aetherflame Palace, Veyr'Zhalar

Royal Scrying Chamber

The luminous crystal mirror shimmered, still pulsing faintly from the residual force of the technique it had just captured.

Inside the chamber, silence reigned.

No one dared speak first.

King Vael'Zarion, draped in regal silver and storm-blue armor, stood at the head of the room, arms behind his back. His gaze locked on the image of the ravine—eyes narrowed, lips pressed thin.

Beside him, Queen Elanra, veiled in sapphire silk and silver circlets, had one hand over her chest. Her eyes were closed—not out of fear, but focus. She was feeling the aftermath through the magic, not just watching it.

"That technique…" she whispered finally. "It carried no cruelty. No excess. Just… a purpose fulfilled. A reminder."

The elder prince, Kaelen, stepped forward, arms crossed tightly. "That wasn't just swordsmanship. That was dimensional disruption anchored in form."

He turned, brows furrowed. "Not even the Archives of Veyr contain a technique like that."

The younger prince, Ryvar, didn't seem to care about archives.

"That was the coolest thing I've ever seen." He practically bounced where he stood. "Did you see that?! Thirty-six clones?! They moved like a hive, and then he just deleted a mountain!"

Kaelen exhaled sharply. "You're not wrong. But that technique… I don't know what frightens me more. That he can use it. Or that he clearly holds back."

Princess Alyxthia, the youngest, stood near the back, hands clasped near her lips, eyes wide with something between awe and dread. "The shrine dragons whisper louder each day. And now… I know why."

Her voice was soft, but steady. "He doesn't walk. He moves like memory. Like something this world forgot… and is only now remembering."

The king finally spoke.

Low. Measured.

"He is no mere swordsman."

He turned from the scrying mirror, his steps echoing as he walked across the obsidian floor.

"He is a sovereign. One who has already claimed power greater than the archives can define. But more than that—he is not forging an army."

He turned, silver-gold eyes sweeping across the royal court.

"He is awakening legends."

Queen Elanra nodded solemnly. "And they follow him—not because of bloodline. Not even because of power. They follow him… because he moves as if he belongs to this world's last hope."

Kaelen's tone sharpened. "Do we crown him? Do we prepare for political backlash? The nobles will not ignore a man who erases terrain mid-training."

"No," the king said simply.

"Not yet."

He looked again to the image of the Dragoon recruits, still locked in stunned formation below.

"Let him teach. Let him forge."

Then—to the royal attendant at the chamber's edge:

"Send word to every border post, every shrine guardian, and all dragon-blooded clans in hiding. Call back the exiled. Recall the dormant. Tell them what you saw."

"If this is what he teaches in a week…"

His voice lowered like thunder behind distant stone.

"…then I want to see what a month becomes."

The morning mist rolled low across the Dragoon training field, wrapping the earth in pale silver like the breath of a sleeping dragon. The light of dawn hadn't yet broken fully—just a soft gleam brushing the edges of the cliffs beyond. But the recruits were already assembled. Silent. Awake. Tense.

They stood in formation—five across, sixty deep, eyes forward, shoulders taut—not from fatigue, but from anticipation. Day Seven had changed something. It left behind a scar on the world. Now, every recruit stood not just as a soldier in training… but as a storm coiled tight inside flesh.

Today, the storm would be sharpened.

Across the field, a stone platform rose at the center, shaped like an ancient altar. Runes pulsed faintly along its surface—wind and lightning symbols entwined in an elegant spiral.

Upon it stood Alter.

Draped in celestial armor once more, he said nothing at first.

The morning wind stirred his coat behind him. His draconic gaze swept across the field—not as a commander gauging readiness, but as a sovereign evaluating the edge of a sword he was still sharpening.

Then he drove Starsever into the platform beside him.

The blade struck with a low clang that vibrated the air.

From the contact point, a wave of light flared upward.

Above his head, three luminous diagrams unfolded—circular, radiant, etched with ancient glyphs. Each depicted a variation of the same technique: a lightning-charged thrust that split wind and space.

Alter spoke, voice smooth but commanding.

"Day Eight. The Second Style of the Divine Heavenly Sword Style."

A pause.

"Sky Piercer."

The words struck the air like a commandment.

He stepped to the side, letting the first glyph expand above him.

☰ Form I – Sky Piercer: Celestial Thrust"The Line that Reaches Heaven"

A ghostly projection of Alter stepped forward from the glyph. The figure dashed in a straight line—light condensed around the blade into a concentrated point. The thrust released in a single snap, unleashing a beam of piercing energy that cracked the terrain in its wake.

"This is your response to charging lines, armored beasts, and corrupted barriers," Alter explained. "Precision. Acceleration. No sweep. No flourish. Fire it mid-run, or from freefall."

☰ Form II – Sky Piercer: Heavenfall Rend"The Spear That Claims the Sky"

The glyph shimmered, shifting upward. A new projection took its place—this time launching from a stationary position. The ghostly form performed a vertical upward stab. Lightning spiraled from the blade like a roaring helix, ascending skyward in a radiant column.

"This… is for dragons, wyverns, or anything that believes altitude protects it. You bring them down."

☰ Form III – Sky Piercer: Zero Distance"The Point Where No Distance Remains"

The final glyph dimmed, shifting into the third. The ghost-image now grappled with an enemy at close range, face to face. Then—with a single, subtle pivot—the projection stabbed the blade into the enemy's chest. An instant later, a flash of light erupted from the enemy's back, silent but devastating.

"This is not a thrust to kill the outside," Alter said, voice lower now. "This is destruction from within. Grapples. Hallways. Shadows. You use this when death has already stepped too close to run from."

He turned from the platform.

And raised a hand.

Behind him, the field trembled.

Stone, steel, and runic circuitry emerged from hidden glyphs buried beneath the soil—rising into formation like an ancient war machine awakening. Walls shifted, platforms unfolded. Rotating targets clicked into alignment above the field. Hovering glyphs appeared in the air, each marked for target practice.

At the far end, airborne dummies and magically suspended constructs began to circle like predators.

Then came the final reveal.

Ten long trenches opened in the earth—each narrow, claustrophobic, carved into twisting corridors. Inside were reactive targets, tight turns, false pressure traps, and barriers that only opened when struck precisely at point-blank range.

Alter's voice cut through the stunned silence.

"This is the Sky Piercer Obstacle Gauntlet. You'll train all three forms. In motion. Under pressure. Each segment of this course is designed to respond—not just to whether you hit… but how."

He stepped down from the altar and turned to face the lines.

"You will begin in squads of ten. No casting. No runework. Only form, footwork, and intent. The sigils in your armor will record trajectory fidelity and reaction efficiency."

A long pause.

"Begin."

🌀 Phase One – Celestial Thrust

The first ten recruits took their positions at the base of the course. A pulse of wind flared across the field. Targets ignited overhead, each bearing a glowing sigil. Then they started to move—hovering left, darting right, rising with unpredictable motion.

"Celestial Thrust!" a young woman shouted as she dashed forward, wind coiling around her limbs. She leapt from a rising platform, blade held steady. Mid-air, her sword thrust forward—and a linear streak of compressed energy burst from the tip.

CRACK.

The bolt missed the center—but clipped the edge of the glyph.

Buzz.

"Near miss," Alter called. "Adjust your angle. Control your breath."

Others followed. Some flailed mid-leap. Some overcompensated and fired too early.

But some… some connected.

Straight-line beams pierced through glyphs cleanly, earning a subtle nod from Alter as the field responded with visual confirmations—sigils flaring silver, confirming precision.

⚡ Phase Two – Heavenfall Rend

The second sequence launched recruits onto vertical platforms. Wind-based lifts carried them upward, some stabilizing with quick pivots, others nearly falling off.

Then—

"Heavenfall Rend!"

A flash of lightning spiraled upward from one recruit's blade—catching a hovering dummy clean in the chest. The construct exploded into sparks, falling backward into the mist.

Another attempted too slow a release. The spiraling helix fizzled.

"No kill," Alter called. "Next."

Across the sky, thunder peeled. The technique—when properly released—left behind glowing scars in the air, remnants of power that painted the wind itself.

🔥 Phase Three – Zero Distance

Down in the trench corridors, the tone changed.

Narrow, claustrophobic. No space to swing. No time to adjust.

It was close here.

Dummies emerged from alcoves and corners, some lunging with simulated strikes, others mimicking grapples. The only way through? Point-blank thrusts.

"Zero Distance!"

One recruit lunged into a tackle, reversing the angle and driving her sword directly into the dummy's chest.

BOOM.

Light exploded out the back—silent, pure, divine.

The construct convulsed and slumped, inert.

Another missed the heart angle and was smacked against a wall by a retaliating rune pulse. Alter's voice followed, calm but firm.

"You hesitated. In that range, hesitation is death."

🧭 Across the Field – Observation and Correction

Alter stood atop the central overlook, arms folded, wind curling around his cloak.

He spoke little.

But his gaze missed nothing.

Each misaligned footfall. Each mistimed pivot. Every hand too loose or step too wide. His eyes—golden and ever-calculated—burned into the motions like a smith testing molten steel for cracks.

And when needed, he acted.

A bolt of wind would gently correct a falling recruit. A flick of his aura would stabilize a faltering leap. A subtle wave of pressure would halt a sword mid-thrust if it risked missing entirely.

But praise?

Rare.

Only when deserved.

"Good angle," he said to one. "Proper compression."

To another: "Your knees are leading your core. Fix that or fall."

And once—

A quiet, unexpected moment:

To a small, wide-eyed recruit who barely struck a target after failing three times—

"Well done."

The boy nearly collapsed in relief.

☀️ Midday – Field of Thundered Silence

Hours passed.

Cries of "Celestial Thrust!""Heavenfall Rend!""Zero Distance!"

—rang across the training field like thunder made of will.

Boots tore trenches into the stone. Arms trembled. Backs ached.

But nobody stopped.

By noon, the training field shimmered with residual light. Dozens of collapsed constructs smoldered across the landscape. The wind carried the scent of charged air and exhausted breath.

And still, Alter watched.

Finally—he raised a hand.

The training course shimmered and began to retract, stone folding back into the earth, glyphs dimming, platforms receding into slumber.

Alter turned to the recruits—now on one knee, panting, slick with sweat and fatigue.

"Sky Piercer," he said slowly, "is not about killing what's in front of you."

He raised Starsever once more.

"It is about cutting the space between choice and death. The moment you hesitate—gone. The moment you flinch—undone. You do not strike with force. You become the space that decides."

Then he lowered the blade.

"You did well."

A pause. One heartbeat. Two.

Then he added, "Tomorrow, we raise the bar again."

High above, thunder rolled once more—faint, distant.

But every Dragoon on that field knew—

It was not a storm coming.

They were the storm.