I looked at Noctharion, determination burning in my chest.
"Teach me, Noctharion. I want to learn it."
His eyes met mine, deep and unreadable, as if peering through my very soul. After a long pause, he finally spoke.
"Yes. I will teach you. The process is the same as before—I will control the mana in your body, circulate it with the technique, and this time we'll use pure mana instead of just your element. You must remember the feeling and make it your own."
"I'm ready," I said without hesitation.
In the next instant, his figure faded like mist, vanishing from my sight. I closed my eyes and sat on the bed, steadying my breathing. His voice echoed directly in my mind, calm and commanding.
Kael, relax your body. Let me control it. Do not resist.
I nodded slightly, eyes still shut, surrendering to his will.
Then it began.
A faint stir in my core. The mana around me quivered, unstable, erratic. Slowly—so slowly—it started to flow inside me, pushed and guided by his hand. At first, I felt nothing. But then…
An itch.
A crawling, biting sensation within my veins. The mana thickened, heavy and suffocating. Each circuit grew sharper, harsher, until the itch twisted into pain. My chest clenched as I felt it bore into my core, searing with a potency I hadn't experienced before.
It was stronger than aura. Denser. Wilder. Each thread of mana was like a burning needle, threatening to tear me apart from the inside.
Kael.
Noctharion's voice echoed in my mind, low and commanding.
"Feel it. Remember it. Don't lose focus."
I didn't respond. My whole being was fixed on the raw torrent of mana raging inside me.
For an hour, Noctharion forced the flow through every corner of my body. At first, it was unbearable—sharp, burning, tearing me apart from the inside. But slowly… it settled. The wild energy became a steady current, pressing against my veins with calm intensity.
Then his voice came again.
"Kael, now I'll release my hold. From here, you'll take control yourself."
The grip of his will faded, leaving the mana untamed, raw, heavy. My turn.
I clenched my jaw. Controlling this wasn't like the thin streams I'd moved before—this was denser, purer, vicious. Every attempt to guide it felt like wrestling a beast that wanted to tear me apart.
Sweat dripped down my face, my breath ragged. My brow furrowed so tightly it hurt, but I didn't dare lose focus.
Noctharion had told me: "Empty your core. Circulate until nothing remains."
A cruel task. My capacity was already far greater than what a D-rank should hold. To drain it fully would take hours—maybe longer. But power never came cheap.
So I endured. I let the burning waves consume me, guided them again and again through the cycle. Until every drop of mana left me… until exhaustion crushed me…
…until the darkness finally claimed my consciousness.
It had been a month since I started learning under Noctharion.
Every day followed the same brutal routine.
Wake up. Spar with the commander. Break. Heal. Repeat.
No, it wasn't training. It was beating.
Hours of endless clashes where my bones snapped, my body screamed, and my sword slipped from my hands. And every time I collapsed, Commander forced a potion down my throat, dragged me back to my feet, and broke me all over again.
But it worked.
Little by little, my eyes could follow more of his movements. My body learned to endure. My instincts sharpened. Each day, he raised the intensity, and each day, my sigils helped me adapt. Pain became routine. Improvement became survival.
The rest of the time, I trained with the knights—mostly physical drills. And when night fell, Noctharion took over.
At first, I couldn't even sense pure mana. He had to circulate it for me and then hand control back, like I was a child being spoon-fed. His words were merciless, cutting deeper than his lessons: "Even a child could do this better than you."
Yet despite the insults, he kept teaching. And despite the difficulty, I kept learning. Now, I could finally feel mana on my own. Controlling it was still like trying to grasp smoke, but at this pace, I knew in another month I would command it with ease.
There was nothing else in this fortress for me. With Liana gone, no one remained to stop me, to worry for me, to remind me that I was more than a blade in training. So I gave everything—every waking breath, every drop of strength—to this path.
I trained until I collapsed.
I woke and trained again.
Day after day. Night after night.
And I could feel it.
I was changing.
I was growing stronger. Stronger than yesterday. Stronger than the Kael who had first stepped into this fortress.
And it was worth it.
And just like that, another month slipped by.
Clang! Clang!
"Haa—!" A groan ripped out of my throat as I was hurled to the ground. My body slammed into the dirt, ribs rattling, vision shaking.
Before I could even lift myself, the commander was already above me, his shadow swallowing my body. His sword came crashing down.
I jerked my blade up just in time—steel met steel. Clang! The impact rattled my arms to the bone. Using the force of his strike, I rolled to the side and scrambled to my feet, breath ragged.
No time. No hesitation. I lunged forward and unleashed the first form of Iron Tempest.
Purple aura tore across the ground, howling as it rushed toward him.
But the commander didn't even flinch. With a casual swing, his blade cleaved through my aura as if it were smoke.
Then, with a simple motion, he raised his sword again. Aura flared—dense, sharp, lethal. His strike came down, a wave of condensed killing force screaming toward me. The pressure alone made my body lock up, my instincts shrieking.
I couldn't block that. Not with my pitiful aura. If I tried, I'd be split in half.
I threw myself to the side, barely escaping before the aura blade carved into the earth where I stood. The ground exploded. The shockwave flung me across the field like a ragdoll. Pain lanced through my limbs.
Still—I forced my body to rise.
But before I could steady my stance, he was already there. His sword blurred, slamming into my ribs. He had flipped it to the blunt side… but it was coated with aura.
"Gghhk—!" My body bent around the strike, air bursting from my lungs. I was sent flying, crashing into the stone wall with a bone-cracking impact.
A wet cough tore through me, and a mouthful of blood spilled out. My ribs screamed—broken. My spine felt as if it had splintered. My vision flickered at the edges.
"F…fuck…" I muttered weakly.
The commander's boots crunched against the ground as he walked toward me, calm as ever. He crouched, pulling out a small vial filled with glowing liquid, and shoved it into my hand.
"Drink."
I forced it down, choking. The moment it slid into my stomach, agony tore through me. My ribs began to snap back into place, my spine knitting itself together. Blood poured out of my mouth as my body forcefully realigned.
A minute later, I was on my feet again—breathing heavily, but whole.
And the commander's sharp gaze was still locked on me.
"Good job, Kael," the commander said, his eyes holding something warm—almost like recognition.
Over the past two months, I'd grown a little closer to him. Not through words—we rarely talked much—but through the constant beating sessions he called training. Slowly, I had started to notice the small shifts in his expressions, details I would have missed before.
"Your progress is truly phenomenal. You're learning so fast that, now, I doubt anyone at your rank could match you," he said, pride faintly coloring his tone.
I lowered my gaze. "But I still can't even touch you."
"Don't be stupid, Kael." His voice was firm, yet not harsh. "The difference between us is immeasurable. Even the gap between an A-rank and an S-rank is vast. Ten A-ranks together would still struggle to lay a finger on an S-rank."
He paused, eyes steady on me, as if making sure the weight of his words sank in.
"That's why we say that when a person reaches S-rank, they shed mortality itself… and begin walking the path of gods."
"Path of the gods…" I muttered under my breath.
"Yes," the commander replied, his voice calm yet heavy.
"Kael, listen well. I could erase this entire fortress in seconds. Flatten it to rubble before anyone even understood what happened. A city? I could ravage one in the blink of an eye, and no one would be able to stop me—unless they were S-rank."
He paused, letting the words sink into me. His eyes gleamed with something between pride and warning.
"But S-rank is only the beginning of true power. Above us… there are the SS-ranked. Even a hundred like me would be helpless before a single one of them."
My throat tightened. The gap between us already felt like an abyss—yet to him, it was only the first step.
"And then…" His tone shifted, almost reverent. "There are the SSS-ranked. The real monsters. No one knows the true extent of their abilities. No records, no witnesses—because anyone who has ever seen them fight has not lived to tell the tale. They have walked this world for thousands of years, untouched, unchallenged. Tell me, Kael… if such beings are not gods, then what are they?"