Renji's days in the palace passed in a haze of fever, recovery, and study. With the Old Man guiding him through the vast library, he came to understand the tangled lineages of Hawks, Vastos, and the forgotten powers that ran deeper than blood.
But he also noticed something else.
The Monarch was searching. Always searching.
Whispers spread among the servants: for years, the Monarch had kept a hidden trial, calling warriors to test themselves before him. Few returned with pride. Many returned broken.
That day, the call came again.
Renji followed the Old Man into the chamber, its floor carved from black stone that shimmered like obsidian glass. At its center stood a sword — not in a pedestal, but driven into the ground itself, as if the earth had been pierced and pinned by its weight.
It was unlike any weapon Renji had seen. About eighty centimeters long, its blade seemed to breathe. Thin, pulsing lines stretched across its steel, as though it carried veins of flesh. The closer Renji looked, the more it felt alive.
Ash, Yara, the Old Man, and several warriors from across the land stood in a circle. The Monarch sat high above, watching, his voice carrying without effort.
"Come forward. Touch the blade. Let it drink of your blood. Let it reveal your bane."
Ash stepped forward without hesitation. His hand wrapped around the hilt, and the chamber fell silent.
At first, nothing.
Then — from the very tip of the blade down to the hilt — a single nerve burst into life, red and pulsing like the vein of a living beast.
The entire sword glowed with it, vein-like strands tightening and throbbing until they wrapped the steel.
Gasps filled the chamber.
"No one… has ever crossed twenty centimeters," whispered one of the guards.
But Ash's nerve had stretched the entire eighty. From the top of the sword to the hilt, the line was complete.
The Monarch's smile deepened. "These are the nerves of bane. They measure the fire in your blood, the curse that breathes through you. The sword itself breathes with the one who wields it. And here stands the one whose bane is greater than all others."
The Old Man's eyes flickered, unreadable. Yara's lips tightened. And Renji — he felt a shiver not from awe, but from dread.
One by one, the other warriors stepped forward. They grasped the sword with straining arms, waiting for the light to appear.
A flicker.
A twitch.
A faint nerve crawling no further than ten centimeters before dying.
Thin. Weak. Insignificant.
The Monarch waved them off, his voice heavy with disappointment. "Your blood is shallow."
When the chamber finally emptied, Renji sat beside the Old Man, still staring at the sword.
"So… these nerves show the strength of the wielder?" he asked quietly.
The Old Man shook his head. "Not the strength of their arm, no. It shows the bane in their blood. What they carry, not what they've trained. Some are born shallow. Some are born deep. Ash…" he glanced toward the young warrior, "…was born drowning in it."