Chapter 12: The Trial End
He planted his feet not wide, not narrow. His stance was plain, unremarkable. Yet my breath caught.
Because there was no opening.
Every fraction of his frame aligned, every muscle harmonized. He was not holding the axe. He had become it.
Then he swung.
No roar. No flash. Just one clean arc, down and through, cutting air.
The ground didn't split. The pond didn't tremble. Yet the world itself seemed to recoil. The swing wasn't loud, but it was final.
As if reality itself whispered: something has been judged.
I staggered back, my knees nearly buckling. I couldn't explain it, but my instincts screamed that if that swing had been aimed at me, there would have been no escape. No defense. No plea.
Because it wasn't an attack.
It was a sentence.
Bhargav rested the axe on his shoulder, his breathing steady.
"This is the foundation," he said. "Not speed. Not strength. Not flourish. One swing. Weighted not by anger or ambition but by Dharma. The will to cut only what must be cut."
He turned to me.
"To walk this path, Kael, you must embrace monotony. You must swing until your arms bleed, until your back cracks, until your soul grows numb. Thousands, tens of thousands of times. And in each repetition, you must ask: Does this swing bear justice, or ego?"
He stepped closer, placing the axe before me.
"This is why so few remember. Because it is unbearable. Because mortals crave glory, not judgment. They tire of repetition. They break under doubt. And so the art faded, until it became only a whisper."
I swallowed hard, staring at the axe. My hands shook. Not from fear of its weight, but from the enormity of its demand.
A life of repetition. A life of asking questions I might never answer.
Could I do it?
Bhargav's eyes softened, as though he saw my hesitation.
"I told you before. You will fail. You will falter. But even in failure, you must lift the axe again. That is what makes it worthy. That is what makes you worthy."
He extended his hand. His palm glowed faintly, golden threads coiling like script. They shimmered with something old, older than language.
"This is my memory of the Parshu Aex Art," he said. "Not the whole. Not even a tenth. A seed. A spark. Plant it within, water it with your sweat, and perhaps it will grow."
I stepped forward. The glow reached toward my chest. The moment it touched, fire seared through me.
"Ghhk!"
I collapsed, clutching at my heart. Images crashed through my mind—axes swinging endlessly, mountains split by repetition, rivers of sweat carving valleys into the earth. My body screamed as if every muscle was being rewritten.
But beneath the pain… I heard something.
A rhythm.
A steady beat, like a heart not my own.
Swing. Breathe. Weigh. Swing again.
Over and over, like a drum of eternity.
Bhargav's voice cut through the storm.
"Do not resist. Let it carve you. Let it brand you. This is the echo of the Lord's path. Your burden, now."
At last, the fire dimmed. I collapsed to my knees, gasping, drenched in sweat.
My vision blurred, but through it I saw Bhargav fading. His body was unraveling into light, scattering like ash into the breeze.
"No!" I shouted, reaching for him.
He only smiled. Not bitter, not mournful. Peaceful.
"My time was long spent. This remnant held only until a worthy one came. And you came, Kael Arden. Do not squander it."
His hand lifted in farewell, the last fragments of his form dissolving into the koi pond's ripples.
"Remember… the axe is not for war. It is for Dharma. Carry it."
Startled I immediately got on my knees and paid my respects
"Thank you! Thank you! I will make sure to carry on your art and spread your name across the world!"
Grandmaster Bhargav let out another smile, as he mumbled something inaudible before he disappeared and scattered into light fragments.
Nodding resolutely I stood up. Though his last words may have been inaudible I could already tell what he wanted to say.
"Keep low until you're strong enough…"
Then he was gone.
---
Silence pressed in, broken only by the gentle splash of koi and the faint whisper of bamboo fountains.
I stayed on my knees, chest heaving, the seed of the art burning faintly inside me.
Bhargav was gone. Parashurama was long gone. And yet… their weight pressed on me.
I looked at my trembling hands.
They no longer felt like a reader's hands. Not yet a warrior's either. But something was changing.
The garden shimmered once, and then cracked like glass. The tatami floor, the pond, the koi all dissolved into nothingness.
Darkness swallowed me.
The mountain was quiet when I emerged from the Trial Gate.
The stone archway that had once radiated a suffocating aura of judgment now stood dormant, its surface dulled and lifeless. Behind me, the echoes of Grandmaster Bhargav's voice still lingered like faint incense smoke, clinging to my mind. The weight of his final words pressed against my chest.
I paused on the ridgeline, staring down the path I had ascended days ago. The horizon bled orange and crimson as the sun rose, stretching its light over the jagged spines of the Clayton Range. For a moment, I simply breathed—filling my lungs with cold mountain air, grounding myself in the fact that I had survived.
My reflection in a shard of cracked stone caught my eye. Same black hair, same youthful face, but my eyes… my eyes were different. No longer those of a detached reader who mocked from the sidelines. They were sharpened, carved by something larger than myself.
"Kael Arden," I whispered under my breath, testing the sound of my own name. It carried a weight it hadn't before. Not just a name, but an identity I had been forced to accept.
---
The descent from the mountain felt surreal. The trail, once suffocating with illusions and trials, was now only rock and dirt. Birds cried from distant trees. Wind hissed through cracks in the cliffs. Ordinary.
Too ordinary.
By the time I reached the nearest tram station, exhaustion gnawed at my limbs. Buying the ticket back to Ashtair City felt almost comical. After all I had endured, the "Limitless" artifact, the echoes of Parashurama's legend, the soul of Bhargav—it all condensed into me standing in line behind a bored merchant complaining about the rising cost of cargo permits.
The mundane world didn't care.
I boarded the tram. Its sleek frame vibrated as it slid along the mana-infused rails, humming softly. I sank into a corner seat, staring out the window as forests blurred into plains, and plains into the gleaming skyline of Ashtair.
---
By the time I unlocked the door of my rented apartment, the sun had long set. The small space greeted me with its familiar mix of cheap paint and faint mildew. A single bed. A desk stacked with notes. A sink that leaked every third day.
It wasn't much. But it was mine.
I dropped onto the bed, letting out a long breath. My body screamed for rest, yet my mind buzzed too violently to sleep. Closing my eyes, I replayed every strike of Bhargav's axe demonstration, every lesson on patience, on judgment. I traced the motion of his cuts in the air with my hand.
Even without touching an axe, my muscles seemed to hum with understanding.
---
Morning came with a dull ache in my bones, but also… clarity.
13 February 3955.
The numbers glowed across the holographic face of my smartwatch as I flicked my wrist. Tomorrow was the start of Hero Academy's term. One day left. One day before I was thrown into the shark-infested waters with the prodigies and protagonists of this world.
I clenched my fist, staring at my own palm. My veins stood out more clearly, muscles denser, tighter. My physique had changed. This wasn't just a mental inheritance.
I needed to test it.
I went to the rooftop of the Appartment building.
The rooftop of the apartment building was deserted. Perfect.
I began with something simple push-ups. My arms pumped rhythmically, and to my surprise, my body felt light. One hundred passed like nothing. Two hundred, three hundred, my breathing even. By the time I passed five hundred, I wasn't even winded.
I moved to running, circling the rooftop at full speed. The wind cracked against my ears. Each step felt like a spring-loaded strike, propelling me forward faster than I ever remembered running.
Finally, I grabbed a rusted broom from the corner and swung it like an axe.
The motion was natural, frighteningly so. Each arc carried precision, momentum, inevitability. It was as though my body remembered what my mind had not yet fully grasped—the rhythm of Bhargav's art.
I stopped, chest heaving lightly.
"Stronger," I muttered. "Faster. But that's not all, is it?"
That was when it hit.
---
A burning spike of agony drove itself into my skull.
"Ghh—!"
My knees buckled, slamming against the rooftop. Hands clawed at my head as molten fire seared through every nerve. It wasn't just pain it was invasion.
Memories.
The rough bite of a wooden practice sword against raw palms. The bruises of endless sparring. His father's stern voice, drilling stances until the sun bled out and the moon rose. Maven's laughter, Ethan's sharp predictions. The bitter tang of blood. The swelling pride of victory.
Uncle Chase's cold, assessing eyes. The taste of humiliation under his patronage. The trembling exhilaration of stepping into Hero Academy for the first time.
One after another, they rammed into me, a storm that shredded thought.
"AAAAAHHH!"
The scream tore from my throat as if it might split me apart. My body convulsed on the rooftop. The broom clattered away, forgotten.
---
Then, silence.
The fire receded, leaving me drenched in sweat, gasping for breath. My chest rose and fell erratically. My fingers trembled as I pressed them against my temples, as though to hold myself together.
"Wh-what… was that?"
No one answered. But I knew.
They weren't just visions. They were memories Keal Arden's memories. The boy whose name I carried. His training, his struggles, his pride, his fears they had been forcefully embedded into my mind.
For a moment, I sat there trembling. Confused. Afraid.
Then I exhaled, slowly.
At least now, I had context.
I wasn't just a blank slate filling Keal Arden's shoes. I was Keal Arden, layered with the soul of a reader. A hybrid of fiction and reality. And that gave me a chance.
"I won't waste it," I whispered, staring at the sky.
I might not be Lucus Morningstar. I might not be the destined protagonist.
But I refused to be insignificant.
-
That evening, I stood before the mirror, combing my hair into some semblance of neatness. The uniform of Hero Academy fit snugly, its white and navy trim sharp against the light.
My reflection was still me but different. Sharper eyes. Firmer stance.
Tomorrow, I would step into Class A
And the story would not unfold the way it had before.