The square reeked of sweat, smoke, blood and iron. Torches ringed the perimeter, their orange light licking across the ground, painting shadows that stretched like the bars of a cage. Atlas stood in the center, a small figure dwarfed by the circle of masked guards that surrounded him. He felt their eyes—hidden behind a bronze helmet—burning holes into his skin.
A rack of weapons stood nearby, gleaming faintly in the firelight: spears, swords, bows, shields, axes, and daggers. But Atlas's gaze wasn't on the rack. It was fixed on the man who stepped forward from among the guards.
The figure was no child trainee, no weak opponent meant for practice. He was one of them—fully grown, broad-shouldered, and armed with an iron sword that he picked with the ease of long familiarity. His mask reflected the torchlight, blank and merciless.
Atlas's heart skipped a beat. His young hands trembled. They're making me fight one of their own.
For the briefest moment, panic surged through him, hot and blinding. 8 years old. Small. Flesh and blood. He couldn't possibly—
But then, his chest rose. Fell. The memory of his past life steadied him like a hand on his shoulder.
He remembered the battlefield camps, the wounded screaming in agony. He remembered kneeling in mud as dark as blood, stitching organs back into broken bodies while explosions thundered in the distance. He remembered the alien raids, the grenades, the corpses, the smell of charred flesh.
Compared to all that, this wasn't new. Fear was something he had lived with before, and he knew how to bury it.
He inhaled. Exhaled. Calm returned.
His gaze flicked to the weapons rack. His mind broke each one down like equations:
Spears: reach, but unwieldy for his smaller frame.
Swords: balanced, but he lacked the sheer power to contest a grown man
Shields: too heavy. He would tire quickly,
Bows: useless at close range, especially against a trained guard.
Then his eyes found them. Daggers. One long, one short. Simple. Deadly. Familiar.
His hands closed around their hilts, and suddenly his breathing steadied further. He had trained with these motions before. His body remembered.
The memory flashed again: fluorescent-lit training halls in his past life. Though he was a doctor, every soldier had to practice fighting. He remembered his instructor's voice, rough and honest:
"Why Kali?" Atlas had asked once. "Why not karate, or jiu-jitsu, or Muay Thai?"
The instructor's laughter was short and sharp.
"Because those styles are made for rules, for sport, doctor, Kali is made for survival. On the battlefield, there are no referees, no honor. Kali teaches you to keep moving, keep striking, with whatever you hold—sticks, knives, or your bare hands. You don't stop until your enemy is down."
The man had demonstrated with fluid speed, his sticks blurring through the air as he struck at imagined foes.
"One day, Doctor, you may not hold a rifle or a scalpel. You may only have a blade… or nothing. And when that day comes, Kali will keep you alive. Knife defense, real-world reflexes, stress drills—this art teaches you to fight when the world is ending."
Atlas had taken those lessons to heart and had trained hard, sweating until his muscles screamed. And later, on the battlefield, he had realized the truth, the aliens, with all their technology and advanced weapons, were devastating from a distance—but up close? They were weak. Disorganized. Fragile. His hands, guided by Kali, had turned blades into scalpels of war.
Now, standing in this cursed training square, those same lessons steadied him. His choice was obvious.
Atlas's hands reached for a pair of daggers—one long, one short. The iron was heavy, rough, but it felt right. The weight of survival. He rolled his shoulders back, adjusted his grip, and fell into a stance his body remembered even if this world had never taught it.
The leader of the guards raised his voice, booming across the square:
"BEGIN!"
The guard lunged with brutal efficiency, sword sweeping downward in a heavy arc. Atlas didn't meet the strike head-on. He slipped to the side, feet kicking up dirt, moving with speed his opponent didn't expect.
Steel cut air where he had just stood.
Atlas darted in close. His long dagger sliced across the man's forearm, tearing through muscle. Blood sprayed, and the sword wavered in the guard's grip.
Before the man could recover, Atlas pivoted low, driving his short dagger into the side of the man's knee. A sickening crunch followed as the blade bit deep. The guard roared, collapsing onto one knee, his weapon arm now weak, his stance broken.
The onlooking children gasped. To them, this was already a victory. Atlas had done enough to pass the trial—he had defeated his opponent. That was the rule. That was what was expected.
But Atlas wasn't done.
His breathing slowed. His vision narrowed. He wasn't just a child fighting to survive—he was a doctor with the knowledge of every weak point in the human body. He knew exactly where to cut, exactly where to end a life with precision.
And more importantly, he wanted to send a message.
The guard, still kneeling, reached for his sword with a trembling hand. His breath rasped behind the mask, a mixture of fury and disbelief that a child had brought him this low.
Atlas stepped in. His daggers glinted like fangs in the firelight.
The long blade drove into the man's chest, angled perfectly to pierce the heart. The short dagger followed, stabbing upward into the temple.
The body convulsed once, then fell limp, crashing to the dirt with a heavy thud.
Silence fell across the square. Even the torches seemed to crackle more softly.
Atlas stood above the corpse, blood dripping from both blades. He didn't tremble. He didn't smile. His face was expressionless, clinical, as if he had just completed a procedure.
Slowly, he pulled the daggers free. The iron hissed as he wiped them clean against the dead man's cloak.
Then he looked up.
The circle of masked guards shifted almost imperceptibly. Shoulders stiffened. Heads tilted. The arrogance they had worn moments before was gone. Replaced by unease.
Atlas could feel it. Even through their masks, their gazes no longer held contempt. They held… caution. Fear.
Because the trial had only demanded victory. He could have left his opponent crippled, humiliated, alive. That would have been enough. But Atlas had gone further. He had chosen to kill. And not with desperation, but with precision, with purpose.
Finally, his eyes locked onto the masked leader.
Atlas straightened, lifted his chin, and spoke in a voice that cut through the thick, smoky air.
"Is that all?"
The words echoed, bouncing off stone and wood, lingering in the ears of every guard present.
The corpse at his feet was still warm, blood pooling dark on the dirt. A child stood over it, blades in hand, daring them to test him again.
And in that moment, the Cult of Kosmos—so used to molding children into killers—felt something new.
Not pride. Not satisfaction.
Fear.
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