He reached out and tucked a stray strand of red hair behind her ear. His hand was steady, rock-solid, a testament to the discipline he had forged over years of silent agony. But beneath the ribs, his heart was pounding against the bone like a trapped bird, frantic and desperate. He hated the lie. He hated that his protection required deceit.
"Go to sleep, Rebecca. Trust me."
She hesitated, her green eyes searching his face, looking for the crack in the armor, the twitch of a lie. She saw only the mask he had perfected—the calm, reliable boy who washed dishes and told stories. Eventually, she sighed, the tension leaving her shoulders. She leaned into his touch for a fleeting second, surrendering to the hope that he was telling the truth.
"I do trust you, Lencar," she whispered, her voice thick with unvoiced fears. "That's why it scares me. I know you'd walk into fire if you thought it would help us. Just... come home. Please."
"I always do."
She nodded, turning away to go to her room. Lencar stood in the dark kitchen, waiting. He listened to the house settle. He heard the creak of her bedsprings, the soft rustle of the quilt. He waited until her breathing evened out, signaling the deep, trusting sleep of the innocent.
Then, the mask fell.
The gentle boy vanished, replaced by the cold, calculating gaze of the Sovereign. His posture shifted, the slouch of the weary worker straightening into the rigid spine of a warrior.
He walked to his room, locked the door with a quiet click, and stood in the center of the floor. He tapped his silver ring.
"[Spatial Magic]: [Coordinate Shift]."
The world twisted. The warmth of the house, the smell of lavender and soap, was ripped away in an instant. It was replaced by a sensory assault—the screaming wind and freezing cold of the Thunder-Crag Peaks.
Lencar didn't cast a barrier. He didn't want comfort. He let the storm hit him. He stripped off his tunic, letting the hail pelt his bare skin, using the stinging pain to sharpen his focus.
He spent the first two hours on physical conditioning, pushing his Mana-Forged body to the breaking point against the crushing gravity of the zone. He moved boulders, sprinted up sheer cliffs until his lungs burned, and held planks until his muscles screamed in agony. But tonight, his mind wasn't on the push-ups. It was on the sword.
He stood on the edge of a precipice, the lightning flashing below him in the abyss, illuminating the jagged rocks in strobes of violent violet.
"Sword practice," Lencar whispered.
He reached into the [Void Vault]. But this time, he didn't pull out the slab of iron he had bought from the junk shop.
He reached deeper. He grabbed the hilt that felt cold and ancient, the hilt that hummed with a hunger he barely understood.
He pulled out the Demon-Dweller Sword.
It was lighter than the iron slab, but spiritually, it weighed a ton. The blade was rusted and dirt-caked, ancient markings barely visible beneath the grime of centuries. It didn't have mana of its own; it felt like a hole in the world—a vacuum waiting to be filled. It was a weapon designed to kill gods, currently held by a boy pretending to be a man.
Lencar held it out. His arm trembled slightly, not from weight, but from the sheer wrongness of it.
Asta holds this like it's a part of him, Lencar thought, watching the lightning reflect off the dull metal. But for me... it feels like holding a live wire. It feels like holding a piece of a corpse that hasn't realized it's dead.
The sensation of his mana being siphoned continuously wasn't pleasant. It was a low-level drain, like a leech attached to his soul, sipping at the reservoir he had worked so hard to fill.
"It doesn't reject me," Lencar noted, swinging it tentatively. "Because I am not actively transferring mana into it right now. To the sword, I'm just a handle. A biological delivery system."
He swung it. Whoosh.
It cut the air with a distinct, hollow sound, slicing through the wind resistance effortlessly. The balance was supernatural.
He decided to test the connection. He needed to know the mechanics of the theft.
"[Wind Magic]..."
He pushed a pulse of mana into the hilt.
The reaction was instantaneous. The sword drank it. The rust seemed to glow faintly green for a second, illuminating the ancient script, and then the mana vanished. It wasn't projected as a slash; it was simply consumed, stored somewhere deep inside the blade or nullified entirely. It was like pouring water into a bottomless pit.
Lencar frowned, cutting the flow before he exhausted himself.
"I can't use the anti-magic slash yet," Lencar analyzed, watching the glow fade. "That requires Anti-Magic, which I don't possess. And I can't borrow magic from others because I don't have the bond Asta has with his allies. Right now, to me, this is just a very sharp, very durable blunt instrument that eats my energy if I'm not careful."
He swung it again. And again. He practiced the forms—the sweeping cuts, the heavy blocks.
But after an hour, he stopped. He lowered the blade, looking out at the raging storm. He was sweating, but he wasn't satisfied. The sword felt dead in his hand.
"This is pointless," he muttered, his voice barely audible over the thunder. "Swinging at the air can only teach me form, but it doesn't teach me impact. It doesn't teach me how to fight while being drained of mana continuously. I need resistance. I need something that fights back. I need to know if I can hold this sword when my life depends on it."
He looked at the sword. He looked at his blistered hands.
"I need a live test. I need to know if this body can take a hit, and if this sword can deliver one."
He opened his grimoire, pulling out the map of the Grand Magic Zones he had compiled from the books in Hage and the stolen intel from the bandits. The pages fluttered violently in the wind, threatening to tear.
He scanned the dangerous red zones, looking for a suitable crucible.
Volcano Trail? Too hot; the heat exhaustion coupled with the mana drain would kill me before the beasts did. I need oxygen to fuel the muscles.
Glacier Steps? Too slow; I need reflexes, not endurance. The footing is too treacherous for sword forms.
His finger landed on a region to the south-east, a notorious wasteland known for its hostile fauna and inhospitable atmosphere. A place few Magic Knights dared to tread without a specialized squad.
The Venom-Haze Badlands.
"Primary inhabitants: Giant Scorpion Beasts," Lencar read from his memory, visualizing the dossier. "The environment is a Highly toxic mist. The threat level is high. Survival Rate for unequipped mages: Zero."
He smiled. It was perfect. Poison, armor, and aggression. It was a place where hesitation meant death. It was a place where he couldn't rely on mana sensing because the air itself was saturated with interference.
"Let's see if the Heretic can survive the poison," Lencar whispered, a cold light entering his eyes. "Let's see if I'm ready for Mars."
He tapped his ring.
"[Spatial Magic]: [Coordinate Shift]."
The thunder faded. The lightning vanished. The cold mountain air was replaced by something thick, heavy, and deadly.
Lencar stepped into the fog.