Two years passed.
In the grand halls of the capital, time was measured in extravagant galas, shifting political alliances, and the holy sermons of the Church. But within the frostbitten, isolated walls of the Warborn estate's northern training yard, time was measured exclusively in broken wood, shattered bones, and the slow, agonizing cultivation of the internal flame.
Kaiser was now seven years old.
He stood perfectly still in the center of a sunken stone amphitheater located deep beneath the Vanguard's barracks. The air down here was stagnant, reeking of wet earth, rusted iron, and the pungent musk of caged animals.
Physically, the boy was a contradiction. He possessed the delicate, impossibly handsome facial features inherited from his mother, framed by a wild, untamed mane of pure white hair that fell past his shoulders in a natural wolf-cut. Yet beneath his coarse, sweat-drenched linen gi, his seven-year-old frame was corded with dense, unnatural muscle, littered with a constellation of thin white scars—gifts from Sir Kaelen's relentless cane.
And, as always, the heavy dark-silk blindfold was wrapped securely around his eyes.
"Control your breathing, young master," Sir Kaelen's gravelly voice echoed from the elevated viewing grate twenty feet above the pit. "Your heart rate is elevated by two beats per minute. You are anticipating."
"I am regulating, Sir Kaelen," Kaiser replied, his childish voice remarkably steady, echoing off the damp stone walls. "The ambient temperature of this pit is ten degrees colder than the surface. I am constricting my capillaries to preserve core heat."
A deep, booming chuckle rumbled from beside the blind assassin.
Duke Arthur Warborn leaned against the iron railing of the viewing grate, his massive frame casting a dense shadow over the pit. "He corrects his master," Arthur grinned, his eyes burning with a ferocious pride. "He has your arrogance, Kaelen, but my blood."
"Arrogance gets you killed in the dark, My Lord," Kaelen retorted dryly. He turned his scarred, empty eye sockets toward the heavy iron portcullis on the far side of the pit. "Let us see if his blood can keep him alive. Release it."
A rusted gear screeched violently overhead. The heavy chains of the portcullis rattled, lifting the iron gate inch by inch.
Instantly, the ambient mana in the pit curdled into something foul and aggressive.
Kaiser didn't move a muscle, but his mind expanded, mapping the cavernous space with his Absolute Senses. He listened to the darkness beyond the gate.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
Long, curved talons struck the stone floor. The creature's footsteps were erratic, heavy in the front and dragging in the rear. Kaiser heard the wet, raspy sound of air being pulled through a mutated snout. He smelled rotting meat and stagnant water.
"A Cave-Stalker," Kaelen's voice floated down from above, devoid of any comforting warmth. "A beast that lives entirely in the lightless depths of the Abyssal Caverns. It has no eyes, young master. It hunts purely by scent and thermal tracking. It is a mirror of yourself. But it is starving, and you are meat."
From the shadows of the open gate, the beast emerged.
It was the size of a large hound, but entirely hairless, its skin a pale, sickly gray. Its front limbs were disproportionately large, ending in sickle-like claws designed to tear through stone and bone. Where its eyes should have been, there was only thick, smooth cartilage. Its jaws, however, were massive, dripping with acidic saliva that hissed as it hit the floor.
Kaiser held a weapon in his right hand. It wasn't an oak bokken this time. It was a shortsword forged from cold iron, dull on the edges but heavy enough to crush a skull.
In his past life, Kaiser had fought armed men, grandmasters, and assassins. But he had never fought a beast. He had never engaged an opponent that didn't follow the biomechanics of a human spine.
Focus, Kaiser commanded his mind.
The Cave-Stalker stopped ten paces away. Its massive head whipped left, then right, its nostrils flaring as it locked onto Kaiser's thermal signature.
A low, vibrating growl originated from the beast's chest. Kaiser felt the sound waves ripple against his skin. He didn't just hear the growl; he felt the violent contraction of the monster's diaphragm. He felt the exact moment its muscles coiled like heavy steel springs.
The beast lunged.
It didn't leap in an arc; it propelled itself forward like a cannonball, entirely parallel to the ground, its jaws snapping open to crush Kaiser's waist.
Too fast, Kaiser realized. His human body, even forged through two years of brutal conditioning, could not physically outpace the fast-twitch muscle fibers of an abyssal predator.
If he tried to dodge, the beast's sheer mass would clip him, shattering his ribs.
So, Kaiser didn't dodge. He closed his eyes beneath his blindfold and sank into his core.
Two years ago, his Aura was a microscopic spark that exhausted him after a single use. Today, it was a steady, burning furnace. He inhaled sharply, drawing the ambient oxygen into his lungs, and forcibly slammed his internal will down onto that furnace.
Ignite.
A rush of pressurized heat exploded from his chest, flooding into his meridians. His veins bulged against his pale skin. The iron shortsword in his hand hummed softly as a razor-thin layer of his newly cultivated Aura coated the dull blade, drastically increasing its density.
Kaiser stepped into the beast's attack.
He manipulated his center of gravity, dropping to one knee at the exact millisecond the Cave-Stalker's jaws snapped shut over the empty space where his torso had been. The sheer kinetic wind of the beast's momentum whipped Kaiser's white hair into the air.
Using the creature's own forward momentum against it, Kaiser pivoted his shoulder and thrust the Aura-reinforced shortsword straight upward.
He didn't aim blindly. His Absolute Hearing had already mapped the beast's anatomy through its heartbeat. He bypassed the thick plates of bone on its chest and aimed perfectly for the soft, fleshy gap just beneath its front left shoulder—directly into its right ventricle.
The dull iron blade, wrapped in the pressurized heat of Kaiser's Aura, punched through the beast's thick hide like an awl through wet parchment.
SHKKK!
A horrific, high-pitched shriek echoed through the amphitheater. The Cave-Stalker's momentum carried it forward, essentially impaling itself completely upon Kaiser's blade.
Hot, foul-smelling blood erupted over Kaiser's hand and forearm. The sheer force of the beast's dying thrash threw the seven-year-old boy backward across the stone floor. He rolled flawlessly, dissipating the kinetic shock, and snapped back up to his feet, instantly dropping into a defensive stance.
But the fight was over.
The Cave-Stalker lay twitching on the cold stone, a pool of thick, black blood rapidly spreading from the fatal wound beneath its shoulder. Its massive heart gave one final, ragged thump, and then the cavern plunged into an absolute, eerie silence.
Kaiser stood there, breathing heavily. His Aura receded, the sudden drop in internal pressure making his muscles ache and his head spin. He held his blood-soaked right hand out in front of him.
He couldn't see the blood, but he could smell the copper. He could feel its sticky warmth cooling rapidly against his skin.
In his past life, the Sightless Sovereign had never killed. The underground martial arts world was brutal, but there were rules. Death was an accident, not an objective.
But as Kaiser stood in the damp, freezing pit, listening to the final, fading echoes of the beast's life, a profound realization settled over his adult mind.
This world had no rules. There were no mats, no referees, no submission taps. It was a world of magic, curses, and abyssal monsters. His Void Eyes were a ticking time bomb. The Holy Church wanted him eradicated. If he clung to the pacifist morality of his old world, he would not survive to see his eighth birthday, let alone live long enough to take off his blindfold and see the sky.
To protect his mother's smile, to fulfill his father's terrifying ambitions, and to conquer his own curse, he had to become something far more lethal than a martial artist.
"Perfectly executed," Sir Kaelen's voice drifted down, completely devoid of surprise. "You did not panic. You used its momentum. You found the artery."
Up on the viewing grate, Duke Arthur let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. He looked down at his seven-year-old son, standing over the corpse of a monster, coated in blood, perfectly calm beneath his dark-silk veil.
"He is magnificent," Arthur whispered, a terrifying, awe-struck smile spreading across his scarred face. "He is a true Warborn."
Arthur turned to leave the grate, his heavy cape billowing. "Wash him up, Kaelen. Tomorrow, we double the weight of his sword. The child is dead. The weapon is awake."
Down in the pit, Kaiser slowly lowered his stance. He knelt beside the dead beast. He reached out with his clean hand and traced the rough, cartilage-covered snout of the monster, feeling the cold reality of death beneath his fingertips.
I am sorry, Kaiser thought silently, offering a fleeting prayer from his past life to the soul of the creature. But your life was the stepping stone I needed. I will not waste it.
He stood up, turning his blindfolded face toward the heavy iron door of the pit, his white hair plastered to his forehead with sweat and gore. The ember in his core was no longer just a spark. It was a flame, steady and unyielding in the absolute dark.