Winter had ended, giving way to the cold, persistent spring rains that washed over the walls of Arcanum Bellator.
Phantsin Dawnfire was alone in the subterranean locker rooms. His knuckles were wrapped in bandages as he struck a sandbag hanging from an iron beam with a methodical, almost hypnotic rhythm.
He had taken off his gray canvas shirt, wearing only his standard-issue combat trousers, and his red sash lay forgotten on a wooden bench.
Ever since the Winter Gala and that dance with Eliana, the Void inside his body had been restless.
The proximity, the human warmth, the racing emotions... all of it was fuel for the purple fire.
So Phantsin punished his own body with physical exertion until his muscles screamed, using the pain to keep his mind occupied.
Phantsin delivered one final blow to the bag and stopped, panting, sweat drenching his skin.
"Little prince Blackthorn was right," a deep voice resonated, echoing off the shower tiles. "You hit hard for a pretty Ignis mage, but your bones are still made of glass."
Phantsin turned around slowly.
Blocking the locker room's only exit was a student who wasn't entirely human. Standing nearly eight feet tall, with greenish-gray skin and prominent tusks, he had to duck his head to avoid hitting the stone doorframe as he entered. He looked like a statue of war brought to life.
He was a half-ogre. He wore training gear: dust-stained gray canvas trousers held up by the broad green sash of the Terra faction. His shirt was unbuttoned, revealing a chest as broad as a siege shield, covered in tribal tattoos honoring the Resilience and Defense of his Pillar.
Phantsin knew who he was. Grok Stonehide. The only half-ogre in the academy.
"Grok," Phantsin said, lowering his fists. "Arena training ended two hours ago."
"My training ends when I say it does," the half-ogre grunted, taking a heavy step into the locker room. "Vlad Blackthorn offered me three gold coins and a dwarven steel dagger to come give you a message. Says you forgot your place at the Gala. That you need reminding that scum belongs on the dirt."
Phantsin sighed as he unwrapped the bandages from his knuckles. The prince of Ignis was predictably cowardly; he always sent others to dirty their hands for him.
"Tell Vlad that if he wants to send me a message, he can come say it to my face."
"Blackthorn is a coward who fights with shadows," Grok spat, showing obvious disdain for his own employer. "But I like crushing things. And they say you're a prodigy of Demolition. I want to see you burn, Dawnfire. I want to see that Overwhelming Force."
Grok didn't wait for an answer; he simply charged at Phantsin. He threw a punch the size of a melon straight at Phantsin's head.
Phantsin managed to duck on pure instinct.
Grok's fist grazed his hair and smashed into the metal lockers behind him, crumpling them as if they were made of paper and tearing a door off its hinges.
Burn him, the voice whispered in Phantsin's mind. The Void awakened, eager for violence. Melt his skin. Turn his blood to ash.
No, he told himself.
If he used magic here, without witnesses or Magisters to stop him, he would lose control and unleash the absolute purple of the Void. And if the purple came out, Grok would be injured and he himself would be executed.
Phantsin refused to summon his mana. He planted his feet and threw a left hook straight into Grok's ribs.
Phantsin struck, and it felt like hitting a brick wall.
Grok didn't even blink. Nature magic coursed through his veins. The half-ogre had hardened his skin, making it almost as tough as solid rock. Living up to his Terra faction.
He grinned, baring his tusks, and backhanded Phantsin with the back of his hand, lifting him entirely off the floor.
Phantsin flew several feet through the air and crashed into the thick wooden benches, smashing them into splinters.
Pain exploded in his side, and blood began to pool in his mouth.
"Where is your fire, little boy?" Grok mocked, approaching slowly, his green sash swaying slightly. "Magic depleted? Is that all the power of the Ignis faction?"
Phantsin coughed, spitting a red clot onto the tiles, and then staggered to his feet, dropping into a boxing stance he'd learned on the streets.
Grok frowned, genuinely annoyed. He had expected to see the human boy's fire; he had expected him to ignite his hands. But the kid showed no intention of indulging him.
He drove a knee into Phantsin's stomach, followed by a two-handed hammer blow to his back.
Phantsin fell flat against the cold tiles, the air driven from his lungs with a dull groan.
Let me out, the Void roared, forcing its way up. He's killing you. Let me out!
"No!" Phantsin grunted aloud, though Grok thought the boy was talking to him.
Phantsin pressed his bloody hands against the floor and pushed himself up, managing to stand.
His legs trembled. His eyebrow was split open, and blood blinded his left eye.
"Stay down, idiot," Grok said, his amusement beginning to turn into confusion. "If you're not going to use Ignis magic, I'm going to break you into pieces. My Resilience will crush you."
"Try it," Phantsin panted.
He wiped the blood from his eye and smiled. It was a maniacal smile, born of the strange euphoria that pain brought him. The physical pain was real, it was human, and it kept the magical monster at bay.
Grok growled and charged him again.
For the next ten minutes, the locker room turned into a one-sided slaughterhouse.
Grok used Phantsin like a training dummy. He smashed him into the lockers, broke at least two of his ribs, and left his face unrecognizable.
It was an absolutely brutal and humiliating beating.
Grok turned away, thinking he was finished, but then he heard the scrape of canvas against the floor.
Phantsin was getting up again.
His body was at its absolute limit, yes, but his pain tolerance was unnatural. Years of enduring the burning, corrupting energy of the Void inside his body had fried his ordinary pain receptors.
Compared to the dark fire trying to devour his soul from the inside, the half-ogre's earth-magic-wrapped fists were merely a physical annoyance.
Phantsin leaned on whatever he could find until he was standing once more. He could barely keep one eye open. His arms hung uselessly at his sides.
"You hit..." Phantsin coughed, spitting blood onto Grok's heavy boots, "...you hit like a garden gnome."
Grok had his stone fists raised to deliver the final blow, but he stopped dead in his tracks.
The half-ogre was panting, not from having taken any damage, but from the sheer cardiovascular effort of relentlessly beating him.
He looked at the human boy in front of him.
Ignis mages didn't act like this. They were proud, explosive, and when their offense failed, they begged or fled. They didn't stand there letting themselves be beaten to death with a bloody smile on their faces, displaying a tenacity that rivaled the very doctrine of Terra.
Grok saw something in Phantsin's crimson eyes. The suicidal stubbornness of a survivor.
The ogre recognized strength, and this was sheer willpower, as unbreakable and dense as granite.
Grok slowly lowered his fists, letting the earth magic dissipate from his skin.
The half-ogre took a step back, looking at his own knuckles stained with Phantsin's blood, and then looked at the boy again.
"You're crazy, human," Grok said without malice—just a kind of rough, genuine astonishment.
Phantsin didn't answer; he simply remained standing by sheer biomechanical miracle.
Grok spat, shook his head, and turned toward the locker room exit.
"Tell... Vlad Blackthorn..." Phantsin managed to say, his voice barely a raspy whisper echoing off the stone.
Grok paused at the doorframe and looked over his shoulder.
"I'm not telling the little prince anything," the Terra half-ogre grunted. "Blackthorn is a coward who paid me to break a glass boy. But you're not glass, Dawnfire. You're something much harder."
Grok reached into his pocket, pulled out the three gold coins Vlad had given him, and tossed them onto the locker room floor. They clinked against the bloodstained tiles.
"Buy yourself some bandages at The Infirmary. And next time... use your damn fire."
The half-ogre disappeared down the hallway.
Phantsin listened to the heavy footsteps fading away toward the surface of The Great Crucible. Only then, when he was completely alone and certain that no one else was around, did he allow his knees to give way.
He slid down the wall until he was sitting on the damp floor. It hurt even to breathe, but in the back of his mind, the Void was silent.
He had won, in his own broken, painful way.
And best of all, he had kept the darkness at bay for one more day.