For reasons Kene could not articulate, Ayre unsettled him.

  It made no sense. Kene had fought through fields of corrupted monsters, traded blows with Emperor and Herald class abominations, and survived wars that erased entire regions from the map. A quiet guard recruit with a dull expression and messy hair should not have registered as anything more than background noise.

  And yet, something felt wrong.

  Perhaps another person would have brushed the feeling aside. Kene had learned—painfully—that instincts earned through blood were not to be ignored. Still, no matter how he scrutinized Ayre, nothing stood out. His stance was unremarkable, his grip orthodox, his breathing steady but shallow.

  Merva’s command cut across the training yard, and Kene forced the thought aside without fully dismissing it.

  They lunged at the same time.

  Ayre moved first, driving his spear straight toward Kene’s head in what looked like a textbook thrust. The motion was clean, almost dull—until Ayre loosened his grip mid-strike, letting the shaft slide through his palms before snapping it back into place. The spearhead leapt forward an extra span, the sudden extension aimed to catch an opponent misjudging distance.

  Kene reacted instantly, but his caution betrayed him. Reading it as a feint, he surged forward instead of retreating, dipping his shoulders and slipping inside the line of attack.

  Only then did he realize Ayre hadn’t intended to pull back at all.

  The thrust was fully committed.

  Ayre’s eyes widened as Kene closed the gap far faster than expected. Kene seized the opening and drove his spear into Ayre’s right shoulder. Ayre twisted away at the last moment, turning what should have been a crushing hit into a glancing blow, but the impact still forced a sharp breath from his chest as he staggered back.

  Kene pressed immediately. Two quick steps carried him forward as he feinted toward the injured shoulder again, baiting a defensive shift. Ayre took it, strafing to the side—only to walk straight into the real attack. The spear struck his ribs with a solid thud, and although Ayre managed to raise his shaft to deflect it, the force still sent him reeling.

  Kene assessed calmly.

  Yet the unease refused to fade.

  They closed again, neither willing to give ground. The distance between them stayed tight, almost claustrophobic. Whenever Ayre tried to build momentum, Kene smothered it with footwork. Whenever Kene countered, he stayed just close enough to deny Ayre space to reset.

  Then the air changed.

  It was subtle, nothing most would notice, but Kene felt it immediately—a tightening, like a held breath. Ayre’s posture shifted, not dramatically, but with intent. For the briefest instant, an image overlapped him in Kene’s mind.

  Hiro.

  The Bladesoul.

  Every instinct Kene had screamed at once. The training yard vanished, replaced by a battlefield burned into memory. Before he could consciously stop himself, mana surged through his body, reinforcing muscle and nerve, sharpening perception until the world seemed to slow.

  He attacked.

  The practice spear became a storm of motion—thrusts chained into sweeps, feints folding into brutal follow-ups. The air screamed as the weapon tore through it, each strike landing with disciplined precision. Ayre blocked and deflected where he could, but for every defense he managed, two more attacks crashed through, driving him backward step by step.

  Only then did Kene realize what he had done.

  He cut the mana flow instantly. The reinforcement vanished, strength bleeding away as he reined himself in.

  Ayre felt it.

  The moment the pressure eased, he surged forward, launching a flurry of attacks that were clumsy in execution but unsettlingly familiar. The footwork was wrong, the timing imperfect, yet the structure beneath it was unmistakable.

  Mage Tower forms.

  Kene’s eyes widened.

  Not guard drills. Not territorial techniques. The old frameworks, half-remembered and crudely mimicked—but close enough to matter.

  If Merva had been watching—and of course she had—this would raise questions. Kene barely had time to register the thought before something far worse happened.

  He felt the concentration of mana first, compressed and sharpened to a thin, dangerous edge. Intent followed, focused and absolute.

  Then his spear was gone.

  The shaft parted cleanly in two, the severed half clattering uselessly to the ground.

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  Kene stared, disbelief freezing him in place. Ayre had dropped to one knee, panting hard, his spear planted into the earth to keep himself upright. His arms shook violently, sweat matting his hair to his face, but the technique had been real.

  That had been blade enforcement.

  More than that—there had been a sliver of authority woven into it.

  Kene thought, mind racing.

  Now the unease made sense. Now Hiro’s phantom presence clicked into place.

  He searched his memories and found nothing. No famed blademaster. No legendary enforcer named Ayre Druun.

  Which meant only two possibilities.

  Either the boy had died before his potential could bloom—or no one had ever pushed him hard enough to awaken it.

  Merva’s voice cut through the stunned silence.

  “Ayre Druun wins this bout! Step back to the line—next group!”

  Only then did Kene notice the rest of the yard. Guards stared openly, some at Kene, others at Ayre, most unable to decide which display had shocked them more. Merva’s gaze lingered on them both, sharp and unreadable, carrying astonishment, wariness—and something disturbingly close to confirmation.

  Ayre rose unsteadily, his expression settling back into its usual blank mask. But when his eyes met Kene’s, there was a flicker of interest there.

  A spark.

  Yes. Discovering someone like this changed everything.

  ***

  MERVA POV:

  To say the least, this week had been nothing but a chain of intrigue and surprises. Merva had thought her career was nearing its final dregs, that she would simply coast forward on habit and obligation until age or irrelevance claimed her. And yet, after witnessing what had unfolded during Ester’s duel, she found herself reevaluating everything—her path, her instincts, even how she had ended up where she was in the first place.

  Her own story had begun with failure.

  Like Ester, she had once been expected to become a mage. Her parents had placed all their hopes on it, pouring what little they had into tutors, manuals, and lessons. The title of was not merely prestige—it was a ladder out of poverty, and her family had gambled everything on her climbing it. She had taken it seriously too. Merva had always been diligent, disciplined, and driven. More than anything, she had wanted power—the kind that let you carve out a place in the world rather than beg for one.

  But when her core manifested, it crippled itself.

  Not everyone had “talent,” as the mages so delicately put it. Many had tried to force past that limitation, but the result was always the same: the core, unable to sustain even the first circle, would collapse inward. A gruesome end she had narrowly avoided. Failure strained her relationship with her parents. They tried to hide it, but Merva saw the signs—the tight smiles, the unspoken disappointment. She had failed them at something completely outside her control.

  It did not break her.

  Instead, she poured everything into martial training. She attended one of the regional academies, graduated in the top five of her class, and eventually earned the rank of Knight through sheer merit. Ironically, it was through politics not valor that she was later transferred. One of her people’s mages, Ester’s mother, had been negotiating a union with a prominent mage bloodline, and Merva had been included as part of the arrangement. A mage and a knight, neatly packaged together.

  She had expected honor. Instead, she found a den of wolves.

  Knights and court mages alike schemed endlessly, clawing for position and backstabbing with smiles still on their faces. Valor was secondary. Survival was the real game. In hindsight, Merva was almost grateful to have been removed from that environment.

  Ester’s life there had been harsh. Kingdom mage bloodlines did not bother hiding their disdain, and some were openly hostile. Over the years, she had watched that atmosphere break him down. That was why the question now gnawed at her.

  He carried himself differently—stood straighter, spoke with quiet confidence, his eyes steady rather than evasive. More than that, he was willing to stake his life and reputation on working around his condition instead of surrendering to it. Seeing that stirred something uncomfortable inside her. At some point, she had grown complacent, letting disappointment dull her ambition. The idea of pursuing unconventional paths to power had never occurred to her.

  Ester forced her to confront that.

  Her instincts warned her as well. People did not change so drastically without reason. There was a hidden variable he kept close to his chest, and while Merva wasn’t the type to pry, she was patient. Whether he revealed it or not mattered less than what her gut told her.

  A tide was building around him.

  Standing near it would bring rewards—or ruin.

  Either way, Ester’s body might have failed him, but his knowledge and ingenuity had the potential to change everything.

  Then there was Ayre.

  Merva trusted her battle instincts, honed over years of combat, and something about that boy had always unsettled her. He was apathetic to nearly everything except fighting, comically so. That alone didn’t bother her. Everyone had their obsessions. What bothered her was the irrational wariness he inspired. In a straight fight, she could defeat him nine times out of ten, and yet the unease never left.

  That was why she paired him with Ester.

  Part of it was practicality. Another part was instinct. Recently, Ester had begun triggering that same sense of pressure in her, subtle, but unmistakable. She wondered what would happen if the two collided. The idea felt juvenile, almost fanciful, and she had expected nothing to come of it.

  At first, nothing did.

  The early bouts were ordinary, until the air shifted and Ester tensed as though struck by an unseen threat. she wondered. What followed shocked her, not because he used mana enhancement, but because of how he moved. The forms were unfamiliar, fluid, and lethal, turning chains of attacks into seamless motion. She had never seen anything like it, neither in her homeland nor in the Kingdom.

  Who had taught him this? And why had he hidden it?

  Her estimation of him climbed sharply, aided further by his already impressive physical base—something he had cobbled together through sheer study and experimentation, with no external guidance. Ayre struggled to keep up, barely deflecting a fraction of the blows. Then something stranger happened.

  He began to mimic Ester.

  Not perfectly, his movements were slower and rougher, but the structure was unmistakable. The boy’s usual apathy vanished, replaced by raw focus. It was the first time Merva had ever seen him genuinely engaged. Ester noticed too, his pressure easing just enough for Ayre to breathe.

  Then came the impossible moment.

  Ester moved to finish the bout. Ayre stumbled, eyes closing, and Merva assumed he had accepted defeat. Instead, his wooden spear moved in a single, fluid arc. There was no brute force, no wild swing, just precision. Ester’s practice spear split cleanly in half, severed as if Ayre had been wielding sharpened steel instead of wood.

  That was what truly unsettled her.

  Wood should not behave like that. Not without some form of physical reinforcement, not without preparation and certainly not in the hands of someone who was a guard in training.

  Silence followed. Ester froze, stunned, and Merva recovered first, calling the match in Ayre’s favor. Ester had been disarmed cleanly, decisively. As they returned to the line, Ester was deep in thought, while Ayre cast occasional glances his way.

  Merva quietly raised her evaluation of them both.

  Two monstrous talents.

  The questions could wait. It seemed this week still had more surprises in store and for once, Merva welcomed them.