13

Fucker. Arms numb, body sore, legs aching, and all in all feeling more drained than he’d ever before, Vander swung again. Sword struck oak. Fucker!

“Don’t slow down, Vander!” Adrian barked from behind Vander. Then, “Keep it up Zekiel. Good work.”

“Thanks!” the chipper adventurer called from the tree next to Vander where he trained, his own sword hacking away at the thick oaks. Splinters lay around his feet, piles of wooden dust up to his ankles. He shot Vander a knowing look and smiled, his eyes alight two parts amusement and one part pity. “You’re doing great!”

Both of them, fuckers! The embarrassment from being outdone by a kid reignited the fire in Vander’s gut, and he swung his sword at the tree like he wanted to lop both of their heads off. Sure, he hadn’t trained his whole life to be skilled with a sword, but he’d at least wanted adequacy. At the very least! Those damned gods. Damned sword prodigies. Damned family technique. Damned duke!

The entirety of the day before, he’d spent swinging his sword until the skill he needed appeared. Knowing the methods to swing and doing so a few times in a spar against Zekiel had been enough for the system to indicate his interest in swordsmanship, though he couldn’t help but grumble. Adrian, he could understand making him look like a whelp, but an actual whelp doing so infuriated Vander in ways he hadn’t experienced in his past life—ever. And their antagonizing tone!

This day, tree. Only tree. Nothing but tree. Slash tree. Slashy-stab tree. Stabby-slash and slashy-slashy-stab, stabby-stabby-slash. The sword never stopped moving. From dusk to dawn, merciless and persistent. His drill instructor refused to give him any reprieve, walloping what felt like a cactus across his back anytime his body stilled. Giving up, not an option. Train. Train, train, train. Only train. Swing, stab, cry inside.

Determination warred with agony, pure suffering shooting lances through his body. No matter what he tried to do, he’d been at his hacking, slashing, stabbing task for too long to mitigate something, anything at all. Sure, it bore fruit, but his efforts made the fruit look less like sweet and fresh apples, picked from a maintained orchard, and more like rotten and sickening apples scavenged from the trash heap. Decayed and rotted, partially feasted on by the equally decayed rats, boasting flecks of the human waste.

Those were the fruits of his labors! Shitty apples!

Everything came together through this damned process. Meditation and the assertion of his willpower on his tasks, first on simply swinging the sword but then not. He’d been foolish then, and he knew better now. Breathing technique, focused. He roared his magic body to life, never resting.

The only way to survive this “training” even devils would fear, scurrying away for dear life, was through mana. Magic means, a blessing and curse that perpetuated this damned training! He kept his breathing steady and amplified his regeneration. Even then, the most consistent thing about the training was the near bottomed out capacity he fought to maintain the entire time.

Bordering on the verge of dropping into nothing and something, his mana was spent just as fast as he received it. Even pushing his breathing technique, which continued growing through the day, and his meditation, he survived. Barely. But he did.

The magic body skill had become a conglomeration of all of the skills he used, he found, meaning that to upgrade it further, he had to also use all aspects in tandem. They all grew in accordance to the level of the magic body skill. The only thing that made what he was doing achievable was the fact that part of what grew in efficiency was the conversion of mana into his body, physique empowerment.

In those piles of drudgery, misery, and woe, the soft chorus of angels signaling increases in skill levels kept him moving. He cursed everything for making the training so damned efficient. Had it been anything but, he’d have stopped long ago to push each skill individually. There was no mistaking the design of the training. Almost like everything he’d worked on and endured because of it paid dividends exponentially, feeding into each skill like some endless vortex of fuel to propel him further and further beyond what he ever anticipated himself capable of.

Fuckers. Heavenly chorus, like the sound of tinkling bells and a chorus personifying beauty and triumph. Piss off!

“You can stop now.” A hand rested against his back. Vanessa’s soothing touch sent tendrils of relief through his body. The stimulation of mana dispersed evenly throughout his body, only helping him remain standing as his arms fell to his side. “They left hours ago, Vander.”

Fuckers.

Unashamed, Vander leaned into Vanessa and let her guide him back into the encampment and to his cot. Any efforts or desires to maintain a semblance of grace or humility became null and void as the exhaustion of the day claimed his conscious mind. He fell forward like a sack of potatoes, only making a mental note of the cinnamon and spice smell that sidled up against him.

***

Adrian looked down the flat edge, ignoring the sword tip in his face to meet the brutish man’s gaze. “Even without training for the better part of two decades, you aren’t my match. For old time’s sake, I’ll trounce you as a reminder as to why I’m house head.”

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“Oh, you’re no fun, Duke Braxton. Was just a joke,” Dom said, at least having the decency to look guilty. His sword returned to its sheath soundlessly. He took the space next to Adrian atop one of the ancient oaks. “Boy’s a monster. Even more so than his ma and pa. The branch families, as gritty and determined as they might be, have no chance. Not even with eighteen years head start.”

Two hours, Adrian watched from his perch. He could tell the general skill levels Vander exuded as he hung on the precipice of overuse and sustainment of his abilities. The boy was hardy, learned fast, and had a knack with anything he put his mind to. His inquisitive mind warmed Adrian’s heart and eased the tension growing knots in his gut for ages.

“You gave him a hint.” A statement, not a question. “Do you think he’ll understand?”

“He’ll understand.”

“You’re awfully confident. Sure he won’t break?” Dom flinched away from Adrian. “Aye, you could’ve just said as much. No need to get feisty.”

“Why’s the Tamaranth boy here?” Iciness edged in Adrian’s voice and set across Dom like serrated daggers cutting him open to see the secrets he held inside. “If I don’t like your reason, your house will be the first I quell when I return. I’ve been away for long, and the snakes surely made their way in.”

“I swear, my lord, I’ve done nothing but remain faithful to you and yours. I aided Selenia, Celeste, and Anwick in securing their temporary positions. Even if you’d been gone a thousand years, I know better than to think you’d not return some day.” The brutish man cut a figure reminiscent of a trifling bard in court as he attempted to make himself look as sincere and genuine as possible.

“The Tamaranth boy. I won’t ask again.” Piercing eyes filled with a hinted promise of inescapable violence and a smile to scorn the gods. Not someone to be made an enemy of easily.

“I, Domivick Braxton of the Braxton family’s third branch, solemnly swear upon the great ancestor’s absolute will. My intentions are pure. Competition is good, especially in boyos that age, my lord,” Domivick quickly answered, spitting out anything and everything he’d thought to trickle feed the duke through banter and playful jests. “He’s a bastard boy with no claim to the house succession and pursues the sword fanatically. Excluding his magical talents, he’s already on par with Anna. He’ll make a great first knight for the young lord and an even greater rival until the young lord claims the right of his authority.”

“Good enough for me.” Adrian nodded. “What took you so long to get here?”

“That’s a far easier question to answer. Weren’t many ships headed this way, so we had to wait for some foolish guild to set off. Paid them a pretty penny to get on board, even though we should’ve been the ones paid by the time we arrived on Ainos. Couldn’t really take one of the family vessels, since you ordered us to arrive without revealing our affiliation.”

Adrian couldn’t help but feel some indignation, primal vitriol roiling around like thunderstorms in his chest. All the cloak and dagger required of him was so not his motif. But one does not simply screw with one of the biggest gods, even if said god is regarded as a heretic amongst said gods. Godly pride was damnable.

Though The Scholar had lost his mind to lust and greed and pride, tainting his mind and the people of his soul, the hundred gods would still harbor his reputation as one of their own. Sure, they’d not refuse his title of Mad God, but utter a single word about mutiny or godslaying… Different story entirely.

But he had. The night of Vander’s birth, he’d struck down the priest. He’d kept his identity hidden, even to the gods, and sheltered his son. After losing Katya, he couldn’t offer his son to the detestable pantheon just to stroke their egos, not that he’d ever let one of his children die by the hands of some filthy cultist.

All damnable.

Not a night passed by where he didn’t think of Katya, the only lover he’d ever know. The boy, their boy, his son, his successor, what was left of Katya remained living on this world. Departing gave him no shortage of hardship and inner turmoil, but every parent had to let their nesting birds take the leap. Through hardship, trial and tribulation, experience of the harshest kind. That is how one grew to be an insurmountable force.

And Vander needed to be the most insurmountable force. Only through Ascendancy would the boy ever be free of the accursed Mad God. However, he’d taken the first step. The Crucible, as any Braxton worth their salt would call it, was impossibly hard. Even Adrian had only just completed it, and with years of training too.

In the face of his son, the Crucible’s notoriety was laughable. A laughing matter that the boy churned through without once uttering a complaint aloud, even going so far as to prove his superiority by pushing himself another two hours. A rare talent the likes Adrian had never heard of and couldn’t comprehend.

“If anybody can find the great beast, it’ll be your boy, my lord. The young lord is truly remarkable. Not sure I’ve ever seen someone with such a talent. So apparent is his talent that I even sniffed it out on the first day here,” Dom boasted. He wilted under Adrian’s glower. “I’ll be sure to keep him safe in your absence.”

“I’m not worried about him. If anything, I’m more worried about the lot of you. He’ll give you a run for your money, I’m sure,” Adrian joked. The weight of the world seemed to press down on Adrian’s shoulders all at once. “Damnable gods.”

“Do you have any plans for them?”

“You’re looking at him,” Adrian said, gesturing towards his sleeping son. “Have you heard of the reports about the day of his birth?”

“You’re talking about the three meteors? The ones that descended from the sky over the boy’s birthing temple?” He scratched his chin as he wracked his brain. “What of them?”

“I tracked the residuals of the closest here,” Adrian said, pointing. “In the center of this great forest, something slumbers. I’ve tried finding it, but I haven’t been able to, however,” he thumbed towards Vander, “I’ve seen him looking in that direction more times than I can count. No matter where we are, how turned about he might be, something drags his attention there. Has been his whole life.”

“You think it’s one of the meteors?”

“I’m sure of it. Coincidences like this don’t happen.”

“And there were three of them, so two landed elsewhere. Somewhere else on Ainos?” Domivick looked around as if trying to sense something.

“Beyond Ainos. Far beyond into the mists.” Adrian turned from his perch and looked towards the ocean, past Enari and the other colony towns. The mist. “Damnable.”