Haylock took a deep breath and focused on the energy buzzing through his body. He felt it, just beneath the surface and channeling from his core to his limbs like the lifeblood of the universe. The more he felt its presence, the more he wanted to dive into it and let its warmth seep into his muscles and bones, but he had to release it in a long five-second breath. One – two – three – four – five – and…

“OW!”

A painful smack to the back of his neck that chilled him like an icy wind ripped Haylock out of his concentration and back into the jump bay. He did not have to turn around because he knew the culprit was actually in front of him and not behind. His mana teacher, his "Master", was ten paces away and still standing in the same spot from when Haylock had started his breathing exercises an hour ago.

“What was that for?”

“You breathed out for too long. It’s supposed to be five seconds, not six.”

“It was five seconds.”

“It was not.”

“I’m trying my best, I counted Kelvendalsalt style. Besides, what difference does a few seconds make?” Haylock’s teacher shook his head and a chill grabbed Haylock’s heart. It was a cold so intense that he almost passed out the moment it hit. His body shivered and teeth chattered in a vain attempt to generate heat, but the grip of icy death kept sapping energy from Haylock until he gasped between clenched teeth, “Master, please.”

The cold blew away on a windless breeze and heat came back to Haylock, albeit slowly and only when he furiously rubbed his limbs. The Master came and loomed over Haylock, his helmeted gaze carried no sympathy or regret for what he had done. In his patrician tone, he asked, “Do you think this is a child’s game?”

“No, Master.”

“Do you want to die?”

“No, Master.”

“Then tell me, please, why are you not taking this training seriously?”

“I am, I’m trying my best, but I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”

“I know what’s wrong, Karahata. You don’t really want to harness the power I’m offering you. You're content in the slaughter pen you've been born into. Maybe all those battles gave you a death wish.”

“That’s not true!” Haylock lurched to his feet, but he stumbled as his numb legs almost gave out underneath him. With the softest of shoves, Haylock was knocked down to the ground by his Master with one hand.

“Complacency kills, Karahata. I’ve seen thousands of aspirants, bred before they were even born and trained by the greatest and most expensive of tutors, and do you know what the number one killer of those promising pupils was?" He stopped and Haylock did not speak, for he knew the answer. "Their own laziness. By not practicing their fundamental breathing the right way they moved on to the more advanced techniques and suffered the consequences. Expel too much mana for too long and you will take the long nap as you freeze to death without a sound.” He held up a hand and heat blossomed in Haylock. The cold was chased away and the stormtrooper finally had enough energy to stand.

“And if I draw too much in?” Haylock straightened to his teacher’s height and stared him in the eyes as best as he could with that emotionless mask.

“You will burn alive. Screaming.”

Neither freezing to death nor burning from the inside out very much appealed to Haylock, but the last four days of doing nothing but practicing his breathing were starting to frustrate the young man. He was eager at first, especially at the prospect of overthrowing the witches, but between just sitting cross-legged for most of the days and meeting a brick wall whenever he asked his teacher questions, he was getting impatient.

“Be that as it may, the witches have progressed far beyond this basic stage of mine. If I am to be the ‘Breaker of Chains’ that you want me to be, then I need you to teach me what you know!”

“You think they have an advantage over you?”

“I know they do! How can I defeat one of them when they're throwing a fireball at me when I’m stuck counting to five with my breathing?”

“Those girls spend years practicing the same breathing techniques that I am ingraining in you, boy. I have told you that I will make you a master of mana. Do not doubt my word.”

“But how?”

“You have already passed the first threshold, contact with the Yabanchi. That in itself is an insurmountable barrier for some who attempt to master mana. Why else do you think they take those little girls to battlefields?”

“To expose them to mana?”

“No, exposure to the Yabanchi.”

The nature of mankind’s worst enemy had never been something that haunted Haylock as he tried to sleep at night, but when his tutor brought them up, it awoken questions that burned as much as holding mana in his core did.

“What are the beasts? The Empire has fought these inhuman monsters as long as I’ve been alive.”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“You’re hardly old enough to grow a beard and yet you have the temerity to measure by your lifespan?”

“Hey, I’m eighteen.”

“Ah, forgive me for not validating the wisdom of a teenage child soldier. I’m sure your years of experience shooting things and brainwashing by the Commissariat have given you a fount of wisdom I could learn from.” Haylock did not give his teacher a reply, though an acerbic comment about sticks and his teacher’s posture nearly flew off his tongue.

“Hmm, no witty comeback? Perhaps there is some perception in you yet, Karahata. As to your question, the origin of the Yabanchi has been explored by men far older than eighteen and for far longer. It has been postulated that they are simply aliens, like those Harvesters you just fought, but their unique relationship to the void and mana users would suggest otherwise.”

Haylock’s teacher had spoken more in the last few minutes than he had in the last few days. Seeing this opportunity he pressed in with his questions. “What does being a mana user have to do with them though? What’s the first threshold?”

“When a mana user encounters a Yabanchi, there is a resonance that occurs. The reflection of unseen energies emanating from the void denizens usually unlocks a mana user’s full potential.” The Teacher paused. “Though for some, exposure to the void energies drive them to the opposite extreme, though this is a rare case and one in a thousand.”

It sounded like passing the first threshold was no big deal, given only one in a thousand mana users failed to do so, but Haylock asked, “Why did I not use mana before Paradise? I had fought the Yabanchi on nine other worlds, but never blasted them with fireballs or anything.” And that would have been very useful.

“Throw a child in a deep pool of water and will they swim?”

That was a morbid analogy and not just that, but it sounded like a trick question. Haylock considered it and recalled an old memory of being thrown in the academy pools for the first time. The water rushed in, gagging him, overwhelming him, yet his arms pumped, his legs kicked, and for a brief moment, he had been able to keep his head up and in the air. Then he succumbed and slipped to the bottom, where a lifeguard had to pull him out. Desperation had lent him that strength, the desire to live above all else.

“He does, instinctively to preserve his own life, but he’s not aware that’s what he is doing.” Haylock’s teacher crossed his arms and did not reply. In the silence of the moment, he continued. “Yet if desperation is some magical key, then again, why did I not use it on all those other jumps? Surely, I have jumped in the deep end and faced death many times before.”

“Chance.” His master held out one hand palm up, then he held up the other. “Fate.” He brought his hands together in a clap that echoed in the jump bay and made Haylock’s ears ring. “They conspired together to bring you to that moment of salvation. In the multitude of life’s quaint conveniences, I have never questioned if an outcome was a doing of my own or the higher powers, I simply live and go forward. To do otherwise courts bitterness and her twin, death, whereby no decision you make will ever carry the weight of full commitment again.”

Bitterness and Death, the twin sisters of one of the old gods, Joy. In the skies of the home world, the planet named after that dead god constantly sprinted across the night sky, hounded by his sisters in his evening pursuit of other stars. With the naked eye, anyone could see his star shining the brightest at the peak of his journey, a coronated king in the sky, but by every morning’s dawn, Joy’s light had faded, his sisters' light overwhelming his own, and he was gone.

“Forsake fate, I want to learn, Master. I don’t want to fade away in the pale light of the next day, just continuing the same cycle of death again and again. I want the power to break free of it all.”

“Even though it is not as fast as you want?”

“It will be as fast as I need.”

“Good, good. You keep comparing yourself to those girls, the witches, but Karahata, you will be so much more. They cheat themselves, seeking power for vanity like it is some kind of game, but what they use is largely given to them without the effort to seek and obtain it for themselves. The system they seek to preserve is not only their greatest strength, but their most terrible weakness. We will use their gilded chains against them and when the time comes, strangle them in the arrogance of their devices.”

“Do they not know? The purpose of their vile system? The Compact…?” Haylock could not continue his line of thought without a pulsing pain throbbing in his temples that made him gnash his teeth and force himself to practice deep breathing.

“They know enough that the blood of your brothers is on their hands, but little more than that. They are beasts, killing for the sake of an ever-growing maw of hunger in their bellies and deriving power thereof. When they slay a Yabanchi, they harvest a portion of its power and transmute it to their bodies without the normal effort required otherwise. This lets them quickly and immediately be capable of harnessing powers that usually take great practice to learn and master, but the deeper secrets cannot be so easily attained through intermediary methods. One must delve into those on their own.”

“Which they never will, because they’re stuck on their system like a babe at the teat.”

“Precisely.”

Hope surged in Haylock, the weakness of the witches and their terrible blood tithe systems laid bare before him. They used others and preyed on the lifeforce of the universe like vampyr, but the significance of Haylock’s new name played out again and again in his head as he continued practicing his breathing.

Karahata. Breaker of Chains. Lord of the Dawn. His mind wanted to race, and his body ordered more oxygen, but Haylock kept himself under control, despite the fire raging in his soul and breathed. One – two – three – four – five. Back in, holding it, letting the power course in him and then out…One – two – three – four – five. They must die. Their crimes must see the light of day and he would be revelation’s herald. One – two – three – four – five. Haylock’s breath threatened to falter in only one moment. Tanlon’s grinning face broke his mind’s concentration. His brother, his comrade, so hopeful, even in the darkest of caves.

Another slave.

One – two – three – four – five.

This is for you, brother. For you and all the others. They will pay for what they’ve done.

Haylock did not see, for he was so intent on his breathing and keeping his eyes closed, but his watching teacher watched the flicker of small flames dancing in front of his pupil. There was no rush of satisfaction or joy in his chest, for that required a heart to begin with, but the ancient master was content with the speed of these results. After another few weeks of mastering the flame and cold, then like dominos that progressively got easier as they went along, his student would better grasp the elemental forces of wind and stone. The world would be molded by his fingers, reality shaped by will. Mastering elusive water and electricity inevitably stumbled many beginners, yet they were just stepping stones on the way to power.

Those pathetic slayers, they stopped just short of the greatest of masteries and contented themselves with the alluring fat of death mana. As long as they could kill and grow off the strength of others, they did not care that they missed the true power that mastery promised. The power of life eternal itself.

[He has the potential to be the one we seek.]

[If not, then there will be others. If it fails, dispose of it and readjust accordingly.]

Such cold logic, but then the Overseer had a point. He only hoped they did not have an incident like last time. Cleaning his robes of all that blood had been such a bother.