The indigo barrier pulsed like the beating heart of some celestial leviathan, its translucent walls thrumming with raw energy. Trapped within its embrace, Grey stood frozen, his sharp silver eyes scanning the space. Above him, orange lightning coiled and twisted within the swirling heavens, crackling currents making the fine strands of his ash-gray hair stand on end. The storm above felt alive, predatory—waiting.

Before Grey could fully process his surroundings, the green blades of light began to stir. They weren’t just energy—they were Will made manifest. Each blade hung suspended in the air, shimmering with faint luminescence. They vibrated in place, emitting a low hum—a soundless whisper that reverberated deep within Grey's chest.

Then, like falcons spotting their prey, they moved.

The first blade struck with inhuman speed, slicing through the air toward him. Grey’s body reacted before his mind could—a sharp twist, a dive to the side. The edge of the blade grazed his torso, leaving behind a searing line of agony. Warm blood soaked into the thick fur of his pelts, dripping onto the shimmering floor beneath him.

The blade stopped mid-flight, spun once in the air like an eagle banking for another pass, and then hovered silently, waiting. Its companions joined it—dozens of emerald harbingers, encircling Grey in a slow, deliberate orbit.

From beyond the indigo barrier, a sharp, panicked voice cut through the electric hum.

“Grey!” Tear’s small figure emerged from the edge of the shattered remains of their home. Her turquoise hair whipped wildly in the wind, her pine-green eyes wide with terror. Serene stood frozen behind her, paralyzed by the spectacle before them.

Tear stumbled forward, her bare hands reaching desperately for the barrier. But before she could take another step—

“Stop! Don’t come any closer!” Grey’s voice cracked through the chaos, raw with fear and command.

But he couldn’t focus on them. The blades were moving again.

The green light surged. This time, they didn’t come one by one—they came in a sequence, a relentless rhythm of death.

Grey twisted and ducked, his worn boots sliding across the smooth floor of the arena. One blade grazed his cheek, leaving behind a stinging heat. Another clipped his shoulder, spinning him halfway around before he caught himself.

“Argh!” he cried, stumbling as more blades danced past him—each one narrowly missing vital points but carving shallow cuts into his arms, his legs, his side.

The air burned with metallic scent of blood. His breaths came in ragged bursts, white mist spilling from his lips as if his spirit itself was escaping with every exhale.

The blades stopped, suspended once more in their silent orbit. Grey fell to one knee, his hand pressed against a deep gash on his side. His chest heaved as blood dripped steadily onto the arena floor.

“No…” he rasped, silver eyes blazing with raw defiance. “I can’t die here. I won’t die here.”

But the blades weren’t listening.

They moved again, diving toward him in a flurry. Grey pushed himself backward, stumbling toward the edge of the indigo barrier. His boots skidded against the energy field, the faint hum of the barrier vibrating through his bones.

Then, by some miracle—or perhaps sheer, desperate instinct—Grey lunged to the side, throwing himself flat against the shimmering floor. The blades hissed past him, slicing into the snow piled against the edges of the barrier.

For a heartbeat, silence. Grey blinked, his face inches from the cold, crystalline surface of the arena. Had he—

A sickening sound pierced the stillness—a wet crunch, followed by sharp, blinding agony.

Grey’s body jerked upright as one of the green blades impaled his arm, piercing through flesh and muscle before halting mid-air. The world went white. His vision blurred with pain, his jaw locking as his body spasmed.

Outside the barrier, Tear screamed, trying to run at the barrier again, but Serene caught her, tears streaking her cheeks, tried to pull her back, her voice breaking as she called Grey’s name over and over.

But inside the arena, there was only pain. It wasn’t sharp—it was molten, crawling through his veins like liquid metal, burning every nerve in its path. Yet… it wasn’t unbearable. It wasn’t as bad as the elixir made from the Heart—the ritual that had nearly killed him once before.

His knees buckled. His free hand, slick with blood, clawed at the air. But he didn’t scream. He didn’t cry. His silver eyes were still open—still focused.

“These aren’t trials,” he whispered hoarsely to himself. “They’re death traps.”

His mind told him to give up. His body begged him to stop. But somewhere deep inside, a whisper—soft, gentle—curled through the haze of agony.

It wasn’t the Voice from above, the one that roared with mockery and scorn. No, this voice was different. It was familiar. It was the same whisper that had guided him once before, in the stillness of his mind.

"Listen, Grey. Feel it. The hum. The pulse. The song of Will. It speaks to you. It always has."

The whisper wasn’t loud. It didn’t roar like the storm above or vibrate like the emerald blades circling him—it resonated. It settled into Grey’s chest, thrumming faintly like a heartbeat he’d forgotten was there.

For a moment, the world stilled. The crackling storm, the flickering blades, the faint cries of Tear beyond the indigo barrier—all faded into a distant echo.

Pain flared again from the blade embedded in his arm, sending one last jolt before dissipating, a molten river of agony running down his veins. His teeth clenched, his breath hissed through them like steam escaping a boiling kettle. But… something had changed. Beneath the pain, beneath the searing cut and raw exhaustion, there was a thread. A current.

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Grey’s silver eyes widened as something shifted in his vision.

The sharp pain no longer clouded his senses—it cleared them. His mind, raw and vulnerable, felt stripped bare, but in that openness, he saw it. Not the flickering orange trails he’d grown accustomed to when tracking prey, nor the faint glow of a creature’s lifeforce in the distance.

No, this was different. This was… everything.

The world unfolded before him, not in light or shadow, but in nodes of light. Countless points, scattered yet connected, embedded in every stone, every splinter of wood, every blade of frozen grass beneath his boots. They weren’t merely glowing—they were alive, pulsating softly, like fireflies caught in an eternal dance.

The soil beneath him hummed faintly, its pulse slower, deeper, ancient—like a sleeping titan’s heartbeat.

The shattered lumber from his ruined home whispered with echoes of its former life, faint and fleeting.

The rocks glowed with stoic permanence, their lights steady and unmoving, as if they had always been there and always would be.

Even the faint frost clinging to the air carried threads of light, weaving through existence like silk caught on the wind.

This wasn’t the fleeting glimpse of power he’d seen when the strangers wielded their crystalline spears. No—it was infinitely clearer. Infinitely vaster.

Grey felt his breath catch in his throat. His silver eyes shone faintly in the glow of the world’s light—no longer merely seeing, but understanding.

The green blades of light surrounded him still, suspended in their deadly orbit. But now, Grey saw them differently.

They weren’t just weapons—they were extensions. Branches growing from the same invisible current flowing through everything. Like water pouring through narrow channels, the energy of Will pulled them, carried them, directed them.

And yet… Grey realized something profound.

He was different.

Everything else—every stone, every blade, every storm cloud, every flicker of green light—followed the flow. The blades moved with it. The storm coiled around it. But Grey?

He stood outside the current.

The Will flowed around him, not through him. He was a foreign thread in a tapestry woven from eternity. And yet, the current bent faintly toward him—curious, hesitant, like a stream testing the edge of a rock.

Above him, the orange lightning crackled, arcs of light bouncing between coiled clouds like serpents in the heavens. The indigo barrier continued to hum softly, a caged boundary that felt impossibly small compared to the vast world of light Grey now beheld.

The blades began to stir again, vibrating faintly, their emerald glow intensifying.

But Grey didn’t move. He didn’t brace himself.

Instead, he closed his eyes and listened.

The blades sang—not in sound, but in rhythm. In pattern. A faint tremor, a shiver before each strike. Like the sharp inhale of a predator before it pounces.

It wasn’t chaos. It wasn’t mindless. It was a song.

A dance.

And now, Grey could hear it.

When Grey opened his eyes again, a blade struck.

But Grey had already moved.

His body twisted—not in panic, not with the frantic desperation of prey—but in a dance that mirrored the current he now saw. He weaved through the attack, his boots skimming the smooth floor in graceful arcs.

Another blade came, humming with energy. Grey dipped beneath it, his torso folding like a reed in the wind. His every motion was fluid, precise, and eerily calm—each step placed exactly where it needed to be.

The blades moved faster now, testing him, hunting him. But Grey flowed between them, slipping through the narrow spaces left in their wake.

Still, he was only human.

His body was battered, weakened by blood loss, and exhaustion crept into his muscles like a creeping frost. A blade nicked his leg, another carved a shallow cut across his arm.

But he kept moving.

Outside the indigo barrier, Tear had stopped pounding on the wall. Her wide pine-green eyes were locked on Grey, her lips parted in silent awe.

Serene, normally so composed, clutched her chest, her knuckles white against the fabric of her tunic. Her voice trembled in her throat, unable to form words.

Inside the storm, Grey was no longer just surviving. He was understanding.

The Voice returned, "You can see… comprehend the Will… but you were not created to. You were meant to tear, to shatter, to command it as you see fit! Do not run!"

Grey stopped moving.

His chest heaved, his breaths sharp and quick, but he stopped.

The blades surrounding him froze in place, their emerald glow casting faint reflections against the blood-soaked snow at his feet.

For a moment, there was stillness.

Then, the blades struck again.

Grey moved, but this time, his focus wasn’t on dodging—it was on following the instructions of the mysterious guide. He endured shallow cuts along his side, his shoulder, his thigh, as he waited.

He was waiting for one.

And then it came—the final blade, humming with concentrated force, surged toward him.

With a roar that tore itself from his throat, Grey thrust his good arm into the current, into the river of Will.

The blade was caught in his palm, its movements predicted by the ripple it caused going against the current to attack him.

Pain—searing, blinding, consuming—flooded his nerves, spreading like molten iron through his veins. His hand began to char, the flesh blackening, cracks of glowing orange spider-webbing across his skin.

But Grey held on.

His silver eyes blazed with something primal, something unyielding.

"AHHHHHHH!"

With every ounce of strength, every drop of rage and defiance coursing through him, Grey squeezed.

And the blade shattered.

The fragments of green light dissolved into a fine mist, scattering into the current like petals on a breeze. They didn’t vanish—they simply returned to the river, becoming part of the endless flow once more.

For a moment, there was silence.

The other blades hovered in the air, their glow dimming slightly—as if they, too, had seen something they could not comprehend.

But Grey was no longer paying attention to them.

His body stiffened. His ash-gray hair rose once again, static crackling across its strands. His skin prickled, every nerve alive with sharp anticipation.

The orange lightning above began to coil.

It wasn’t chaotic this time. It wasn’t random. The clouds above twisted into a swirling knot of furious energy, the bolt building in size and intensity until it looked less like lightning and more like a serpent of pure fire.

Grey could feel it coming. The ground beneath his feet vibrated. The air grew thick, charged with raw, unfiltered power.

But he didn’t move.

In this moment, in this brief eternity before the heavens opened, Grey came to a moment of clarity.

Grey didn’t run.

He didn’t flinch.

He stood.

And then—

A thunderous boom, then the world went white.