Its sword crashed down on me like a meteorite, pushing my legs halfway through the floor.

I grunted in pain as my hands began to tremble from the pressure, my Weaver inching closer to my chest. My aura had compressed down to only cover my arms and legs, but despite my best efforts, I could feel my grip weakening. The worst part of it all was that the knight seemed to be exerting almost no pressure.

When my Weaver was no more than a millimeter away from my chest, and the tip of the knights sword covered my view, I made the dumbest decision there was to make at that moment.

Releasing my grip on my Weaver, I let it slam down as I quickly ducked and rolled to my side. I watched in great horror as my only weapon was split in half and tossed aside.

‘I’m going to boycott armour, swords and knights for the rest of my life if I survive this.’ I thought to myself as my aura spread back over my entire body once more.

As the knight walked to me slowly, its sword dragging across the floor behind him, a plan began to formulate in my head. There wasn’t much to the actual throne room, other than the debris, columns and throne, but a small grin spread across my face once I remembered a very big weakness of the large tin mans.

“That big suit of junk dragging you down metal face? Why don’t you take it off and maybe you’ll be able to catch up to me!” I tried my best at goading. There was a very limited amount of insults I could hurl out to a sentient suit of armour, or a dead spirit inside a suit of armour.

Neither one was better for insults than the other.

“That is your pathetic attempt to aggravate me? What use is there in stomping on a roach when a simple step would have the same effect? Now cease your cowardly escape and face me like a warrior.” It spoke slowly.

“Uh-oh is old age catching up to you grandpa? You just called me an insect, so how can I face you like a warrior!” I yelled, dashing towards it.

“Silence!” It roared out once more, apparently my pathetic attempt wasn’t so pathetic.

Just as we were about to face each other in a head on collision, I dropped to the floor and slid behind the knight. To my dismay however, it caught on much quicker than anticipated and performed a feat that should in no universe be possible at its size.

As I pounced upwards, aiming to latch onto its back, the knight dropped into a spin on the ground, sharply turning around and similarly hopping up, catching me in a fist.

I naturally knew what the outcome of all this was going to be.

“Could you at least throw-” I was halfway through the pleading before it began to wind up it’s arm and then quickly followed up by hurling me across the room.

My body was slowed down by crashing into several columns of marble before finally landing inside the wall.

‘Maybe I should boycott walls as well.’

My bones were shattered, my ligaments were torn and my head felt like it had been unscrewed from my neck before being quickly jammed back on.

By the time I had managed to crawl out my wall, and by the time my head stopped spinning and my eyes cleared up, the knight had already started its march towards me once more.

“Why don’t you come out of that suit and fight me like a real man! You coward!” I cried out, but my voice was so hoarse and frail that it sounded more like a dying animal's final cries rather then my intended cool insult.

To my great misfortune, the knight stopped. It places its hands on its helmet, and paused for a moment. As if it was in thought.

“Very well. It is only natural.” The black mist began to shroud its body.

“It is?” I questioned, starting to regret my words.

After a few short moments, a young man stepped out of the mist. His long black hair fell to the ground, his skin paper white, which only added to the creepiness of his solid black eyes that matched the black lines running across his body. He’d traded his suit of armour in for a white robe made of silk, but kept the blood-red sword, only now it wasn’t the size of a building.

“Ok hold on, time out. What are you?” I asked, trying to buy time as my body slowly recovered. From previous interactions, it was obvious to me that the thing or man in front of me wasn’t like the knights from The Academy, in fact it was nothing like any of the other beasts I’d seen.

It was sentient. It was aware. It didn’t act on instinct or primal urges, but off of very irrational and non-thought out thinking. In some weird ways it was almost human.

“And why should I lower myself to a point that I’d tell you my name? Do you think yourself deserving?” It stood still, which was more than enough.

“Well I mean, dead men tell no tales right?” I chuckled awkwardly. My body was slowly regenerating and I could feel my strength returning.

“Does that not further prove my point? If you are to die anyway, why should I indulge in further conversation with a puny existence like you.”

‘Shit.'

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“You know I’m getting a little sick and tired of all this bug talk. Sure I might be weaker than you, but you’re dead! I think. Either way you can’t even leave this place so in a way aren’t you a puny existence?”

It stroked its chin in confusion, a very good sign for me.

“In…In what way?” It tried its best to keep its voice coated and full of confidence, but its tone indicated that its resolve was slowly starting to shake.

I tried to come up with a rapid and sorry excuse for an explanation.

“Well I mean for anyone to truly be considered strong, isn’t that some that they need? Freedom? Because without the ability to go wherever you want and do whatever you want, or more simply if you lack your own freedom doesn’t that mean you’re restricted? And if you’re restricted doesn’t that make you underneath someone or something.

And if you’re underneath someone or something, doesn’t that make you…weak?” I strung together the first words that popped into my head, praying that it would fall for my words. That it would be wrapped up in some kind of deep philosophical thinking so that I could run away.

But that was a very big prayer I was relying on. Even I didn’t believe half the stuff I was saying, how did I expect the…whatever it is that’s in front of me, to find some deep profundity in my words. What the hell does being strong have to do with freedom? Everyone has some kind of restriction on them, that doesn’t make them weak. That’s just called having morals and values.

“You’re right.” It finally spoke after minutes of silence.

“I am?!” I cried out in disbelief, but quickly regained my composure. “I mean of course I am. Yeah.”

“Very well, I should kill you as soon as possible and get this over with.” It raised its sword and seemingly disappeared.

“Wait can we-” I was once again cut off as the blunt side of its blade slammed against my arm. I was just barely up to raise it against my head as the strike arrived.

I wasn’t flung across the room, but the strength behind the hit was enough to send me tumbling a good distance. For some reason, rather than fear, worry or anxiety, I felt something different.

I felt angry.

In the last few months, nothing has gone right for me. It was as if at every single turn I managed to make the wrong decision. And that was how it had been playing out in my mind. But, no. That wasn’t it all.

The reason that everything was going wrong in my life was because everyone around me was luring me into doing the stupidest things possible. That bastard Infra, instead of just training me, normally planted that idea of The Underground in my head, and then let me get brutally beat up before telling me that I had no hope.

And even before that it put me through hell off of a five minute span of research, over something that could’ve been done much less painfully. Then there was those teachers, those idiotic teachers who managed to throw me into a room of sentient killer suits of armour, and then ‘let’ me into the academy as if they were doing me a favour.

And there was Enzo. The piece of shit who threw me into this situation, knowing damn well I didn’t have a shred of power or ability that could match up to what I needed to get through this damned mission.

Not one single person around me was pushing me up. Every single one of them, and one of them was a chip in my brain, were no good weasels that threw me around for their own benefit or entertainment.

My whole body began to burn, whether it was from rage or pain, I couldn’t tell anymore. All I knew was that an inexplicable amount of anger had built up inside of me, and it needed to be let out somewhere.

As the knight closed in on me, I could feel the change around me. The dust shifted, the air whistled and a blade hurtled towards my neck.

I caught it in my hands and turned to face the knight. My body burning up as my aura flared up to a size I’d never seen before. But none of that mattered. My outlet was right in front of me.

“I'm really going to enjoy this.” I let out slowly, and as my body bursted with power, my eyes closed and the world went quiet.

⥁

“This is starting to become a real problem. Maybe I should switch to pursue a less violent career?” I spoke to myself as my eyes opened.

My body had healed while I was out, so there were no further issues in getting up. I was still inside the throne room, which meant that the test was still going, meaning I still had a chance to pass.

My memories from before I woke up were a bit hazy, all that I could remember was that I suddenly felt incredibly angry at somebody, and then my body began to feel inexplicably hot and then boom. Nothing.

Looking around, I let out a sigh of relief upon seeing that the knight had disappeared. It probably thought I had died and returned to wherever it was when it wasn’t a ball of mist.

“I’ve gone nowhere human.” A voice spoke from my head, this one was much less robotic.

“Ahh!” I jumped out of shock, falling awkwardly on my ankle and crumpling down in pain.

“Infra?” I asked, hoping the voice wasn’t what I thought it was.

“You dare compare me to a mere robot? If I still had my body I would have grinded you into a fine paste.” The voice spoke once more.

Great. This was all great.

Now not only did I have an asshole robot in my head, but also a murderous spirit. What more could a man ask for in life.

“What the hell are you doing inside of me? Wait no scratch that. How did you get inside of me?” I asked the last question a bit more hesitantly.

“It’s simple. Once my material body began to fade away, I sent my consciousness into the nearest host. Which just happened to be you. Do you understand now, or should I explain it again, bug?”

When it started its explanation, I thought that its personality had changed for the better after entering inside me, but nothing could ever go right, could it?

“That’s not simple, but I feel like any further conversation would only make me more suicidal.” I stood up and begrudgingly walked over to the gravesite of my Weaver.

I picked up the broken and snapped pieces and thought about giving them a proper burial, or maybe even a cremation.

At the thought of cremation, the pieces quickly grew hotter in my hand before I had to drop them and watched as they boiled and fizzled on the ground.

“Now what was that? Did you put a curse on my Weaver?!” I cried out.

“I have no need for curses and other forms of magic. I am a true warrior. And I need only my body.” The voice explained.

I stared at my hands, confused by what just happened. Then, a thought hit me, and I let my aura spread out.

It quickly covered my body, there was no change in its size nor how much stronger it made me feel, but one change it did take on was its colour. My aura had now become a dark purple, with small sparks flying across it.

I knew what that meant.

“Lighting! Yes! That’s fucking amazing! Not only did my typing fully awaken, but I got one of the best possible abilities!” I cried out in joy. There were no other explanations, it had to have been that. Heat plus sparks was very obviously lightning.

I moved my hand ahead of me and began to imagine lightning in my mind. When nothing appeared, I tried to picture the heat once more. And after several moments… nothing.

“Am I out of juice or something?” I shook my hands in frustration.

“What are you doing, boy?” I noted the change in its form of address, but said nothing of it.

“I’m trying to get my abilities to work, but when I try picturing the lightning, nothing is coming out.” I explained, thinking that if anyone knew a thing or two about magic, it was the old dead spirit that went around possesing people.

A moment of silence followed before the voice bursted into laughter. Which caused a severe headache for me.

“What is it?” I asked impatiently.

“Good! Very good! Boy what did you say you had? Lightning?”

“Y-yeah?” A knot began to form in my stomach.

“Ahah! Very good! Back in my day you would truly be the perfect jester!”

“Listen here… whatever you're called! Get straight to the point or I’m going to knock myself out again!”

“Bugs such as yourself usually address me as ‘your grace’ but since I am stuck in your body, I will allow you to call me Haedon. As for knocking yourself out? That does nothing to me, so knock yourself out.” Haedon laughed.

‘Did it- I mean he just make a joke? Nevermind.’

“Well just tell me already! What’s wrong?”

“Boy your ability is…”