Aren swung the blade down. Again and again, his arms forced themselves to pull up and force downward, his feet stepping back and forth in time. His throat burned, his head felt as though it were collapsing in on itself. His chest tightened, his arms hardly able to lift. He could feel the muscular fibers tear with every swing, clenching his teeth.
He was swinging downward a long steel sword that curved into a sharp end – a katana. Greg leaned on a pedestal beside him, counting.
“Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two…” He drew out the last syllable of each number. Suddenly, he sighed, standing and stretching his arms. “Wait, you’re seriously exhausted at twenty-five? Huh. She was right, you’re damn frail.”
Aren, slouched over and breathing raggedly, suddenly stood up, a light in his bright blue eyes. [That bitch…] His words flared through his mind.
He swung the blade in the exact same form, incessantly. He ignored the incredible agony building up in his muscles for an indeterminate amount of time.
Aren bit his lip, a stream of warm blood flowing from the corner of his mouth where the teeth punctured the skin. [But even so…!] Beads of sweat rolled down his arms, flung off of the arms that had their veins clearly defined. The droplets quickly disappeared in the rain that started at some point.
Aren had lost himself in thought for the entire day. Around him was the darkness of night he saw nearly nothing through. Greg had left at some point, unbeknownst to him. Water poured down from the black clouds in sheets, rendering the ground muddy and thick.
[Even so, I have to try.] He could only think to himself as he fell backwards, the blade of the sword piercing the ground behind him. His hand reached upward, as if clawing at the sky, grasping at the water that torrentially poured down upon him. He fought to keep his eyes open, watching the perpetual nothing above him.
Consciousness slipped from his body, the hand falling and impaling the mud. A foolish smile was plastered on his face. [Because what am I doing, if not trying?]
Greg situated himself at a small desk. It was of grand quality, and made with a rare, tough wood. Despite its simplicity, it was unrivaled in craftsmanship. It was simply a flat table with compartments built into the bottom. Over the flat desk, Greg looked out at the practice field, nodding in approval, his face solemn.
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Location: Unknown
A man sat upon an ornate throne of shining metal, his chiseled face holding a solemn expression, his brown eyes covered by his long hair of a similar hue. The messy strands fell down to his shoulders, mainly to the left side. Before him was a man, kneeling upon a purple path of fabric. The wide room was well lit by the countless sconces holding candles of bright red wax to the walls.
“How goes the boy?” The man sitting upon the throne asked, holding his chin with his fist.
“Yes sire, the young master has taken someone in. I am yet unclear on the details, but he seems far from exceptional.” The man kneeling spoke through his moderately long gray beard.
“I care not what he seems, Baurin. I care what his accomplishments are. His exact strength, magical ability, and ability to grow. I am not on top of this kingdom to ask your impression.” The man boomed, his chin raising and his eyes narrowing, likely out of spite. His anger was evident in his voice, but his body was completely still.
The evident elder of the two, the kneeling Baurin, trembled, a cold sweat breaking out on the back of his neck. “My sincerest apologies sire. I could not… I didn’t… When I looked into his soul, I saw… nothing.” He shivered even more unstably as pressure built up in the room, causing the candles to flicker around the two solitary figures.
“Oh? Nothing, you say?” The man mused, his mouth cracking into a smile. Baurin, below, looked up, his face becoming one of anguish and fear. “Maybe, you’re just losing effectiveness?” He looked down his nose at the subject before him, his expression lacking all sympathy. He lowered his brow, mouth curving downward into a mock-offended and sad expression. “Are all of the resources and teachers I put into you to go to waste?”
The threw his head back, his mouth opening wide and letting out a bloodthirsty, borderline insane laugh, his eyes wide.
After several minutes of the extreme lack of composure, the man straightened up, standing with a blank expression as though none of that had ever happened. He spoke in a composed voice somewhere between normal speech and a whisper. “I have decided.” He grinned widely down on Baurin, who quaked in fear of being disposed of with extreme prejudice.
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It is evening.
The streetlights begin to illuminate the litter-ridden streets as the crimson sun crosses the boundary of the horizon, its light peeking through skyscrapers for the final time that day. Clouds glowing red and orange fade to a deep purple before giving way to the darkness of night.
Aren shivers, his breath visible in the cold, dry air. His narrow eyes peek out of a heavy hooded jacket, its only openings at his waist and wrists.
“Gotta hate winter.” He mumbles to himself, hunching down.
Few of the despicable beings known commonly as humans tainted the asphalt and concrete of the urban jungle at this time of night. However, three silhouettes make their presence scarce, disappearing from the dilapidated wall of brick of varying shades of red.
Minutes pass, uneventful. Aren continues his brisk walk down the abandoned road, but is interrupted. “Took you long enough, Aren.” The tallest of the three figures speaks in an exasperated tone, spitting his words at Aren.
“The hell do you wa-“ Aren tries to respond, but halfway through his words, sees something traveling. It flies through the air at an unbelievable pace, and it contracts into a fist, impacting his face with peerless force.
Aren’s sight flickers between vision and black, fading, fading. The excruciating pain dulls his senses, the bright red blood falling into darkness. The world disappeared around him, leaving only the sadistic grins on the faces of his assailants. They burned themselves into his fearful eyes as they faded.
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Aren’s eyes shot open, his pupils contracted. He breathed rapidly, his chest rising and falling at uneven intervals. The sky he faced was still deep purple, host to the faint light on the edge of the sky signaling the beginning of the day. He attempted to get up with what feeble strength he had, but felt inhibited in some way, his limbs unable to move. He felt as though he was restrained.
Looking down, he realized he was almost entirely buried in the damp, cracked earth. Gathering his strength, he pulled himself up within the minute, leaving an imprint of himself in a hole in the ground.
Reorienting himself, he looked around, and saw Greg, holding a simple longsword. He stood before a dummy, his body sideways, leaning slightly backwards. He held his weight on his bent right leg, his hand wrapping tightly around the blade’s hilt.
Within no more than an instant, Greg was standing behind the straw doll, the tip of his sword inside the sheath, his eyes closed. He pushed the blade into the sheath before taking his other hand off of the end of the sheath.
Finally, after less than a second, two silver strokes appeared through the air, making the screeching sound of metal slicing through air. Behind him, the dummy fell to the ground, sliced into near-perfect quadrants.
Greg sighed, mumbling to himself. “Still not enough, huh?” Following this, he detached the blade and scabbard from his hip and flicked his wrist, sending the blade flying through the air, directly towards Aren, revolving as it did so.
Aren stood there, stunned at the sudden action. He nodded his head over and over as the blade spun, following the hilt. Finally, the end of the scabbard lost forward momentum, falling down and burying itself in the ground a foot from Aren, falling forward toward him.
Aren grabbed the hilt, still dazed after waking up to such a phenomenon.
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Two months passed since Aren first picked up the sword. Rather than being so feeble that his arms looked more like twigs than deadly weapons, a strong and noticeable musculature now covered his body. He was by no means bulging with muscle, nor was he burly in any way, but his complexion and physique improved drastically from before.
Where he still held some despair over something even he didn’t know before, he had left all of that behind in his training. It was as though a weight was lifted from his shoulders.
He stepped towards the building’s exit into the training area, the sky still dark. He pulled a practice blade from the wall and progressed out, watching his breath that flew from his mouth into white, swirling puffs that rapidly dissipated in the frigid air.
“You’re late.” A cold, detached voice called out to him. This was not Greg, most definitely. The voice was of someone at least 20 years older. On top of that, Greg never used such a voice, even when Aren’s ineptitude frustrated him to the extreme. This was the voice of a killer, not the voice of an instructor.
Not that Aren realized this fast enough. He walked out, bowing his head slightly. “My apologies.” He spoke, his eyes closed, before standing back up.
A puzzled look crossed his face. The man in front of him was not Greg, but looked remarkably like him. He had long hair that fell down over his shoulders that did nothing to cover the dark eyes of the same blue hue as Gregorius’s. He looked down his angular nose, his lips contorting into a distasteful frown. “So you’re Greg’s new pet?” He remarked. “Hmph. You don’t look like much.” He took his weapon from his back – a wide, two-bladed axe with a handle at least five feet in length, but still not long compared to the incredible stature of this man. The handle shone a bright silver color, and the handle was decorated with dozens of small gemstones arranged into rhomboidal patterns. Without warning, he jumped forward, angling his body diagonally toward Aren.
Aren immediately jumped back, drawing the blade from the scabbard now on his back. He bent both his back and front legs, putting both hands on the handle. As the man swung his massive axe downward, Aren slid his back (left) foot to the right side, bringing up his sword and angling it diagonally, downward to his left. The axe pushed the blade downward with incredible force, but almost immediately slid off of the sword. The man jumped to the side, swinging the axe to the right. Aren jumped away from the swing, meeting it with his sword.
Such a thing was a terrible idea. The axe’s tremendous attack power practically tore the blade in half, everything 6 inches past the hilt flying off to the side and planting itself directly in the center of an archery target. […Dammit, me.] He thought to himself, biting his lip in frustration.
“Fool.” The man muttered before he landed, his feet digging into the cracked dirt. Bending his back leg, he fired towards Aren, who jumped back. Without a foothold, Aren was shocked when the man practically teleported to a distance of only two feet from him. However, he had no time to process this as the axe swung. In a flash, the axe dug into Aren’s flesh, tearing into his abdomen. His blood soaked the blade of the axe and covered the ground that he flew over as he was knocked back, hitting a brick wall and creating a round crater. His pupils contracted, he gasped for air, instead coughing up a huge amount of blood, falling forward to the ground. Everything disappeared from his sight.
[Hah? Is this really the extent of my ability? Enough just to lose miserably to some old asshat who just outright attacks people?] He berated himself, extremely irate. He picked the broken sword from his side, stabbing himself in the thigh. His eyes opened wide, his expression wild, almost insane. [Is this what I’ve worked so hard for? Losing, being beaten down, made fun of further?] He drew the now bloodied blade of the shattered sword from his leg, and stared directly into the eyes of that man in front of him. The man wore a shocked expression for just a moment, before once more placing himself in a stance prepared for battle.
Author's Note
Spoiler :
Hi! Sorry I'm so late again. I've been infected with the terminal disease known as RL. Anyway, this chapter is 2187 words rather than my usual unnervingly short chapters. I'll try to get another one out between Sunday and Wednesday.