Monsignor Faust stood behind a lectern on a raised platform. He held both sides of the lectern in his hands and stared out at Seth and his five brothers. In his black cassock with a hood raised to hide his face and black gloves that concealed his hands he resembled some deranged cult leader about to propose a group suicide.

Do you John and Ulrich are up there to make sure we can’t say no? one of Seth’s minds joked.

It wasn’t a very funny joke. The idea of two Barons being present to dissuade an answer they would not accept was not one Seth wanted playing around in his head.

John and Ulrich stood to each side of the Monsignor but gave him a considerable length of space. Their presence seemed functionary, ceremonious. But with their eyes on him and his brothers, and Faust’s dark presence, they commanded a level of respect greater than any of the other priests ever had combined.

“Today,” Faust began, “I have news for your group. It is actually news for the entire seminary, however, its weight is more pressing on you than the rest of them. You see, they know its coming, and they understand it is their place. For you, you never suspected it would come. As far as events are concerned, it has creeped up on you with a gentle smile and a poisonous sting…”

Each brother looked at each other. In the silence they knew their minds. Monsignor Faust never spoke with metaphors or similes. Whatever he had to tell them, they were more than certain they wouldn’t like it. Still, they were seminarians in the presence of their Monsignor. They had no other choice but to listen and obey. He could ask them to die, for all they knew, and they would no sooner be able to refuse than they would be able to stab the sky.

We can always try. We’re sure with a lot of effort much can be accomplished.

Up on the lectern, Faust went on. “Information has come to me recently. Information of a nature we are not always happy to receive but must act upon. It is not official but it is trusted enough to prepare. And prepare we must.”

“Am I the only one getting worried?” Barnabas whispered to no one in particular.

Fin shook his head and spoke out of the corner of his mouth. “He’s acting funny. He’s also dressing funny, but I heard that’s a normal thing now.”

Beside Fin, Forlorn stood quietly. He had his arm in a sling where it had been completely fine the last time Seth saw him.

Want to know what happened? One of his minds asked him.

“And you’re going to pretend you do?” he asked back.

Maybe. There was a note of teasing to the thought and Seth knew he had no time for mind games.

But they’re the best kind, the mind protested. And just recently a girl accused us of our degree in gaslighting. We don’t know a better mind game than that.

That gave Seth a moment of pause. When he answered, he did his best to pick his words carefully. “One: I won’t play mind games; not with myself. Two: You don’t know any girls so how could any have possibly accused you of gaslighting her?”

We don’t?

“You don’t.”

Then who accused us?

Seth shook his head and returned his attention to Faust.

“…So it is with grave certainty,” he was saying, “that I bring you all this piece of information. The next world crack is upon us. And the seminary has only a month to prepare for it.”

John and Ulrich gave no reaction. Their faces showed it was knowledge they already had. Monsignor Faust had already had this discussion with them before bringing it before Seth and his brothers.

His next words, however, stunned everyone. John and Ulrich were no exceptions.

“…And this time, you will be a part of the group that closes it.”

Ulrich and John took a hesitant step forward before stopping themselves. Whether they had intended it or not, they screamed out far more than their shock in the single slip up. They announced their unawareness of it. They announced their disagreement with it. They announced their stance against it.

When they spared each other the slightest glance, it announced something else.

Ooh! Seth’s minds cooed like giddy girls gossiping over a dramatic event. We smell a rebellion.

“And I smell a kick in all your spines if you don’t shut up!” Seth hissed.

He tried not to think of himself as special. He honestly did. Despite Jabari’s treatment of him. Despite being placed in a team of Silvers when he knew he should’ve been placed in a team of equal authority. Despite being taken for almost a month and no one asking what had happened. Despite it all, he tried not to think he was special.

But this was the height of it. The seminary didn’t send seminarians into the world crack. There was no seminarian alive who’d held the position for more than a year that didn’t know this. Even all the rumors of priests that stained the vast world existed only of priests. There were no seminarians in them, no cassocks of fine or dirty grey in them. Only priests of white and terrifying black. Only priests of gold and power. Seminarians did not venture out into the world in any official capacity. They did not represent the seminary in a way any would know. And while the authority requirement tto enter a world crack was silver, every seminarian knew the seminary only sent golds, perhaps to uphold a reputation.

But they were sending Silvers this time. And an Iron.

Can Irons even survive inside world cracks? a mind asked. We’ve heard they have high reia density.

You should ask.

Seth raised his hand and drew Faust’s attention. The only sign the Monsignor saw him was in the gentle turning of his hood.

Now that he had the man’s attention, he dropped his hand. “I’m Iron,” he said.

Faust nodded. “I doubt there is anyone here that doesn’t know that, Jabari. I believe there is a point you’re trying to make from this and I would like to hear it.”

“Can an Iron survive in a World Crack? I heard the reia density there is very high.”

“You can.”

Beside Faust, John and Ulrich exchanged another look. This one embraced confusion without pretense.

“Any more questions?” Faust asked. He waited, and when there was none, continued. “In the absence of any more, you will begin preparations. You will be going with the other priests and will be the first seminarians of the seminary to venture into a world crack. It is an honor you will all begin. Embrace it gladly.”

Monsignor Faust turned away from the lectern and shuffled off the raised platform with the gratingly sluggish speed of the old. His presence and behavior was becoming worrisome.

Four dots of supremacy say Jabari has a hand in this.

We can’t make a wager over something we all agree on, retard.

As John and Ulrich followed after Faust and they were dismissed to whatever blatantly unacceptable task his brothers had been drawn from, Seth turned to Timi and asked a question that had been bothering him since leaving the healer’s room.

What happened to you? He signed.

His brother turned to look at him. Each of them owned three cassocks given to them since their return from their pastoral year of service. And as identical as they all were, Seth knew each one Timi owned. He’d seen them on his brother enough times to commit every single flaw and blemish to memory. He knew every tear, every loose seam, every wrinkle… perhaps not every wrinkile. But he had the most of each cassock commited to memory.

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The cassock Timi wore today was none of the three that belonged to him. He also spotted a deep cut above his brows that hadnt been there the last time Seth had seen him. It made the brow slightly swollen as it healed.

Timi looked at him and answered with weaving fingers. I followed a rumor.

Seth nodded once. He turned his gaze purposefully until it met Forlorn’s. His brother turned his eyes away almost immediately. He hadn’t even allowed the barest meeting of eyes.

Besides his reluctance to meet Seth’s gaze the only thing different about him was the arm he carried in a sling.

And what about him? he signed.

Timi shrugged after a long pause. Mercy?

………………………………………………..

They’re training began immediately. Injuries and cast arms saved no one from it. With the barest words, the routine inbred into them for years was taken, snatched like a bird from water by a diving eagle. The days of the week became one. Each day became intensive, focused, driven. Each day became a preparation for a war against things once thought unnatural.

They practiced to fight with all weapons in each day. The choice of a favored weapon was allowed to them but they were often required to use others.

They were woken each day to the delirium of a chaotic morning. Priests would come barging into their room, core unshrouded. Often times they woke to the suffocating pressure of a Baron’s reia. Sometimes the Barons were more than one. Twice Seth passed out. More times than they were willing to count Barnabas collapsed on his feet.

Each time, they woke up, held their weapons, and charged in whatever direction they were led.

Their day began with the grating displeasure of reia beasts. Igor was nowhere in sight during these periods of training, and John took command of them. He did not whip them, perhaps because they were too old for it, and he did not use harsh words. But where Igor had been harsh, perhaps cruel, John was viscious and horrid.

Runes were he path to punishment, and they inflicted more pain than anything Igor had ever been capable of.

They would rise at his command and he would take them beyond the seminary walls. He would guide them through the mist and lead them through the trees. Paths would weave and intertwine until even Seth’s minds lost track of which roads had been followed. Then he would bring them to a land of beasts and creatures that brought terror to the heart of even a soul mage.

There he would sit. There they would fight.

In this part of the misty forest they found a truth they had not seen in their time in the seminary, a truth their time outside its walls had not shown them. Here they found far worse reia beasts than the world ever knew existed. There were monkeys with tusks and hands of stone that shook the air with every motion. There were tentacle creatures with teeth were suctions were supposed to be. There were beasts with skin impervious to physical damage that required their combined strengths and skills to bring to their knees. There were beasts that had no right walking this world.

John proved fair enough to interfere in death’s desire for them. He stepped in at the brink of death to save them from its embrace. Whether it was under the falling hands of stone or a vicious whipping of a tail strong enough to split a boulder, he interfered. But while they took solace in knowing he would not allow them die, they appreciated the fear of how badly he would allow them suffer before he stepped in.

They would fight against these creatures till the sun was high in the sky and fatigued from its rise. Then he would send them back, into the clutches of reverend Ulrich. Without rest or sustenance, Ulrich would put them through combat training against humans.

“We are friends to no one withing the crack,” he told them. “You will fight against as many soul mages as you will against soul beasts. Understand that while it remains us against soul beasts, the rest of the world waits to drive a dagger in your backs. You will be the weakest of the seminary they will have ever seen, and your weakness will be their motivation.”

Then, armed with weapons and skills honed in the fire of years, they would fight him. And he would teach them what it meant to stand against a Baron.

Fighting a Baron was very much unlike fighting a gold. Seth had thought Taliser had toyed with him at the adventurer’s examination. But what Ulrich did to them as a team was an endless sky to Taliser’s breath of fresh air.

He moved and evaded with a gracious control, a diatribe to their constantly improving teamwork. Every fight had him with his hands behind his back, clasped as Ivan always had his during his lectures. He would step away from a skill that had no right to miss, and bat away attacks that existed only as trump cards. He shrugged of Forlorn’s convergent skill like shaking dust from an old clothe. He stopped Jason’s double slash with a body not enforced by reia. He shattered Barnabas’ mist of shadows with a single stomp and returned Fin’s ground shaking stomp with a stomp of his own, sending them scattering with a quake that made Fin’s look like a child’s tantrum.

He showed Seth the flaw in his convergent skill, for which Seth was thankful. No matter how quickly he moved within the reach of his established domain, there was always a pause when he wanted to strike. Sometimes Ulrich would choose that moment to deflect each blow. Other times he would simply evade them.

Of them all, only Timi had been expressly forbidden from using his convergent skill.

They never once thought victory was in sight, but every time they hoped. Victory, after all, was not in his defeat. It was in scoring even a single blow. It was not a standard he set for them. It was a standard they set for themselves.

There were times he would allow them corner him, push him to a position where he was surrounded on all sides. Then he would release the force of his reia on them, and where they were once peregrines shooting through the air, they became dogs wading through mud.

“A Baron’s presence is a weapon none of you will survive against,” he told them. “When it is unleashed, not much can be done. However, it cannot last forever.”

While he trained them as a Baron, he let them know they were not expected to fight any Barons. He reminded them that Baron rank soul beasts—as all Baron ranked beasts were souled—were not beasts they should attempt to stand against. However, in his own words, Baron authority soul mages were notorious for being petty.

When he was done with them, in the same pain and fatigue they were shipped off to Kyle where they learnt everything the seminary knew of reia beasts and soul beasts. Their strengths. Their weaknesses. What they were capable of. What they were not capable of.

They had learnt these from Reverend Clint over the years, however, at the healers hands they came to learn Clint only taught them of beasts they were most likely to run into. With Kyle, they learnt of beasts that only existed at gold rank or Baron rank. They learnt of beasts that were known to constantly evolve. They learnt of beasts speculated to have innate intelligence.

There were beasts so plentiful and rare that even within his beastiary there existed beasts that had no name.

As time went, and the speculated timeframe for the world crack drew nearer, their training boosted their confidence. They worked far better as a team than they’d ever thought possible. Against the beasts John put before them, they proved capable of surviving where they were unable to attain victory. Slowly they learned to strategize properly, support each other in combat.

Eventually, they didn’t fear the world crack so much.

They never succeeded in landing a blow on Ulrich but took pleasure in the fact that he didn’t toy with them as often. With the days, their confidence soared.

Then Ulrich took Seth’s in his hand and choked the life out of it.

It was during one of their sessions as they tried their best not to a make a fool of themselves. As always, Ulrich dodged and deflected attacks as he pleased. He’d struck Seth across a distance and turned his attention to Timi and his swinging greatsword. He weaved away from each strike, eyes following the blade as it sang through the air. He found a space in one of the swings and stepped into Timi, shoving him away with a shoulder thrust and doubled in time to slap Forlorn across the face as he shot out of Barnabas’ shadow.

Fin countered with his convergent skill, stomping the ground and sending it to shuddering. Their plan was calculated, every bait put in place long before the fight had even begun. They communicated with their eyes and their moves. Every attack was a message sent, a command followed. Ulrich was not ready to have the ground beneath him shake and shudder, but they were.

As if tired of having the skill used the same way, Ulrich returned the attack in the same way. He raised his leg when Jason appeared in front of him, sword raised as high as he could. The wind gathered around him as he summoned the skill before Ulrich’s leg came down.

[Phantom Strike]

The sword came down with force, and the winds attacked from both sides. While it happened Seth ran forward, gauging the distance around him. When Jason’s blade came down, Seth pulled to a halt and grabbed the hilt of the sheathed katana at his waist.

Ulrich caught the blade of Jason’s sword in a casual hand, and a pulse of his reia shattered the wind blades that came at him.

Every single step of the way had been planned. Every single motion. All of it boiled down to this very moment. They’d needed him to activate the skill at that moment. They knew him well enough to know his pride would not allow him dodge Jason’s phantom strikes. Using that technique was his only option, and a time gap existed between each use.

This was the moment they’d all been waiting for.

Seth extended his senses, established his domain. Timi was already charging forward and Jason’s sword was still in Ulrich’s hand when Seth activated his convergent skill. It flared to life with all its promise of retribution.

[Echo Draw].

The world sharpened and Seth cut through it.

Then Ulrich snatched him up by the neck mid dash and held him high.

It choked the air out of him and threatened his life. All the while Ulrich watched him, studied him with the simple disinterest of the powerful. There was something in his eyes as he did this. It wasn’t condescension. And while it looked like mild surprise, it was not. Not really. They were the eyes of a man who genuinely wondered why a low, insignificant bug thought it could approach him.

Seth’s sword hadn’t even left its sheath.

Ulrich released another pulse of reia and Seth’s domain shattered.

“Would you like to know the problem with your convergent skill?” he asked with a casual tone and a touch of disappointment at the edges.

Around them all of Seth’s brothers were frozen. Timi was halted in his charge. Forlorn was getting up from the ground he’d been slapped into. And Jason’s sword still hung in the air where Ulrich’s hand had once held it.

Seth would’ve answered if he had enough air to. But it seemed the question was rhetoric. Ulrich never needed an answer.

“The answer is you,” he continued. “You are the problem with your skill. You rely so heavily on that speed and you think yourself invincible in it. Maybe a silver can’t see you while you’re moving, but a gold can.” His eyes glowed a soft but menacing green. “And I’d remind you that you’re facing a Baron.”