DiOrtho Vant roared in challenge and spread his arms out wide. His flesh rippled and trembled as he allowed his signature Skill to do its bloody work. Across his the span of his back, his flesh began to ripple and tear as weapons forced themselves past the confines of his person and into the air, carrying with them bits of shredded flesh as a testament to their journey.

A broadsword with a line of gold along the center of the blade pierced directly out of DiOrtho’s left shoulder blade and proudly dribbled blood across his back. A two-headed ax cut out just above DiOrtho’s right hip. Two spears with their white tassels stained with blood pressed up out of his shoulder.

And at the core of him, that deafening foundry continued to churn, prepared to create more and more until he could grasp victory.

Congratulations! Your Skill Infinite Armaments (L) has grown to Level 269!

His shoulders heaved as blood dripped down and mixed with the mud of the pit. He eased up on the Skill, allowing his body to settle into this facsimile of a metallic and war-mongering hedgehog.

While his body trembled with something akin to ecstasy from the combination of pain and power of his image, DiOrtho reached up and seized a middling sword with a slight curve to it that was pocking out of his right side. The weapon cut into his hand as he seized the blade and ripped it all the way out of his body. His side throbbed as he casually flipped the sword to grab the hilt. He flexed his hand, trying to squeeze out all the pesky blood that was making his grip slippery.

Opposite, the unflappable flame elemental Jieu Ronault tilted his head to the side as he considered DiOrtho’s display. “You truly are a masochist. Is all of this sacrifice necessary for a spar?”

DiOrtho sneered. “All power requires sacrifice. That attitude is why I’m the strongest and you are not.”

Jieu didn’t even bother to respond to the blatant provocation. Instead, he gestured sharply and conjured six pillars of frozen flames around DiOrtho’s position. DiOrtho rolled quickly to the side then pounced forward at his foe. Moving as smoothly as a conductor motioning his string section to raise a single note, Jieu slid sideways out of DiOrtho’s path. He then brought his hand up and a sea of flames fluttered weakly across the whole of the surroundings.

Although Jieu’s strange flames appeared mild and somehow slowed, the ram demon had personally experienced their power. The heat they released was localized but overwhelming.

Still, DiOrtho ignored the defensive Skill and tightened his grip on the sword in his hand. Some aggressive instinct in his chest told him that this defensive move wouldn’t be enough. As long as he hit hard enough, he would overwhelm the flame elemental. So he planted his feet and he swung that random sword, still perhaps two meters away from his sparring partner.

The abomination of metal and gears that belched out smog in his chest groaned.

Congratulations! Your Skill Fang of the Ancient Machine Horror (A) has grown to Level 267!

There was an ominous buzzing as DiOrtho’s slash cut through the air. At the same time, a massive mound of clicking gears and servo engines loomed over the battlefield. Jieu noticed the viciousness of the impending attack and raised the field of too-still flames to a greater height, but the enormous machine suppressed them directly. Its attack cut through the ground and smashed into Jieu’s body.

Physically, there wasn’t any response from DiOrtho’s bloody slash; the blow phased through the flame elemental with only the slightest flame ripple in response. But the condensed Mana and image behind that attack hit a second later, impacting brutally and causing the elemental to bubble and froth strangely.

DiOrtho’s fingers tightened on his sword for a follow-up strike just as the Overseer intervened.

“Stop! Vant, you arrogant piece of shit, what don’t you understand about not being able to use physical attacks as a focus?”

The disciplinary from the Overseer burst was sharp and brutal. It smashed downward between DiOrtho’s shoulder blades, obliterating his Infinite Armaments Skill and instantly suppressing his image. The attack caused DiOrtho to stagger, wrath and pain mixing smoothly together in his body. The concoction bubbled and smoldered as it flowed through DiOrtho’s veins. The Overseer grimaced and cracked his knuckles. A second burst of pressure struck down, so fast that even the furious DiOrtho could only accept that he was being smashed to the side. He skidded along the muddy ground and then rolled against the muddy wall of the pit.

These self-righteous shits… DiOrtho fantasized about the day he was more powerful than them and could simply kill them all. He knew that it wouldn’t be in the near future… even if he could rival the various Overseers that followed him around and disciplined constantly, DiOrtho felt quite a bit of fear toward the Ghosthound.

So long as that man cast such a long shadow, DiOrtho wouldn’t strike at his subordinates. He might have an anger problem, but he didn’t have a deathwish.

After interacting with his crazed ‘ancestor’ on only a few occasions, DiOrtho had learned to recognize the scent of one whose hands had been soaked in blood. Someone who hadn't just extinguish a single life, but had reaped thousands. Those few moments where the Ghosthound had seen fit to descend in front of them, his capability for death was a palpable thing. It lurked behind the darkness in his left eye, just waiting for the chance to escape.

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When DiOrtho looked at it, he realized how pale and wane his aggression was in comparison.

DiOrtho lay on the ground and raised a handful of mud in the air above him. He flexed his fingers and made a fist; the sluggish sensation of mud squeezing through his fingers reminded DiOrtho of cooling blood. As he lay on his back and looked past his muddy fist at the swirling clouds, a memory flickered to the fore of his mind.

“How intriguing! Usually attracting my attention means death.” The shadow leaned forward. DiOrtho’s arms were severed at his elbows and his legs were severed at his knees. The ram-demon could only lie there and dread the figure in front of him. The smile on the shadow’s face deepened. “But for some reason… heh, I like you. I hereby adopt you into my family. How generous, right?”

Through that open mouth, DiOrtho watched the shadow’s tongue curl in on itself. “Tell me how generous I am, DiOrtho. Say thank you to your new benefactor.”

“Get up,” One of the Overseers walked over to DiOrtho and grunted out an order. DiOrtho had a sudden surge of vicious intent to strike this Overseer, but he quickly curbed it. Although he couldn’t sense her, DiOrtho knew that Overseer Helen was waiting for him to lash out. She took great pleasure in punishing him, should any of his transgressions amount to a serious offense.

Simultaneously, DiOrtho felt extremely sour and pissed off at his own reaction. If it was the him of two weeks ago, before the training had begun, he would have lashed out without a thought. Yet after only two weeks, he was already cowed and well trained. That thought made him laugh. Which compelled the Overseer to frown and slam his foot against DiOrtho’s ribs.

Although he wanted to appear strong, DiOrtho couldn’t help but wince as his body was thrown a few meters into an even muddier portion of the pit. The mixture of dirt, sweat, and old blood from spars clung to him. For several seconds, he just lay there and panted; the Overseers were strong.

Jieu Ronault, who had been watching his fallen sparring partner the entire time with a conflicted expression on his face, could no longer remain silent. “Truly, my physical form is impossible to damage with attacks like that. So it is not dangerous-”

“Silence, recruit,” Suddenly Overseer Helen was there, crouching at the edge of the pit and looking down into the interior. In her hands was a scroll, which she snapped shut; she had a small smile on her face. “It was never about punishing this misbehaving recruit, although you wouldn’t know that from how much he constantly sulks. No, it’s about separating your instincts for image usage from physical movements and Skills. Despite his other shortcomings, our dearest Vant has grown quite a bit under our tutelage. He owes us a lot, even if he doesn’t want to admit it.”

I don’t owe you shit! DiOrtho’s face warped into a bestial snarl. His ram horns vibrated with his growing craving for violence. Before this all-consuming desire for revenge, even the threat of a beating meant nothing.

A pair of shadowy eyes pierced through the entirely crippled DiOrtho. It was clear from its gaze that the shadow enjoyed this immensely “Tell me how generous I am. Or you die.”

DiOrtho was halfway through the process of leaping up and attacking Overseer Helen when the Overseer next to him smashed the but of his spear into the side of his knee. Helpless, DiOrtho could only collapse once more into the mud. His face squished directly into a murky puddle of his own blood.

“Well, that’s enough for today.” Overseer Helen clapped her hands. “Recruit Ronault, stay here and we will arrange for another sparring partner for you. This time, I want you to try striking without any physical or pseudo-physical movements to help ground your images: just use your image. Meanwhile, Recruit Vant… spend some time in the core of the bamboo forest. I trust you won’t burn it down?”

DiOrtho sneered spat out a mouthful of mud toward the feet of the nearby Overseer, but only because he resented the Overseers. Honestly, he quite liked the bamboo forest. So he forced himself out of the pit and strutted away, doing his best to project he aura like he had managed to achieve exactly what he wanted. There was the chance that his confidence and oozing satisfaction would irritate Overseer Helen and get his training changed, but DiOrtho was willing to take that risk.

The whole point was to get under Overseer Helen’s skin.

But she didn’t even seem to notice DiOrtho’s attitude. When he glanced over his shoulder to check her reaction, she was already gone. So DiOrtho pressed his lips together and walked through the pot-marked Southern portion of the training grounds. He passed dozens of pits filled with dueling recruits, their cries and images echoing upward into the sky. Gradually, DiOrtho’s temper cooled as he made it to the central area, passing a few recruits being taken into the individual training pods.

Even through the haze of frustration and rage in DiOrtho Vant’s chest, he couldn’t help but feel a small amount admiration for Head Drill Sergeant Ghosthound as he examined the images of the recruits he passed. Within two weeks, most of which the Ghosthound himself was absent, the recruits had grown an explosive amount. The weakest of the recruits had reached a level of image solidity and specificity that could have rivaled DiOrtho before he came to this camp. As for the stronger individuals…

Everyone now moved solely by relying on their image without even noticing. They participated in the physical fitness training without complaint. They cultivated their gardens and meditated in the bamboo forest. Everything that had been so difficult and confusing and exhausting at the beginning fo the training camp was slowly becoming second nature.

If only the Overseers didn’t have such fucking sadistic personalities, DiOrtho thought, thinking of Helen in particular. He clenched his fists. It’s exactly fucks like you that I’m going to kill first when I finally have that power…

With such thoughts bubbling in his heart, DiOrtho arrived at the rippling bamboo forest. While most of the edges of the forest were a uniform wall of woven bamboo stalks, there was a single entrance with a red-gold arch near the central training portion. Overseer Muareth sat there thoughtlessly with one of the Spider Overseers, the two of them carefully weaving a web between two thick stocks of bamboo. They didn’t even acknowledge DiOrtho when he arrived.

After hesitating a moment to see if they would say anything, DiOrtho began walking forward toward the center of the bamboo forest. Almost immediately, outside noise was suppressed. The surroundings slowly turned gloomy as the tall bamboo chutes left the paths in shade. These paths frequently branched out, but DiOrtho stayed on the main path. Around him, the wind brushed lightly against the bamboo, setting everything rustling.

Suddenly, a soft rain began to fall, causing DiOrtho to stop on his walk and look upward at the grey clouds. He reached up and slowly wiped some of the softening mud off of his face. He felt a drop of rain on the skin of his now exposed cheek. Then he continued forward.