He didn't wake gently. He didn't wake slowly.
He gasped—like drowning in reverse.
The first breath that slammed into his lungs was fire—not heat, not pain, but pressure.
Something coiled in the air had wormed down his throat. It gripped his ribs. It pulsed through his veins like a second bloodstream made of ash and hunger.
His fingers clawed at the dirt. His arms shook. His eyes fluttered open—and the world had changed again.
The blood circle beneath him had dried to charcoal. The grass around it had wilted, curled inward like dying hands. It looked as if the earth had been frostbitten by flame.
Behind him, the graves stood untouched. Even in the wake of mana and poison, the dead had held their ground.
But Ithariel… Ithariel had not.
Mana, pure or corrupted, curled faintly around his exhale, drawn to his ribs like moths to bone. His body had learned the taste of it. And it wasn't letting go.
He rose slowly. Muscles twitched under his skin like coals under cracked stone. His veins glowed faintly red, pulsing in time with his heart—a clock ticking toward vengeance.
His hand trembled, not from weakness. From overflow.
[You're awake.]
[Didn't think you'd survive that first meal.]
Ithariel didn't answer. He touched his chest—his heartbeat was slower now. But deeper. Like something ancient had nested behind his sternum.
He coughed once. Black blood hit the dirt.
[Don't worry,] the voice muttered, amused.
[That's normal. What you coughed out is waste—black rot. You just ingested what could annihilate a kingdom, and your body adapted. You don't even realize how special you are.]
He wiped his lips.
"Shut up," he snapped. "I don't care how 'special' I am. Just make me strong enough to kill them all."
His skin looked pale—but not sick. More like stone stripped of its warmth. Muscles twitched under his skin like coals under cracked stone.
And beneath his collarbone—just above the heart—a faint light pulsed. Not bright. Not kind.
Like a rune carved by something that had forgotten language. A glyph trying to remember what it once meant.
And his senses… They had shifted. He could smell the rot in the trees behind the house. Hear Flow breathing inside. A heartbeat—slow, steady. He could feel the mana threads pulsing through his arms. The paths he never knew existed now throbbed like scars.
[Now that your lungs are poisoned for good,] the voice said with a grin he could hear, [we move to your body.]
[What's the point of infinite mana if your arms snap the second you use them?]
Ithariel reached down and lifted the old axe from the dirt. The handle was cracked. The blade still dull.
And yet—he swung it once. Twice.
The air split clean.
The weapon felt lighter. Not because it had changed. Because he had.
He gritted his teeth.
"Then teach me."
The voice grinned wider.
[That's the spirit, brat.]
[We'll start with your frame. Break it. Rebuild it. Stretch it past what's possible.]
[You want to annihilate serpents?]
[Then you'll have to move like one.]
He looked down at his legs. Tore the wraps off his calves. Dropped into a low stance—spine curved, knees bent, heels digging into the poisoned soil.
[A hundred steps. Around the graves. No straight lines.]
[Stretch until your joints scream. If they don't scream, you're doing it wrong.]
[We fix your flexibility first.]
But then the voice paused—then added something crueler:
[Not just a hundred. Hundreds.]
[Circle them until you see them die a hundred times. Again and again. Let the grief rot. Let the rage grow teeth.]
It made him train there—there, among his dead siblings—not just so he would suffer, but so the pain would carve away the boy he was. Because even if this was necessary, the voice wanted more. It wanted to burn out his mercy. Break his limiters. Forge something else—something colder, sharper. Something that would never kneel. A blade that could never be sheathed.
A fire that wouldn't flicker. A vengeance that couldn't be turned off.
"Is this necessary?" Ithariel asked, quietly.
[No.]
[But you'll thank me when you forget how to forgive.]
And so he moved.
The wind pressed against him. The sky, iron and hollow, watched.
He began to circle them—again and again and again.
Yuna's scream. Jon's blank stare. The laughter of the serpents. Flow's broken barking. The moment of loss.
Each step dragged the memory back. He saw the same scene. He saw it until it stopped breaking him—and began to feed him.
Until the pain sharpened into a blade too jagged to hold, but he held it anyway.
He didn't count the steps. Didn't speak. Didn't cry.
Around the fiftieth lap, the wind broke its silence. It whispered through the weeds like a voice trying to remember how to mourn.
He stopped—just for a breath. Just for the ghost of one.
In that moment, he saw her again. Yuna, at the edge of the fence, braiding dead flowers.
She turned. Smiled. Then bled out from the mouth.
The hallucination passed.
He kept walking.
[Weak.]
[But not as weak as yesterday.]
From the house, Flow barked once.
Just once.
[Next is stamina.]
[Run. As far and hard as you can. Climb the mountain. If you fall—get up.]
[Revenge doesn't wait.]
No words. Ithariel nodded.
And ran.
His legs screamed. His spine cracked. But he kept moving.
The mountain path was familiar. He'd fallen there before.
But never like this.
Every step, every breath carried the image of Yuna's legs. Jon's words. The laughter of yellow-scaled monsters.
He fell. He got up. He fell again. And rose.
The sun began to fall. The world shifted to dusk.
[Think of this as a gift.]
[A training gift. For someone who was too incapable to protect the people he loved.]
Evil laughter.
But no reaction.
Not this time.
[Why don't you speak, brat?] the voice asked, curious now.
[You always had something to say. Are you broken already?]
Ithariel didn't stop.
Didn't slow.
Only breathed—sharp, ragged, defiant.
Then finally, through cracked lips and lungs made of fire, he rasped:
"You're right."
"What can I say?"
The voice didn't speak again.
By the time he returned to the yard, his steps were dragging. His shirt clung to his body. His arms hung like sacks of stone. His spine felt carved from rusted blades.
But he returned.
[If you hadn't finished today,] the voice muttered, [I wouldn't have bothered with you anymore.]
Still—no complaint. No words.
The boy stood in the silence of graves and dusk.
[Good.]
[That was task two. Now rest.]
[Sword training begins at night.]
Night fell. But Ithariel did not.
He ate nothing. Slept only in fragments—shattered minutes filled with blood-warm dark. Dreams did not come. Only nightmares.
Jon.
Yuna.
Over and over, their shredded voices whispered:
"Why didn't you save us?"
He jolted upright. Not from rest—but from guilt that had claws.
[It's time.]
The axe.
Old. Dull. Splintered. Unworthy of vengeance—but it was his. So he picked it up like it was the last thread of identity he still believed in.
[Since we have no sword, we use that.]
[Because with what I'm about to teach you—no weapon has limits.]
The voice crackled in his skull like wet fire.
[I'll teach you to wield it like monsters do. Like things not made to bleed—but to make others bleed.]
[It's called Godhand's Forge.]
The name felt like ash on his tongue.
[A non-style. Forbidden technique. Born of instinct, honed by rage.]
[No forms. No grace. Only repetition and ruin.]
[If you master this, there will be no weapon you can't make kill.]
[You will learn killing slashes. Joint-breaking swings. Parries that sacrifice flesh to land final strikes.]
[If there is an opening and you don't intend to kill—don't use your weapon.]
[Use your hands. Use your magic. But the blade? It kills. Always.]
Ithariel nodded once.
"Fine. Make me learn it."
[Begin with the Spinebreaker.]
[Diagonal. Neck to hip. Break the spine. Swing until the pain becomes muscle.]
[Use the trees.]
He did.
He swung.
The first blow rattled his arms. The second made his shoulders scream. He gritted his teeth—and kept going.
One hundred times. Then two. Then five hundred.
Until his fingers bled. Until he collapsed.
And still, he stood again.
[Good,] the voice grinned. [Now—into the well.]
He didn't argue. He never did.
Far from the graveyard, he walked barefoot. Flow followed silently.
The old well stood crooked beside the dying cornfield. Ithariel climbed in—waist-deep in water.
[Swing side to side. Hips grounded. Breath burning.]
Each slash fought the current. Every cut demanded air he didn't have. And when his arms failed, the water slapped him flat.
He rose. Again. Again.
[Next: Jaw Sever.]
It was midnight.
He crouched. A tree trunk towered before him like a corpse waiting for execution.
He swung upward from the knees—clean, rising slash. From groin to throat.
His legs burned. But the cut was true.
[Again.]
Then came the Bone Cross.
Two ropes. Each tied with rusted blades. They swayed before him like serpents waiting to strike.
[Swing left. Then right. In rhythm. Mistime it—you bleed.]
He did.
He bled.
Shallow slices across his shoulders.
But by the third hour, the ropes no longer swung. He had severed them both.
The voice, ragged like a dying god, whispered:
[Good. We move on.]
[Now—joint breaking.]
[No blade. Just you.]
A thick tree. Far left of the ruin-house.
Ithariel struck it with his elbows. His knees. The soft spots between bone and nerve.
Every wrong hit punished him. Every correct one scarred the bark.
The pain was no longer pain. It was currency. It was penance.
And then—
[The final form.]
[The Forge.]
[Pick up anything.]
A stick. A broken pipe. A garden fork. A rusted hinge. A bent nail.
[Blindfolded. Choose at random. Each weapon must be different.]
"Now—imagine a serpent."
[Kill it. With this. And this. And this.]
[Again.]
"Strike from disadvantage. Stupid grips. Awkward angles."
[Learn to kill when the world says you can't.]
And Ithariel did.
Until his palms tore. Until his shins bruised. Until his breath came in quiet gasps that sounded like dying prayers.
He lowered himself to the dirt.
He had eaten nothing.
Slept almost nothing.
But still—he took Flow's muzzle in his hand.
The beast had brought him a deer, caught in its jaws.
Dragged to Ithariel's feet.
Eat, it meant.
Ithariel looked at the blood-soaked pelt.
Smiled, just once.
Then stood.
"It's morning," he whispered. "Let's begin the mana training."
The voice—stunned into silence—finally coughed:
[…Eat. Sleep. Two hours.]
[That's the minimum.]
[If you die before vengeance, then we both lose.]
[So sleep, you stubborn brat.]