The Anomaly's Path

The corridor had become a tomb long before any of us drew our swords.

Kael stood at the center of it with his hollow eyes sweeping over us like a farmer examining livestock before the slaughter, and behind him, the demons waited with their crackling whips and rusted blades that gleamed with a sickly green light in the flickering torches.

From the shadows behind us, more demons had emerged while we were focused on the ones in front, their footsteps silent on the stone floor, their bodies blocking any hope of retreat.

I counted them without thinking, my eyes moving from one masked face to another, and the number kept climbing. Twenty-three. Twenty-five. Thirty.

The green torches on the walls flickered in a draft that came from nowhere, casting long shadows that danced across the stone floor like hungry things waiting to be fed, and the air was cold.

Kael took a slow step forward, and the sound of his boot against the stone echoed off the walls like a drumbeat counting down the seconds until we all stopped breathing. His face was calm, almost bored, but his eyes were alive in a way that made my skin crawl.

They flickered from me to Ren to Elena to Dorian to Marcus, cataloging us, weighing us, measuring how much force he would need to crush us.

"You have been busy," he said, his voice soft and quiet. "...I did not think you would be alive."

I did not answer. I just tightened my grip on Tempest and felt the familiar weight of the blade in my hand.

Kael’s eyes moved past me, scanning the knights behind my shoulders with the same cold detachment. "Silla and Grog were supposed to deliver the Catalyst to Marta and return with a new shipment of slaves. That was days ago. They never came back."

He tilted his head, and the green torchlight caught the scar on his cheek, making it stand out pale against his skin. "...I assume you had something to do with their delay."

A grin spread across my face before I could stop it.

"Delay...?" I said, letting the word hang in the air between us. "...I killed them. Slowly. I made sure they knew who was killing them before the end."

Kael’s expression did not change. His hollow eyes remained fixed on mine, and his face was a mask of stone, unreadable and cold.

"I beat Silla until her teeth broke and her eyes swelled shut," I continued, and my voice came out lower, harder, each word falling like a hammer on an anvil. "She begged me to stop, begged me to kill her. I did not give her the mercy she wanted. I made her feel every punch. Every crack of bone. Every scream."

I paused, letting the image settle in his mind.

"Grog did not even fight back. He just sat there and watched the whole time, too scared to move. I made sure they understood what was happening before the end. I made sure they knew."

The demons behind Kael shifted uncomfortably, their boots scraping against the stone floor, their whips crackling with nervous energy. Kael did not move. He just stood there with his hollow eyes fixed on mine, his expression unchanged.

"...You tortured them," he said. It was not a question.

"Tortured them? Who, me?" I shrugged, the motion casual, almost lazy. "No, I didn’t torture them. We were just playing. The pain was just a bonus."

For a moment, something flickered in Kael’s hollow eyes. "...You have changed."

"Everyone changes sooner or later." I raised Tempest, pointing the tip at his chest.

"You think killing Silla and Grog makes you strong?" Kael’s voice was soft, almost curious.

"No. But it gave me satisfaction. Watching them beg for their lives was the best thing I saw."

Kael laughed. "You are a fool. Silla and Grog were nothing but pawns. They were tools. I do not care if you killed them." He took another step forward, and the pressure in the room seemed to increase, pressing down on my shoulders like a physical weight.

"But I will care when I kill you, slowly. The way I should have done in Wayford."

Ren grabbed my arm, his fingers digging into my sleeve, and pulled me back a step. His face was pale, and his eyes were wide, and I could see the fear written across every line of his features. "Leo, stop," he hissed, his voice barely a whisper.

"Stop provoking him. You are going to get us all killed. Look at him. Look at the demons. We are outnumbered and exhausted, and he is just standing there waiting for us to make a mistake."

I looked at Ren. There was fear in his eyes.

He was right. I was provoking Kael. I was letting the rage speak, letting the anger that had been building in my chest since Wayford come pouring out in words instead of steel. But I could not stop. The words kept coming, spilling out of me like blood from a wound that would not close.

"He is going to try to kill us anyway," I said, pulling my arm free from Ren’s grip. "...At least let him come at us angry. Angry men make mistakes and create openings."

"You are an insane bastard," Ren said, shaking his head.

I gave him a half grin. "Probably."

Kael raised his hand, and the demons behind him tensed, their whips crackling with dark energy, their blades rising in unison. The sound of thirty blades leaving thirty scabbards echoed through the corridor like a single, drawn-out note of death.

"Enough talk," Kael said, his voice flat and cold. "...Kill them all."

The demons charged.

The corridor exploded into chaos.

Ren moved first, his blade cutting through the throat of the nearest demon before it could raise its whip, and black blood sprayed across the stone floor in a wide arc.

Elena was beside him, her twin swords flashing in the green torchlight, each strike finding flesh, each movement flowing into the next like water over rocks. Dorian stood at the center of the chaos, his massive claymore sweeping in wide arcs that sent demons flying into the walls with sounds like sacks of meat hitting stone.

Marcus fought with quiet efficiency, his blade dancing between the gaps in the enemies’ armor, each strike precise, each kill clean.

But there were too many.

For every demon that fell, two more took its place. They poured out of the shadows like a tide, their eyes burning with that sickly green light, their weapons crackling with dark energy, their bodies pressing forward with no regard for the ones who had already fallen.

The knights were strong, but they were exhausted. They had been fighting for hours. Their movements were slower than they should have been, their breaths heavier, their arms shaking with fatigue.

I cut down a demon that lunged at me, my blade opening its throat from ear to ear, and looked toward Kael while the body was still falling.

He was not moving.

He was just standing there with his arms crossed and his hollow eyes fixed on me, watching the chaos unfold like a man watching ants fight over a crumb of bread. A predator waiting for the right moment to strike, savoring the fear, enjoying the desperation.

He is Master Low, I thought, parrying a strike from another demon and driving Tempest through its chest. I am Adept High. Ren is Expert Low. Elena and Dorian are Elite High. Marcus is Elite Mid. The gap between us is not just a gap. It is a wall.

Kael is still weakened from his fight with Roran. His body is not what it was. His mana reserves are lower than they should be.

But even weakened, he is stronger than all of us combined. He could kill us one by one without breaking a sweat.

I looked at the demons still pouring out of the shadows, at the bodies already littering the floor, at the knights struggling to hold the line. There were too many. We could not fight them all and Kael. We had to thin the numbers before Kael decided to join the fight.

"Ren!" I shouted, cutting down another demon and kicking the body aside. "We need to take out the minions first! Focus on the small ones! Leave Kael for last!"

Ren nodded, his face set in a hard mask, and turned his blade toward the swarm.

We fought.

Elena killed three demons in quick succession, her twin swords a blur of silver and black blood. The first lost its head before it could scream. The second lost its arm and then its life a heartbeat later. The third tried to run, but Elena was faster, her blade catching it between the ribs and driving into its heart.

Dorian crushed a demon’s skull with his bare hands and threw the body into its companions, sending three of them tumbling to the ground in a tangle of limbs and weapons. Marcus cut down two more, his blade singing through the air like a silver whisper.

I lost count of how many I killed.

Five? Ten? Fifteen?

The bodies piled up around us, black blood pooling on the stone floor and mixing with the red of our own wounds. The smell of iron and ozone filled the corridor, thick and cloying, and the green torches flickered as if they were struggling to stay lit.

But more kept coming.

Then the temperature dropped.

It was sudden and sharp, like a blade of ice sliding between my ribs and twisting. The green torches on the walls flickered and dimmed, their light shrinking to pale pinpricks in the darkness.

The shadows around us grew darker, thicker, pressing in from all sides like they were trying to swallow us whole. The demons stopped fighting and stepped back, their eyes wide with a fear that I had not seen in them before, their weapons hanging limp at their sides.

Kael was moving.

He did not run or sprint or charge. He simply walked, his boots echoing on the stone floor with slow, deliberate steps. His aura flared around him, a dark pressure that pressed down on my shoulders and made it hard to breathe. The knights behind me stumbled, their faces pale, their hands trembling on their weapons.

Kael stopped in front of the nearest knight, a young man, and looked down at him with those hollow eyes.

"You killed my men...," Kael said. His voice was soft, almost gentle.

The knight raised his sword.

Kael moved faster than I could track. His hand shot out and grabbed the knight’s wrist, and I heard the bones snap before the man even had time to scream. The sword clattered to the floor, and Kael’s other hand closed around the knight’s throat, lifting him off the ground like he weighed nothing.

The knight’s legs kicked. His hands clawed at Kael’s grip. His face turned red, then purple, then something darker.

Kael watched him struggle for a long moment, his hollow eyes fixed on the man’s face. Then he squeezed.

The sound of the knight’s neck breaking echoed through the corridor like a gunshot.

Kael let the body fall and turned to face us. His hand was covered in blood, and he wiped it on his coat with a slow, deliberate motion.

"That is one," he said. "...Who wants to be next?"

The silence that followed was louder than any scream.

I looked at the body on the floor, the young knight’s face frozen in an expression of terror, his eyes still open and staring at nothing. I had not even learned his name. He had volunteered for this mission, followed me into the mines, fought beside me for hours, and I did not even know his name.

He died because of me, I thought. They are all going to die because of me.

Ren moved before I could speak. He lunged at Kael, his sword aimed at the demon’s heart, his face twisted with rage. Kael sidestepped the strike without looking and drove his elbow into Ren’s back, sending him sprawling across the floor.

Elena attacked from the left, her twin swords singing. Dorian attacked from the right, his claymore whistling through the air. Marcus circled behind, looking for an opening.

Kael blocked Elena’s strikes with his forearm, the blades biting into his flesh but not cutting deep enough to stop him. He caught Dorian’s claymore with his bare hand, the edge digging into his palm, black blood dripping from the wound, and shoved the massive knight back into Marcus, sending them both crashing to the floor.

I swung Tempest at his head.

Kael caught the blade.

His fingers closed around the edge, the steel biting into his palm, and he looked at me with those hollow eyes. Black blood dripped down the blade and onto my hand, warm and thick.

"...You are still slow," he said.

He twisted.

"Look at you," he said, his voice soft and mocking. "All of you are broken, bleeding, dying. And for what?" He pointed at me with a bloodstained finger. "For him? He is not worth your lives. He is not worth anything. He could not even save his own master."

The words hit me like stones thrown by an angry crowd, each one finding its mark, each one leaving a bruise on something inside me that I thought had already been beaten numb.

He is right, I thought, and the voice in my head sounded small and tired. Roran died because of me. The children were taken because of me. And now these knights are going to die because of me.

I am weak.

I am worthless.

I am a failure.

Why am I even trying?

I looked down at my hands, the blood drying on my fingers, the sword in my grip that suddenly felt heavier than it had any right to be.

Why...?

Ren stepped forward before I could answer the question in my head. His sword was raised, his jaw was clenched, and his eyes were burning with a fury.

"Shut your mouth!" Ren said, his voice low and hard. "You do not get to talk about him like that. What the fuck do you even know about us?"

Kael’s smile did not waver. "Bold words for a man who can barely stand."

"I can stand well enough to put my blade through your throat."

Elena moved to Ren’s side, her twin swords raised, the blades crossed in front of her chest. "He is not alone."

Dorian stepped up on Ren’s other side, his massive claymore resting on his shoulder, a grin on his face. "He is not alone."

Marcus pushed himself off the wall, ignoring the pain in his ribs, his sword held in a two-handed grip. "We end this together."

I looked at them. These knights who had followed me into this nightmare, fought beside me for hours, bled and killed and nearly died for a cause that was not even theirs. They were exhausted. They were wounded. They were terrified.

However... they were not running.

Kael’s smile faded.

"Fine," Kael said, his voice flat and cold, his hollow eyes sweeping over all of us like he was already counting the seconds until we stopped breathing. "Come then. I will kill you all."

Ren did not wait. He lunged forward, his sword aimed at Kael’s chest, and Elena moved at the same instant from the left, her twin blades flashing in the green torchlight. Dorian came from the right, his massive claymore sweeping in a wide arc, and Marcus circled behind, looking for an opening in Kael’s guard.

All of them moved together, their strikes aimed at him, a coordinated attack that should have been impossible to block.

Kael did not block.

He moved.

His body twisted between Ren’s thrust and Elena’s slash, his shoulder brushing past Dorian’s swinging blade by less than an inch, and his hand shot out to catch Marcus’s sword mid-swing.

The steel stopped cold in his grip, and Marcus’s eyes went wide with shock. Kael twisted the blade out of Marcus’s hands and drove the pommel into the knight’s chest, sending him crashing back into the wall.

His aura flared.

The dark energy exploded outward from his body like a wave, invisible but crushing, and the knights were thrown back as if they had been hit by a physical force.

Ren stumbled and fell to one knee. Elena slammed into the wall and slid down, gasping for air. Dorian swung his claymore wildly, trying to keep his balance, but Kael was already inside his guard.

Kael grabbed Dorian’s wrist, his fingers digging into the flesh, and squeezed. The bones ground together, and Dorian roared in pain, his grip loosening on his sword. Kael wrenched the claymore free and tossed it aside, then drove his knee into Dorian’s stomach, doubling him over.

A young knight tried to attack from behind. Kael did not even look. He reached back, grabbed the knight’s hand, and twisted until the fingers snapped like dry twigs. The knight screamed, the sound high and wet, and Kael threw him into the wall.

The knight hit the stone with a sickening crack and slumped to the floor.

Marcus scrambled to his feet, his sword raised, but Kael was already there. He grabbed Marcus by the wrist, his fingers digging into the flesh, and twisted. The bone snapped with a sound like a dry branch breaking, and Marcus’s scream echoed through the corridor.

Kael pulled his arm back and ripped it free from the socket, blood spraying from the wound in a hot arc, and Marcus fell to the floor, his scream cut short by the shock.

Kael tossed the severed arm aside and turned to face the remaining knights. His aura pressed down on them, heavy and suffocating, and I could see the fear in their eyes, the way their hands trembled on their weapons, the way their breaths came in short, ragged gasps.

"Is this all you have?" Kael asked, his voice cold and amused, the words dripping with a contempt that made my skin crawl. "I thought maybe you could entertain me. But you are just like everyone else. Weak, pathetic, and broken."

He stepped over Marcus’s unconscious body and walked toward Ren, who was still on the ground, struggling to stand with his sword clutched in his shaking hands. The demon stood over him, looking down at the young knight with cold and empty eyes that held no more emotion than the stone walls around us.

Ren tried to raise his blade, but his arms would not obey. They hung at his sides, trembling, useless.

I pushed myself to my feet.

My body screamed in protest with every movement I made. My ribs were on fire, and each breath I took sent a fresh wave of pain through my chest. My lungs burned for air that would not come, and my vision swam at the edges, dark and blurry. But I moved.

I forced myself to grip Tempest’s hilt even though my fingers felt like they were filled with broken glass.

Kael raised his foot to stomp on Ren’s head.

I moved.

My feet carried me across the stone floor faster than I had ever moved before, my body screaming with every step, my lungs burning, my vision threatening to give out. I swung Tempest at Kael’s neck, putting everything I had left into the strike.

Kael turned.

His hand shot out and caught Tempest’s blade just like he had caught Marcus’s sword, his fingers closing around the edge, black blood dripping from his palm. I pushed harder, throwing all of my weight against the blade, but it did not move. It was like trying to push a mountain.

Kael’s other hand closed around my face.

His fingers dug into my cheeks, pressing against my jaw. He lifted me off the ground like I weighed nothing, my feet dangling in the air, my hands still gripping Tempest’s hilt even though I could not move the blade. He held me there for a moment, his hollow eyes inches from mine, his breath hot and sour on my face.

"You never learn, stubborn brat," he said.

He slammed me down onto the stone floor.

The impact drove the air from my lungs in a single, violent rush, and my head cracked against the stone hard enough to make my vision go white. I gasped for air that would not come, my chest heaving, my mouth open wide, but there was nothing.

Kael grabbed me by the collar and lifted me again. He dragged me across the floor and threw me like a sack of grain, and I flew through the air until I hit the far wall. My back slammed against the stone, and I slid down, my legs giving out beneath me, my sword clattering out of my hand and skittering across the floor.

I lay there, staring at the ceiling, gasping for air that would not come.

He kicked me in the ribs.

The pain was white-hot and blinding, and I curled into a ball, clutching my side, my mouth open in a silent scream. He kicked me again, and this time I flew across the floor, rolling to a stop against a pile of rubble from the collapsed wall.

Am I going to see the same thing repeated again? I thought. Am I going to lose again? Watch someone else die while I lie on the floor with my blood pooling around me?

No.

I cannot.

I will not.

Not again.

I pushed myself to my feet, coughing, blood dripping from my lips onto the stone. My body screamed in protest, my ribs on fire, my lungs burning for air that would not come.

I took a step forward. Then another.

I am not going to watch someone else die.

I am not going to be helpless.

I am not going to lose again.

Kael looked at me over his shoulder, his foot still raised, his expression curious. "...Still standing?"

I did not answer. My voice was gone, swallowed by the rage and the grief and the desperate, clawing need to do something.

Suddenly, a memory came without warning.

_

Roran stood across from me, his weathered practice sword resting loosely on his shoulder. I was panting, my chest heaving, my uniform torn and caked in mud. I had tried every move he’d taught me, every feint, every strike, and I hadn’t even touched his cloak.

"You’re thinking too much, Leo," Roran said, his voice as calm as the wind in the leaves.

"I’m trying to find the opening!" I snapped, wiping sweat from my eyes. "I’m trying to figure out the right technique to win!"

Roran walked over and sat on a fallen, mossy log. He gestured for me to join him.

"Understanding is not something you find in a book, kid. It is not something someone tells you. A sword art is not a technique. It is not a form. It is not something you can copy from someone else and call your own."

"Then what is it?"

Roran was quiet for a moment. "It is the moment your soul decides what it is willing to die for."

I stared at him.

"Stop trying to ’win’ against the world’s rules. That is not the point," he said, his eyes piercing mine. "Ranks, techniques, levels—those are just boundaries other people built. When you stop trying to ’win’ and start trying to ’be’, the first form will reveal itself. You have to decide what you want your sword to be. Not what it can do. What it is."

"...I do not understand."

"You will." Roran stood up and reached out his hand. "You have an inner world, Leo. Make that space yours. Demand that reality obeys you. When the time comes, the first form reveals itself when you stop searching for it. When you stop trying to be someone else and start being yourself."

I took his hand, and he pulled me to my feet.

"You are stubborn, Leo. More stubborn than anyone I have ever met. That is not a weakness. That is your strength." He tapped my chest with his finger. "You do not know how to give up. You do not know how to stay down. That is not something I taught you. That is something you were born with. Maybe you just haven’t realized it yet."

He turned and walked back toward the village, his shadow stretching long behind him.

"When you find your purpose, your art will find you. Not before or after. Right when you need it most."

_

I opened my eyes.

The corridor was still there. Kael was still there. The knights were still bleeding. The demons were advancing, their whips crackling, their blades raised.

But something was different.

The world around me seemed to slow. The sounds of battle faded, becoming distant and muffled, like echoes from the bottom of a well. The green torches on the walls dimmed, their light shrinking to pale pinpricks in the darkness. The shadows grew deeper, thicker, pressing in from all sides.

...And I was somewhere else.

I was standing in a void.

There was no floor beneath my feet, no ceiling above my head, no walls around me. Just darkness. Endless, empty, silent darkness. I looked down at my hands, and they were there, solid and real, but everything else was gone.

...What is this place?

I turned in a slow circle, trying to find something, anything, to orient myself. There was nothing. Just darkness and silence and the weight of my own thoughts pressing down on me like a physical force.

Roran said everyone has an inner world. A space inside themselves where their soul lives. Where their will takes shape.

Is this mine...?

I looked around again, and this time I noticed something. A faint light, just barely visible, at the edge of my vision. I walked toward it, and the darkness seemed to part around me, like a curtain being drawn back.

The light grew brighter as I approached, and I saw that it was coming from a sword.

Tempest.

The blade was embedded in the ground, its edge buried in the stone, its hilt pointing toward the sky like a beacon in the endless darkness.

The black lightning that usually danced along its surface was still and quiet and waiting, curled around the crossguard like a sleeping serpent. The black flame that sometimes flickered in my chest was nowhere to be seen on the blade itself, but I could feel it nearby, a warmth at the edge of my perception, patient and hungry.

...And around them both, something else stirred.

The air around Tempest was not still. It rippled and warped, bending the light that came from nowhere, distorting the space between the blade and my reaching hand. It was not flame and it was not lightning.

It was space.

The void.

The space between spaces. The empty that was not empty.

All three of them hummed together, not in harmony but in something close to it. Lightning crackled low and deep. Flame flickered without heat. Space twisted and turned, folding in on itself and then unfolding again, like a heart breathing.

I reached out and wrapped my fingers around the hilt. The moment I touched it, the three affinities went silent.

Then they roared.

The darkness around me shifted. It did not retreat or disappear like smoke before a strong wind.

It changed.

It became something else entirely, something that was not quite light and not quite dark, something that existed in the space between.

The void around me was no longer empty. It was thick with potential, heavy with possibility, breathing with me.

The ground beneath my feet became solid.

Stone, grey and rough, cracked in places where roots or claws or something else had torn through it, but solid beneath my boots.

A path stretched out before me, narrow and straight, leading into a distance that I could not measure. I could not see where it ended, and I could not see where it began.

It simply was, and I was standing on it.

I looked behind me, and there was nothing. Just darkness. Just the void that I had been floating in before.

But it was not threatening anymore.

It was not pressing in or trying to swallow me. It was just there, waiting, watching, like a patient hunter who knew that his prey would eventually have to come back.

...This is my inner world, I thought, turning in a slow circle, taking in every detail of the cracked stone and the dark horizon. A path. A single, narrow path in the middle of nowhere.

It was not much. But it was mine.

I looked down at Tempest in my hand, and the blade seemed to hum with a quiet energy, a gentle vibration that spread up my arm and into my chest.

The lightning was still there, coiled around the edge of the blade like a sleeping serpent. The flame was there too, flickering deep in the steel, waiting to be called. And the space around the blade was different, folded and refolded, compressed and expanded, like origami made of air.

All three of my affinities were present in the sword. All three were waiting for me to tell them what to do.

What is my purpose? I asked myself, staring at the blade. What... do I want my sword to be?

The answer came without hesitation, rising up from somewhere deep inside me, somewhere I had not known existed until this moment.

It was not a thought. It was a feeling.

A conviction.

A promise that I had been making to myself ever since I crawled out of the mud in Wayford and decided that I was not going to let anyone else die for me.

I want to protect the people who stayed.

I want to defy anything that tries to take them from me.

I want to be the wall that does not break.

The blade that does not dull.

The fire that does not go out.

I want to be the stubborn bastard who refuses to die.

The path beneath my feet began to change, as if understanding what my purpose was, shaping itself to match what I wanted.

The grey stone grew brighter, lighter, as if light was seeping up from somewhere far below, from the core of the world or the core of me. The cracks in the stone filled with something that glowed faintly, something that looked like molten gold or liquid fire or lightning made solid.

The light spread from one crack to another, branching out like veins, like roots, like the branches of a tree that had been growing in darkness and had finally found the sun.

The darkness around me did not retreat, but it stopped pressing in.

It stood at the edges of my vision, a ring of shadow surrounding the growing light on the path, watching and waiting but no longer threatening. It was not my enemy. It was just the part of me that I had not filled yet.

This is my world, I thought, and the words felt solid in my mouth, heavier than they had any right to be. And... I am going to build it into something no one can tear down.

I raised Tempest above my head, and the blade blazed with light.

_

I opened my eyes.

The corridor was still there.

Kael was still there, standing over Ren with his foot raised, his hollow eyes cold and empty.

The demons were still advancing, their whips crackling with that sickly green energy, their rusted blades raised and ready.

But I was not the same.

I could feel it in my chest, the difference. The space inside me where my core lived was not just full anymore. It was overflowing.

The mana that had been sluggish and tired was now surging, racing through my veins like a river that had broken through a dam.

The black lightning was not just crackling along Tempest’s blade. It was singing. The black flame was not just flickering in my chest. It was roaring.

And the space around me was not just empty air. It was mine to command.

Kael sensed it before he saw it.

His head turned toward me, his hollow eyes narrowing, his foot lowering back to the ground. Ren scrambled away, crawling toward the wall, but Kael did not chase him. He was too focused on me.

"...What is this?" he asked, his voice flat, but there was something underneath it now. Something that might have been caution.

I did not answer.

I walked toward him, Tempest raised, the black lightning crackling along the blade.

"I understand now...," I said, my voice low and steady, each word falling into place like a key turning in a lock. "...I understand what kind of sword I want to be. It is a blade that cuts because it is sharp. It is not a weapon that kills because it is angry."

I stopped in front of him, looking at the man who had murdered my master, who had destroyed my village, who had taken everything from me.

"I understand my purpose now. I am not here to win. I am not here to prove that I am stronger than you." I raised Tempest higher, and the black lightning surged along the blade, brighter than it had ever been. "...I am here to protect the people who stayed. To defy anything that tries to take them from me. I will be the wall that does not break."

Kael’s eyes widened.

"...And I know exactly what my sword art will be."

The words came out of me like a declaration, a vow, something that had been carved into my bones long before I was born and was only now being read aloud.

"Eclipse of the Singularity."