Chapter 21: The one who watches
The sky over the Tyrant Spirit Fortress had shifted. The sun, barely risen, filtered pale gold across the spiked parapets and black banners, but even daylight couldn’t touch the weight that now hung in the air. Word was already spreading three had emerged. One of them had passed.
Inside the Hall of Echoes, Thalen stood before a council of shadows.
Nine figures, seated behind a barrier of red light, observed him from above. The SSS Heroes. The only living bearers of the Tyrant Spirit. Each of them possessed a second aura that had twisted their strength into legend. Their silhouettes loomed vast, barely human beneath the weight of power.
He could barely look at them.
But one of them the cloaked man who had awaited him outside the chamber stood nearby. Unlike the rest, he had revealed himself. Long silver hair fell past his shoulders, a crimson scar crossing his face from brow to jaw. His left eye glowed faintly with aura residue, the kind only those who had survived impossible trials bore.
"I am Varos. Tyrant Spirit wielder. SSS Rank. Blade Sovereign."
Thalen blinked. Blade Sovereign?
He barely had time to process before the others began to speak.
A woman with an aura like frost: "You claim he passed. And yet he wields Blade Aura?"
A guttural voice from the far left: "In twenty years, none passed. Why now?"
Varos didn’t flinch. "Because he fought without hesitation. Because he faced the Spirit of Judgment and did not yield. The boy doesn’t understand what he carries yet, but he passed."