The wooden practice sword felt heavy.
Not because of its actual weight, but because of the sheer mental force required
to hold it.
Cain stood in the center of the Valcrest estate's private training ground. The
morning air was still, the sun barely cresting over the high stone walls. He
stared at the blunt edge of the wooden blade, his breathing falling into a slow,
deliberate rhythm.
In the dungeon, during the final massacre, he hadn't thought about mana.
When the horde had swarmed them, when Rei had fallen and Liora had collapsed,
the system had still been active. He had acquired Mana Blade. He had acquired
Exchange. The system had recognized his desperation and handed him the tools to
survive, building the complex mana structures for him in a fraction of a second.
Now, the system was dead.
If he wanted to use those skills, he had to build the architecture himself.
Cain routed mana from his core, pushing it down his arm and into the hilt of the
sword. He tried to visualize the dense, razor-thin edge of Mana Blade.
The mana flared.
It wrapped around the wood, glowing a faint, unstable blue. But it didn't
condense. It wavered, leaking into the air like smoke from a dying fire.
The 50% Soul Integrity lag.
His mind commanded the mana to compress, but his damaged soul delayed the
signal. By the time the mana responded, the structure had already fallen apart.
"You are treating it like a spell," Elios's voice echoed quietly in his mind.
The shadow cat sat on the stone wall a few meters away, its silver eyes tracking
Cain's movements.
"A spell is cast outward," the ancient remnant continued, his tone tired but
precise. "A skill like that must be an extension of your own body. Do not push
the mana into the blade. Pull the blade into your mana."
Cain lowered the sword.
He didn't respond to the cat. He just adjusted his grip and tried again.
He closed his eyes, mapping the flow. He didn't force it this time. He let the
mana bleed into the wood naturally, treating the sword not as an object, but as
a continuation of his own arm.
A faint, high-pitched hum vibrated through the air.
Cain opened his eyes.
The wooden edge was coated in a perfectly still, translucent layer of condensed
mana. It didn't waver. It didn't leak.
"You've been staring at that stick for twenty minutes."
The voice broke his concentration.
The mana shattered instantly, dissipating into the wind.
Cain turned.
Rei walked onto the training ground, rolling his shoulders. He wore a loose
training tunic, the bandages around his ribs still faintly visible beneath the
fabric. He looked tired, but the familiar, competitive spark was back in his
eyes.
"I'm recalibrating," Cain said smoothly, lowering the blade.
"Looks like you're struggling," Rei smirked, drawing his own practice sword from
the rack. "Let's see where you're actually at. No lethal strikes. Just pacing."
Cain didn't argue.
He raised his blade.
Rei moved instantly.
He didn't hold back. Wind mana swirled around Rei's legs, increasing his speed
as he closed the distance. He swung in a wide, horizontal arc, aiming to test
Cain's guard.
Cain stepped back.
The delay hit him.
His mind registered the strike, but his body moved a fraction of a second too
late. The tip of Rei's wooden sword clipped Cain's shoulder, throwing his
balance off.
Rei pressed the advantage, stepping in for a thrust.
Cain didn't try to block. He knew his arms wouldn't respond in time.
Instead, he reached out with his left hand, his fingers brushing against a loose
stone resting on the ground near his boot.
Exchange.
He forced the mana through his core, ignoring the agonizing friction of his
damaged soul. He linked his spatial coordinates with the stone.
The world shifted.
Rei's thrust hit nothing but empty air.
A sharp clack echoed behind Rei as the small stone dropped onto the ground where
Cain had just been standing.
Rei froze.
He slowly turned his head.
Cain stood five meters behind him, his wooden sword resting casually at his
side, his chest heaving slightly from the sheer effort the manual spatial swap
had required.
Rei stared at him, his eyes wide.
"Since when..." Rei started, his voice dropping in disbelief. "Since when can
you teleport?"
"It's not teleportation," Cain said, his breathing rough. "It's a spatial swap.
I need an anchor."
"I don't care what it's called!" Rei spun around, lowering his sword. "You
didn't have that before the boss room. You didn't have that when we were
fighting the horde."
"I did," Cain said quietly.
Rei frowned, confusion mixing with frustration. "When?"
"After you went down."
The courtyard fell silent.
Rei's grip tightened on his sword. He remembered the overwhelming number of
demons. He remembered his ribs cracking, his vision going dark, and the absolute
certainty that they were all going to die in that cave.
He hadn't seen what happened next.
But someone else had.
At the edge of the courtyard, standing beneath the shade of the archway, Aera
watched them.
She hadn't announced her presence. Her hands were clasped tightly in front of
her, her knuckles white. When Cain mentioned the moments after Rei fell, her
breath hitched.
She remembered.
She remembered the way the stone had fractured beneath Cain's feet. The way the
terrifying, suffocating black mist had wrapped around him like a shroud. She
remembered the absolute, unnatural silence as he slaughtered the horde, moving
like something that was no longer human.
Aera looked at Cain now. He looked normal. Calm. But she could feel the
terrifying emptiness in his soul.
She didn't speak. She didn't run to him. She just stayed quietly at the edge of
the grounds, a silent, supportive presence.
Liora stood a few feet away from Aera, her arms folded.
She hadn't seen the end of the fight either. She had passed out from mana
exhaustion. But she was watching Cain now, analyzing the slight tremor in his
hand and the heavy rise and fall of his chest.
"Your timing is broken," Liora said, her voice cutting through the quiet
courtyard.
Rei glanced at her, then back at Cain.
Liora stepped out of the shade. "The spatial swap was effective, but the
execution was sloppy. You hesitated before the activation. If Rei hadn't
overcommitted to his thrust, he would have caught you mid-transfer."
Cain met her gaze.
She wasn't mocking him. She was evaluating him.
"The flow is manual now," Cain replied, not offering excuses, only facts.
Liora nodded slowly. "Then you need to stop thinking about the steps. You are
treating your mana like a tool you have to pick up. It needs to be reflex."
Deep inside Cain's core, a dark, heavy pressure pulsed.
The Black Veil.
It wasn't a voice. It was a raw, violent instinct. It surged at the base of his
spine, offering to take the burden. Offering to bypass the exhausting mental
calculations and just move him. It promised speed. It promised survival.
All he had to do was let go.
Cain's eyes darkened. His fingers gripped the wooden hilt so hard the wood
groaned.
He crushed the instinct down.
He locked it away, forcing the dark urge back into the depths of his fractured
soul. The effort sent a sharp spike of pain through his chest, but his
expression never changed.
He would not rely on the corruption.
Cain raised his wooden sword again, pointing the tip toward Rei.
"Again," Cain said.
Rei let out a long breath, a small, competitive smirk returning to his face.
"Alright. But if you swap places with a rock again, I'm breaking it."
Cain didn't smile.
He just focused his breathing, preparing for the friction of the next strike.
______
Author note,
Hello guys, I hope you are doing well, how's the chapter, is it good, I would like to know but y'all don't even comment, fine leave it
I HAVE A SURPRISE
See that in the next chapter…
Gotta keep the cliff hanger. Hahaha