The morning dew had barely settled over the open training field near the lake when the first strike landed.
THWACK!
Justus was thrown backward across the grass, skidding through the dirt before tumbling to a stop.
His jaw burned, his lip split open, and a sharp, ringing vibration echoed inside his skull.
He spat a mouthful of blood into the green grass and forced himself back to his feet, his chest heaving.
Gryphon sat yards away, leaning harmlessly against the stone tea table where Silas had strictly commanded it to stay.
Unarmed and stripped of his blade, Justus felt naked.
Ten paces away stood Elder Silas.
He hadn’t even taken off his heavy travel cloak.
He held his knotwood walking stick casually in one hand, his gray eyes devoid of the gentle warmth he had shown over tea the day before.
Now, they were cold, iron-hard, and completely unforgiving.
“Your reaction time is pathetic,” Silas said coldly, stepping forward.
“You rely so heavily on that heavy piece of steel on your hip that without it, you’re just a helpless boy playing at being a warrior.”
“I was recovering my balance—” Justus began, raising his fists into a guard.
BOOM.
Silas was instantly in front of him.
The old man moved with a speed that defied his age—a blur of motion followed by the heavy wooden stick slamming directly into Justus’s ribs.
Justus gasped as the air was violently forced from his lungs.
Before he could fall, Silas spun, driving the butt of the staff straight into Justus’s sternum.
Justus flew backward, crashing hard against the earth.
His vision flickered with white spots as he clutched his side, groaning in agony.
“Get up,” Silas barked, his voice cutting through the quiet valley like a whip.
“Do you think Queen’s vanguards will give you time to catch your breath?
Do you think the Sovereigns will let you regain your balance?
When real power wants you dead, it crushes you in seconds!”
“Damn it…” Justus snarled.
He forced himself onto his hands and knees.
Blood dripped from his chin onto his knuckles.
Black, static-like sparks began to crackle over his forearms.
“That’s it,” Silas taunted, walking in a slow circle around him.
“Let the anger take over.
Let the void leak out carelessly.
Show me how easily you lose your mind when pressure hits.”
Justus lunged forward with a roar, launching a heavy right hook wrapped in a volatile surge of dark energy.
Silas didn’t even shift his footing.
With a fluid, effortless flick of his wrist, the knotwood stick deflected Justus’s wrist upward, completely redirecting the blow into the empty sky.
In the same motion, Silas brought the wooden staff down in a devastating strike straight across Justus’s back.
CRACK.
Justus slammed face-first into the dirt, the dark aura around his arms instantly shattering into harmless black smoke.
“Useless!” Silas yelled, standing over Justus’s battered body.
“You claim you want to protect your friends!
You claim you want to stand against the forces hunting you!
But the moment a real threat presses down on your skull, your control shatters!
You run on panic and desperate prayer!”
Silas planted the tip of his walking stick directly against the center of Justus’s spine, pinning him down into the dirt with an absurd amount of physical pressure.
Justus gritted his teeth so hard he felt his gums bleed, his fingers clawing uselessly at the soil as he tried to lift the old man’s weight off him.
“Are you praying right now, Justus?” Silas asked softly, his tone dipping into a chilling, brutal cadence.
“Are you waiting for some divine light to burst through the clouds and save you?
Are you waiting for Aurion to look down from the heavens and hand you victory because your cause is noble?”
Justus choked out a breath, his vision blurring with tears of pain and frustration.
“I…
I don’t…”
“Listen to me, boy!” Silas shouted, leaning down until his voice echoed directly in Justus’s ear.
“There is no divine light coming for you!
If you think there is a God who will magically grant you strength in your hour of need, then you are a fool!
God is not there!”
The words hit Justus harder than any physical strike.
“There are no miracles waiting at the end of your suffering!
There is only you!
Your blood, your pain, your discipline, and your willingness to stand when your bones are broken!
The world does not care about your good intentions—it only respects the absolute strength you build with your own two hands!”
Silas lifted the stick off Justus’s back and stepped away.
“Get up,” Silas commanded, his tone dropping back into a quiet, deadly calm.
“Or lay there in the dirt and accept that you are exactly as helpless as you feel.”
Justus lay still for a long, agonizing moment, his cheek pressed into the cold soil.
Silas’s words echoed in the dark chambers of his mind, stripping away the last lingering embers of naive hope he had carried since leaving Black Ridge.
God is not there.
No one was coming to save him.
No divine intervention was going to fix his broken core, beat Queen’s armies, or keep Daemon and Lyra safe.
The weight of his fate rested entirely on his own shoulders.
Slowly, agonizingly, Justus dug his bloodied fingers into the earth.
He pushed his upper body up.
His muscles screamed in protest, his cracked ribs throbbed with a burning ache, but he didn’t stop.
He dragged his legs beneath him, stood up, and wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his bruised hand.
He didn’t raise his dark aura in a chaotic burst this time.
He didn’t let the anger consume his mind.
Instead, Justus pulled the darkness inward.
He locked it deep within his center, compressing the volatile energy until it formed a tight, silent layer around his knuckles and heart—dense, quiet, and completely under his command.
Justus raised his bare hands, his red eyes burning with a cold, terrifyingly sharp focus.
“Again,” Justus rasped, his voice steady.
A faint, ghostly smile flickered across Silas’s face before vanishing back behind his stoic mask.
He raised his knotwood stick into a high guard.
“Good,” Silas said.
“Now we begin.”