From his seat in the crowd, William watched that transformation sweep through Richard’s body with narrowed eyes, trying to understand the nature of a power he was seeing clearly for the first time in many long years.
*The Strength Blessing... that’s what this boy carries. No doubt about it.*
He noticed how that transformation hadn’t changed a single thing about Richard’s weapon itself; his broken sword remained broken, its metal unchanged, no trace of real alteration in it at all, while the entire transformation was concentrated purely on the body — those swollen muscles, those bulging veins, that blinding speed that hadn’t existed moments earlier.
*He’s pouring his magic directly into his own body, pushing it to its absolute limit, without any change to his weapon whatsoever. That’s the fundamental difference between what Richard carries and what my son is just now beginning to discover.*
William looked toward Alexander’s transformed sword, that blade now gaining new glowing lines, a shape entirely different from the rusted sword he’d carried just a week ago.
*The Evolution Blessing develops the weapon, reshapes it, grants it new properties every time it’s used correctly. The Strength Blessing, though, never touches the weapon at all — it develops the body itself, pushes it to limits it never knew it had. Alexander strengthens his sword, while Richard strengthens himself. Two paths heading in completely opposite directions toward the same result: a power with no predictable limit.*
William kept watching in silence, and felt a worry entirely different from what he’d expected creeping into his chest.
*This isn’t the Great Priest’s glow... I don’t need to read that old book again to know that. I told the priest my son might carry that sacred power, based on a glow I saw with my own eyes exactly once. But what I’m seeing now isn’t holiness... this is blind stubbornness, an insatiable hunger, something pushing body and soul to the edge of collapse for the sake of winning alone, not for the service of any god.*
He looked at his son, who had already fallen once, and felt something like real fear settle in his stomach — a fear he hadn’t even known in the fiercest battles he’d fought.
*What if I was wrong? What if Alexander isn’t the Great Priest at all, but something else entirely — something that book never described, nor any other book I’ve ever read in my life?*
From among the rows of priests standing near the Templars, William felt a heavy stare settle on him from another direction, and he turned to find that same man in the red robe, the one who’d opened the competition with his long speech, standing among the ranks — but his eyes weren’t fixed on the arena like the rest of the crowd. They were fixed directly on William, not on Alexander. It wasn’t a look of curiosity, but something closer to silent assessment, as though he were re-calculating every word William had told him about his son in that small room full of books.
The priest leaned slightly toward another man beside him, his lips moving with words that didn’t reach William from that distance, while the other man nodded slowly, his own eyes now shifting toward William as well, not toward the arena.
William felt a sudden chill spread through his stomach.
*Have they started doubting my word, not just my son? If it turns out I was wrong in front of them, what will they think of me after that? A man who claimed his son was the Great Priest with no real proof... that alone is enough to bring their eyes to this house in a way I never wanted.*
He pushed the thought aside with difficulty, redirecting his full attention back to the arena, where Richard was preparing for a new strike, when he felt his wife’s hand suddenly grip his arm from the neighboring seat, her fingers trembling with unusual force. He looked at her and found her eyes distant, fixed on and off on her fallen son, as though trying to see something in his near future that no one else could see. Daron, meanwhile, had his fist clenched around the edge of his wooden seat so tightly his knuckles had gone white, his body leaning forward unconsciously, like someone fighting off an overwhelming urge to leap into the arena and intervene himself.
That next blow came more violent than anything before it — one heavy punch striking the side of Alexander’s head this time, sending him flying off the ground entirely before he crashed down hard onto the dirt, his body bouncing once before settling nearly motionless, his ears ringing with a sharp sound that drowned out everything else, a sharp metallic taste filling his mouth, blood mixing with fine dirt caked on his cracked lips.
He lay there, the sky above him spinning very slowly, the crowd’s noise distant, muffled, as though reaching him through a thick wall of water. He felt his heartbeat pounding in his head instead of his chest, each pulse striking like a hammer behind his eyes, an immense weight settling over his entire body, as though it had suddenly turned into a block of lead refusing to answer any command his mind sent to it.
*I can’t... my body won’t respond.*
He tried moving his hand, and his fingers barely trembled, and he felt that sticky temptation slip into his mind — the temptation to just stay there, just one more moment, just to rest a little before trying to get up again, while the image of the gray sky above him flickered in and out of focus before his exhausted eyes, its edges rippling as though melting into the air.
*Get up, damn it... get up, body.*
He repeated those words in his head, an inner voice closer to a scream than a whisper, trying to force his trembling muscles to respond, his fingers scratching slowly at the cold dirt beneath him, searching for any point of leverage to push off from, while his chest rose and fell in broken gasps, every breath igniting a sharp pain in his bruised ribs.
Richard stood over him, watching that stumbling body try to get up for the sixth or seventh time, genuine curiosity beginning to replace the cold anger that had driven him since his transformation began.
*"Why are you resisting? Why do you refuse to stay down?"*
Alexander looked up at him from the ground, utterly exhausted, but his voice came out steady despite everything.
*"Because I’ve fallen too many times already... I want to try what it feels like to stay standing."*
Richard raised a single eyebrow, as though the answer had sparked more curiosity in him than he’d expected.
*"That’s your definition of it? That strength is just refusing to give up?"*
Alexander shook his head slowly, exhaustion clear in every movement, as he pushed himself up with a trembling arm.
*"I don’t know... I’m still new to understanding strength."*
Richard let out a short laugh, carrying no mockery this time, something closer to genuine amusement, as though he found something in Alexander’s ignorance worth correcting.
*"Strength isn’t about holding a sword and standing your ground... it’s the line between the weak and the strong. It’s the concept between master and slave. There’s no good or evil in this world, no noble and poor... only strong and weak."*
Alexander listened to those words in silence, something in them settling in his mind with a strange weight, deeper than just an opponent’s philosophy meant to rattle him before a final blow.
*Strong and weak... nothing else? Is that really what this man believes, or is he trying to plant that idea in me right now, in this exact moment?*
He looked at the transformed Richard before him, at those bulging veins and that body that no longer resembled the elegant boy he’d met backstage, and felt something like a strange acceptance creeping into his chest, as though part of him had begun agreeing with that harsh philosophy without meaning to.