The war lacked its edge. What once had my heart racing with the thrill of survival now felt more like an exercise—a necessary, albeit mundane, chore.
It wasn't arrogance, just reality. The current me, the one standing on the precipice of mid Ascendant-rank, had grown beyond the majority of threats the vampires and cultists could throw my way. A Vampire Elder might have posed a problem if they were at peak Ascendant-rank, with centuries of accumulated experience surpassing their natural lifespan. But such individuals were rarer than a comet's passage.
As for Vampire Ancestors or Immortal-rank cultists, they were elusive, more shadows than substance in the heat of battle. Without Alyssara Velcroix to lead them, the vampires and the Red Chalice cult were on their back foot, pushed to the brink by the combined might of the East's forces. Three Radiant-rankers among our ranks ensured that every clash tipped in our favour.
Seraphina departed for Mythos Academy, her duties calling her back for the mid-year examinations. Meanwhile, I remained, my focus shifting to stabilising my progress at mid Ascendant-rank. The battles became less about survival and more about refinement—sharpening my abilities one by one instead of throwing them all into the fray at once.
Stronger didn't mean complacent. It meant prepared. And every skirmish was another thread woven into the fabric of my arsenal.
"Bored, are we?" Mo Zenith's voice, rich with an undercurrent of amusement, broke through my musings. His ice-blue eyes sparkled, a glint of teasing warmth in their depths.
"Sort of," I admitted, scratching the back of my head. "It's helpful, don't get me wrong. But I've been taking it easy, testing each ability individually rather than going all out."
"Ah, so you're toying with your enemies," Mo retorted, his tone sharper, his gaze more pointed. I turned my eyes away, not because he was wrong but because he was annoyingly right.
Still, his words lingered. Toying wasn't quite it. Experimenting, perhaps. If I couldn't test myself against genuine threats, I might as well treat this time as a laboratory of sorts.
'Perhaps it's time to begin the Violet Mist Divine Art,' I thought, the idea crystallising in my mind. Mastering the Grade 6 art was a long road, one that would need to be completed before I stepped into Radiant-rank. It was a promise I'd made to Mo, after all.
"Uncle," I said, breaking the silence, "do you think I need a barrage-type movement if I'm going to master the Violet Mist Divine Art?"
"You don't," he replied without hesitation, his tone resolute. "However, it's a fact that even for a monster like you, it will take nearly two years before you can fully execute even the first movement."
I nodded, his words aligning with my own calculations. The Violet Mist Divine Art wasn't something you rushed. It required an intricate understanding of the body, mind, and mana, a synergy I had yet to fully grasp.
"Then maybe I should just develop my third movement for my Grade 6 art in the meantime," I mused aloud. "It'd be faster."
Mo's lips twitched into a faint smile. "That would make sense. But," he added, his tone turning sterner, "you'll still need to dedicate yourself to the Violet Mist Divine Art. No shortcuts."
"I know," I said, my voice firm. There was no room for shortcuts when it came to the promises I made—to others or to myself.
The training ground was silent, save for the faint rustle of the wind brushing against the mountainside. I stood alone, replaying the movements of the Violet Mist Divine art in my mind.
The art demanded more than power—it demanded understanding, patience, and precision. Each movement, each thought, had to be deliberate. There was no room for brute force or blind repetition.
I exhaled, letting my gaze drift to the horizon. The mountains loomed around me, their ancient presence a reminder of how small I was, yet how much I could grow. Somewhere within me, amidst the swirling chaos of power and ambition, was the potential to make the mist bloom into plum blossoms.
And so, I began.
Closing my eyes, I focused inward. My astral energy churned within me, a tempest held in check by sheer willpower. I reached out with it, shaping it, coaxing it to flow outward like the scroll described. The first attempt was clumsy, the energy too dense and erratic. The air shimmered faintly, but no mist formed.
"Flow," I muttered to myself. "Mist flows."
The second attempt was no better. The energy lashed outward, dissipating into the air before it could take shape. Frustration prickled at the edges of my mind, but I shoved it down. This wasn't a battle. It was a dance, a negotiation.
I tried again.
This time, I imagined the mist as an extension of my breath, light and natural. The energy softened, its movements less rigid. Violet tendrils began to form, curling around me in delicate spirals.
It wasn't perfect. It wasn't even good. But it was progress.
I opened my eyes, watching the mist dissipate. The effort left me breathless, my body aching from the strain of control. Yet, despite the fatigue, I felt a flicker of satisfaction. The first step had been taken.
Hours blurred into days. Alone in the training ground, I repeated the process over and over, each attempt refining the mist's flow, its consistency, its presence. There were moments of frustration, when the mist refused to form, when it unraveled before my eyes. But there were also moments of triumph, when the tendrils grew stronger, more vibrant, more alive.
The scroll's depiction of the plum blossoms felt impossibly distant. Each time I glanced at the elegant drawings, a pang of inadequacy gnawed at me. How could I create something so delicate, so perfect, when I couldn't even sustain the mist for more than a few minutes?
But I didn't stop.
The air around me grew colder as the sun dipped below the horizon. The mist swirled faintly at my feet, a fragile testament to my efforts. I sank to my knees, my body heavy with exhaustion, but my mind refused to rest.
"This is just the beginning," I whispered to myself.
I reached out once more, the violet tendrils responding sluggishly to my call. My fingers brushed the ground as the energy spread outward, weaving itself into the fabric of the air. For a fleeting moment, I thought I saw the hint of a bloom—a tiny, tentative petal forming within the mist.
But it vanished before I could be sure.
"This is far more frustrating than I thought," I muttered, running a hand through my hair. The air around me shimmered faintly with the remnants of my last attempt. The violet mist refused to cooperate, dissipating as quickly as it formed.
Learning a Grade 6 art was a lesson in patience—a slow crawl up a sheer, unyielding cliff face. And, as I'd chosen one of the more intricate arts, there would be no shortcuts, no synergy to carry me forward. Such was the path of strength: carved inch by inch with sweat and stubborn resolve.
I sighed, stretching my neck to ease the tension building between my shoulders. The plum blossoms I sought to conjure remained as elusive as ever. "Maybe I'm just not—"
A sharp jolt of awareness shot through me like lightning. My instincts screamed. Luna's voice flickered through my mind like a distant chime: danger.
Then I felt her.
A presence so overwhelming it crushed the air from my lungs, drowned out the world, and replaced it with a singular, suffocating certainty.
She had arrived.
Alyssara Velcroix.
I didn't need to see her to know. The oppressive aura, the weight of something vast and incomprehensible, spoke for itself. Raising my sword would have been laughable. It would have been the futile defiance of a candle against the sun.
And then she was there, stepping from the shadows as if they had always been hers. Her voice—soft, melodic, and more dangerous than any blade—spilled into the air.
"I missed you, Arthur," she said, the words curling through the space between us like smoke. Her jade-green eyes glittered with amusement, and the faintest smile played on her lips.
I swallowed hard, my throat dry. Alyssara Velcroix was everything I had imagined her to be—graceful, predatory, terrifying. She was a tapestry of contradictions, her playful tone at odds with the suffocating dread her mere presence brought.
She tilted her head, her pink hair shimmering in the dim light as she leaned forward slightly. "Tell me, Arthur," she whispered, her voice impossibly close, though she hadn't moved. "Shall I dance for you? Or would you rather I warm your bed?"
Her words struck like venom, seeping into my mind, clouding my thoughts. I took an instinctive step back, putting distance between us—or trying to. The space itself felt wrong, warped, as though retreating was impossible. Luna's presence, usually a comforting weight in the back of my mind, was barely there, overwhelmed by Alyssara's suffocating aura.
I tried to speak, but my voice wouldn't come. My body screamed at me to move, to act, but the sheer weight of her power held me in place. I gritted my teeth, forcing myself to take another step back.
Alyssara's smile widened, though her eyes remained cool, detached. "Oh, Arthur," she sighed, as though amused by my struggle. "You're just as delightful as I hoped."
The sheer disparity between us hit me like a tidal wave. I wanted to hate her, wanted to feel the burning rage I had carried since the day Professor Nero fell by her hand. But here, now, standing before her, that anger seemed so small, so fragile. I clenched my fists, trying to cling to it, to keep it from slipping away.
Alyssara wasn't just powerful. She was beyond.
High Radiant-rank. It was a level only hinted at in the novel, Saga of a Divine Swordsman, a realm so vast and incomprehensible that it defied the logic of lesser ranks. The difference between mid and high Radiant-rank wasn't merely a gap; it was a chasm, a gulf so immense that it was said to rival the divide between entire ranks.
This wasn't just strength. This was transcendence.
I had long believed that the Demon Lords of legend must have occupied this level, so absolute was their dominion. Only later had Luna revealed to me the truth—that they existed even beyond this, in the uncharted realm of Divine-rank.
But Alyssara Velcroix… she was already a monster. A living, breathing god among mortals.
And she was watching me. Waiting.
"Don't be shy," she said, her voice a soft purr.