The training chamber emptied slowly, one by one, as though each student feared the air still burned with rlin's power.
Whispers drifted in their wake, hushed but sharp enough to cut:
"Six stars."
"Impossible."
"He's not normal."
rlin heard every one. He didn't respond.
He remained at the center of the chamber, boots planted on the polished floor, his golden eyes fixed on the far wall where faint echoes of the simulation still lingered in his mind. He wasn't trembling. He wasn't even tired. That was what unsettled him most of all.
Everyone else had been pushed to the brink. He hadn't even cracked.
He clenched his fist slowly, arcs of lightning flickering faintly around his knuckles before he forced them down. 'This strength… I can't deny it anymore. I'm not on their level. Not even close.'
The thought carried no pride. Only weight.
A shadow fell across him.
Morgana stood a few paces away, her dark hair curtaining her pale face, crimson eyes steady. She didn't flinch under his gaze. She didn't whisper. She only looked.
"You felt it," rlin said, his voice low.
"I asured it," she corrected softly. "Six stars. Maybe a little more. You're not pretending anymore."
Her words should have sounded accusatory. They didn't. They were simply truth.
rlin exhaled, his jaw tight. "…And what are you going to do with that truth?"
Morgana tilted her head. For a mont, her aura curled faintly, shadows tugging at the edges of her cloak. Then she shook her head. "Nothing. For now."
Her boots clicked softly as she turned, walking toward the exit. But at the doorway, she paused.
"You can't hide anymore, Everhart. Not from them. Not from the instructors. Not from yourself."
Then she was gone.
–––
The chamber was silent again.
rlin dragged a hand down his face, the calluses scraping against his skin. His body felt heavier now, not from fatigue, but from the silence that followed truth.
"rlin."
The voice ca gentle, familiar.
He turned.
Victoria stood at the edge of the hall, clutching a small bouquet of flowers she must have bought from the market stalls on her way here. They looked out of place in the sterile training facility, bright, alive, fragile.
Her eyes weren't. They brimd with tears.
"You didn't tell ," she said, her voice trembling.
rlin's throat tightened. "…Tell you what?"
"That you'd changed this much. That you were—" Her words broke. She looked down at the flowers, her hands shaking, petals trembling with them. "I thought I'd lost you once already. And now… now I don't even recognize you."
rlin took a step forward, then another, his boots echoing against the floor until he stood before her. Slowly, carefully, he reached out and touched her wrist. The flowers bent under his hand, petals brushing his skin.
"You haven't lost ," he said quietly. "Not then. Not now. I'm still here, Victoria."
Her lips pressed together. A tear slipped free, streaking her cheek. She shook her head. "You say that, but when you stood there… when the others couldn't even breathe around you… you didn't look like my brother anymore."
rlin's chest ached. He wanted to argue, to explain, but no words would make her see what he felt. That this strength wasn't sothing he'd wanted, it was sothing forced, sothing carved into him by gods and war and pain.
Instead, he simply pulled her into an embrace.
Victoria stiffened, then collapsed against him, her forehead pressing into his chest, her shoulders trembling. "Don't leave again," she whispered.
His arms tightened. "Never."
By the ti she pulled away, the flowers were crushed between them, petals scattered across the training hall floor. She laughed softly, shakily, at the sight. "You ruin everything you touch."
rlin smirked faintly. "Guess I'm consistent, then."
Her laugh cracked into a sob, but she nodded.
–––
Later, after Victoria had left to give him space, rlin found himself wandering the academy corridors.
The stone halls stretched wide and high, banners of elental sigils fluttering faintly under enchanted airflow.
He passed clusters of students, their conversations dipping to whispers the mont he stepped near. Eyes darted to him, then away, then back again. Fear. Awe. Curiosity.
He ignored them.
But their words still bled through.
"Six stars."
"He's not one of us."
"How can we compete with that?"
rlin's jaw tightened. His hands shoved into his pockets.
'They're not wrong. But damn it… I didn't ask for this gap.'
He pushed out into the courtyard, where evening sunlight painted the fountains gold. The spray caught the light like shattered glass, rippling across the surface.
He wasn't alone.
Elara stood by the water, silver hair glinting in the fading light, violet eyes fixed on the horizon. She didn't turn as he approached, but her voice carried clearly across the stone.
"You should have stayed hidden."
rlin stopped behind her, brow furrowing. "…You think I wanted them to see?"
"You knew they would," she replied sharply. Her reflection rippled in the water, eyes narrowing. "Once you fight without chains, there is no going back. They will never look at you the sa."
rlin stared at her back, his chest tight. "…And you?"
At that, she turned. Her violet gaze locked with his, unreadable. For a heartbeat, silence stretched between them, broken only by the fountain's song.
Then she stepped closer, until the fading sunlight painted her silver hair in firelight.
"I will still walk beside you," she said softly. "But don't expect the others to."
rlin's breath caught. He wanted to thank her, but the words felt too heavy, too fragile, caught between his teeth. So he just nodded once.
Elara nodded back, and for that mont, it was enough.
–––
The night deepened.
rlin returned to the infirmary alone, his body still thrumming faintly with energy he hadn't burned away in the battle. He sat on the edge of the bed, staring at his hands.
Golden arcs flickered faintly across his fingertips. His reflection stared back at him in the window, eyes too sharp, shoulders too heavy.
He rembered the garden. The steel-grey eyes. The words that had burned themselves into his skull.
"If you cannot stand in truth, you are already broken."
rlin closed his eyes, pressing his palm to the glass. Outside, the world slept peacefully. Students laughed faintly in distant dorm halls. The fountain murmured. The moon glowed.
And yet inside, silence pressed against him like chains.
"…What the hell am I supposed to do with this strength?" he whispered to the night.
The window gave no answer.
–––
Far across campus, the instructors sat in quiet council.
Vivienne leaned against the wall, arms folded, eyes burning with thought. Reinhardt sat stiffly, his sword resting against the chair, his beard shadowing his frown. Sophia scribbled notes, ink blotting the parchnt where her hand shook.
"Six stars," Reinhardt muttered. "A first-year."
"It shouldn't be possible," Sophia said sharply. "Even prodigies don't jump the wall this early. Sothing is… wrong."
Vivienne's eyes narrowed. "Not wrong. Different. He's not like the rest of them. He never was."
Reinhardt grunted. "Then the question becos—what will we do with him?"
No one answered.
–––
Back in the infirmary, rlin finally lay back, staring at the ceiling. His muscles ached faintly, his mind louder than any pain. He thought of Nathan's rage, Liliana's tears, Morgana's truth, Victoria's fear, Elara's vow.
He thought of Rathan.
He thought of the gods.
And he thought of the future.
Tomorrow, the combat exams would continue.
But tonight, in the silence of his room, rlin felt the gap stretch wider than ever.
And he wondered, not for the first ti, if he was walking a path no one else could follow.
—
The hum of mana surged low and constant through the chamber. Rows of pods stood like sleek coffins of steel and crystal, each one humming faintly as runes carved into their surfaces pulsed with synchronized rhythm. The air reeked faintly of ozone, sharp with anticipation.
rlin stood among the other first-years, watching as they filtered in. For once, there was no idle chatter, no laughter that echoed too loud in the vaulted hall. Every student knew what was coming.
This wasn't pairs. This wasn't teams. This was everyone.
"All of you will enter the arena," Vivienne's voice cut through the air, strong and clipped. She stood before them, long blonde hair tied back, her arms crossed. "The rules are simple: last one standing wins. Alliances may form, betrayals may follow, but make no mistake, this is every man and woman for themselves."
A ripple went through the crowd. Nervous shifting of boots. Glances traded. Whispers snuffed out as quickly as they sparked.
rlin's golden eyes scanned them all. Nathan. Elara. Adrian. Liliana. Ethan. Seraphina. Dorian. Dozens more. Each of them strong in their own way. Each of them holding three stars at most.
'They're not ready for this,' rlin thought, jaw tightening. 'Not against .'
His system flickered faintly in the corner of his vision.
[Alignnt Stable.]
[Current Threshold: 6 Stars.]
He ignored it.
Vivienne's gaze swept the room like fire. "Enter the pods. Now."
–––
The students moved.
rlin found his pod near the center. He ran a hand across the smooth surface, cold, clinical. The last ti he'd lain in one, he'd woken to horror.
He inhaled, slow. 'This ti, I'll wake to truth.'
The lid hissed open. He lowered himself inside, the padding molding to his body, the faint thrum of mana enveloping him like a cocoon. The helt lowered over his head. Darkness claid him.
–––
The world tore open.
rlin's eyes snapped wide to blinding sunlight. Sand stretched endlessly in every direction, golden dunes rolling beneath a blazing sky. Heat pressed against his skin, dry and sharp, each grain of sand shifting like tiny blades beneath his boots.
An arena. Not stone, not steel, desert. Harsh. rciless.
The other students appeared in bursts of light around him, scattered across the dunes. Dozens of figures blinking against the sun, weapons already in hand.
A horn split the air.
The free-for-all began.
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