In the depths of the night, I found myself in a void. Ti had shattered like the pieces of a broken mirror, each shard reflecting a different agony.
In one corner were Rebecca’s eyes, but they were not eyes, they were bottomless pits. When I gazed into them, I saw my own inadequacy: I had been granted a second life, yet I was a wretch squandering it all over again. The darkness coiled around her neck was feeding on my weakness.
In another corner stood Annabel... clutching her stomach, blood seeping from it like a cracked vessel. The life that had been growing within her slipped away like sand between my fingers. She scread, but her voice was not for — it was for the heavens — because in her eyes I was no longer a savior, but her executioner.
And then, an infant... a body bearing my face, but without breath. This was no stillbirth; it was a void born directly from my inadequacy. The tiny corpse I cradled in my arms whispered to :
"The powerless carry their dearest ones to the grave."_
The sky shattered apart. A red sun rose, yet it spread no light, only decay. Everything, every breath, every face shouted the sa truth at :
"To live is to lose endlessly; unless you are strong, everything you love will be taken from you."
I stood in the midst of a graveyard. The stones bore but a single na, yet that na was Rebecca, Annabel, and the unborn child all at once. One word was carved upon the stone: ** "Inadequacy."**
The letters struck into my mind like nails.
At that mont, I saw my own reflection in the darkness. Its eyes locked onto mine, and its lips shaped the words:
"A second life was gifted to you, yet you chose the sa mistakes. Eternal recurrence breeds the sa suffering again and again. Your fate is to lose."
And then everything collapsed.
---
I awoke in sweat and heat. My hands clutched the blanket so tightly that my fingertips burned with pain.
My heart pounded in my chest like an unchained beast. For a fleeting instant, I believed I was still holding that lifeless infant; my trembling fingers grasped at emptiness.
My eyes searched the darkness of the room. Moonlight leaked faintly between the curtains, casting quivering shadows upon the wall. It felt as though the remnants of the nightmare lingered here: Rebecca’s abyssal eyes, Annabel’s bloody cry, and the cursed word upon the gravestone, "Inadequacy."
Sweat trickled down my forehead, leaving a chill as it slid across my face. I whispered to myself, as though survival depended on saying it aloud:
"No... it was only a nightmare. I’m still here. Annabel lives. Our child lives. I’m still here."
But the voice within — the voice of the reflection in the darkness — would not be silenced.
"You are weak. Eternal recurrence awaits you. You will relive the sa mistakes again and again."
From beside the bed ca the faint rhythm of movent. Annabel’s steady breathing brushed against my ears, loosening the chains around my chest. Her face was pale but serene; one hand had instinctively rested upon her belly, fingers locked there, as though even in sleep she sought to shield the life within.
The dream had reminded of one truth: without strength, I could not live the life I wished in this world. That was why, before the sun had even risen, when only a faint shimr of light hinted at its presence behind the horizon, I stood.
I dressed, strapped my sword at my side. This was no fleeting surge of motivation; I knew it well. Though I had always trained an hour each day, it was far from enough.
I rose, body still heavy with the nightmare’s weight, but my mind ablaze with a sharpened decision. My first act would be to raise both my practice and discipline to a radical scale. One hour was insufficient; I would seize hours, seize days. I would forge a routine to carve my body and mind into sothing beyond the ordinary.
But the body alone was not enough. I had to strengthen my **Techniques**, the mystical forces of this world. The truth was cold and unromantic: change would not co overnight like the heroics of fables. Nor should it.
In the first light of dawn, Annabel still slept. Careful not to wake her, I slipped into the kitchen, drank cold water, then began with rope skips — ten minutes for speed and coordination. This was the first command of my new life: small, asurable, repeatable.
The regin was simple, yet rciless.
- **Morning**: Sword drills. Ten sets, each with one hundred strikes; interspersed with short sprints for footwork; five minutes of one-legged balance for core stability.
**Afternoon**: Endurance. Running, ropes, lifting. I would not stop at being "adequate" I had to beco unyielding.
**Evening**: Technical discipline. Breath control, focus forms, ending with testing my techniques against inert targets, striving to disable them with minimal mana.
**Night**: ditation. Awakening "Dark Judgnt" within myself, the power to read the intent of others. But instead of peace, it weighed down. Their hidden fears and desires seeped into like a chorus of whispers in the silence.
The first day, my body rebelled. Muscles blazed, lungs scread with every breath. But the nightmare’s images drove onward like nails hamred into my mind: Annabel’s bloody hands, the breathless face of the child... even their shadows smothered every excuse for weakness.
Days chased each other. My routine hardened. I cut away at sleep, at als, even at breath itself.
By the first week, calluses marked my hands. By the second, my blade no longer wavered with each swing. Yet it was still not enough.
My body ceased to feel like my own; it was as if I were tal reshaped upon a blacksmith’s anvil. Muscle pain ceased being tornt; it beca the echo of growth. Each dawn, the man in the mirror looked less like yesterday’s self. My face sharpened, my gaze grew darker with resolve.
But the change was not only in the flesh. Technique had beco more than arts to be studied — they were the very border between life and death. The day I perfected "Slip Point," I struck with a thrust where the blade’s edge and the rhythm of my heart aligned as one. In that mont, my body and sword fused into a single being.
By the third week, ntal training bore fruit. In my "Intersection Line" practices, I could now feel not only my own lifeflow but even the veins of trees, the hushed pulse of stones.
The world unfolded before as a tapestry of unseen threads. When one thread snapped, I could sense it across distances. This awareness beca my reason to stand, even through sleepless nights.
Yet the most perilous was Eternal Collapse. Each night I fed it with ditation, and the cries within others beca sharper. I could see the fire of greed within a smiling rchant, taste the fear in the heart of a silent passerby.
It strengthened , yes, but it eroded my trust in humanity, whispering of hidden betrayals behind every glance.
I was no longer ordinary. With every hour, I grew further away from the man I once was. When I gazed at Annabel’s peaceful, sleeping face, I knew: for her, and for the child within her, I would even embrace this darkness.
But soon, I would have to journey to the capital, and I did not know how much ti I would still be able to claim for training.
---
When I entered my study, I found Willabelle cleaning my desk, which was strange. She was no maid the servants handled such things.
Yet there she was, wiping the surface with a cloth, lost in thought. Since our last conversation, I had hardly spoken with her; only when handling matters of the County did we exchange words, and afterward she would leave, vanishing for the rest of the day.
As she brushed the dust from the desk’s edge, there was an odd precision in her movents. She swept the cloth carefully from side to side, and at the faintest trace of a mark she circled back to erase it once more. Her eyes lingered on the desk, but her mind was far away.
Watching her, I thought: Willabelle was no ordinary aide. Her intellect, composure, and intuition outstripped that of most advisors. And yet now... she seed lost within the silence.
"You don’t need to do that," I finally said, breaking the quiet.
She lifted her head. For an instant she flinched when our eyes t, then steadied her expression.
"I know, my lord. But when my mind is restless, I cannot just sit and wait."
I did not smile at her honesty; I had no strength for that. I only narrowed my gaze upon her.
"What fills your mind so?"
She folded the cloth, set it aside, and clasped her hands before her. For a long mont, she said nothing; only the crackle of the fireplace filled the air. At last her voice ca low, but edged with steel:
"You."
Reviews
All reviews (0)