Marlow Selaris reviewed the reports on his younger brother’s first-year activities with a mixture of pride and calculated assessnt.
Theodore’s doing well, he thought. Building a network. Applying pressure to those commoner students. Establishing a social hierarchy that serves our House’s interests.
As an instructor, Marlow maintained strict professional distance from his brother’s Academy experience—no overt favoritism, no obvious protection, no actions that might compromise his facade of integrity.
But as a family, he admitted privately, he was proud.
Genuinely proud of how Theodore navigated his complex social dynamics. How he built power through structure and leverage rather than a crude displays of force.
He’s learning. Developing. Becoming a Selaris worthy of the na.
The reports detailed Theodore’s growing apparatus: a recruitnt of so Gregor boy as an enforcent arm, cultivation of loyal noble followers, a systematic exclusion campaign targeting outpost recruits.
I would have done so things differently, Marlow assessed with quiet criticism. More subtle with enforcent. Better deniability.
But that’s the learning curve.
Theodore was discovering through experience what their family instruction could never fully provide—political instinct forged in real consequences rather than theory.
That’s valuable.
True sophistication grew from mistakes that stopped just short of disaster. From testing limits without quite crossing the line into ruin.
So I’ll let him have his experints, Marlow decided. Let him feel the weight of power.
As long as it doesn’t create problems big enough to stain House Selaris. As long as he learns instead of repeating errors.
Because failure, properly contained, was simply another tool in the education of the powerful.
——
Back in the Shroud,
Bright moved through the archaic streets, spatial awareness mapping the territory automatically, danger sense maintaining a steady background vigilance in the relatively low-threat zone.
Then the ambiance shifted.
The air felt warr against his skin. Not heat exactly—welco. A subtle, insidious comfort that didn’t belong in a place like this. The earlier sectors had felt cold, hostile,and wrong.
This felt like coming ho.
If Bright had learned anything, it was this: anything that felt inviting inside the Shroud was usually a predator wearing the shape of safety.
His spatial sense pinged—
A Threat. Above. Descending fast.
Before his eyes locked onto it, his perception mapped the shape: eight limbs, segnted mass, dense chitin, weight distribution across vertical surface.
A spider-like Crawler slid down the side of a crumbling facade with predatory silence.
It was a juvenile Spider Crawler, Bright classified instantly. An adequate challenge for an Initiate. Dangerous, but manageable.
Then his focus snagged on sothing that didn’t fit.
Sothing jamd between the creature’s mandibles.
Not caught.
Wedged.
Like the Crawler had bitten down on prey too large to swallow cleanly.
His stomach tightened.
A human head.
Partially crushed. Skull distorted under the mandibles pressure. One eye gone. Jaw broken at an unnatural angle.
But still recognizable.
It was Cedric Harrow.
Duncan’s roommate.
A noble candidate. Lazy. Loud snorer. Chronic complainer. Harmless.
Bright had never really spoken to him. Just hallway nods. The occasional awkward greeting when Duncan made introductions.
No real connection.
No shared monts.
No reason this should feel like anything more than battlefield information.
And now he’s dead.
Consud by a Crawler.
During what was supposed to be a controlled training exercise.
While instructors held the periter outside the Shroud.
The warmth of the area suddenly made sense.
This wasn’t safety.
This was a feeding ground.
People are really being killed here.
Not just a structured assessnt exercise.
There were Casualties.
The spider launched its attack.
It dropped from above with explosive speed — fast enough that a Fledgling-rank Bright would have died without ever realizing danger was present. Mandibles spread wide, angling for a clean decapitation strike. Instant kill. No suffering. No second chances.
Impossible to surprise , Bright thought calmly.
His spatial awareness had tracked every microsecond of the descent. The shift in air displacent. The redistribution of the Crawler’s weight. The minute vibration traveling down the building’s surface.
He was a walking radar system.
Nothing entered his thirty-ter radius without his mind mapping it in perfect detail.
And if I keep growing...
The thought ca not with arrogance, but with quiet realization.
If this ability expands one day... if my awareness blankets an entire city...
He imagined sitting inside a room, still as stone, while his perception stretched across streets, rooftops, sewer tunnels, alleyways — detecting threats before they even understood they were being observed.
I could know when danger is coming from miles away.
Operate from safety while tracking violence across an urban landscape.
The implication settled in.
That wasn’t just a combat utility.
That was pure and unadulterated surveillance.
Battlefield control.
Strategic dominance.
A capability that blurred the line between soldier and living sensor network.
That’s... absurd, Bright realized.
This ability didn’t just help him survive fights.
It could reshape how wars were fought and his part in it.
No sooner than later he sidestepped the descending strike of the crawler with minimal movent—body displacent calculated to waste zero energy, positioning optimized through spatial understanding that made the evasion feel effortless.
The spider landed where Bright had been standing, its mandibles snapping on empty air, Cedric’s partially consud head bouncing grotesquely as the creature recovered from the missed strike.
It’s going for another attack, Bright predicted.
He watched the Crawler’s body language — the tension in its rear legs, the slight lowering of its thorax, the angle of mandibles adjusting.
He read its intention before its motion began.
The spider lunged.
Eight legs drove it forward in an explosive burst, mandibles spreading wide for a grab-and-crush maneuver that would pulp bone like wet clay.
Bright dodged.
Not instinctively but deliberately.
And as he moved, a decision locked into place.
This is a chance.
Not just to win but to train.
He could end it instantly. A teleport behind the creature. A quick hack with his katana. A clean execution using the Absolute Void Physique’s absurd advantages.
It was easy, safe and efficient.
But that wouldn’t make him better.
That would make him totally dependent on the cores he assimilated and the power it beough him.
I need skill that works even if my abilities are suppressed... disrupted... sealed...
His thoughts were calm. Structured.
Real combat technique. Blade fundantals. Timing. Distance control.
So he imposed limits on himself.
No teleportation.
No dinsional barrier.
No spatial manipulation beyond passive awareness.
Only Body Enhancent that was a sowhat passive effect from his absolute void physique.
Only movent, steel, and judgnt.
He exhaled once, grounding himself.
This is training now.
Not a hunt or an execution.
A lesson paid for with real risk.
The spider ca again, faster, angrier.
And Bright stepped forward to et it.
He activated only Body Enhancent
Power flooded his muscles — not explosive like his higher abilities, but dense and grounded. Strength layered over bone. Speed threaded through nerves. Durability settling into flesh like hidden armor.
This had been his first step beyond ordinary humanity.
The first ti he’d felt different.
His fused katana extended — tal whispering as the blade lengthened to its full four-ter reach, turning it from a sword to a tool that could shape the battlefield.
The spider attacked again—more cautious now, recognizing its prey wasn’t behaving like a typical ambush victim, adjusting its tactics to account for its opponent’s unexpected competence.
Bright engaged systematically—weaving left as the spider’s front legs struck, slicing through chitinous limb with blade that benefited from Body Enhancent’s strength increase.
One leg severed, Bright catalogued. There were Seven remaining as the Mobility of the crawler degraded but was not critically compromised.
He moved right, avoiding a mandible strike, his spatial awareness providing perfect information about his adversaries attack vectors even while limiting his response to conventional evasion.
Another leg fell—a clean cut that showed the blade work he had refined through the tim he had spent in the academy. Atechnique that had improved dramatically from his desperate survival fighting style in Grim Hollow.
I’m better, Bright recognized. Fundantally more skilled.
The spider tried circling in an attempt to seek an angle where Bright’s spatial awareness wouldn’t help.
Still that was impossible.
Every step was mapped. Every shift predicted. Flanking ant nothing when space itself reported to him.
Third leg fell. Then the fourth. The spider’s mobility collapsing as the systematic dismbernt proceeded.
Then the discomfort hit.
This is still too easy.
He felt it now — the subtle correction in his stance, the perfect spacing, the effortless timing.
Absolute Void Physique.
Even suppressed, it optimized. Micro-adjustnts were made in his technique. His efficiency was boosted to a staggering degree as the ability served as an Invisible support.
So I’m not actually fighting normally. I’m still leveraging my overwhelming advantage. Just less obviously.
This is still not real training. This is still just execution with extra steps.
So Bright made a decision that was probably stupid but felt necessary.
No boosts at all. No hidden advantages. Just naked skill and a clean technique—fundantals under pressure, nothing to lean on, nowhere to hide. A true asure, stripped to the bone against a thing of nightmares.
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