The Knight Division training yard pulsed with jittery, unspent energy.

  Dozens of first-year cadets clustered into loose groups, buzzing with a mix of excitement and raw nerves. Some swung practice swords in frantic arcs, others stretched with a theatrical intensity as if preparing for a literal war, and a few simply hopped in place, too caffeinated by adrenaline to stand still.

  “This is it,” someone whispered. “Real combat training—finally!”

  Ray felt it too. It hummed under his skin, somewhere between a thrill and a death knell.

  Calen grinned, elbowing him. “You ready to get beaten to death in the name of education?”

  Ray nodded solemnly. “I will die with dignity. Or at least loudly.”

  Harel snorted. “Loudly is more realistic.”

  Rian stretched his arms overhead, his joints popping like firecrackers. “I heard they’re pairing us with upper-year squires today.”

  Calen’s face went pale. “Upper years? You didn’t tell me we’d be fighting people who actually know what they’re doing!”

  “That’s literally what training is,” Rian deadpanned.

  “I heard we’re just starting with footwork drills,” Harel added, trying to be the voice of reason. “No sparring.”

  Calen brightened instantly. “Oh good—my feet can’t kill me.”

  Harel shrugged. “Depends. Rowen once tripped during footwork drills and took out an entire row of cadets.”

  Ray blinked. “Wait—really?”

  Rian nodded with grave sincerity. “He fell forward. Like a noble tree. A stupid, prideful, heavy-timbered tree.”

  Ray exhaled, feeling a bit better. “Footwork doesn’t sound so bad then.”

  “It won’t be,” Harel warned. “Until the instructors shout something like ‘increase intensity’ and suddenly you’re sprinting in circles until your lungs turn to ash.”

  “I can handle sprinting,” Ray said, rubbing his neck.

  “Not in plate armor,” Calen countered.

  “…Oh.”

  Rian jabbed Ray lightly. “Relax. If you faint, maybe Prince Lucien will rescue you again.”

  Ray choked on a breath, his face heating up. “Stop. Don’t ever say that again.”

  But Calen’s grin turned wicked. “Honestly? If you pass out dramatically, that’s peak protagonist behavior. Very main-character energy.”

  “I’d rather be a protagonist who doesn’t die of pure humiliation,” Ray muttered.

  The boys laughed, their nerves loosening—just for a moment. The yard was filled with the clamor of teenagers who had spent too long imagining themselves as heroes and were about to learn exactly how wrong they were.

  And then—Rowen Vernhard strutted into view.

  Perfect uniform. Perfect hair. Perfect, punchable smirk.

  “Oh great,” Ray muttered. “The final boss of mediocrity.”

  Rowen zeroed in on them instantly. “Well, well,” he drawled, his voice carrying across the yard. “If it isn’t the boy who fainted at graduation.”

  Ray stiffened, his pride flaring. “I did not faint. I… reclined aggressively.”

  Calen slapped a hand over his face, groaning.

  Rowen scoffed. “Call it whatever you want. Just stay out of my way today. I’d hate for your… frailty… to get someone actually important hurt.”

  Ray stepped forward, chin raised. “Oh? Are you offering me a private spar, Rowen? You know, to test my ‘frailty’?”

  Rowen blinked, clearly surprised by the pushback. Then he grinned—a sharp, shark-like expression. “You couldn’t handle a private spar with me, Melborne. But if you’re that eager to embarrass yourself in front of the whole division, I’m happy to provide the opportunity.”

  The surrounding cadets gasped like they were watching a soap opera. Then, the hooting started.

  “Get him, Rowen!” “Ray, don’t back down!” “Fight! Fight! Fight!”

  Calen whispered urgently, “Ray, stop. He’s looking for a reason.”

  “But he’s being a huge jerk!” Ray whispered back, his jaw set.

  Rowen stepped closer, his boots grinding into the sand. “Say the word,” he hissed, his voice dropping to a low, venomous crawl. “I’ll make sure the instructors know to scrape you off the training grounds afterward.”

  Ray swallowed—but his pride refused to go down. He opened his mouth to fire back—

  —just as a wave of killing intent swept over the yard like a physical weight.

  THUD. THUD. THUD.

  The clamor died instantly.

  The instructors had arrived. Captain Draevin led the way, his armor as black and cold as a glacier. The long, jagged scar across his jaw did more to silence the teenagers than any lecture could.

  Behind him, ten Mage Division cadets followed in a loose, uneasy formation, their storm-grey cloaks sweeping behind them like trailing clouds. Their faces were tight—eyes darting, shoulders stiff—looking like they’d been dragged there with zero warning.

  And behind them came the ten senior squires.

  They marched in perfect, terrifying unison. Their armor was heavier, scarred by real combat. Their boots struck the earth like final verdicts. Their presence alone radiated a quiet, suffocating authority—the kind that told every first-year in the yard:

  If something goes wrong today… we are the ones who will end it.

  Ray swallowed hard. Rowen’s smirk wavered. Even Calen leaned in, his voice a frantic ghost of a whisper. “Why do they look like they’re expecting casualties…?”

  Rowen straightened so fast he nearly threw out his spine.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Ray muttered, but he shut up the moment Draevin’s gaze swept past him like a descending guillotine. He stepped back with the awkward grace of someone pretending he hadn’t just tried to pick a fight with someone stronger, taller, and significantly more petty.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Captain Draevin’s voice boomed, shattering the silence. “Form ranks! Combat training begins now.”

  A chill raced through the cadets. Just like that, the childish posturing ended. Reality had arrived, and it smelled like cold steel and old sand.

  “Everyone,” Draevin said, his voice cutting across the courtyard like a blade dragged over ice. “Look to the person on your right.”

  Confused murmurs rippled through the lines.

  “Now, look to the person on your left.”

  More murmurs, higher-pitched now.

  “Look behind you.”

  A few students turned stiffly, moving like broken puppets.

  “Now, look in front of you.”

  Silence. Absolute and heavy. Draevin folded his arms behind his back, his expression as flat as a tombstone.

  “You may choose whoever you please... and throw a punch at them.”

  The courtyard detonated.

  “WHAT?!” “IS HE SERIOUS?!” “ARE WE EVEN ALLOWED TO DO THAT?!”

  One brave—or perhaps just exceptionally dim—student raised a trembling hand. “Sir? What do you mean? Are we not doing combat training?”

  “Of course we are,” Draevin replied.

  “But... aren't we supposed to be paired up?” another student piped up.

  “No.”

  Ray lifted his hand, his voice cracking slightly. “Uh… Instructor? Are you not going to teach us how to activate our sigils first?”

  Dozens of students nodded vigorously, looking at Draevin with pleading eyes. Draevin’s mouth curved into something that might generously be called a smirk.

  “I am not.”

  A collective what-the-hell fell over the class. Draevin stepped forward, his boots thudding like war drums against the dirt.

  “Just as you discovered the connection of your first Vein to the second, you will discover how to awaken your strength alone. Here in the Academy, we have found the most efficient method.” He spread his arms wide, encompassing the entire yard. “You will beat it out of each other.”

  The silence that followed was absolute.

  “That’s right,” Draevin said calmly. “This is a free-for-all.”

  Ray’s soul tried to escape his body through the soles of his shoes. Rowen, however, began cracking his knuckles with malicious, slow-burning delight.

  “I take back everything I said,” Calen whispered, his eyes wide. “We are dying today.”

  Harel crossed himself in three different religions simultaneously.

  A shaky student raised his hand again. “B-but sir… what if we get too hurt?”

  Captain Draevin’s smile widened—never a good sign. “Excellent question.” He gestured behind him with a lazy sweep of his gauntlet. “Do you see the mages?”

  The student nodded timidly.

  “These are Water-aspected cadets in training. Their specialty is healing,” Draevin’s voice rumbled. “And they are here for their combat lesson as well.”

  The boy’s face brightened with a flicker of hope. “So… they’ll heal us when the time comes?”

  Draevin grinned. “They will try to heal you,” he chuckled. “They are still training, after all.”

  A few nervous, dry chuckles escaped the crowd—ill-timed and brittle. The water mages shifted awkwardly, glancing at each other with expressions that clearly said: We didn’t ask to be here.

  Draevin continued cheerfully. “Don’t worry. If things go too far, one of these senior squires—” he jerked a thumb at the armored wall of veterans behind him “—will drag you out before anything permanent happens.”

  Relief washed through the cadets like a cool breeze. Then Draevin added, his smile never wavering:

  “No one has died... before.”

  The keyword—before—hung in the air like a poised executioner’s axe. Several students looked like they were mentally revising their entire life's direction.

  “Why did he phrase it like that…?” Ray whispered. “Because he enjoys our suffering,” Calen whispered back. Harel nodded gravely. “Correct.”

  Captain Draevin simply stepped back, took a deep breath, and barked:

  “Begin!”

  The chaos didn’t start with a roar; it started with a panic.

  A desperate cadet, his nerves finally fraying, lunged forward. He swung a wild, clumsy fist at the back of the head of the student in front of him—a boy with messy, white-blond hair.

  It was a target no sane person would have chosen.

  Before the strike could even graze a hair, the silver-haired boy tilted. He didn't dodge or retreat; he simply executed an effortless shift of weight. The attack whistled through empty air, and before the attacker could blink, Lucien caught his wrist with a speed so sharp it bypassed Ray’s vision entirely.

  Then, the lightning erupted.

  This wasn't the polite crackle from the ceremony or the gentle spark he’d used to wake Ray. This was feral, white-blue violence. Lucien’s fist slammed into the attacker’s solar plexus.

  BWH-CRACK!

  The student convulsed midair before dropping like a rag doll, his eyes rolling back as he hit the sand, cold and unconscious. Gasps ripped through the gathered cadets, but Lucien didn't pause. He turned, his storm-grey eyes unreadable, and snapped a finger toward another student trying to flee.

  ZRRAP!

  A bolt of lightning bridged the distance instantly. The boy seized, his limbs locking in a rigid, electrified silhouette before he collapsed face-first into the dirt.

  Screams finally broke the silence. Students scrambled backward, tripping over their own feet in a desperate bid for distance. Lucien stepped forward, electricity crawling across his arms in jagged webs, gathering in his palm. He lunged toward a third student, his hand humming with a density of power that made the very air vibrate. His fingers curled, aiming for the throat—

  BOOM.

  A dark figure slammed into the earth between them. Captain Draevin.

  Lucien’s hand clamped onto Draevin’s forearm, and the lightning detonated. A cluster of thunder roared—blinding, deafening, and violent enough to crack the dry earth beneath their boots. Draevin didn't flinch. He gritted his teeth, his muscles locking against the surge, and with a single, brutal twist, he hurled Lucien backward like a projectile.

  Lucien skidded across the yard, his boots digging deep trenches in the sand before he steadied himself. He stood there, breathing evenly, his gaze ice-cold.

  The yard went tomb-silent. Half the cadets were trembling; a few were openly weeping. Draevin shook out his arm, sparks still dancing off his blackened gauntlet.

  “You are not to participate,” Draevin’s voice hammered across the courtyard. He pointed a finger off the field. “Leave. Or assist the squires. Your choice.”

  Lucien stared at him—unblinking, a living storm held behind a thin veil of skin. Then, without a word, he turned and walked off the field.

  The silence that followed was heavy enough to crush bone. Ray stood frozen, his mouth hanging open, his eyes glittering. Only one coherent thought drifted through the empty cavern of his brain:

  That was so fucking cool.

  Lucien had moved like a lightning-fueled phantom. It was a masterpiece of precision and violence—bing, bang, BOOM—like a living cheat code swaggering across the battlefield. Ray’s heart thrummed against his ribs.

  Yes. Yes. YES.

  This was the world he’d imagined. The high-speed magic, the explosive clashes, the showcases of power that made the world tremble. Not meditation. Not breathing exercises. Not lectures on Veins. This.

  The memory of Sera Lorne carving through beasts years ago flashed in his mind. And now, seeing Lucien? Ray’s entire body vibrated. Finally, after the boredom, the suffering, the humiliation, and the long hours of sitting cross-legged like a confused garden gnome… his real arc was beginning. His awakening. His destined rise.

  He grinned, wild and unrestrained. “Holy shit,” he whispered. “This is gonna be awesome—”

  WHACK.

  Ray’s vision exploded into a galaxy of white stars. Pain crackled across his skull, and for a terrifying second, he forgot his own middle name. He staggered, clutching his head, blinking back tears of shock.

  Through the haze, he saw Rowen Vernhard standing there with the smuggest, most punchable grin in the history of the Empire.

  “What’s wrong, loser?” Rowen asked cheerfully.

  Ray’s nostrils flared like an enraged boar’s. “What the hell is your problem?!”

  Rowen spread his arms wide, the picture of innocence. “What? This is a free-for-all.”

  A collective, jagged realization rippled through the nearby students. Lucien’s rampage had been so mesmerizing that they’d forgotten the reality of their situation: they were supposed to be beating the life out of each other.

  Ray’s eye twitched. “Fuck you!” he bellowed, hurling a fist at Rowen with all the righteous, uncoordinated fury of an offended protagonist.

  Rowen snarled and swung back. Around them, the collective sanity of a hundred terrified teenagers finally snapped.

  The free-for-all began.