A metallic clang fractured the silence.
The echo threaded through marble halls and silver-paneled corridors, splitting the fragile calm of morning into ripples of irritation and sound. It wasn't just noise — it was intent, sharp enough to wake even those who preferred dreams over reality.
Sebastian Raizen stirred.
A half-kicked blanket clung to his leg, one arm buried under his pillow as if he could muffle the world by sheer will. Black hair fell over his eyes, strands matted by sleep and sweat. The remnants of a dream still flickered in his mind — screams drowned by rain, a battlefield stretching past the horizon, and above it all, a figure cloaked in light and ruin.
He couldn't recall the face. He never could.
Only the feeling — of being watched by something older than the concept of victory.
The door burst open.
"SEBASTIAN!"
Luna Blossomveil stood framed by the doorway — silver hair glowing under morning light, her violet eyes an accusation carved from the heavens themselves.
He cracked one eye open. "Morning to you too."
"It's not morning — it's noon!" she snapped, stepping inside, boots tapping against the polished floor. Her voice carried that sharp precision only the Plum Blossom Sect could breed: disciplined fury wrapped in etiquette.
Sebastian rolled over, face half-buried again. "Time is an illusion. Noon is just morning that's given up."
Luna exhaled through her nose. "You have a duel in thirty minutes. Arena Grounds. Against a challenger."
That word — challenger — pulled a faint twitch at the corner of his mouth.
"Name?"
"Garet Caelren. Commoner. Tier Four. Spear user."
He hummed, a low note between thought and amusement. "Commoner, hm? Brave or foolish?"
Luna crossed her arms. "Neither. He's been training without rest for months. Broke through three rankings in one semester."
Sebastian pushed himself up, hair shadowing his eyes. "Then he's trying to prove something."
"Obviously."
He smiled — a quiet, almost kind smile that unsettled her more than his arrogance ever did. "Then I suppose I should wake up."
The Arena Grounds were alive long before the duel began.
Thousands gathered around the circular coliseum, banners of various Houses swaying in the wind. The twin suns hung above, pale and distant, casting mirrored shadows on the silver sand below.
Whispers ran like currents through the crowd.
"He's challenging him?"
"Raizen doesn't even attend lectures."
"Does he even need to?"
At the heart of the arena stood Garet Caelren — posture disciplined, expression steady. A simple uniform of dark leather and reinforced sleeves clung to his frame. His spear gleamed like an unpolished star, held not as a weapon of pride, but as an extension of breath.
He looked nothing like the nobles around him. And yet, the crowd couldn't look away.
A ripple of anticipation spread — the kind that precedes storms.
Then, the air bent.
Sebastian Raizen stepped onto the field.
Black coat draped over his shoulders, boots silent against the sand, his aura felt less like presence and more like gravity. Everything seemed to realign around him — light, air, even thought. His gaze was calm, detached, but beneath it ran a quiet pulse, the kind that hums right before thunder.
Garet exhaled. "Sebastian Raizen. Top of the Academy."
Sebastian stopped a few meters away. "And you're Garet Caelren. The one who doesn't believe in bloodlines."
"I believe strength isn't inherited," Garet said, raising his spear. "It's built. One scar at a time."
Sebastian's lips curved slightly. "Then show me yours."
The wind stilled.
A single bell tolled.
The duel began.
Garet moved first — his body a flash of momentum and intent. Sand erupted behind him as he lunged, spear thrusting like lightning compressed into a human will. His footwork was sharp, refined, every step rooted yet fluid — the mark of someone who trained alone, perfecting precision through necessity, not privilege.
Sebastian tilted his head. His right hand lifted lazily — two fingers catching the incoming spearhead.
Metal shrieked. Sparks scattered like starlight.
The audience gasped.
Sebastian's voice came low, almost bored. "Your center of gravity shifts forward by three inches when you commit."
He twisted.
The spear bent, its shaft vibrating with a resonance that traveled through Garet's bones. The young commoner pivoted, reclaiming his balance with a backward spin, redirecting the motion into a side sweep aimed for Sebastian's ribs.
Elegant. Efficient. Desperate.
Sebastian stepped in. Not back — in. The sweep passed behind him, the air displaced by his shoulder. His knee came up, striking the wooden shaft dead center, breaking the rhythm without breaking the weapon.
"You learn quickly," Sebastian murmured. "But you're thinking in lines. Not flow."
Garet gritted his teeth, aura flaring. Blue-white energy shimmered around his form, raw and unstable. "I'm not trying to impress you."
"Good," Sebastian replied. "Impressing me would be a waste of time."
Then he moved.
No aura. No flash. Just silence — and disappearance.
One moment he was in front of Garet. The next, the world tilted. Garet's instincts screamed as his spear arm twisted mid-guard. He barely managed to drop his weapon before Sebastian's hand passed through where his wrist had been — a strike that could have shattered bone if completed.
Sebastian's palm stopped an inch away.
The air rippled from the force that almost was.
"Your instinct to let go," he said softly, "saved your arm."
Garet's chest heaved. Sweat clung to his brow, half from heat, half from the weight pressing against him.
"Why hold back?" Garet asked, voice strained.
Sebastian looked up — at the crowd, the sky, the still suns. "Because no one's ready for what happens when I don't."
The words weren't arrogance. They were truth spoken with exhaustion.
The duel continued — faster now, sharper. Garet adapted with every exchange, his spear dancing between precision and chaos. He cut the air with techniques that shouldn't belong to a Tier Four. The crowd began to feel it — that this wasn't a slaughter, but a conversation in motion.
Every clash spoke of philosophy.
Bloodline versus resolve.
Talent versus hunger.
Destiny versus defiance.
Sebastian's movements grew quieter the longer it went on. Not slower — quieter. As though he was shrinking, condensing, becoming less human and more principle. Every step he took erased sound; every strike he parried carried weight beyond physics.
Garet lunged again, aura exploding in a burst of heat. His spear fractured light itself, condensing mana into a spiral thrust.
Sebastian exhaled.
For a heartbeat, everything stopped.
Then came the impact.
A shockwave tore through the arena, kicking up a storm of sand and blinding light. The audience shielded their eyes as a thunderous echo split the coliseum air.
When the dust cleared —
Sebastian stood unmoved. His palm rested against the spear's tip. The ground beneath him was unscarred.
But the sand around him —
It was carved into a perfect circle.
Not by force.
By refusal.
The world itself had bent around him, unable to touch his center.
He opened his eyes — black irises now ringed with faint white. "You made me take a step," he said quietly.
Garet blinked. "What?"
Sebastian looked down. A single footprint marked the sand behind him — shallow, but undeniable.
"I had to adjust my stance. That's… new."
He smiled — and this time, it wasn't boredom. It was recognition.
"You might actually wake me up someday."
Garet collapsed to one knee, spear embedding into the ground beside him. His chest burned; his arms trembled. But his eyes never left Sebastian's.
"I'll keep challenging you," he said between breaths. "Until the difference disappears."
Sebastian walked past him, hand brushing lightly against the broken edge of the spear shaft.
"Then keep climbing," he murmured. "Just remember — every mountain has its own weather."
The crowd erupted, names shouted, titles debated. But Sebastian's expression didn't change. He looked at the sky, at the clouds folding under twin suns, and somewhere beneath that calm, a whisper moved.
It's starting again, he thought. The same path. The same noise. The same illusion of choice.
And yet, for the first time in a long while —
he felt something.
Not fear.
Not joy.
But the faint pulse of interest.
That night, long after the arena emptied, Sebastian stood alone on the Southern Wall of the Academy. The air was colder there — thinner, edged with the hum of distant universes bleeding through unseen cracks.
He stared at his hand — the same hand that had caught Garet's spear, that had deflected a storm without breaking form. White threads of light still flickered faintly across his skin, vanishing as soon as he noticed them.
"I almost forgot," he whispered to himself. "What it feels like to be challenged."
From below, the wind carried faint echoes of laughter, of students celebrating victories and dreams.
He felt none of it.
Because above them all — in the infinite quiet — he sensed something else.
A pulse.
Not of mana, but of memory.
A heartbeat echoing from somewhere beyond the veil.
Old, familiar, patient.
"Still watching, aren't you?" he murmured to the night.
No answer came. Only the hum — deep, ancient, and faintly human.
Sebastian closed his eyes, the dream returning — the battlefield, the figure of light, and the whisper of his own name carried by wind.
He smirked, barely audible.
"If fate's waiting for me to play my part again… it'll be disappointed."
His aura flickered — briefly white, then gone.
Below, in the sleeping city, Garet Caelren trained alone, spear slicing moonlight with steady rhythm. Each motion echoed against the stones like a heartbeat — raw, relentless, defiant.
And somewhere deep within the Academy's core, an unseen system recorded both names.
> [Data Entry: Raizen, Sebastian – Efficiency 99.01%]
[Data Entry: Caelren, Garet – Pattern Recognition 71.3%]
The console hummed.
A third light flickered.
Unseen. Locked. Waiting.
> [Access Code: Zone Zero]
[Status: Unstable Connection Detected.]
Wind swept through the Southern Wall.
Sebastian opened his eyes once more, gaze piercing beyond the visible horizon — to something that existed between worlds.
"Let them dream of catching up," he whispered.
Then, softer, almost to himself —
"I'm already preparing to leave."