There was nothing around me. No sound, no color, no wind. The absence wasn't a void—it was as if a thick veil of shadows had been thrown over reality.
The world… or what was left of it… had become solid silence. A whispering abyss.
I looked at my hands. Or what had once been my hands.
Smoke. Black, dense, swaying slowly like embers cooling in the wind. My entire body was made of it. Living mist, a boneless ghost.
And then the world trembled. Not an earthquake, but a silent shudder, as if something were stirring beneath the surface of reality. The dark veil began to writhe… and shapes emerged from it, like long-forgotten echoes.
Circles formed around me, drawn in faint energy, almost invisible—like marks left by divine fingers on a glass surface. Within each of these circles, figures began to materialize, made of the same smoke that composed me. There were twelve circles in total.
Each figure wielded a weapon. One had clenched fists, its aura aggressive and alive like lightning trapped in a cage. Another held a long sword, moving with subtlety and precision, like a master's dance. Further off, a shadow raised a war axe identical to the one I had seen on the patriarch's carriage. There were spears, whips, scythes, staffs, daggers… familiar weapons, seen in action.
Others were more distorted—blades made of thorns, chains slithering like living serpents—even a creature that used its own body as a weapon, contorting in an almost monstrous way.
They moved. Without warning. Without sound. They fought one another within the circles—not for territory, not for glory—but as if battling for the right to exist. Each motion was pure instinct. Beautiful forms of destruction.
Some danced like leaves in the wind. Others advanced like storms. Distinct techniques. Irreconcilable styles. Graceful strikes clashing with brutal assaults. Balance consumed by savagery, then restored in an elegant gesture.
But no figure won. None could overpower the others. Each fight was a mirror. Perfect balance. Eternal conflict.
And I… I stood at the center of it all. Watching. Feeling. As though every movement echoed within me.
Then, without warning, all the figures stopped. Frozen, at the peak of their blows.
And all of them, simultaneously, turned their faces toward me. Even without eyes, without defined features—I felt the weight of their gaze.
The smoke around us began to stir. Reality pulsed.
An ancient voice, whispering from all directions, flooded my chest—without passing through my ears:
"Choose…"
And suddenly, a hand made of pure golden light emerged from the darkness behind me and grabbed my shoulder. A kind of incomprehensible murmur brushed against my ear.
And everything exploded into white.
✦ ✦ ✦
Splash.
Something cold hit my face.
"Alexander! So now, besides being a pervert, you're a pansy too?" Sir Isack's voice cracked through the air like a whip.
'Huh…?' My vision was a watery blur. The world spun in slow motion. My muscles felt heavy, my skin soaked. My hair—once tied back—now hung loose, falling over my face like damp serpents. A chill ran down my spine.
A calloused hand grabbed the collar of my tunic and lifted me with annoying ease, as if I were a bundle of wet laundry.
"Get your lazy ass up!" Isack shouted, shaking me like he meant to beat the sloth right out of me. "If the patriarch's son doesn't set an example, who will?! A pig?!"
Before I could respond, another hand swept the wet strands off my forehead. Light struck directly into my eyes. I blinked, my sight slowly returning.
And then I saw it—that mischievous smile only a completely deranged old man could wear with such pride.
"Had to be that crazy old man…" I muttered, too exhausted to keep the thought to myself. Unfortunately, louder than I should have.
But Isack only snorted. Or maybe he found it amusing, it was hard to tell with him. Instead of answering, he spun my body dramatically, as if using me as a clock hand, and pointed with his free hand to our surroundings.
"Look at that!"
Boys passed out on the ground. Others lying on their backs, breathing like they'd just run three marathons across burning coals. Some just… stared into nothingness, eyes dull, as if they'd silently signed a contract with failure.
Different circumstances, but one thing united them all: dark rings beneath their eyes, like shadows dripping from their souls onto their faces.
"These lazy brats are following *your* example, Alexander!" Isack bellowed, spinning on his heel with arms raised like some prophet of doom.
"And this is only the *fourth* day. Fourth! There are at least fifty more to go if Nikolas has his way. And if this is your pace, you'd best start writing a letter to your mommy, and your will while you're at it, because you're all on your way out!"
Still dazed, I tried to focus. After every combat round, Isack forced us to sit in a circle and analyze each mistake. The idea was to "reflect," but any attempt at reflection felt like mental torture after hours of physical hell.
And as if that weren't enough… back to training, or rather, methodical torment. Compared to this, Spartan training was a sunny stroll with grandma.
We'd been awake for way more than fifty hours.
Even Damian, Drent, and the others, fit and resilient, were on their knees by the end of the second day.
If we weren't fighting, we were running. If we weren't running, we were balancing water-filled jars on our backs across suspended logs.
If we weren't doing that, we were punching dry sandbags until our knuckles bled.
If not that, it was rolling in the mud and getting up with wooden swords to repeat the moves we'd learned.
Training while eating? Of course.
Lifting weights with one arm and chewing with the other.
Need to evacuate your bowels? Good luck dodging arrows, blunt-tipped, sure, but painful as sin.
Rest? Only if you could sleep standing, eyes open, without the old man noticing.
Spoiler: he *always* noticed.
Other types of training were thrown into this physical and mental inferno:
– Sinking stones in a well and hauling them back with ropes tied around the torso
– Climbing trees barefoot with sandbags tied to the ankles
– Rolling downhill in light armor and climbing back up backwards
– Fighting blindfolded against someone with full vision
– Memorizing moves while random noises—or Isack's random insults—blared around us
– Carrying iron drums filled with water and not spilling a drop under threat of repeating the entire task
– Tossing and catching a moving knife whose hilt was coated in soap
– Digging holes only to fill them back in—"to learn not to waste effort," Isack said
He called it "forging the body and refining the spirit."
We silently called him completely insane.
✦ ✦ ✦
The crescent moon hung solemn in the sky, carving the darkness with its pale glow. Stars scattered like ancient embers across a black cloth. The air carried a faint scent of earth, sweat, and crushed leaves.
It was a beautiful night… if you could still stand to enjoy it.
"Well done, perverts… with a few exceptions," Isack's voice sliced through the silence like a blade—sharp and merciless. "And while a few of you still owe me…" his eyes scanned the field, seeking invisible targets among the wrecked bodies,
"Congratulations. You've completed the beginning of physical preparation and finished the first training cycle."
He barely finished the sentence when a dull *thud* echoed across the field. Then another. And another. One by one, the 26 unfortunate souls collapsed to the ground like sacks of potatoes tossed from a cart.
No strength to scream.
No energy to celebrate.
Just… falling.
"Huff... huff... huff..." That was all you could hear now. Ragged, uneven breaths, mixed with the occasional rustle of torn clothing or the grind of teeth clenched in pain.
The training field resembled a graveyard of the living.
I was among the lucky ones—or rather, the unlucky ones—whose minds hadn't allowed them to pass out from relief.
My body... no longer obeyed me. Every muscle was a throbbing ember. Every motion, no matter how slight, sent waves of pain through me, as if my own body were punishing me for daring to exist.
The last trace of adrenaline, which had kept me moving up to this point, had drained away like blood from an old wound. Even the Narlith leaves, which once felt miraculous, could no longer delay the inevitable.
My body had reached its limit. Sweat mixed with dust, forming a crust on my skin; my hands trembled, my legs no longer felt like mine. Dry throat. Empty mind. And still, a whisper—nearly soundless—escaped my cracked lips, loaded with raw, genuine emotion. A whisper that, even without a voice, I could feel vibrating in my soul:
"Finally… finally it's over…"
But… was it, really?
Still hunched over, gasping for breath as if air had become a rare luxury, I noticed a shadow approaching. Firm steps. Rhythmic. Heavy.
Isack.
The old man walked past me as if I were part of the scenery. Two pieces of paper fluttered through the air and landed on my face, sticking to the sweaty skin.
I blinked slowly. Lifting my arm felt like dragging dead weight. My trembling fingers clutched the crumpled paper. When I opened the first one, its contents made my eyes burn—not with emotion, but with sheer despair.
It was our new training schedule. From this point on.
Unlike the past few days, these sessions would be organized. There would be cycles, rest periods, strict timing, and even standardized—or rather, personalized—diets, as I'd later be told. Bland, flavorless, and with a suspicious texture, they were supposedly packed with the necessary nutrients.
In addition to daily physical training, the schedule included hand-to-hand combat, with and without weapons, target practice, endurance, and advanced movement drills. The old man had left nothing out.
But that wasn't all.
Every two weeks, a new cycle of five hellish days awaited us, no breaks, no decent food, sustained only by water… if we were lucky. Each cycle worse than the last.
I turned my head, scanning the movement around me. In addition to the general schedule sheet, everyone had an individual plan. And judging by what I saw, each boy held a paper of different size.
I spotted Damian holding something tiny between his fingers, it looked like a business card. Oswin had a full A4 sheet. Beatriz was carefully folding an A5 page. And others, poor souls… some had a thick triptych, as if three A4 pages had been glued together.
I looked back at mine. One and a half pages.
"This is unfair," I muttered as the old man walked past me. My voice came out weaker than I intended, but firm enough to be heard.
He didn't stop. Just answered, without even turning: "Since when has the world been fair?"
"Fair." I swallowed hard and fell silent. There was nothing to reply. The answer was simple. And final.
But then I noticed something odd. He was holding something else in his free hand.
A book. Its cover was dark, worn, as if it had weathered a thousand battles and still had stories to tell.
"What's that in your hand?" I asked, still trying to process. The title wasn't visible.
"A book," he answered flatly.
"About what?"
This time, he didn't answer with words. Just smiled. And threw the book at me with surprising precision. I caught it in midair—almost by reflex. The light impact made the exhaustion ripple through my forearm.
When I lowered my gaze to read the title, I frowned, confused.
"Huh? Why would I read this?" I asked, furrowing my brow—now more curious than offended.
Stamped on the cover, in worn-out letters:
"How to Get Beaten the Right Way."