Thalen sat upright in bed, soaked in sweat.
The vision had been clearer than any before: a village swallowed whole, not by fire or storm, but by something far more terrifying erasure. Reality itself twisted, unmade by a single figure in a pale mask. No blood, no bodies. Just... nothing.
And the pressure. The overwhelming, suffocating weight of that presence.
Vael Seros.
Thalen knew it in his bones. The tyrant whose legacy still echoed through the realm had returned. Not in the stories, not in some ancient ruin but now, walking the earth again. And somehow, inexplicably, Thalen had seen it.
Was it a warning? A vision of the past? Or something worse?
He rose from his bed and reached for his sword. The blade sat against the wall, humming faintly. No aura ignited on contact, but it felt heavier tonight more real. Like it too had seen something.
A knock sounded at the door. Three short taps, two long.
Dain.
Thalen opened the door. "You felt it too?"
Dain's face was pale. "Something… tore through the aura field last night. Half the tower woke up gasping. You had a vision, didn't you?"
Thalen nodded. "A village. Gone. Not destroyed but erased. Vael Seros was there."
Dain exhaled shakily. "This isn't a dream anymore."
"No," Thalen agreed. "It's a message."
Later that morning, Thalen stood at the edge of the sparring courtyard, still haunted by the night. Arkan hadn't summoned him yet, but word of the disturbance had spread. Initiates muttered about phantom winds and flickering shadows. The instructors were unusually tense, especially those attuned to spatial or mental auras.
Thalen watched the sky.
"Thalen."
He turned. Fera approached, a bandage across her shoulder from their duel days prior. "What happened last night?" she asked quietly.
"I don't know everything," he replied. "But I think the first Tyrant is moving."
Her breath caught. "Vael Seros?"
He nodded. "He's not dead."
Fera's expression tightened. "If that's true, we're not ready."
"No one is."
Fera looked around at the others in the courtyard kids just beginning their aura control, sword forms sloppy and unrefined. "Then we need to get ready fast."
Hours later, Thalen found himself once more in the Tower of Silence. Arkan was pacing before the great circular window, arms folded, cloak flowing behind him like shadow.
"You saw it," the old warrior said without turning. "Didn't you?"
"I did."
Arkan finally faced him. "Describe it."
Thalen told him everything the stillness, the silence, the vanishing, and the masked figure.
When he finished, Arkan was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, "You've crossed the threshold."
"What threshold?"
"The point of no return. Those who see Vael Seros in the dream are marked. Chosen or cursed it depends on how you survive it."
"You've seen him too?"
"I was the last to pass the Tyrant Spirit Trial before it was closed," Arkan said grimly. "Twenty years ago. That vision nearly broke me. But it taught me what true aura really is not power. Presence. Will. And Seros's will is a hurricane. You don't resist it. You endure it."
"Why now?" Thalen asked. "Why am I seeing this already? I haven't even awakened the Tyrant Spirit yet."
Arkan stepped closer. "Because something inside you is calling to him. Something even you don't understand yet. That sword you wield it resonates too deeply for a Rare-class blade. The forge masters say it resisted standard enchantments. It wants something."
Thalen looked at the sword on his back. "What if it's not the sword? What if it's me?"
Arkan gave a rare smile. "Then you might become more dangerous than any of us ever imagined."
That night, Thalen meditated alone atop the Spire of Reflection a tall, narrow tower rarely used by anyone but spiritual cultivators. The winds were fierce, the cold biting, but up here he felt closer to something.
The stars.
The Tyrant Spirit.
The silence beyond the world.
He sat cross-legged, the sword before him. He tried to focus on his Blade Aura steady, refined, sharp like the breath before a strike. He'd come far since his days as the weakest among his friends. But now, the challenge wasn't the lack of power. It was the excess of it. The sense that something massive and ancient was awakening beneath his skin.
He exhaled slowly.
Then it happened.
A flicker.
The sword's edge shimmered. A ghostly flame, not of fire but of force, trailed along the metal for half a heartbeat. His aura trembled, then expanded outward in a ring of invisible pressure. The air around him grew heavy.
And he saw it again the figure in white, Vael Seros, but this time he was closer. His mask cracked, just slightly. Beneath it, golden eyes watched him.
Then the voice came not a whisper, not a roar, but a thought that filled every part of his mind:
"The blade remembers. And so will you."
Thalen gasped and opened his eyes.
The sword was glowing.
Three days passed.
During that time, Arkan doubled Thalen's training. Sword duels every morning, aura manipulation tests every afternoon, spiritual endurance rites in the evening. No rest. No mercy.
"You're not training to win," Arkan barked. "You're training to not die."
Thalen began to understand.
There were levels to aura. Not just types, but expressions. Blade Aura was more than enhanced swordsmanship. It could cut through illusions, silence aura fields, even wound spiritual entities. But it required immense discipline. Aura wasn't a spell. It was the reflection of the soul.
And now, his was changing.
One night, after a particularly brutal sparring match, Dain found him resting beneath a waterfall, blood mixing with the rushing stream.
"You okay?" Dain asked.
"No."
"You're scaring the instructors. You know that?"
"Good," Thalen said. "They should be scared."
Dain sat beside him. "Thalen… you're different now."
"Do you think I'm losing myself?"
"I think you're finding something," Dain replied. "And it's burning away everything else."
Back at the Tower, Arkan convened with two other SSS Heroes Lady Vaelyn of the Sapphire Lance and Gorrik the Ironhide.
"He's already glimpsed the Tyrant," Arkan told them. "And his sword is reacting."
"Too soon," Vaelyn said. "He shouldn't be resonating yet."
"He might not be able to wait," Gorrik rumbled. "The Erasure event three nights ago our scouts found the ruins. There's nothing left. Not even residual aura."
"Then Seros is truly moving."
"Yes," Arkan said. "And the boy is our only link."
Vaelyn's expression hardened. "Then he cannot fall. No matter the cost."
In the coming week, Thalen began preparing for the Mid-Trial Evaluation a ranking event used to assess all initiates at Tempest Hold. Normally a formality. But this time, Arkan had altered the format.
It would be a survival challenge in the Greyward Maze an ancient training field with shifting terrain and aura illusions. And unknown to the participants, a real threat had been introduced.
A rogue Tyrant-wielder. One who had failed to control the Spirit and had been sealed years ago.
Now released.
And waiting.