The temple gardens had not yet recovered.
Ash still clung to the wind, curling through the once-vibrant paths between pillars of jade and stone. Scorched petals drifted past cracked tiles, the memory of battle etched into every surface. It had been only three days since the cultists were driven out, but the damage ran deeper than broken walls or bloodied floors. It was carved into the silence between disciples. Into the looks they gave Lucius as he passed.
Not hatred.
Not awe.
Fear.
Lucius stood beneath the withered husk of a moonbloom tree, once silver and luminous, now blackened and quiet. He ran a finger along its twisted bark. The Fang coiled loosely around his arm, dormant—for now.
He hadn't seen the council since returning from the nursery. They hadn't summoned him either. Rumors passed through the temple like wildfire—he was the Heaven Destroyer reborn. A demon in a boy's skin. The one who would unmake the world or redeem it.
Lucius ignored them.
He had seen the child in the mirror.
He had spoken with the guardian.
He had remembered things he had no right to.
And the ash weighed heavier now.
He felt it in his bones—like a memory waiting to happen.
Seris appeared beside him. Her approach was soft, but her presence was not subtle to him anymore.
"The elders want you in the arena," she said.
Lucius didn't move. "For punishment?"
"For instruction." Her eyes flickered. "They want you to learn the First Kill Stance."
Lucius exhaled. "So it begins."
She nodded. "Rengard's waiting."
The Sunken Arena was a place few disciples had ever seen—let alone trained in.
It was built deep beneath the Verdant Ash Temple, far below the central sanctum, past the sealed archives and hollow catacombs. The ceiling had long since collapsed, revealing a hollow sky ringed in stone. Shadows clung to the arena's perimeter like loyal guards. No banners flew here. No honor was earned.
This was not a place for tests.
This was a place where weapons became truths.
Lucius descended the steps alone. The torches that lined the walls burned blue—cold and smokeless.
Rengard stood at the center, arms crossed, sword sheathed. The scars on his arms caught the firelight.
"You came," he said.
"You asked," Lucius replied.
They stood in silence for a long moment.
Then Rengard unsheathed his blade.
"Prove that you're ready."
Lucius didn't question. He stepped forward.
The clash came instantly.
Rengard was fast—faster than Lucius remembered. His blade moved like a tide, crashing with relentless force. Lucius weaved between slashes, the Fang half-awake, coating his strikes with burning precision.
But Rengard was unshakable.
A downward arc caught Lucius's gauntlet and shoved him back, nearly off balance. A second blow grazed his ribs. Pain flared—but Lucius didn't falter.
He retaliated.
The floor cracked beneath his feet. Fire surged through his limbs, his aura blazing like a miniature sun. He struck with the Fang, carving through the air.
Rengard parried it, grunted, and swept his leg under Lucius.
Lucius hit the stone floor hard.
He rolled and rose, blood trickling from his lip.
"Still hesitating," Rengard said. "Why?"
"Because if I don't… I might kill you."
Rengard smirked. "Then stop thinking like a student."
He sheathed his blade.
Lucius blinked. "You're done?"
"No," Rengard said. "Now we begin."
He led Lucius to a small shrine set into the far wall. The stone there was untouched by time—unscorched, unsullied. From within it, Rengard retrieved a scroll sealed in blood-red cloth.
"This," he said, "is the First Kill Stance. Six movements. Each one a promise."
Lucius accepted the scroll with both hands. The moment he touched it, his arm trembled. The symbols etched into the parchment pulsed faintly, not with magic—but memory.
"The stance was created by the Heaven Destroyer after he abandoned the temple's mercy," Rengard said. "It's not just a technique. It's a verdict. A choice to erase an enemy—not defeat them."
Lucius unrolled the scroll.
The six stances were rendered in ink silhouettes—crude, even childlike—but each radiated a force that pressed against his chest like an invisible blade.
"Why give this to me?"
"Because the next enemies you face won't yield," Rengard said. "And if you hesitate—if you show compassion—they will carve that compassion out of you."
Lucius nodded.
He began.
The first movement was stillness.
No motion. No qi. No thoughts.
Lucius stood at the center of the arena, arms at his side, eyes closed. He let the Fang fall silent. Let his breath shallow. Let even the echo of battle fade from his mind.
Stillness.
The second movement was a step.
Singular. Measured. Controlled.
It carried the weight of intent: the will to kill, not the reaction to danger.
The third movement was a draw—not of a sword, but of fire.
Lucius lifted his hand and focused. The Fang pulsed once, then extended, lengthening into a flame-threaded claw. Power surged down his spine—but he didn't release it. He shaped it.
The fourth was a pivot—a redirection, the breaking of symmetry in the moment of violence. A feint or dodge that turned defense into conclusion.
The fifth was a leap.
The sixth—
Rengard stepped forward, hand raised.
"This one," he said, "is not a strike. It is the moment you stop being a person. It is the stance of a judge."
He traced the pose with his hand—an overhead strike, palm extended, core locked.
Lucius's breath hitched.
"I've… seen this," he murmured.
"In your dreams?" Rengard asked.
Lucius shook his head. "In memories."
He stepped into the pose.
And the air shivered.
The Fang erupted in brilliant crimson light. Flames curled around his body like a cloak. The arena floor split beneath his feet. Even the torches flickered, cowed.
He finished the sixth movement.
Then lowered his arm.
The silence that followed felt sacred.
Rengard exhaled. "You remembered."
"I didn't want to," Lucius whispered.
"But you did. That's what matters."
Lucius opened his hand. The flames faded.
"I'll master it."
"You already have," Rengard said. "The question is whether you'll use it."
That night, Lucius didn't return to his quarters. He sat on the temple roof instead, staring into the stars. The Fang rested beside him, not glowing, but warm.
He could still feel the sixth movement in his bones.
Not the strength of it—but the cost.
Seris climbed up behind him, barefoot and quiet. She sat beside him without a word.
"You learned it," she said.
"I did."
"Did it hurt?"
Lucius smiled faintly. "More than it should have."
She passed him a waterskin. "The stance was made to end lives. Not shape them."
"I know." He drank. "But the shape of me is already changing."
They sat in silence for a while.
Then Seris asked, "Will you use it?"
"If I must."
She touched his hand. "Promise me you won't become what he was."
Lucius looked into her eyes. "I promise I'll remember what it costs."
Far away, in the ruins of a sunken citadel, a masked figure knelt before a pool of black flame.
"It has awakened," he whispered. "The First Kill Stance walks again."
Around him, robed figures bowed low.
"Then the final inheritance has begun," they said.
And the flame smiled.
Lucius remained seated under the stars long after Seris had gone.
The silence of the temple was no longer comforting. Every breeze felt like a whisper. Every echo, a memory. He couldn't shake the feeling that the stance had changed something in him—not just physically, but spiritually. His qi now moved differently. It pulsed like a storm behind a dam, threatening to spill at the slightest break in control.
He flexed his fingers.
Still steady. But that was the part that frightened him.
The last time he had used the stance in full, he had been someone else. Someone who didn't care about mercy, about bonds, about the cost of his blade.
And now that power sat at his fingertips again.
He wanted to believe he was different. That this time, he would wield it with restraint. But restraint was not what the stance demanded. It was not built for discipline. It was built for ending.
Lucius reached into his sash and retrieved the worn strip of cloth he had kept since the nursery—a charred remnant from the cultist's robes. He stared at it, the threads brittle, blackened by flame. It reminded him that power had consequences. That even if the world wanted a weapon, he didn't have to become one.
Or did he?
Somewhere deep in the temple's catacombs, a faint tremor passed unnoticed. A scroll hidden behind layers of seals pulsed faintly with energy. It waited, slumbering. Not for a chosen one—but for the only one who could understand it.
Lucius.
The Fang stirred once beneath his skin.
The stars above flared, as if in recognition.
[End of Chapter 12]