Frederick landed on top of one of the endless white shelves, catching himself on the edge with mere inches to spare before he could plummet to the purple grass below. The view was mesmerizing, like nothing he had ever seen. It was both beautiful and deeply uncanny. The shelves stretched forward in a perfect, geometric grid to a stark horizon that almost seemed to meet the strange, orange-grey tinged clouds. He jumped down, landing softly. His sword was at his hip, and he wore only minimal armor and his usual blue training outfit. He was confident. He didn't need it. He had faced worse enemies and greater foes, though this was his first time entering a rift officially; he had always avoided the association with the Awakened. He had always believed Mother Fate was fickle, and that didn't warrant his attention or his service. He preferred to rely on his own physical prowess.
He unsheathed his silver sword, its blade catching the sterile white light. Ahead, six Grifters of D-rank skittered into view. Technically, for an unawakened, it would be a deadly encounter, something that could kill even a weak Latent.
He didn't stop walking. As he passed them, he swung his sword in a single, graceful horizontal arc. A rule of purple blood now littered the glowing white shelves and the vibrant purple grass. He sheathed his blade without breaking stride and continued.
He moved with quick efficiency and silent speed, dashing right and left, leaping up to run along the tops of the shelves themselves, using them as a highway toward the distinct building in the distance. To Frederick, this wasn't a trial. It was a challenge. A puzzle to be solved with motion and steel.
An arrow shot past his head, missing by a hair's breadth. He twisted in mid-air as he jumped between shelves, his sword flashing out to deflect a second one. He landed and looked for the source.
"An Unfaithful shooting arrows?" he muttered.
He looked to his right. It wasn't an Unfaithful. It was a group of students, and they were shooting at *him*.
"Huh... why?"
His moment of confusion cost him. Something thin and strong wrapped around his ankle. A wire, laced with disruptive fate essence. "Damn it," he grunted.
He fell, but twisted in the air, his sword severing the wire before he could be dragged. He caught a shelf with one hand, swung, and dropped to the grass below with controlled grace.
"Oh. It's you."
He looked up. It was Miguel. The silver-haired heir of House Fenshore. The one who had let Lucid go after the beating of his younger brother.
"I have always been so..." Miguel began, pacing slowly, a theatrical gesture. "I can't quite put my words to it. But you are the second strongest knight in Vex. For some reason, I could never find myself able to catch up to you."
Frederick just looked at him, his expression blank.
"Well, second, third, or first, it doesn't mean anything," Frederick said calmly. "A knight should serve his kingdom—"
"No," Fredrick cut himself reminded of a recent conversation, his smile soft. "It's people first, and *then* a vow to royalty. We share the same goal, don't we? Protecting Vex?"
"Such lofty ideals and talk!" Miguel laughed, the sound brittle. "How prideful! Frederick, we both know that's not what I mean. That's not what I'm insinuating." His voice dropped, losing its playful edge. "A rat like you managed, in just a year of being nobody, to become the princess's right hand. Tell me... do you also get down with her? You know she's underage, right?"
"Huh?" Frederick was genuinely confused, his brow furrowing.
Footsteps gathered around behind him. He didn't need to look. He could feel their presence. It was the same girl with the bow, and another with a heavy, essence-charged axe. These weren't novices.
"These guys are Awakened," Frederick stated flatly.
"I am sure you know that I'm too," Miguel said, but his eyes had gone cold. His easy tan seemed to pale with the intensity of his disdain. "But you... you are an Unawakened. So you have two options, trash."
The girl and the other Awakened closed in, their weapons ready. Miguel continued walking toward him, arms open in a mockery of an embrace.
"Say that you will renounce your status as proto knight and fuck off from Vex. That's option one. Option two... well, you die."
Frederick looked down, closing his eyes for a brief second. His hand rested on the hilt of his sword. "I swore an oath," he said, his voice quiet but clear. "To myself, to the people, and to her. I can't break it again."
A strange look crossed Miguel's face, a mix of triumph and disgust. "I see. She must have been good in bed, then."
The smirk on Miguel's face was so painfully irritating, so deliberately vile, that it snapped the last thread of Frederick's patience.
Immediately, the air screamed as an axe, glowing with raw blue fate essence, came down. Frederick didn't block it; he sidestepped, letting it slam into the earth where he'd stood, splitting the purple grass and white stone beneath. In the same motion, he kicked out, his boot connecting with the stocky young man's chest, sending him stumbling back with a pained grunt.
The girl was already moving. She leapt from one high shelf to another with acrobatic grace, firing six arrows in rapid succession. Frederick moved like water. He stepped forward once, his body tilting just so, and the arrows thudded into the shelf behind him. He stepped forward twice, his eyes already tracking the next threat.
He looked back just in time to deflect an incoming blast of concentrated force from the silver-haired, tanned young man—Miguel. The attack was heavy, imbued with a thick coil of fate essence. Frederick stepped back, bracing, and slashed his own sword through the air. A visible arc of silver light, sharp and pure, shot from his blade to meet the attack. It dissipated the blast, but not completely. A shard of the energy grazed his left cheek, drawing a thin line of blood. At the same moment, an arrow he'd missed grazed his left shoulder, tearing his shirt.
He had no time to react before the axe came swinging again, aiming to finish what the first strike had started.
"GIVE UP!" Miguel's voice rang out, smug and assured. "What do you think you can possibly win out of this? Three Awakened against one Unawakened!"
Frederick wasn't Illuminated. He wasn't even a Latent. The interesting, infuriating fact was that he *could* ascend at any point. He had conquered the prerequisite rift long ago but had chosen, consciously and stubbornly, not to embrace Mother Fate's touch. He didn't want it. He relied instead on sheer strength, refined technique, and battle sense honed in real fights. He had beaten countless Illuminated, Latents, and even some lower-grade Awakened, though his strength had a threshold—somewhere around the mid-to-high Awakened grade was where he would meet his match. A bitter memory surfaced. He had fought someone like that once. He could never forget.
"They don't call me the strongest unawakened proto-knight for no reason," Frederick said, his voice flat.
He side-stepped the axe swing, closing the distance to the archer girl in a blink. She fired a burning arrow point-blank. He didn't dodge. He slipped inside its trajectory and brought his sword down in a vertical slash, not on her, but on her bow. It was a weapon enhanced with fate essence, sturdy and valuable. It shattered into a thousand bright, fading motes under the force of his purely physical strike.
He swung his sword at her, a follow-up meant to disable. She braced for the impact.
It never landed. Something yanked his sword arm violently to the side, throwing him off balance. A leash. A whip of solidified, snaking blue light was wrapped around his wrist, its other end held in Miguel's left hand.
The girl, seizing the opening, steadied herself and drove a small, cruel dagger into Frederick's side, just above his hip.
He grunted, the pain sharp and immediate. He staggered. The axe came down again, aiming for his head.
He managed to bring his free hand up, deflecting the axe haft with a brutal parry that sent shockwaves up his arm. At the same moment, the stick-wielding young man he'd kicked earlier lunged in and kicked Frederick's legs out from under him.
He hit the purple grass hard, the wind knocked from his lungs.
"You're fighting dirty, I see," Frederick gasped, pushing himself up on one elbow.
Miguel stood over him, the leash of light still taut in his left hand, a long, elegant sword now gleaming in his right. He looked down at Frederick with an expression of cold, detached analysis. "You fight for a concept, honor, duty. We fight for a result. The distinction is why you are on the ground, and we are not. The engagement is concluded."
Frederick pushed himself up, ignoring the fiery pain in his side. He planted his sword toward them, his elbow pointed forward in a precise thrust angle, his back leg set, knees slightly bent. A foundation stance, perfect and unwavering.
"Tempest of Shadows," he breathed. "First Form."
"Rahhh!" The stocky young man lunged, his axe a blur of blue light.
Frederick didn't parry. He met the charge with a single, forward step and a thrust so fast it was a silver streak. The axe shattered mid-swing. The man crumpled, a grievous wound spraying crimson across the purple grass before he even hit the ground.
A whip-lash of blue energy snapped toward Frederick's head from the girl. He didn't flinch.
"Tempest of Shadows. First Form." He exhaled.
His sword moved in a short, invisible arc. The whip shattered. The girl staggered back, her enhanced dagger exploding into fragments in her hand as another precise strike from Frederick's blade opened a deep cut across her forearm. She fell to her knees, clutching the injury.
"Two down," Frederick stated, brushing his bruised lips with the back of his hand.
Miguel was stunned into silence for a moment. Then he laughed. It wasn't a laugh of joy, but a dry, humorless sound. "Ah. I see. How... impressive."
His expression shifted, the detached calm cracking to reveal something colder beneath. "You think this is the extent of it? The princess, you know. The First Knight—the one actually ranked above you—is dead." Miguel's eyes widened slightly, as if sharing a fascinating piece of news. "Yes. Someone killed him. Which leaves her quite alone while we are all occupied here in the rift."
"Miguel!" Frederick's voice was a raw, furious bark.
"They are going to take her at any point. I might as well tell you, since you will at least have the privilege of dying informed." Miguel shot both arms forward. The air in front of him rippled and tore open, not a large rift, but a seething, concentrated gateway. A seed rift.
From its green-tinged maw, an endless stream of rats poured forth. Each one was the size of a large dog, with glowing green eyes and claws that scratched furrows in the stone. They were all C-rank. A hoard of mid-tier Unfaithfuls, summoned all at once.
"What the—" Frederick muttered, momentarily overwhelmed. Summoning this many C-plus creatures must have exhausted a massive reserve of Miguel's fate essence, but it was a problem Frederick could not simply overpower through skill alone. There were too many.
"The Tempest of Shadows. Flurry of Slashes."
This was a stance passed down through a certain lineage, though it was meant to be wielded with fate essence to achieve its true, devastating potential. Frederick would have to manage without.
He began to move. His sword became a whirlwind of silver. Diagonal lines, horizontal lines, precise arcs. He stepped with deliberate, measured footwork, his breathing controlled even as the green-eyed horde descended upon him. Rats that leapt at him were dismembered in mid-air, green blood splattering in grotesque patterns across the white shelves and purple grass. It was an ugly, beautiful, and brutally efficient dance of death.
"You... TRAITOR!" Frederick screamed over the screeching din, his fury giving his blows even more force.
As the last of the summoned rats fell, skewered by a final, forward-driving thrust, Frederick stood panting, drenched in green gore, his side bleeding freely.
Miguel, already manifesting another, smaller seed rift—a personal escape gate—spoke calmly. "I will also take my leave. The preparations for the abduction are, I assume, proceeding. The Chapeu, you see... they do pay a considerable amount. Farewell, Frederick."
"MIGUEL!" The roar was pure, undiluted rage.
"And, by the way," Miguel added, pausing at the threshold of his shimmering portal, "aren't *you* the traitor? To your own empire?" With that, he stepped through and vanished.
The portal snapped shut.
Frederick immediately lost control. His precise movements became desperate, powerful slashes at the empty air where Miguel had been. This had become a catastrophe. His carefully maintained composure shattered, replaced by a storm of fury and dread. He had just killed two Awakened and fought off a hoard of C-rank Unfaithfuls, all as an Unawakened. But in doing so, he had failed. The real battle was happening elsewhere, and he was trapped in a library of endless white shelves, too late to stop it.