The grind in the mindscape was endless. Jade's scythe carved through the mist, each repetition of the low sweep and the rising hook etching the movements deeper into his muscle memory. Alter-Jade watched from his obsidian throne, a critical overseer, his taunts now focused on microscopic flaws in form.
"Your pivot is half a degree shallow. You are wasting momentum. Again."
Jade adjusted, the muscles in his back and shoulders protesting despite being spiritually manifested. The memory of the physical toll from the Petrified Forest was etched deep. He completed the sweeping arc, this time with perfect alignment.
"Better. Now, five hundred more. Until you could do it while sleeping."
Suddenly, a chime, alien and intrusive, echoed through the psychic training ground. It was not a sound of the mindscape. It was a System alert, piercing through his concentration. A stark, text-only message hung in his vision.
//MESSAGE FROM: Zero//
//CONTENT: Training Sector Gamma. Now.//
The message vanished. No request. A command.
Alter-Jade let out a short, sharp laugh. "The hollow man calls his tool for maintenance. How... efficient."
Jade didn't respond. He dismissed the scythe and pulled his consciousness back into the real world. Zero initiating contact was a significant data point. It meant their performance on Floor 2 had been deemed worthy of proactive optimization. The whetstone was seeking to sharpen itself.
Training Sector Gamma was a vast, white expanse where the very air hummed with suppressed energy. Zero was already there, standing in the center, Gesshilla still sheathed at his back. He wasn't practicing. He was waiting.
Jade approached, stopping ten paces away.
Zero's silver-green eyes swept over him, performing a swift, silent assessment. "Your form deteriorated by an estimated twelve percent between the first and final engagements on the previous floor," he stated, his voice flat. "You leak energy with every imperfect swing. It is inefficient."
"It was effective," Jade countered, his tone equally neutral.
"Effectiveness is not efficiency. A blunt strike may kill, but a sharp one kills with less cost." Zero finally moved, assuming his Chinmoku stance. "We will spar. You will attack. I will correct. The synergy must be optimized."
This was Zero's language. Not friendship, not camaraderie. Cold, practical improvement of a shared weapon system. Jade understood this. It was a logic he could respect.
He summoned his scythe. The moment the pale bone haft settled into his grip, he felt the difference. The connection was more instinctive, the weight a natural extension of his arm. The black blade seemed to thirst for the conflict.
He didn't wait. He lunged forward, leading with the low, foundational sweep aimed not at Zero, but at the space around him, seeking to break his foundation.
Zero didn't dodge. He used the principles of Tenbatsu Ryūdan, his footwork minimal, his body flowing just outside the scythe's lethal arc. As the blade passed, his sheathed odachi snapped down in a precise strike, aiming not for Jade, but for the scythe's haft, correcting its trajectory with a sharp thwack that vibrated up Jade's arms.
"Wider base. You are off-balance," Zero intoned.
Jade adjusted, pivoting into the rising hook. Zero deflected it with a forearm, the impact solid. "Predictable. The feint was visible 0.3 seconds before initiation."
They continued in this violent dance. Jade was the relentless force, a storm of black steel and white hair. Zero was the unmoving peak, a paragon of precision who used Jade's own momentum and aggression against him, offering terse, razor-sharp critiques with every blocked or deflected strike. It was a brutal form of communication, but it was the most honest one they had.
The climax came as Jade, driven by a surge of frustration at his own perceived slowness, over-committed to a powerful falling cleave. Zero saw the opening instantly. Instead of deflecting, he finally drew Gesshilla, not to strike Jade, but to perform a subtle, unmoving cut in the air—a miniature application of his severance principle, aimed to destabilize the energy around the descending scythe.
But as the void-like energy of Gesshilla met the hungry, obsidian chill of the scythe, something anomalous happened.
The air didn't just ripple; it screamed. A shard of spatial distortion, sharp as broken glass, spontaneously erupted between them, slicing a clean, black gash in reality that hung in the air for a heart-stopping second before sealing itself with a sound like a dying breath.
Both men froze.
Jade felt a predatory jolt of excitement from his scythe, a feeling that was not his own. The star-iron blade was now faintly steaming with a chaotic, purple-black aura.
Zero's eyes were wide, the first true crack in his impenetrable calm. He was not looking at Jade, but at the scythe. His analytical gaze was now mixed with a sliver of primal caution.
"Your weapon..." Zero began, his voice uncharacteristically quiet.
He didn't finish. A neutral System alert chimed, breaking the tension.
< SANCTUARY CYCLE CONCLUDING. >
< ASCENSION TO FLOOR 3 INITIATES IN: 02:00:00. >
The message was a cold bucket of water. The mystery of the scythe was a problem for another time. The next trial was all that mattered.
Zero gave Jade one last, inscrutable look, then turned and walked away without another word. The spar, and the unsettling revelation, were over.
The two hours passed in a blur of final preparations. Jade returned to his quarters, his mind cataloging the scythe's reaction, Zero's unspoken warning, and the impending unknown of the next floor. He needed the silence of his room to recalibrate before the Gateway opened.
As he approached his door, he stopped.
She was leaning against the wall beside his door, her arms crossed. Her hair was a cascade of liquid moonlight, and her amethyst eyes, usually so sharp and analytical, were shadowed with a mix of determination and what looked like worry.
Lyra.
She pushed herself off the wall as he approached, blocking his path. Her gaze was direct, no longer flustered, but deadly serious.
"We need to talk," she said, her voice low and urgent. "Before you go in there. It's about Seraphina."
Jade's glacial gaze met hers, but he remained silent, waiting. An unpredictable asset was initiating contact. This was data.
"She was in your room, wasn't she? After the floor," Lyra continued, not waiting for an answer she already knew. "I have sources among the lesser vampiric attendants. They talk. They say Seraphina is... fixated. It's more than just wanting a powerful soldier."
She stepped closer, her voice dropping to a near-whisper. "They whisper about an 'Oath of Eternal Frost.' It's a ritual. It doesn't just command loyalty; it rewrites a person's will, leaving a powerful, perfect, but utterly hollow vessel. She's done it before to others who refused her. She calls you her 'Perfected Vessel' for a reason."
Jade processed this. The data aligned with Seraphina's earlier behavior—the obsession, the possessiveness. The threat level was confirmed as critical.
"Why?" he asked, the single word cutting through her urgency.
Lyra blinked, thrown by the question. "Why... what?"
"Why inform me? What is your variable?"
A flash of frustration crossed her features. "Is that all you see? Variables and data? This is your soul we're talking about!"
"Emotion is an unreliable metric. Logic is not. State your variable."
She let out a sharp, exasperated breath. "Fine. Call it an investment. A world where a monster like Seraphina gets her hands on a weapon like you is a worse world for everyone else. Including me. Your... partner... is a known quantity. A hollow man is predictable. A hollow man controlled by an obsessed ancient vampire is a catastrophe."
It was a logical, self-interested answer. Jade could respect that. He gave a single, sharp nod. "Acknowledged."
The word, so cold and final, was the last straw for Lyra. The concern and frustration in her eyes solidified into anger.
"Acknowledged?" she repeated, her voice trembling with a sudden, hot fury. "That's it? I come here, risking the attention of a vampire who could crush me without a thought, to warn you about a fate worse than death, and all you have for me is 'acknowledged'?"
She took a step back, her hands clenching into fists at her sides. "You really are just ice and stone, aren't you? Maybe Seraphina should have you. You'd probably find it 'efficient'."
Without another word, she spun on her heel, her robes whirling around her. She strode down the corridor, not looking back, the sharp click of her heels echoing her fury long after she had vanished from sight.
Jade watched her go, his expression unchanging. The data was logged: Lyra. Asset. Motivations: complex mix of self-preservation and unresolved sentiment. Reliability: uncertain.
He turned and entered his room, the door hissing shut behind him. The warning was received. The variable was assessed.
The game was changing. And he was ready.