The infirmary walls were pale stone, the kind that held cold even when fire warmed the room. Thalen blinked slowly, the soft clink of metal and whispered voices washing over him. His body felt hollow, as if something had been torn out and something new, something vast, had been put in its place.
"You're awake."
He turned his head to see Nara sitting on a nearby stool, her cloak draped over her knees. She looked uninjured, but quiet, too quiet.
"How long was I out?" he croaked.
"Two days."
"Did I… pass?"
She didn't answer immediately. Instead, she handed him a bowl of warm broth. He sipped slowly, and as the heat settled in his chest, so did her words.
"You did more than pass. You survived what no one has in twenty years."
The memories returned in pieces. The void. The reflection. The blade that shattered. And that final whisper:
Rise, Tyrant.
"I felt it," Thalen murmured. "Something awakened."
Nara's eyes sharpened. "But you didn't unlock the Tyrant Spirit fully not yet. The Examiner said your aura twisted. Changed. She called it a precursor phase your Blade Aura is beginning to evolve. You're halfway."
Thalen set the bowl down. "What about the others? Did they pass?"
Her silence told him everything.
Only he had returned from the chamber with anything to show for it.
Kern, Vonn, Lira, and even Nara they had all failed the exam.
Later that day, he was summoned to the main hall of the Ironbranch Citadel. The examiner waited, flanked by two cloaked figures. Their auras were... suffocating. One burned like a furnace barely contained. The other felt like silence sharpened into a blade.
SSS Heroes.
Real ones.
"I am Serel," the examiner said, "Gatekeeper of the Tyrant Spirit Trials. You are the first to reach acceptance in two decades. But this is not the end."
Thalen stood, bandaged but upright. "What happens now?"
"You will be taken to the Bastion of Might, headquarters of the SSS. There, you will undergo training under a Tyrant Spirit wielder. Only when you have fully awakened the second aura will you be worthy to stand among us."
"And if I fail?"
"You will not die. But you may never wield aura again."
Thalen swallowed. The room seemed smaller now.
Serel stepped aside. The cloaked man with the silent aura approached, pulling back his hood.
He was older than Thalen expected silver hair, short beard, one eye scarred shut. But his remaining gaze was clear, fierce, and absolute.
"I will train you," the man said. "My name is Ragan Tyrant of Silence, and Third of the Nine."
The journey to the Bastion took three days on windborne gryphons. The city of Falcrest vanished beneath the clouds, replaced by mountain peaks that touched the sky. The Bastion itself was carved into the spine of the world jagged stone, ancient carvings, and towers wrapped in aura-forged steel.
Inside, Thalen was given a chamber of his own, sparsely furnished with a single cot, a weapon rack, and an obsidian mirror. Ragan wasted no time.
"Draw your sword," he said the moment they entered the training yard.
"I… don't have one."
"Then forge one."
Thalen blinked. "I'm not a smith."
"I didn't say how to forge one." Ragan's aura flared, invisible yet oppressive. "You carry Blade Aura. Make it manifest."
Thalen focused, sweat beading on his brow. He closed his eyes and reached inward.
The flicker of his Blade Aura emerged, thin and shaky but it was there.
He imagined a sword. Its shape. Its weight. Its purpose.
And the aura responded.
From his hand, a blade of shimmering light formed wobbly, barely held together, but sharp enough to cut.
Ragan's voice was low. "You have the foundation. But you fight like someone waiting to be saved."
Thalen gritted his teeth. "I trained. Every day."
"Training is routine. Survival is instinct. The Tyrant Spirit does not answer to the cautious. It answers to those who dare."
Then Ragan drew his own blade.
There was no aura flash. No grand display.
Just a single black sword that hummed with silence. The moment it appeared, even the wind stilled.
"Attack me," he said.
Thalen did.
The fight lasted seconds. His aura-sword shattered against Ragan's guard. He was flipped, slammed to the ground, and nearly blacked out.
"Again," Ragan said.
He obeyed.
Days turned to weeks. Each training session pushed Thalen to the brink. Ragan taught without mercy, only principle. Thalen learned to shape his aura more precisely, to hold his construct longer, to weave offense and defense into a single movement. The pain never stopped but something deeper began to take root.
His aura no longer flickered.
It burned.
And in his dreams, the vision returned.
The field of broken swords.
The shadowy blade in the center.
Each time, he got closer.
One evening, after a brutal spar, Ragan threw Thalen a cloth-wrapped item.
"A gift," he said. "You've earned it."
Inside was a sword not an aura projection, but a real one. Its hilt was wrapped in dark red leather. The blade was sleek, curved slightly, with a core of silver steel and faint glyphs etched into its spine.
"Tier?" Thalen asked, breathless.
"Uncommon," Ragan replied. "It matches your current resonance. As your aura evolves, so too can the weapon. Eventually, you may forge a Legendary one."
Thalen unsheathed it slowly. It felt alive in his hand.
Ragan nodded in approval. "You're not yet a Tyrant, Thalen. But your spirit... it's learning to stand."
Thalen looked at the blade, then at the stars above the Bastion.
He wasn't the same boy who sparred against Kern and lost every duel. He wasn't the student with the weakest aura.
He was the only one to return from the Trial.
And he was just getting started.