The smell of the Belisarius Academy training grounds was unmistakable: a rancid mix of cold sweat, burnt ozone, and iron.
We were lined up at the edge of the arena, thirty cadets waiting to be called.
Instructor Kaelen paced in front of us. He was a massive man, the left half of his face replaced by a raw metal plate following an old war injury. He walked with a limp, dragging a mechanical leg that ground with every step.
"On the battlefield," Kaelen bellowed, his voice magically amplified to drown out the hum of the generators, "hesitation is treason. Mercy is suicide."
He stopped in front of Lucian, the weakest cadet after me. He had a vacant look in his eyes and was trembling slightly. Without warning, Kaelen backhanded him with his metal hand, knocking the boy to the ground.
"Look at him!" he shouted, pointing at Lucian. "Fear is natural. But if you let it control you, you are already dead. We don't train sheep here. Here, we forge assassins."
Kaelen scanned the line of students. When his eyes—one organic and one cybernetic—landed on me, his grimace of disgust was evident.
"Acheron," he growled. "Step forward."
I obeyed. As I advanced, I felt their gazes pinned to the back of my neck, charged with expectation and excitement. To them, I was a luxury punching bag, an easy and gratifying victory that would ensure a good grade without real effort. Everyone wanted to be the executioner of the class sheep.
"We need a demonstration of the superiority of elemental magic over..." Kaelen paused, looking me up and down with a sneer of feigned pity, "...the useless efforts of an invalid marksman."
I tightened my grip on my pistols until my knuckles turned white.
The insult wasn't directed at the weapons. For a true Marksman of Vorakh, a pistol was an extension of their power. For me, in my magic-starved hands, they were simply crutches. Metal canes for someone powerless.
"Vesper Ignis," Kaelen called out.
A murmur of disappointment rippled through the line of cadets. They had lost their chance.
From the other side, Vesper advanced like a predator toward her prey. She was every duelist's nightmare: heiress to an elite house of pyromancers, fast, arrogant, and cruel. Her red hair was pulled back in a high ponytail, and her eyes reflected a sadistic anticipation.
"The rules are simple," the instructor said, stepping back toward the safety barrier. "No time limit. No points. And, of course, no surrender. The combat ends when one of you is unable to fight."
Vesper smiled, unsheathing her sword. The blade came to life with a hum, glowing with an orange heat that distorted the air.
"Try not to pass out so quickly, Acheron," she said, her voice soft but laced with venom. "My father is watching from the stands, and he hates short shows."
"Begin!" Kaelen barked.
I didn't wait. I knew I couldn't win in strength, so I bet everything on tactical anticipation.
I raised my pistols and fired.
I didn't aim at her body, but at the ground in front of her feet, trying to kick up a cloud of dust and debris to give me visual cover. It was a good theoretical idea.
But reality was disappointing.
Vesper didn't even take cover. With a simple, bored wave of her free hand, a wave of explosive heat swept away the projectiles and the dust before they could even react.
"Predictable," she whispered.
Then she vanished.
She was too fast for my eyes, which barely registered the reddish blur.
I felt the first impact before processing it.
A fist wrapped in a thin layer of mana sank into my stomach. The air left my lungs, and my feet lifted off the ground from the sheer inertia of the blow.
For a fraction of a second, I hung in the air, weightless, my eyes bulging as I gasped for oxygen.
Vesper didn't let me fall.
Capitalizing on my suspension, she spun on her axis and connected a spinning kick directly to my face. I heard the dry crack of my nasal septum before pain exploded in my skull.
I was launched backward, bouncing against the compacted sand like a broken doll, until I came to a stop several meters away.
The world was spinning. I spat blood and a fragment of a tooth onto the red dirt.
My brain shouted orders—Get up! Aim! Fire!—but my body responded with sluggishness. I barely managed to get to my knees, raising the pistols with trembling hands. My vision was blurred by involuntary tears from the blow to my nose.
"Is that it?" Vesper asked. She wasn't even winded. She walked toward me slowly, enjoying the show.
I pulled the trigger out of pure survival instinct.
Click.
Cold panic seized my fingers. I began firing in succession, emptying the magazines in a frenzied rhythm.
Vesper didn't run. She didn't even speed up. She simply walked toward me, inexorable.
With almost imperceptible movements of her wrist, her sword danced in front of her, deflecting every bullet with a metallic cling and orange sparks. It was an impenetrable barrier. My projectiles bounced harmlessly into the sand while she closed the distance, step by step, savoring my despair.
When she was in front of me, she lowered the sword. She didn't need it for this.
Her boot slammed into my chest with the force of a battering ram.
I felt—and heard—the unmistakable crunch of my ribs cracking under the impact. I was thrown backward again, rolling across the abrasive ground, swallowing sand and blood, until I stopped several meters away, gaping like a fish out of water.
The world spun, and every breath was a stab in the thorax.
"Weak and fragile," Vesper said, standing over me.
This time, it wasn't a kick. Instead, there was a brutal thrust.
The tip of her thermal sword sank deep into my left thigh.
The scream tore through my throat before I could contain it. It wasn't a clean cut; it was pure lava injected into my veins. The blade cauterized the flesh as it entered, boiling the blood and cooking the muscle from the inside out. The smell of burnt meat—my own meat—filled the air, causing violent retching.
"Ahhhg!" I bellowed, the pain overriding any rational thought.
Out of pure animal instinct, I twisted my torso, raising my weapons in a desperate attempt to blow her head off at point-blank range.
Vesper didn't even flinch. With a fluid flick of her wrist, her sword traced an upward line.
Shhhink.
I felt a vibration in my hands, followed by a sudden lightness.
I looked at my weapons. The barrels of my pistols had been sliced cleanly in half. The metal glowed red-hot at the cut.
Vesper looked at me with a frosty smile, withdrawing the sword from my scorched leg.
"My," she said, tilting her head. "It seems you don't like stabbings. You screamed very loudly."
She took a step back, twirling the sword in her hand.
"Then let's try slicing."
The blade descended again, now toward my right leg.
There was no resistance. The molecular edge went through the bone like butter. My right leg separated just below the knee.
The shock was such that my brain took two seconds to register the amputation.
Another scream of pain escaped my mouth as I felt the disconnection of my leg.
I tried to crawl, to get away, using my hands to drag my broken body across the sand, leaving a trail of blood and ash.
"Where are you going?" Vesper asked, stepping on my back and halting my escape.
I gritted my teeth and, in a last act of suicidal defiance, swung my dagger to cut her foot. It was a slow, weak strike.
"Persistent. And annoying."
Her sword came down a third time.
My right arm flew through the air, spinning in a macabre parabola before landing in the sand.
I lay on my back, gasping, staring up at the blinding stadium floodlights. They were like artificial stars, cold and distant. I could hear the laughter of the students in the stands. They weren't boos of hatred; they were laughs of amusement.
Vesper stood over me, blocking the light.
"Do you know what I hate most about you, Acheron?" she asked, lowering the tip of her sword until the heat singed my eyelashes. "Those eyes. Always watching, always analyzing. As if you believe you can understand us."
She brought the burning blade closer to my face. She didn't bring it down all at once. She did it slowly, savoring the terror in my gaze.
"Your eyes are useless anyway."
The tip of the sword descended toward my left eye.
There was no cut, only heat. I felt my eyelashes turn to ash and the fluid in my eye begin to boil before the metal even touched me.
"Ahhhh!" The scream escaped me when the blade made contact.
It wasn't a prick. It was liquefaction. The heat cauterized and melted the eyeball in its socket. The pain was white, absolute, and deafening. My vision on the left side turned into a red blur and then into smoking darkness.
I writhed, screaming until my throat tore, but Vesper's boot kept me pinned to the ground.
"You have one left," she whispered, her voice filtering through my agony.
Without giving me time to catch my breath, she moved the blade toward my right eye.
"Please..." I tried to say, instinct breaking my pride.
Vesper just smiled.
The blade descended. This time I couldn't see it coming; tears of pain blinded me. I only felt the hiss of burnt flesh and the second explosion of agony.
My world went completely dark. The darkness was not silent; it was filled with the smell of my own cooked flesh.
"Combat finished," Kaelen's bored voice announced. "Clean up the mess."
Darkness claimed me long before the paramedics arrived to pick up the smoking pieces of what used to be me.