The sun sat high, bleeding pale gold across cracked concrete as Ren limped onto the training grounds again. His ribs still ached from yesterday's gravity-fist-meets-regret incident, but he tried to stand tall.
(He failed. He slouched like a retired scarecrow.)
Day two of training: survive, don't explode, and maybe, eventually, become cool.
Akira followed a few steps behind, sipping canned coffee like it was disappointment flavored.
Mei walked beside Ren with a clipboard and the quiet determination of someone preparing to babysit a live grenade.
The air in the training ring already hummed with spirit energy—soft, focused, disciplined. Trainees meditated, breathed, punched quietly into the morning air. No explosions. No screaming. No meteor-fists.
Ren admired that.
A world where training didn't end in accidental shockwaves sounded peaceful.
A world where he didn't do that sounded impossible.
Commander Yuna stood at the center with the calm authority of a storm pretending it was sleeping. Her coat swayed in a breeze that hadn't existed until she arrived.
She looked at Ren.
"Today we learn control."
Ren saluted.
"I love control."
Akira snorted. "He's never controlled anything in his life."
Mei didn't look up. "He once lost a fight with soup."
Ren glared at both.
"It was boiling soup. And aggressive."
Yuna raised a hand — silence spread instantly.
She placed a plain stone in the dirt again. Familiar. Heavy. The world seemed to settle around it.
"Ren. Channel your aura. Slowly. Steadily. No techniques. No names."
Ren nodded solemnly.
"Understood. No flashy destiny punches."
"Please never say that again," Mei muttered.
He knelt, touched the stone, and inhaled.
Deep.
Slow.
Trying to feel the ground, the air, the weight of himself.
He pictured yesterday — the spark, the heartbeat, the surge.
He pictured bread — because emotional support carbs mattered.
He pictured not obliterating anything.
A faint silver glow flickered around his knuckles.
Steady.
He exhaled.
Nothing blew up.
He grinned.
"Hey! I'm doing it! Look! Controlled character growth!"
Yuna nodded slightly. "Good."
A rare victory.
Small, but real — like catching sunlight on a cold morning.
Maybe—
The sky cracked.
Not literally — no visible rift, no explosion.
But the air split open in sensation, like the atmosphere itself inhaled sharply.
Every trainee froze.
Birds shot from rooftops in panicked flocks.
Distant alarms hiccuped alive.
Ren's aura sputtered and vanished like it hid behind his ribs.
His skin crawled with instinctive terror — primal, ancient, older than language.
Akira's hand was already on his blade.
Mei's pen dropped, eyes widening.
Yuna didn't turn. Her shoulders simply straightened.
A sound rolled across New Babel — low, distant, like thunder dragging chains across mountains.
Then—
BOOM
A shockwave smashed through the city like the world slapped itself awake. Ren slammed to the dirt. The ground trembled. Buildings shuddered. Dust shook loose from cracked stadium walls.
Screams echoed in the distance.
Another boom followed — closer, heavier.
Like footsteps from something that never had to learn humility.
A voice thundered across the city — not in air, but in spirit.
"MORTALS."
It didn't sound like yelling.
It sounded like a war-drum given a mouth and ancient rage.
Ren's heart stuttered. His breath stopped.
It felt like someone pushed a spear of fire into his spine — not physical pain, but pressure, dominance, inevitability.
A shadow moved beyond the outer wall.
Distant at first—
then the wall itself cracked outward like plaster around a fist.
Stone, steel, prayer wards — all buckled.
And he stepped through.
Huge.
Armored in bone-like plates that fused with flesh.
Eyes burning like molten iron.
Muscles like mountains chiseled by rage.
Every step shook dust loose from miles of ruin.
Ares.
Seal Guardian of Wrath.
Embodied Apocalypse.
He wasn't roaring.
He wasn't fighting.
He was simply… present.
And presence alone suffocated the air.
Trainees dropped to one knee, gasping.
Some trembled.
One fainted immediately.
Ren felt like gravity multiplied.
His bones thrummed like they wanted to kneel without asking him.
Akira stood firm — barely — blade half-drawn, eyes sharp with fear he wouldn't admit.
Mei clutched her clipboard like it could shield her soul.
Yuna lifted her chin, voice steady.
"Fall back. Formation A."
Soldiers on walls scrambled. Sirens wailed. Spirit wards flared to life. Drones spun into assault formation. Monks raised prayer staves. MSE shields shimmered like trembling air.
Ares didn't flinch.
He surveyed the city like a king inspecting an insect colony.
"YOU CLING TO LIFE."
Ren's knees wobbled. He pressed his palms to the ground, teeth clenched.
Don't kneel… don't kneel… don't you dare kneel…
Ares turned his head — his gaze falling like a hammer — and looked directly at Ren.
Not the city.
Not the soldiers.
Ren.
Like he smelled a spark in a rainstorm.
"SO.
THE WORLD CHOOSES ANOTHER."
Ren froze.
His heartbeat wasn't alone again — that other one pulsed inside him, louder, answering something it shouldn't be answering.
He swallowed a sound he didn't want to call fear.
Ares lifted one hand — slowly.
Gravity bent around his fingers.
He wasn't attacking.
He was judging.
"BREAK."
His hand closed into a fist.
The earth split — a shockwave tore through the dirt toward the training grounds, ripping concrete and prayer seals like paper.
"MOVE!" Yuna shouted.
Akira grabbed Ren's arm, dragging him sideways as the ground exploded where they'd just been standing. Shards of stone rained down.
Dust filled Ren's lungs. He coughed, eyes burning.
Ares stepped again — casual, inevitable, unstoppable.
A missile streaked from a turret, slamming into his shoulder.
It exploded in white light.
Ares didn't blink.
Soldiers on walls fired rail-spears. Monks chanted protective sigils. Shields flared bright, cracking.
Ares lifted his other hand.
Spirit pressure spiked.
The city's barrier — the sacred-tech hybrid shield — flickered like a candle in wind.
Ren's stomach dropped.
"He's going to crush us…"
Akira's voice low, steady, shaking only in the breath between words:
"Get up."
Ren blinked through dust.
"Huh?"
"Get. Up."
Mei grabbed Ren's wrist from the other side, knuckles white.
"You don't kneel to gods," she whispered fiercely. "That's not what we do here."
Ren's eyes stung — fear, dust, something hotter.
He forced himself upright, legs screaming, breath thin.
Ares' eyes found him again.
The titan tilted his head slightly — curious, cruel.
"DEFY?"
Ren's voice cracked — weak, hoarse, terrified — but real:
"Yeah. Defy."
He raised his fist.
No aura flared.
No power screamed.
He didn't glow.
He just stood.
Not kneeling.
Not breaking.
Ares' lips curled — amusement? Disdain? Hunger?
The titan lowered his hand —
—and Yuna blurred.
She appeared in front of Ren like she stepped through time.
Her aura flared — not bright, not loud, but heavy.
The weight of a woman who refused extinction once already and would again.
She faced Ares.
"You do not take this city today."
Ares' gaze sharpened.
He recognized her strength — not equal, but worthy enough to acknowledge the inconvenience.
He stepped back once.
The earth quaked from that single retreating step — as if mountains sighed.
"THEN PREPARE HIM."
The words landed like boulders thrown at fate.
"FOR WHEN NEXT I COME—
HE FALLS,
OR I FALL."
Ares vanished.
Not teleported.
Not ran.
He simply ceased to be here, like wrath folding back into the universe.
Silence.
The dust settled.
Breaths returned.
Shields dimmed.
Ren's legs gave out. He dropped to the ground hard, gasping.
Mei knelt beside him, shaking him.
"Ren! Breathe."
Akira crouched too, blade still half-drawn, knuckles white.
Yuna turned, kneeling to Ren's eye-level, voice low but firm.
"You stood. Even shaking. Even afraid."
Ren exhaled a broken half-laugh, half-sob.
"I… think I peed a little."
Mei face-palmed. "Of course you did."
Akira closed his eyes. "…Honestly impressive that's all you did."
Ren swallowed hard.
His whole body trembled — not just from fear, but from the echo of something inside him.
A heartbeat that wasn't his pulsed again — louder, steady.
Like it decided something too.
Yuna placed a hand on his shoulder — not soft, but grounding.
"Training," she said quietly, "begins. Now."
Ren stared at the cracked earth, the scorched prayer seals, the soldiers trembling on the walls, the sky clearing of divine presence.
Then he whispered, breath shaky but determined
"Okay."
A beat.
"I'll learn. I'll get strong. I'll fight."
He lifted his fist, bruised, shaking.
"Meteor Knuckle… someday… but controlled."
Akira groaned.
Mei sighed in defeated acceptance.
Yuna rose.
"Then stand up, Ren Ito," she commanded.
He did.
Not gracefully.
Not powerfully.
But he stood.
Because humans break — and stand anyway.