It happened fast.
Too fast.
One moment, Kai was still standing by the table.
The next—the vial was gone.
Matthew stood a step back, the small container already in his hand, fingers closed around it like a trophy. There had been no sound. No warning. Just speed—refined, lethal speed honed through years of battle.
Kai blinked.
For a fraction of a second, genuine surprise crossed his face.
Matthew caught it.
A smirk tugged at the corner of the knight's lips.
"So that's it?" Matthew said, rolling the vial between his fingers. "That was your gamble?"
He raised it closer to his face, studying the faintly shimmering liquid inside. It pulsed softly, as if resisting the glass that imprisoned it.
"What is this?" he asked.
Kai recovered quickly. Too quickly.
"A pure form of energy," he replied evenly. "Unaligned. Highly concentrated. If consumed, it will increase the user's power significantly."
Matthew's gaze sharpened. He didn't drink it. Not yet.
"And where," he asked, "did a trash prince find something like this?"
Kai didn't hesitate.
"From a merchant," he said. "He didn't know what he had. Sold it under the pretext of it being an unknown curiosity—priced high enough to sound valuable, cheap enough to move quickly."
Matthew's eyes never left Kai's face.
"You recognized its value?"
"Yes."
Matthew chuckled softly. "How?"
Kai answered simply. "I smelled it."
That earned him a pause.
"…Smelled it?"
"Yes," Kai said. "Through experimentation. I can perceive energies when their concentration is high enough."
As he spoke, Matthew's attention shifted—not to Kai's words, but to his body.
The knight's senses extended outward, subtle and practiced. He wasn't listening for lies. He was measuring rhythm.
Heartbeat.Breathing.Micro-tension in muscles.
Nothing spiked.
Nothing wavered.
Matthew frowned slightly.
"You're not lying," he said at last. "I can sense it."
Then his expression hardened.
"But that doesn't make you smart," he continued. "It makes you reckless."
He lifted the vial slightly.
"You expect me to drink something like this based on your confidence alone?" Matthew scoffed. "I don't trust you. I need this verified."
Kai met his gaze calmly.
"I won't stop you," he said. "But you won't have time."
Matthew's eyes flicked back to him.
"What?"
"The container," Kai continued, voice steady. "It isn't designed to hold energy this pure. The structure is already failing."
Matthew's grip tightened unconsciously.
"By my estimates," Kai added, "it will last no more than fifteen seconds."
Silence stretched.
Matthew looked down.
A thin line had formed along the side of the vial.
A crack.
The energy inside reacted instantly, surging toward it. A single drop began to form, trembling at the edge like a living thing.
Matthew's jaw clenched.
He had seconds.
Verify it—and lose it.Hesitate—and waste it.
For the first time since entering the room, uncertainty crept into his expression.
Kai didn't move.
Didn't speak.
Didn't rush him.
That, more than anything, made Matthew uneasy.
The crack widened.
The drop fell—
Matthew closed his eyes.
And gulped it down.
"The sin of greed," Kai said quietly,"makes one do things one should never do."
Matthew's pupils contracted.
The world shifted.
Mana—normally a living current to him, clear and obedient—vanished from his perception as if someone had snuffed out a flame. His legs buckled without warning, armor crashing against the stone floor as he dropped to one knee… then both.
Something cold entered him.
Not poison.
Not fire.
Corruption.
It flooded his core like black water poured into a clear spring. His mana screamed—not in pain, but in resistance—as the foreign energy latched onto it, devouring it, breaking it down and rebuilding it into something twisted.
Power surged.
Violent. Uncontrolled.
His veins burned. His muscles spasmed. The Sword Qi he had refined over decades shattered into jagged fragments, ripping through his channels without rhythm or restraint.
Matthew gasped, fingers digging into the floor.
"What—" His voice broke. "What did you give me?"
Kai looked down at him.
Calm.
Measured.
"The thing you consumed," Kai said, "was my true energy."
Matthew's vision blurred. He could feel his mana being rewritten—stronger, denser, but feral. Each breath felt like it might tear his lungs apart.
"I extracted it," Kai continued, "from my core."
As the words fell, memories surfaced—not Matthew's.
Karl's.
A dimly lit chamber.Runes half-scorched.Karl sitting alone, trembling as black veins crawled briefly across his arms—then vanished.
Energy experiments.
Every time Mana, Qi, or Chakra entered his body, it didn't circulate.
It was eaten.
Devoured by something deeper. Something hungry.
Karl had written feverishly:
Corruption does not coexist.It consumes.To stabilize it, something must die.
He hadn't understood what that "something" was.
Not at first.
Another memory.
Karl coughing blood after absorbing a minor energy crystal—laughing weakly, unaware that part of his soul had gone silent.
Each experiment cost him something.
Emotion dulled.Dreams faded.Pieces of himself… missing.
Then the flower.
An energy too vast.
Too pure.
Corruption had surged.
Karl had panicked—not from pain, but realization.
I can't hold this.
He had forced the energy out, compressing it, sealing it into glass through sheer desperation.
One vial.
Then another.
Thirteen in total.
Each one darker than the last.
The final experiment had taken everything.
Karl had lain down to sleep.
And his soul had simply… ended.
The memories shattered.
Matthew screamed.
The corruption finished devouring his remaining mana and began to burn him from the inside, rewriting his pathways into something unstable, unchained.
"Stop—" he choked. "Do something!"
"You have one minute," Kai said calmly.
Matthew's head snapped up.
"What?"
"This energy," Kai said, "will finish converting your mana into corrupt, unregulated force. When it does, your body will tear itself apart."
Kai crouched slightly—not in mercy, but clarity.
"There is only one way to survive."
Matthew's vision darkened at the edges.
"What… way?"
"A Mana Contract," Kai replied. "Fifteen years. Absolute loyalty."
Matthew laughed weakly. "Slavery—"
"No," Kai corrected. "Employment."
He raised his hand.
"The corruption recognizes me," Kai said. "My body can absorb it. Stabilize it. Draw it back."
Matthew felt it—the truth of those words—because the corruption recoiled slightly at Kai's presence.
"If you agree," Kai continued, "I will take the excess from you. You will live. Stronger than before."
"And if I refuse?"
Kai didn't answer immediately.
He didn't need to.
Matthew felt his heart misfire.
His Sword Qi shattered completely.
Blood spilled from his mouth.
His pride broke.
"I accept," Matthew rasped. "I swear it."
Kai nodded.
A sigil flared between them—ancient, cold, absolute.
The Mana Contract formed.
As Kai absorbed the excess energy from Matthew, something changed.
Deep within him, a small core began to take shape.
It was unstable—still forming—but unmistakable.
A knot of corrupt mana, dense and restless, wrapped around something else. Something different.
Kai focused inward.
Soul energy.
Not his.
Matthew's.
It was as if Matthew's soul energy had resisted the corruption, clashed with it—and lost. Both were pulled into Kai when he absorbed the excess, merging into something new.
A hybrid core.
Power boiled within him.
Not explosively—but with pressure, like molten metal sealed inside fragile glass.
Too much, Kai realized calmly. For this body.
Not yet.
He opened his eyes.
Matthew was still on one knee, breathing hard, alive—but changed. His presence felt heavier now. Sharper.
Kai spoke.
"You don't need to bow."
Matthew froze.
"You will act exactly as you did before," Kai continued. "In public, you treat me like a useless prince. If anything—make it look like I'm your inconvenience."
Matthew frowned slightly, listening.
"Privately," Kai went on, "you will teach me the sword. Properly. Basics first. Stances. Breathing. Control."
A pause.
"You will also protect me. Quietly."
Matthew's jaw tightened.
"Assign your students as guards," Kai said. "Tell them it's to keep an eye on me. To make sure I don't interfere with your plans."
Kai met Matthew's eyes.
"In reality, it lets you watch who watches me and protect me."
Silence followed.
"This is all for now," Kai said. "Training begins tomorrow. Early morning."
He turned away.
The matter, in his mind, was settled.
Matthew paused at the doorway.
For a moment, Kai thought he had already left.
Then the knight spoke—without turning around.
"One more thing."
Kai lifted his gaze.
"The First Prince," Matthew said, voice neutral, "has reached the Eighth Pinnacle."
That earned Kai's attention.
"He'll announce a duel soon," Matthew continued. "My first apprentice will be his opponent."
Matthew finally turned his head slightly, just enough for one eye to be visible.
"If you're serious about learning the sword," he said, "watching that battle will teach you more than a hundred lessons."
Kai nodded once.
"And," Matthew added, almost casually, "the Seventh Prince offered me five cities."
Kai didn't react.
"In exchange," Matthew finished, "for not helping you—when he initiates a kingdom battle against you."
Silence followed.
Kai lifted a hand in dismissal.
Matthew left.
The door closed.
Kai did not move.
Instead, he reached inward—into memory.
The Kingdom of Pride did not treat its princes equally.
Each was given a domain.Each was granted a force.Each was paired—officially—with a knight.
It was called balance.
It was called tradition.
In truth, it was a way to let royal blood devour itself without staining the throne.
Kai saw it now through Karl's eyes.
Twelveth birthday.
No grand feast.
No court-wide celebration.
Just a quiet hall, warm with candlelight.
Karl's mother sat before him, her hands resting atop a lacquered box etched with the sigil of Pride.
"You're old enough now," she had said softly.
Karl remembered the sound of her voice more clearly than her face.
"This kingdom won't protect you," she continued. "Not because you are weak—but because you are inconvenient."
She opened the box.
Inside lay sealed documents, insignias, and rings bearing the marks of three cities.
"They are yours," she said. "And so are the people bound to them."
Karl had looked up, startled.
"A force?" he asked.
She smiled.
"Not an army," she corrected. "Loyalty."
The memory shifted.
Karl learned later—much later—that every prince could initiate a kingdom battle.
A sanctioned conflict.
One prince against another.
Cities looted.Resources seized.Forces broken and absorbed.
The throne never interfered.
Because the weak deserved to fall.
Karl's domain was small.
Three cities.
And money.
Enough to make others greedy.
Enough to make the Seventh Prince bold.
Kai opened his eyes.
So that was the board.
The First Prince climbing toward absolute dominance.The Seventh Prince circling like a vulture.And the Third Prince—
A prize that looked easy.
Kai smiled faintly.
"Kingdom battles," he murmured.
A system that rewarded aggression.A world where strength justified theft.
Perfect.
Because Kai had never played fair games.
Only games where everyone else misunderstood the rules.
And now—
He finally had time.