Part 1: Fate
Leo, Ryuk, and Haruto arrived at the designated training grounds, their footsteps echoing across the open stone layout.
Awaiting them were their three masters, standing side by side in absolute stillness.
Saptyle, the East Sword Saint.
Ken, master of the Red Bird.
And Flora, the Archmage.
Flora stepped forward, her eyes sweeping over the three young warriors before announcing the true purpose of their gathering.
"It has been a month since you three began training under our guidance," Flora said, a faint smile gracing her lips. "Today marks your final test."
She paused, letting the weight of her words settle before adding the condition.
"In this final trial, you will fight your respective masters in a full-contact duel. However, there is a twist—we will no longer be holding back. Each of us will deploy our absolute full power."
She noticed the sudden shift in their postures and offered a reassuring gesture.
"Do not worry. We have no intention of killing you."
Ryuk adjusted his grip on his weapon, his pulse quickening with intense anticipation.
So I finally get to face East Sword Saint Saptyle at his true, unsuppressed power, Ryuk thought to himself. I can barely contain my excitement.
Beside him, Leo clenched his fists, his golden aura flickering softly around his knuckles.
It's time, Leo thought, his jaw tightening. I will show Ken that my hidden beast power far surpasses his red bird.
Haruto remained entirely silent, his gaze fixed on Flora with an unreadable, emotionless expression.
This will not be simple, Haruto calculated internally. Flora has never revealed the full extent of her capabilities in our previous sessions. When she goes all out, she will inevitably deploy high-tier rituals I have never encountered. I must maintain absolute caution.
Without another word, Flora raised her catalyst hand and invoked a large-scale Teleportation Ritual.
A brilliant spatial matrix enveloped all six individuals, instantly warping them into three isolated, highly specialized combat arenas.
Ryuk opened his eyes to find himself standing on a massive, completely flat mountain peak.
The battlefield was vast, open, and utterly barren, surrounded only by sea level mist and biting high-altitude winds.
Miles away, Leo and Ken materialized within a wide plain forest—an expansive stretch of open earth where every single tree had already been cleared away to create an unobstructed arena.
Haruto and Flora appeared beside a rushing river, the sound of turbulent water crashing violently against jagged shoreline rocks.
Each student and master took their positions, preparing their bodies and minds for the immediate outbreak of battle.
Opposite Ryuk, Saptyle immediately initiated his transformation.
"Ancestor Sword Form."
In an instant, Saptyle's attire shifted into a specialized, combat-ready attire.
He wore an asymmetric tactical jacket colored in deep forest-green, dark bark-brown, and bright leaf-green, woven with glowing green geometric vine patterns that pulsed with internal vitality.
On his head rested his signature dark brown baseball cap, worn backward, displaying a glowing green leaf emblem cleanly on the front fabric.
He wore heavy, dark combat pants fitted with bark-textured knee pads, paired with high-tech ninja-style sneakers featuring luminous green soles that hummed against the stone.
Nature-infused details completed the form: a belt hand-woven from thick, flexible tree roots bound by a golden elemental buckle, along with fingerless leather grips across his hands.
Simultaneously, in the plain forest, Ken unleashed his latent heritage.
A colossal red bird manifested behind Ken's back, its deep crimson aura exploding outward and saturating the surrounding atmosphere in a heavy, suffocating pressure.
At the riverside, Flora invoked her supreme transformed state.
"Crismarin Blessing."
Brilliant sky-blue diamonds materialized across her skin, glowing with intense internal illumination.
In the precise center of her forehead sat a large, flawless heart-shaped sky-blue diamond, radiating pure atmospheric force.
She was draped in a long, elegant royal white cloak resembling a ceremonial ballgown, flowing down gracefully to hover just above the terrain.
Floating behind her back were long, white silk streamer ribbons, tipped with small dangling sky-blue diamond droplets that swayed without any breeze.
Below her waist, her body transformed entirely into an intricate, suspended crystal chandelier constructed from dozens of glittering, translucent sky-blue diamond spires.
A sleek golden collar encircled her neck, complemented by a matching golden ring around her waist, with small golden feet peeking out from beneath the crystal chandelier framework.
The three masters stood fully empowered, their combined atmospheres warping the air of their respective domains.
Leo, Ryuk, and Haruto assumed their stances.
The final test began.
Ryuk activated his own Ancestor Sword Form, his aura spiking as he lunged directly at Saptyle at absolute maximum speed.
Saptyle calmly drew his two katanas, his eyes tracking Ryuk's approach without a fraction of hesitation.
"East Sword Style: Scorpion Drag."
Saptyle executed a fluid downward double-katana swing.
The resulting atmospheric pressure hit Ryuk like a solid wall, blowing him completely backward through the air.
Saptyle adjusted his dual blades, his voice ringing out across the flat mountain peak.
"As I promised before, a day would come where I would use my true strength. Now, try to sever these."
A dense green aura spread outward from Saptyle's feet, saturating the mountain stone.
From the bedrock below, dozens of giant, thorny vines erupted violently, lunging toward Ryuk like striking serpents.
Ryuk steadied his stance, watching the incoming mass of wood and thorns.
He forced his mind into absolute calm and delivered a precise, lightning-fast sword stroke.
CLANG!
The first vine was clean-cut.
Another vine lunged instantly from his left, but Ryuk severed it mid-air with a sharp backhand counter.
The vines began attacking in relentless, machine-gun-like succession, striking from every conceivable angle.
Ryuk maintained his focus, continuously adjusting his footing, dodging, and sprinting across the plateau to keep from being surrounded.
Then, for a fraction of a second, his concentration wavered.
A massive thorny vine broke through his guard, slamming into his side and piercing deeply through his skin.
The momentary disruption broke his defensive momentum.
Before he could recover, multiple thorny vines impaled Ryuk simultaneously, tearing into his flesh with cruel, brutal force.
The attack ceased, leaving Ryuk kneeling on the stone, covered in deep, bleeding puncture wounds.
Saptyle looked down at him, his expression cold.
"Is that all? I expected far better from you."
Another giant thorny vine shot forward, aiming directly for Ryuk's chest.
Ryuk focused entirely on his internal energy, regulating his breathing pattern before exhaling a sharp breath of frigid air.
FROST!
The incoming vine froze instantly, turning to brittle ice upon contact with his breath before shattering into dust.
Saptyle observed the frost with a narrow gaze.
"I see you are slowly reaching toward absolute zero. However, let me make this clear—your current state is merely an incomplete Ancestor Sword Form. A true Ancestor Sword Form possesses power far beyond this. You require significantly deeper mastery."
Saptyle raised his hand, summoning a massive storm of vines that surged forward to bury Ryuk completely.
Ryuk lunged directly into the onslaught.
Just as the wave of thorns was about to crush him, he exhaled a massive frost breath, freezing the vines and the entire surrounding terrain in a thick layer of blue ice.
He shattered the frozen mass with a heavy sword sweep.
Suddenly, the ground beneath his feet detonated.
Eight gigantic, reinforced thorny vines erupted explosively from the stone directly beneath Ryuk, striking him with monstrous upward kinetic force.
Ryuk was launched high into the sky, the sharp thorns piercing his flesh, with several sharp tips stopping just millimeters from his vital organs.
Mid-air, the eight vines coiled around his body, instantly exerting massive, bone-crushing hydraulic pressure.
Ryuk attempted to channel his freezing breath to shatter the constraints, but the severe compression squeezed the air directly from his lungs, making it impossible to establish a breathing rhythm.
The sound of cracking bones echoed across the mountain peak.
The vines suddenly dissolved into green energy, releasing Ryuk as he plummeted back to earth, slamming hard onto the flat stone floor.
Though battered, bleeding, and suffering from broken bones, Ryuk remained conscious, his eyes staring stubbornly up at the sky.
In the plain forest arena, Leo unleashed his latent heritage without delay.
"Wolf!"
A colossal, golden-yellow wolf spirit manifested behind Leo, throwing its head back and letting out a ear-splitting, primal roar that shook the barren ground.
Leo initiated the offensive, thrusting his fists forward to unleash long-range energy projections.
Multiple high-velocity Wolf Blasts shot across the terrain toward Ken, detonating sequentially across the flat earth.
The ground was pulverized, but as the dust cleared, Ken remained standing in the center of the destruction, completely untouched.
Leo leaped high into the air, positioning himself directly above Ken.
He unleashed a rapid-fire sequence of long-range Explosive Wolf Kicks, firing energy projectiles down like an artillery bombardment.
The strikes ripped apart an enormous section of the plain forest area.
Landing back on the earth, Leo called out, his breathing heavy.
"Look! I can now utilize my wolf's power with complete efficiency! I can even fuse my physical martial techniques directly with its energy!"
Ken stood amid the cratered landscape, his face entirely composed.
The massive red bird behind Ken flared brightly, releasing a massive wave of dense crimson kinetic energy that swept across the entire zone, flattening the pulverized stone.
In a fraction of a second, Ken accelerated faster than the eye could follow.
He appeared directly in front of Leo and delivered a single, unsuppressed power slash.
BOOM!
The impact launched Leo across the horizon, sending him crashing through stone and dirt until he slammed heavily into the base of a distant mountain face.
At the riverside arena, Haruto opened his offensive with a continuous Flamethrower Ritual.
Flora raised her hand, instantly summoning a crystal wall from the riverbank.
Her Crismarin Blessing granted her access to specialized, high-density absorbing crystals capable of neutralizing raw energetic output.
The crystalline structure absorbed the intense heat and force of Haruto's flames without sustaining a single crack.
Flora countered immediately.
"Hollow Effect: Attack."
A floating, round purple spear materialized beside her and shot forward at extreme speed, slamming into Haruto's chest and blasting him far across the riverside terrain.
Haruto recovered his balance instantly and deployed a Stone Drill Ritual.
Massive, rotating spires of rock rose from the shoreline to crush Flora.
"Hollow Effect: Defense."
A circular, translucent barrier encompassed Flora.
The moment the stone drills made contact with the barrier, their kinetic trajectory was completely reversed, bouncing back toward Haruto at twice their original speed.
Haruto shattered the reflected stone spires with a precise sword stroke, his eyes analyzing her defense without a trace of emotion.
The Hollow Effect reflects incoming force back at the caster, Haruto noted. Then I must force her structure to absorb this as well.
Flora generated dozens of needle-sharp crystal spikes, launching them at Haruto in a dense volley.
Haruto ducked and wove through the projectile path, dodging every spike.
Before he could stabilize his posture, Flora pointed her catalyst wand directly at his head.
"Psycho Blast."
A pure white beam instantly struck Haruto's forehead.
The technique bypassed physical armor, striking his brain directly to degrade his mental state and inflict severe psychological trauma.
Severe hemorrhaging began immediately; thick blood poured from Haruto's eyes, nose, and mouth, staining his face and coat.
Flora immediately transitioned into a Magnetic Ritual.
A powerful gravitational pull generated from her position, pulling all loose debris and terrain toward her like a massive magnet.
Haruto, despite the intense internal pressure in his skull, raised his hand and cast a counter-technique.
"Disturb Ritual."
The magnetic field instantly collapsed into nothingness.
The Disturb Ritual—a Specialist-type technique Haruto had painstakingly mastered via the Dot method—allowed the user to forcefully cancel or disrupt an opponent's active ritual, provided the user possessed sufficient energy output to match the technique tier.
Flora noted his successful disruption with a slight nod of approval.
She immediately invoked a Water Pump Ritual, driving a high-pressure jet of river water straight toward him.
Haruto dodged the water column and utilized his sword to guide his spellcasting via the South Sword Style.
He manifested multiple Light Sabers mid-air, using rapid sword movements to launch them at Flora at lethal velocities.
The radiant blades struck her body, but her Crismarin crystal outfit completely absorbed the damage.
Haruto immediately redirected his technique, invoking a Windstruck Ritual to lock a rotating wind radius directly around Flora's coordinates.
He followed up by casting a Lightning Ritual inside the wind boundary, causing crackling electrical currents to circulate wildly around her.
Still, her absorbing crystals neutralized the electrical discharge.
Without pausing, Haruto used his sword motion to swap the active lightning energy with a sharp Water Splash Ritual, transforming the currents into blades of pressurized water that struck Flora from every angle.
The crystal structure absorbed the aquatic blades.
Haruto immediately swapped the water energy for high-temperature flames, using a South Sword Style motion to detonate the combined elements into a massive, blinding explosion.
A thick screen of dense smoke enveloped Flora, completely severing her visual sightlines.
When the smoke cleared, Haruto was seen launching a flurry of heavy stones toward her.
Flora effortlessly leaned her body to dodge the flying rocks.
However, as the stones drifted close to her crystal barrier, Haruto swept his blade, swapping the physical mass of the stones with a localized Sound Blast Ritual.
BOOM!
Multiple sonic explosions detonated simultaneously around Flora's head.
The unexpected, high-decibel acoustic shock temporarily stunned her, causing her movements to freeze for a single second.
Capitalizing on that exact window, Haruto cast a high-velocity Wind Charge Ritual, striking Flora directly across the face.
Flora absorbed the impact, reset her posture, and looked down at Haruto.
"That was well executed," Flora acknowledged, her voice echoing over the river. "Now, observe this."
Flora raised her wand to the sky, invoking a High-Tier Ritual.
The sky turned pitch-black within seconds.
A torrential downpour erupted, accompanied by rising river floods that swept violently across the bank, destroying Haruto's balance.
Out of the rising storm, a massive, towering cyclone materialized, sweeping Haruto up into its roaring, high-pressure currents.
On the flat mountain peak, Ryuk's legs trembled violently as he forced himself to stand.
Saptyle looked at him, his double katanas resting at his side.
"Is that it?"
Ryuk wiped the blood from his mouth, his breathing ragged.
"I am... not done yet."
Suddenly, Ryuk's eyes shifted into a deep, radiant dark blue, mist and swirling frost manifesting within his pupils.
His hair turned stark white in an instant.
Saptyle's eyes widened slightly as he sensed a sudden, drastic shift in the air surrounding Ryuk.
Ryuk gripped his sword with both hands and delivered a single, definitive slash.
"North Sword Style: Blizzard Devour."
A colossal energy wave burst from his blade, generating a massive, raging blizzard that swept across the mountain plateau.
The sheer scale of the technique completely obliterated Saptyle's forest of thorny vines, freezing the entire landscape solid before shattering the ice into fine powder.
As the mist dispersed, Ryuk's eyes and hair slowly reverted to their natural state.
Saptyle stood unharmed in the center of the frozen ruin, his expression full of solemn acknowledgment.
"That was a true Ancestor Sword Form," Saptyle said softly. "For a few brief seconds, you funneled your absolute maximum potential into a single stroke, forcefully entering the true Ancestor state. Truly remarkable."
Saptyle held his dual katanas in an X-shaped guard, a deep, ominous green aura enveloping his body.
"Let us end this."
Ryuk assumed his final stance, gathering every remaining drop of energy within his body.
The two swordmasters lunged at each other at absolute speed, crossing paths in a single, silent instant.
They stood frozen back-to-back for a long moment.
A sharp tear appeared across Saptyle's tactical jacket, severing the fabric cleanly.
An instant later, a massive, bloodied X-shaped slash burst open across Ryuk's chest.
Ryuk collapsed onto the stone floor, his sword slipping from his numb fingers.
Saptyle walked over to the fallen boy, looking down at him calmly.
"Regulate your breathing technique now," Saptyle instructed. "Focus on stabilization to begin your internal healing."
In the plain forest, Leo pushed himself up from the base of the mountain, his body covered in bruises.
He charged at Ken with absolute speed, channeling his remaining power into a newly developed technique.
"Wolf Impact!"
A massive aura of golden energy exploded outward, accompanied by the deafening roar of a hunting wolf as the strike tore through the terrain.
When the dust settled, Ken remained standing in his original position, completely unfazed.
"My turn," Ken stated, entering his final offensive posture.
Leo gathered his absolute limit, launching a final, full-power strike covered in brilliant golden-yellow energy, the visual manifestation of a snarling wolf face sweeping forward alongside his blade.
Ken unleashed his unsuppressed crimson strike simultaneously.
The two massive forces collided in the center of the plain.
BOOM!
The resulting shockwave destroyed a vast section of the surrounding landscape, reducing the terrain to a smooth, flat crater.
When the smoke cleared, Ken stood tall in the center of the crater.
Leo lay face down on the earth, completely drained of energy and unconscious from absolute exhaustion.
At the riverside, the black sky and cyclone slowly dissipated.
Flora stepped through the damp air, her gaze scanning the damaged shoreline until she found Haruto.
Haruto was still standing upright, though his left arm had been entirely torn off by the cyclone's pressure, blood dripping heavily onto the wet ground.
Despite the fatal nature of his injuries, Haruto raised his remaining hand and cast a sequence of Stone Drill Rituals toward her.
Flora casually stepped aside, dodging the stone spires.
When she looked back at Haruto, her eyes narrowed slightly.
Using his Healing Ritual, Haruto had already completely regenerated his severed arm back into existence, his flesh knitting together seamlessly.
He raised his sword toward the dark sky, gripping the hilt tightly with both hands.
Deep within his consciousness, a temporary connection opened to the Dream World.
Haruto began forcibly drawing upon a tiny fraction of the Dream World's infinite power under the sheer physical pressure of the battle.
A brilliant, high-density golden energy enveloped Haruto like a focused gamma-ray beam.
His eyes glowed with a bright, emotionless golden light.
His sword blade carried a blinding, concentrated ray of absolute golden force.
Flora's heart rate spiked as a sudden, instinctual sense of dread washed over her.
She immediately recognized the terrifying nature of the energy he had managed to manifest out of desperation.
Seeking to neutralize the strike before it could expand, Flora invoked a localized Blackhole Ritual, creating a dense, gravity-crushing void mid-air.
Haruto swung his sword downward with absolute precision.
The golden ray of Dream World power collided directly with Flora's blackhole.
CRASH!
A catastrophic explosion detonated across the riverside basin.
A violent flash of light erased the entire landscape, blowing away the water, earth, and surrounding forest.
When the smoke finally cleared, Flora remained standing, her Crismarin diamond crystal form having successfully shielded her from the blast.
She looked around the area in absolute silence.
The entire riverside forest, grass, and shoreline had been completely obliterated, leaving behind only a vast, empty expanse of burnt earth.
Flora deactivated her transformed state, reverting to her normal appearance.
A short distance away, Haruto lay motionless on the cleared ground, completely unconscious from the overwhelming backlash of the power he had summoned.