Three Months Have Passed…
Blood, sweat, and relentless, grinding effort. Three months of living and breathing the science of magic and the grammar of violence.
The recruits are no longer the soft, terrified civilians who first stepped into the Library. They are harder now, leaner.
Their eyes hold a sharp, focused intensity that wasn’t there before. They move with newfound confidence, a practiced economy of motion born from hundreds of hours of brutal, unforgiving training.
Carter is progressing but struggling to find his rhythm. Atlas and Archer have proven to live up to their reputation.
These grimoires are nearly impossible to master.
He stands on the vast, sun drenched training ground, his grimoires a heavy, alien weight in his hands.
He faces Yulian. The big Russian is a completely different fighter from the brawling novice he was three months ago.
His movements are faster, more technical. His massive frame is a terrifying combination of brute force and newfound precision.
Yulian presses the attack. His mace is a blur of motion, forcing Carter back step by agonizing step.
Carter parries and dodges. His movements are precise but hesitant.
He is on the defensive. His mind is a chaotic storm of conflicting instincts.
Gendric’s voice echoes in his head, a constant, booming litany of his core problem.
You hold back, boy! You have the power, but you fight with a leash around your own neck!
Frustration, hot and sharp, boils in his gut. He needs to do something.
To change the flow of the fight. To prove he can control the immense, volatile power at his command.
He sees a loose, cracked flagstone on the ground a few feet away. An idea, a desperate, tactical gamble, sparks in his mind.
He dodges a powerful, overhead swing from Yulian. The wind from the mace whistles past his ear.
In that split second, he focuses his will on the stone. He remembers his first, shocking success against Gendric.
The feeling of bending the world to his will.
He pulls his left arm back. The heavy, Vastian Steel knuckles of Atlas are a cold, hard reality against his skin.
He speaks two, sharp, clear words, a desperate, silent command in his mind.
“ATLAS! JUMP!”
He doesn’t throw a punch. He gestures, a sharp, flicking motion of his wrist.
His intent is focused not on Yulian, but on the flagstone. He tries to picture it materializing in the air behind the big Russian, a simple, tactical strike to throw him off balance.
But in his haste, in his desperation to prove his control, he pushes too much power into the spell.
He feels a surge of raw, untamed energy, far greater than he intended, rip through him.
The flagstone vanishes from the ground. It does not reappear behind Yulian.
It materializes twenty feet in the air, directly above Paige and Amy. They are locked in their own intense sparring match nearby.
For a fraction of a second, the world seems to move in slow motion. Carter sees the large, heavy stone hanging in the air.
A dark, jagged specter of his own failure to control his power. He sees Paige and Amy, completely unaware.
Their faces are a mask of focused concentration. He sees the stone begin to plummet.
A strangled cry of pure, unadulterated horror rips from his throat.
“NOOO!!! MOVE!”
But Gendric is already moving.
He is not a man; he is a blur of motion. A thunderclap of speed and power that defies all logic.
One moment he is across the courtyard. The next, he is standing directly beneath the falling stone, his arm cocked back.
He throws a single, upward punch.
His fist connects with the plummeting flagstone. The sound is not the crack of stone, but the deafening “BOOM” of a sonic explosion.
The stone does not just break; it vaporizes, exploding into a cloud of fine, gray dust that rains down on the two girls below.
The entire training ground falls silent. The sounds of sparring, of shouting, of clashing weapons; all of it vanishes.
A heavy, ringing silence replaces them. Gendric lands, his feet thudding on the stone.
His expression is one of cold, terrifying fury.
Paige and Amy stand frozen. Their faces are pale and trembling.
Their eyes are wide with shock and dawning horror as they look from the dissipating dust cloud to Carter.
The other recruits stare at him. Their expressions are a mixture of disbelief and fear.
Gendric turns. His bright blue eyes lock onto Carter.
They are not the eyes of a teacher, but of a judge, a jury, and an executioner.
“CROSS!”
He bellows. His voice is a raw, elemental roar of pure, unrestrained rage.
It seems to shake the very foundations of the floating city.
“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!”
Carter stands frozen. His mind is a hollow, echoing chamber of shame and horror.
He looks at Paige and Amy, at their pale, trembling forms. The reality of what he almost did crashes down on him with the force of a physical blow.
He didn’t just make a mistake. He didn’t just fail a drill.
He almost killed his friends.
The training session ends immediately. Gendric dismisses the other recruits.
His voice is a low, threatening growl. But he orders Carter to stay.
He doesn’t yell. He doesn’t punish. He simply stands before Carter.
His massive frame radiates a profound, heavy disappointment. It is a thousand times worse than his rage.
“Your training is over for today. Return to your quarters, boy,” he says. His voice is a quiet, gravelly rumble.
“Think about what could have happened. We will speak tomorrow.”
Carter walks back to his room. He locks the door behind him and collapses onto his bed.
The shame and horror of the incident are a crushing, suffocating weight. He stares at the ceiling.
The impossible blue of the Sky Dimension is a mocking reminder of the power he cannot control.
His mind flashes back to Damien’s classroom. He is sitting at his desk.
The open Lexanomicon is before him. His head throbs with a dull, persistent ache.
He excels at understanding the theory of his own English affinity; it’s intuitive, natural.
But crafting Mixed Spells, the true art of a skilled mage, remain agonizingly out of reach.
He stares at the page, at the elegant, flowing lines of Greek script. To him it was nothing more but a meaningless jumble of symbols.
The scene shifts. He is on the training ground, weeks ago, sparring with Yulian.
He sees an opening, a clear shot. He pulls his arm back.
The heavy, bronze weight of Atlas is a familiar presence on his hand. But as he is about to throw the punch, a flicker of fear, a moment of profound hesitation, makes him pull back.
He softens the blow at the last possible second. Yulian, his natural boxing reflexes now honed by Gendric’s brutal training, easily parries the indecisive strike.
He counters with a powerful blow that sends Carter staggering back.
Gendric’s voice bellows from the sidelines.
“Commit to the strike, or don’t bother throwing it at all!”
The memories sharpen, focusing on the true source of his fear. The whispers.
Later That Day…
It is late at night. He is alone in the training yard, long after the others have gone to bed.
He is trying to practice, to gain some measure of control over the angry, whispering voices within his grimoires.
He holds his right arm out. The sleek, leather hand gauntlet of Archer gleams in the moonlight.
He focuses, trying to channel a small, controlled amount of magical energy with a miniscule direct spell into the weapon.
But the moment he opens the tap, the whispers begin. They are not just thoughts; they are a feeling, a physical sensation that crawls under his skin.
From Atlas, on his left hand, comes a hot, angry pressure behind his eyes. A feeling of raw, explosive power that wants to be unleashed.
It is a voice of pure, unadulterated rage. A brutal, guttural roar that screams at him to smash, break, destroy.
From Archer, on his right, comes a different kind of voice. It is a cold, sharp hiss in his ears.
A feeling of deadly, surgical precision. It is a voice of pure, predatory hunger.
A sibilant, seductive whisper that urges him to cut, pierce, devour.
Stop thinking, the voices hiss in his mind, a chaotic, overlapping chorus of rage and hunger.
Stop holding back.
Let go.
Give us control.
We will make you strong.
We will make them fear you.
In a moment of profound frustration, of sheer, desperate exhaustion from another failed drill, he almost gives in.
Maybe they’re right, he thinks, the thought a dangerous, seductive whisper. Maybe I just need to let go.
He lets his focus slip for a fraction of a second. A torrent of raw, untamed power surges into Archer.
The chain dagger on his gauntlet begins to smolder. Not with normal fire, but with a dark, hungry flame that seems to drink the light from the air around it.
The whispers in his mind grow louder, a triumphant, exultant roar that promises power, victory, and destruction.
YES!… LET GO!… LET GO!
He recoils in terror, severing the flow of magic with a desperate act of will.
He scrambles backwards, away from his own hand. His heart hammers in his chest.
His body is slick with a cold sweat. He stares at the smoldering dagger.
Wisps of dark smoke curl into the night air.
What the hell was that?
The thought is a shard of ice in his mind.
What is this thing?
The reality of what he is carrying, of what he is, crashes down on him.
These aren’t grimoires.
These are two live grenades.
If I don’t learn to master them, the pins will eventually slip.
Back in his room, a soft knock sounds at his door.
He ignores it at first.
The knocking persists, more insistent this time. A firm, rhythmic thump-thump-thump.
Finally, a voice, deep and familiar, calls out from the hallway.
“Carter? We are all out here. Open door.” It’s Yulian.
With a heavy, weary sigh, Carter gets up and unlocks the door.
He opens it a crack, ready to tell them to go away, but he stops.
The entire group of recruits; Yulian, Paige, Amy, Keyona, and Nico, are standing in the hallway.
They don’t look angry. They don’t look afraid.
They just look… concerned.
“I am sorry,” Yulian says. His voice is a low, serious rumble. “I was sloppy in the sparring match. I pushed too hard.”
“Yeah, man,” Nico adds. His expression is earnest.
“We got carried away. We put you in a bad spot. That’s on us.”
Carter is stunned. He stares at them, at their faces.
He sees no hint of blame, no trace of the fear that was there just an hour ago.
“What are you talking about?” he says. His voice is hoarse. “I… I almost killed you.”
“Both of you,” he says, looking at Paige and Amy.
Amy shakes her head. A small, confident smile is on her face.
“I’m getting better with my gravity magic,” she says. Her voice is quiet but firm. “I saw it coming.”
“I was getting ready to stop it, but Gendric is just… really fast.”
Carter looks from face to face, at their unexpected forgiveness.
“We were going to hang out in the lounge,” Keyona says. A gentle, almost hesitant smile is on her face.
“Read through the Lexanomicon, maybe try to figure out some of this stuff together.”
“You should come with us.”