The air in the training ground was thick with nervous excitement and dread. Gendric Valhallor stood before them.
He was a stark, brutal contrast to the Library’s quiet calm. He looked like a living mountain, a relic from a harder world. A viking in the flesh.
His long, wild white hair, thick as a lion’s mane, was pulled back. His face looked carved from granite, left out in a storm.
Old, faded scars crisscrossed his features, telling tales of battles. A groomed white mustache and beard framed a stern jaw.
But his eyes, startlingly bright, and piercing blue, held the true measure of the man. They were predator’s eyes, a warrior’s eyes, filled with a fierce, joyful light that promised pain and glory.
“Alright, pups!” he bellowed. His voice was a deep, thunderous clap that shook the stones under their feet. “Damien filled your heads with his pretty words and theories.”
“That’s fine for a library. But out here,” he gestured to the stone field, “out here, words are just things you scream before you die.”
“This is my classroom. And in my classroom, you will learn the grammar of violence.”
He paced before them. His movements were light and fluid for a man his size.
He moved like a great northern bear, every step showing controlled, brutal power.
“Magic is not a toy,” he growled, his voice a low, menacing rumble. “It is a weapon.”
“And like any weapon, it is useless if you don’t know how to wield it in a real fight. You can know ten thousand spells, but if you can’t cast one while a man is trying to cave your skull in, you’re just a well read corpse.”
He stopped pacing. His bright blue eyes, stripped of their warmth, swept across their faces.
“For the next few months, I will be your worst nightmare. I will break you. I will push you past every limit you thought you had.”
“I will teach you how to bleed, how to endure, and how to kill. Some of you will hate me.”
“But all of you who survive, will thank me.”
His gaze landed on Akira.
“You,” he said, his voice a sharp, commanding bark. “The prodigy. You seem eager to prove the rumors true.”
“Step forward, boy.”
Akira’s face broke into a confident, arrogant smirk. He had waited for this.
He strode to the center of the courtyard, his hand on the hilt of his katana, Akimaru. He radiated supreme, unshakeable confidence.
“The rest of you, watch and learn,” Gendric commanded, his voice dropping to a low growl. “You are about to witness the vast, bloody chasm between formal training and real combat.”
Gendric didn’t summon a weapon. He rolled his massive shoulders and settled into a low, wide stance, his scarred, calloused hands held open at his sides.
“I won’t need my grimoire for this,” he said, his voice a casual, dismissive rumble.
“I don’t need it for a whelp like you.”
Akira’s smirk vanished. It was replaced by pure, cold fury.
The casual dismissal was a bigger insult than any blow.
He had trained relentlessly his entire life. Every waking moment was dedicated to the sword.
To be treated like a practice dummy was an offense to him.
“Is he crazy?” Nico whispered to the others. “Even if he’s strong, Akira has a sword. A grimoire!”
“He’ll get cut to pieces,” Keyona muttered, her eyes wide.
But Carter remembered. He remembered Killian’s words on the terrace:
“They call him the Berserker for a reason.”
He remembered Damien’s parting shot in the classroom: “That man is a force of nature.”
He watched Gendric, the unshakeable confidence radiating from the old warrior, and felt dread tighten in his stomach.
“I know your father well, boy,” Gendric said, his voice a low taunt. “Akio Kendo. A master of the blade.”
“A true warrior. He would be… disappointed to see his son taken down by an old man with empty hands.”
That was the final spark. With a furious roar, Akira drew his katana.
The blade was a masterpiece, gleaming in the bright, clear light of the Sky Dimension. He was a blur of motion, closing the distance in a heartbeat.
He didn’t just attack with the blade. As he slashed, he spoke a single, sharp Japanese word.
“火!” (Hi!, Fire)
A wave of brilliant, white-hot fire erupted from the edge of his blade, a searing arc of destruction flying towards Gendric.
It was beautiful, flawless, and fast.
And it was useless.
Gendric didn’t flinch. He met the fire head-on, a fierce, joyful grin spreading across his face.
The flames washed over him, engulfing his upper body in a roaring inferno.
The recruits cried out in shock, but when the fire dissipated a second later, Gendric was unharmed.
His clothes weren’t singed. His body, honed by decades of brutal training and mastery of the Law of Embodiment, had become a fortress.
It was a conduit so perfect that the raw energy flowed over him, leaving no mark.
“Is that all the heat you’ve got, boy?” Gendric bellowed, his voice a deep, taunting laugh. “Your father’s fire could melt steel.”
Akira’s eyes widened in disbelief, but he didn’t falter. He pressed the attack, his blade a blur.
He unleashed a furious, three-strike combination; a high slash, a low thrust, and a spinning cut aimed at Gendric’s neck.
Gendric met the violence head on. As the first slash descended, he moved with impossible speed for his size.
He didn’t step back; he stepped in. He raised his left forearm, a solid wall of scarred muscle and bone, to meet the descending blade.
The sound was not the slice of flesh, but the sharp, ringing “CLANG” of steel on steel.
The recruits gasped. Gendric’s arm was unharmed.
Akira’s perfect form faltered for a second. It was all the opening Gendric needed.
He deflected the low thrust with a casual, open-palmed slap that sent a jarring shockwave up Akira’s arm.
As Akira spun for the final cut, his momentum carrying him forward, Gendric was already inside his guard.
He didn’t strike with his fist. He struck with his shoulder, a brutal, concussive blow that slammed into Akira’s chest with the force of a battering ram.
Air exploded from Akira’s lungs in a pained, desperate gasp. His perfect form shattered.
He stumbled back, his katana falling from his numb fingers and clattering onto the stone floor.
Before he could recover, Gendric was on him. He grabbed Akira by his uniform, lifted him as if he weighed nothing, and slammed him back onto the flagstones.
The impact was a sickening thud that made the recruits wince.
Akira lay on the ground, dazed and gasping for air. The arrogant smirk was gone, replaced by shock and humiliation.
The fight was over in less than five seconds.
Gendric stood over him, his massive frame blocking the sun.
“Your form is perfect, boy,” he said, his voice a low, gravelly rumble. “Your speed is impressive. Your technique is flawless.”
“You’d be the star pupil in any dojo.” He leaned down, his face inches from Akira’s.
“But out here, that means nothing. You fight like you’re in a demonstration. You move like you expect your opponent to follow the rules.”
“But in a real fight, there are no rules. There is only survival.”
He straightened up and turned to the other recruits, who stared with terror and awe.
“That,” he said, his voice a low, final declaration, “is your first and most important lesson. Forget your dojos.”
“Forget your honor. Forget everything you think you know about fighting. The only rule out here is that you walk away, and your enemy doesn’t.”
He looked down at Akira’s prone form, a flicker of pity in his bright blue eyes.
“Now get up, boy. We’re going again.”
Akira pushed himself up, his body aching, his pride a raw, bleeding wound.
He retrieved his katana, his movements stiff and angry. The easy confidence was gone, replaced by grim, focused fury.
He wasn’t fighting to show off anymore; he was fighting to prove he wasn’t the whelp Gendric thought him to be.
He charged again. But this time, his attack was different.
It wasn’t the elegant, flowing combination of a duelist, but the desperate, brutal assault of a cornered animal.
He abandoned his perfect form, trading precision for raw, untamed aggression.
“Better,” Gendric grunted, a fierce, approving grin on his face as he met Akira’s wild, chaotic slashes with effortless, open-palmed parries.
“You’re angry. Good.”
“Anger is a tool. But you’re letting it control you. You’re swinging like a blind farmer with a scythe.”
He blocked a vicious slash, caught Akira’s wrist in a grip of iron, and twisted.
With a sharp cry of pain, Akira was forced to his knees, his arm bent unnaturally.
Gendric placed a heavy boot on his back, pinning him to the stone floor.
“Lesson number two,” Gendric said, his voice a low, gravelly rumble in Akira’s ear. “Passion is the fuel, but discipline is the engine.”
“A true warrior fights with a cold heart and a clear mind. Now, get up. Again.”
He released Akira, who scrambled to his feet, his face a mask of shame and fury.
He looked at Gendric, at the old warrior’s calm, unshakeable stance, at the sheer, impossible wall of power before him.
For the first time, a flicker of doubt, of fear, entered his eyes. The fight was over before it began.
He was completely outmatched.
“I… yield,” Akira said, the words a choked, bitter whisper. He bowed his head, his shoulders slumping in defeat.
For the first time since Carter met him, the prodigy wasn’t cocky, arrogant, or superior.
He was humbled.
A wave of murmurs rippled through the other combat teams. They had stopped their training to watch.
“Damn,” one of the older mages said, shaking his head. “I knew Gendric was a monster, but taking down Akio Kendo’s kid without a grimoire… that’s just disrespectful.”
“That’s Gendric for you,” another replied with a grim chuckle. “He doesn’t just beat you. He breaks you.”
Carter looked at his fellow recruits. Yulian’s jaw hung open.
Keyona looked pale, her confidence gone. Even Nico, who had been terrified, now just looked numb.
They had all seen Akira as the pinnacle, the one to beat. Gendric had dismantled him like a child’s toy.
Gendric turned his attention from the defeated prodigy to the new recruits. They watched him with awe and profound, gut-wrenching terror.
A fierce, predatory grin spread across his face, a look that promised pain.
“Now,” he bellowed, his voice echoing across the training ground. “It’s your turn.”