Lucien couldn’t keep his eyes off Ray Melborne. The "monster" from his memories was nothing like the reality standing twenty feet away. In the future, Ray was a silent god of death, a man of few words and terrifying action. But this Ray?

  This Ray was whiny. He was awkward. He was incessantly fidgety.

  One moment, Ray would straighten his back, smoothing his expensive silk tunic to compose himself into a "noble gentleman," looking every bit the heir of a Great House. But the next second, the mask would slip, and he would become a blubbering mess of nervous energy. He was currently pacing in tight, frantic circles, throwing random shadow-punches into the empty air with a technique so poor it made Lucien’s eyes ache.

  "Just wait until the Combat Exam!" Ray said to no one in particular. "The written test is just... it’s just paper! I’m the protagonist of this year’s class! I’m going to ace the combat portion so hard the proctors will beg me to teach them!"

  Suddenly, as if remembering someone might be watching, Ray froze. He struck what he clearly thought was a "cool" and "mysterious" pose—leaning one shoulder against a marble pillar, crossing his legs at the ankles, and staring intensely into the middle distance with a brooding scowl.

  Lucien stood frozen, genuinely flabbergasted. He felt a phantom pain in his chest where Ray’s blade had once pierced him, but looking at this boy, the trauma felt... misplaced. It was like being told a fluffy kitten was responsible for a forest fire.

  Beside him, Sebas looked like he had just swallowed a lemon. He leaned down, his voice a frantic, disbelieving whisper. "Sir... is that... truly him? Is that the famous 'Ashborne' you warned me about?"

  Sebas was finding it impossible to believe that the future destroyer of the Empire, the man who would lead legions through blood and fire, was currently an awkward, hyperactive child who appeared to be arguing with his own shadow.

  Lucien couldn't answer. He was busy questioning his own sanity. Had the regression broken his mind? Had he remembered a different person? But no—those features, though faint and unrefined, were unmistakable. The core was the same; the casing was just... defective.

  "He's a child," Lucien muttered, more to himself than to Sebas. "He’s just a loud, socially inept child."

  Across the courtyard, Ray suddenly lost his "mysterious" balance, stumbled off the pillar, and began frantically dusting off his sleeves while glancing around to see if Elaine had noticed.

  "If this is the man who killed me," Lucien whispered, his eyes narrowing as a cold, dark resolve replaced his shock, "then I died far too easily. Sebas, I changed my mind. I don't want to just beat him. I want to see if I can make him cry in front of the entire Academy."

  "Sir," Sebas whispered, a flicker of genuine concern crossing his face. "Are you sure you want to do that to a... well, to a child?"

  Lucien turned his head slowly, looking at Sebas as if the man had just suggested they stop training and open a bakery. The look was so sharp Sebas actually took a half-step back. But as Lucien turned his gaze back to the spectacle in the courtyard, he paused.

  Sebas had a point, however irritating it was. The Ashborne—the calamity, the end of all things—was currently a child. And a very, very strange one at that. Lucien couldn’t quite reconcile the cold-blooded killer who had loomed over his dying body with this boy who seemed to be struggling with the basic concept of social cues. He decided, for the moment, to just observe.

  Then, a voice amplified by energy boomed across the grounds.

  "Ray Melborne! To the stadium floor for combat placement!"

  Ray jolted as if he’d been struck by lightning. His eyes went wide, and for a frantic three seconds, he mumbled nervously to himself, spinning in a tight circle. Then, he suddenly stopped and gave himself a series of tiny, aggressive fist-pumps.

  He took a deep breath, puffed out his chest, and assumed an expression of such exaggerated, punchable arrogance that it was almost impressive. He began to march toward the stadium with stiff, precise strides. But with every step he took closer to the stage, his confidence seemed to leak out of him like air from a punctured bladder. By the time he reached the center of the arena, he looked less like a noble warrior and more like a boy who had accidentally wandered onto a gallows.

  Lucien stared, once again completely flabbergasted.

  "He wears his emotions on his sleeves," Lucien murmured, his brow furrowing. "No... he wears them on his face, his hands, and in every twitch of his shoulders. There isn't a single ounce of deception in him."

  Lucien leaned against a stone pillar, eyes narrowing as Ray nearly launched out of his own skin

  “Begin!”

  The squire moved with military precision. Lucien expected a quick end, but Ray didn't fall. Instead, the boy moved with a frantic, instinctive grace. He wasn't using a noble's polished style; he was reacting. Step back. Shift weight. Redirect. Ray dodged the opening strike by a hair's breadth, his face lighting up with a grin as he realized he was still alive.

  Lucien watched the footwork closely. It was sloppy, yet it possessed a strange, underlying logic—as if Ray were following a script only he could see. Ray jabbed upward, tapping the squire’s wrist. It wasn't a powerful blow, but the squire’s eyes flickered with a sudden, sharp interest.

  “Oh-ho…” Ray whispered, his movements becoming more aggressive. He jumped a leg sweep—barely—and stayed upright. A murmur rippled through the audience. Even the high nobles were leaning forward now, wondering where a Melborne had learned to move with such desperate efficiency.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Ray was weaving, parrying, and improvising. He was a mess of burning lungs and hammering ribs, but he wouldn't choke—not in front of Elaine. He parried a feint, stepped into the squire's guard, and tapped the man's shoulder.

  The arena went silent. Three contacts. No one had landed more than one all morning. The instructors' boredom vanished, replaced by cold, evaluating stares.

  Then, the squire changed. His speed doubled, moving into a tier of difficulty that Ray’s unformed body couldn't match. A sharp tap to the ribs sent Ray spinning into the air like a confused pigeon.

  THUD.

  “POINT—SQUIRE! MATCH END!”

  Ray rolled in the sand, clutching his side in agony, but the herald raised the red banner.

  “POINTS AWARDED: 10! HIGHEST SCORE OF THE MORNING EXAM!”

  The crowd erupted as Ray’s opponent—a seasoned Academy squire—was declared the winner of their bout. Ray stood there with a look of absolute shock, but as soon as the proctor offered a few words of consolation, he jumped into the air with triumph, somehow spinning a loss into a personal victory. He immediately sprinted toward Elaine, looking exactly like a puppy begging for praise.

  "Lucien D’Roselle! To the stage!"

  "It's my turn," Lucien said, his voice flat.

  Sebas gave him a look of deep, furrowed concern. He had seen what two months of cart-pulling had done to his own body; he shuddered to think what Lucien was capable of now. "Please... go easy, Young Master."

  Lucien let out a short, sharp laugh. "I need to stand out, Sebas. I shouldn't take long."

  Across from him, the squire—still riding the adrenaline of his victory against Ray—readied his stance. The man’s eyes were sharp; his pride was stung by having to fight a second child in a row. He wasn't going to hold back.

  “Begin!”

  The squire exploded forward, his training sword a blur of dark wood. Lucien didn't panic. He didn't even raise his weapon to parry. Instead, he activated Equilibrium.

  To the spectators, Lucien looked lazy. His movements were microscopic. In his mind, the world had become a series of vectors and weight distributions. As the heavy strike whistled toward his head, he executed a slight tilt of the neck—just enough for the wood to graze his hair. He didn't block the force; he simply adjusted his personal center of gravity to the point where the force had nowhere to land.

  Inefficient, Lucien thought, his mind as cold as a mountain spring.

  The squire pivoted, unleashing a flurry of strikes designed to overwhelm someone's reflexes. Lucien moved like a shifting weight in a perfectly calibrated machine. Every step landed with eerie precision, his feet gliding over the sand with a terrifying unpredictability. One moment he was as buoyant as a feather, making the squire’s strikes over-rotate; the next, he dropped his mass like a lead hammer, causing the very air to feel heavy around him.

  He didn't counter-attack. He neutralized. A tiny shift of his weight here, a subtle rotation of his shoulder there. He was erasing the squire's momentum by tilting the "Balance" of the space between them. The man was fighting a ghost, swinging at a boy who seemed to exist in the gaps between the heartbeats of the combat.

  The squire’s breathing grew heavy. Frustration mounted as he realized he couldn't even make contact. He stepped back, drawing in a massive breath to fuel a final, desperate lunge—a full-body thrust intended to end the match with a single show of power.

  Lucien saw the opening before the squire even moved.

  There was no flourish. No dramatic shout. Lucien simply took a single, forward step.

  Through Equilibrium, he funneled every ounce of his momentum and the weight of his entire body into a single point. The ground beneath his lead foot didn't just crunch; the stone tiles beneath the sand spider-webbed, cracking under the sudden, concentrated application of mass. He stepped into the squire’s guard, his small hand moving with a precise lack of emotion. He didn't punch; he pushed, and that push turned squire's world upside down.

  BOOM.

  The impact sound was loud, and the whole stadium heard it. The squire was hurled backward, his feet leaving the ground as he skidded across the arena. When he finally stopped, gasping for air, the crowd went dead silent.

  In the center of the squire’s steel breastplate, a perfect, handprint-shaped crater had been hammered into the metal.

  Lucien stood in his original position, his breathing undisturbed, his face a mask of absolute calm. He didn't look at the crowd. He didn't look at the instructors. He looked at his own hand, checking for any inefficiency in the strike.

  The silence in the arena was absolute. This wasn't a "main character moment" like Ray's. It was a demonstration of a predator in a child's skin.

  The audience remained paralyzed, the only sound being the settling dust and the pained, metallic wheezing of the squire on the floor. To the spectators, it was a miracle; to Lucien, it was merely Child’s Play.

  Then, the head examiner’s voice rang out, audibly shaken: “V–victory… Lucien D’Roselle!”

  He turned his head with a slow, deliberate grace, his eyes locking onto Ray Melborne. The "Hero" was standing at the edge of the pit, his jaw dropped so low it looked genuinely painful. He looked like a moron—a wide-eyed, slack-jawed caricature of a person.

  Lucien snorted, a sharp sound of derision, and began to walk away. That’s the gap between us, Ray, he thought. Learn to get used to the view of my back.

  But then, the world shuddered.

  Without warning, the horizon didn't just lean—it plummeted. Lucien stumbled, his boots scraping against the cracked stone. This wasn't his doing. He hadn't invoked Equilibrium, yet he felt a sickening, artificial "tilt" that bypassed his physical senses and struck directly at his soul. It was a nasty, oily prickle—a sensation like thousands of needles made of cold ash pressing against his skin.

  The source of the disturbance was a jagged pressure coming from Ray’s direction.

  Lucien spun around, his hand instinctively dropping to where a sword hilt would be. What he saw made his blood run cold.

  Ray Melborne was no longer the goofy, bragging child from a moment ago. He was keeled over, his fingers digging into his scalp so hard his knuckles were white. His body was trembling violently, and a cold, unnatural sweat soaked through his silk tunic. He looked as though he were trying to hold his own skull together, his mouth open in a silent, agonizing scream.

  He did something, Lucien thought, his eyes narrowing.

  He turned away quickly, masking his alarm. He didn't want the proctors to see him watching. He walked toward Sebas

  Ray Melborne... what the hell are you? Lucien thought, his heart hammering against his ribs.