The broken floor pieces creaked beneath Roy's boots as he began returning the training swords to their rightful places on the rack. The training room, dimly lit and scattered with broken metal fragments and dulled practice blades, stood in heavy silence. Only the distant hum of arcane generators and the soft creak of steel rang through the vast chamber.
Just as Roy reached for the final puppet to stow away, the doors creaked open.
Footsteps—measured, calm.
Denwen stepped into the room, his presence cutting through the gloom like a quiet storm. He had grown.
"I decide to come talk to you," Denwen began, his voice deep and grounded, "but here you are already leaving me further behind."
Roy paused, glancing over his shoulder. A small smile tugged at the corners of his lips.
"I'll take that as your congratulations, then?"
They didn't embrace. They didn't exchange exaggerated words. Instead, they moved in sync, side by side, clearing away the wreckage of their sparring session, letting the silence speak for them.
The rhythmic clang of metal echoed as they stored weapons and pushed broken puppets aside. Yet something hung between them, unsaid—thick as smoke.
"Roy…" Denwen began, hesitating slightly. "You know, when I saw the event on TV that day…"
Roy didn't let him finish.
"Let me guess," he said, tone even. "Your suspension got lifted and so you can come running here to console me?"
Denwen frowned, dropping a charred gauntlet into a crate. "Come on, bro. Don't make it sound like that. You of all people should know—if anyone understands what you're feeling, it's me."
Roy shut the puppet case, his hands lingering on the metal latches. He turned to face Denwen fully now, something distant in his eyes.
"…I didn't even get to say goodbye," he said at last, his voice quieter than before. "Before he left. I thought it was just another mission. We've seen him leave a hundred times before."
Denwen stayed silent, watching his friend. The sharp pain in Roy's voice didn't need comfort—it needed space.
Roy reached into his spatial ring, drawing out a thin, worn book. Its cover was aged and tattered, silver etchings fraying at the edges, pulsing ever so faintly with a dull glow. Time and essence had clearly weathered it.
"He left this," Roy said, holding it up between them. "Right before he departed."
Denwen's eyes narrowed. Even from a distance, he could feel something… wrong. Not malicious—just alien.
The book hummed.
The title etched on the front was nearly illegible, a relic ravaged by age and energy, but under the right light and angle, Denwen caught the faintest whisper of the words:
'The Pathless Edge.'
Denwen stepped closer. "Is this… what I think it is?"
"A sword manual," Roy confirmed. "He found it on Mechavaris during one of his missions. Said it wouldn't suit a spearman like him. Thought I'd make better use of it."
Denwen reached out and gripped the book—only to recoil slightly. The moment his essence touched it, the flow stuttered and bent away, as if the manual itself repelled the world's natural energy. He had to suppress his aura entirely just to hold it.
The pages were stiff, yet somehow ethereal. As he opened it, only the first two pages were visible. The rest were blank, swallowed in silence.
Denwen squinted at the strange glyphs and twisted symbols. "I… can't read a single thing."
Roy chuckled dryly. "Neither could I. Not at first. Not even my master could make sense of it. We assumed it required a certain condition or resonance to unlock."
Denwen passed the book back, his fingers lingering on its strange texture. Roy stared at it, his fingers brushing the edge of the first page.
Something shifted.
The air in the training hall thickened, as if holding its breath.
Unknown to the both of them, Roy's eyes began to glow as the faint glow on the book's surface deepened, and the symbols—once erratic and chaotic—began to shimmer, reforming into a legible script before Roy's widening eyes.
His breath hitched.
The essence around him stirred, pulled toward the book like iron to a magnet. Denwen took a step back instinctively, watching as a faint silver light flickered in Roy's eyes—unnatural, focused.
Roy began to read aloud, trance-like:
"Only the one blessed by the blade may unlock the path. The more blessings one carries, the more truths are revealed."
His voice came distant, dreamlike.
Denwen reached out. "Roy? You okay?"
No response. Roy turned the page.
More of the book unveiled itself—ink seeping into the parchment like veins filling with blood. On the next page, a technique revealed itself in frightening clarity:
SEVERANCE
A cut beyond essence. A movement so absolute it denies fate, history, and identity. What is severed can never be returned.
The very name of the technique caused the lights above them to flicker, as if the world itself didn't want to hear it spoken aloud.
Roy's body trembled—not with fear, but reverence.
Denwen stepped closer and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Roy!"
Roy blinked.
The trance shattered.
He gasped, then grinned—slowly at first, then wider, almost unbelieving.
"I can understand it," he whispered. "Den… I think I just fulfilled whatever condition it needed."
Denwen raised a brow. "What condition?"
"I don't know…" Roy said, closing the book gently. "Maybe… my breakthrough. Or resolve. Maybe it was Garrick's death. Maybe I was finally ready to inherit what he left behind. Or something else entirely I don't know"
He let out a long breath, then chuckled bitterly. "Looks like even in death, he is still watching me."
Denwen placed a firm hand on Roy's back, a gesture that said more than words could.
Roy, however, wasn't done.
"You were right, Den," he said, facing him now—no mask, no bravado. "I said I'd help you out, that I'd stand by you. But I never really understood what you went through."
He paused.
"The betrayal. The pain. Losing your father—Amun, the Emperor. And still having to carry on with that bastard Seth breathing down your mind…"
Denwen's jaw tightened at the name, a shadow flickering across his face. For a moment, it seemed like the room dimmed.
Roy raised his fist, voice low but heavy.
"Let's grow stronger. Together. Help me burn Emberfall to the ground… and I'll help you destroy Seth."
Denwen stared at the offered fist, the image of his uncle—the Emperor, the usurper—burning in his mind like a phantom of hatred.
He closed his eyes.
"No matter what it takes," he whispered.
And bumped fists with Roy.
The book pulsed once in Roy's hand.
Far above them, in a place unseen by mortal eyes, a blade resting in a forgotten ruin stirred—its edge humming in recognition.