Aethon gasped as the world reassembled around him—no longer the blood-soaked arena, but the cold, sterile halls of the Trialmaster's sanctum. His side still burned where the shadow's blade had pierced him, though the wound had been sealed by whatever magic had yanked him from the Chamber of Endless Hordes.
The Reaper's Fang vibrated in his grip, its voice a venomous whisper.
"You hesitated."
Aethon didn't answer. His fingers trembled.
Around him, the other surviving candidates materialized one by one—Ilris, Lady Virelle, Korbin, Tavish (though his rapier was indeed in pieces), and four others. Their faces were grim, their weapons still humming with residual violence.
"they too had been killed by the hoard" aethon thought to himself
"but, they lasted longer, little hawk"
"stop calling me that,you he.....:
The Trialmaster's voice echoed from the shadows.
"Nine remain."
A massive obsidian door groaned open at the far end of the hall, revealing a yawning darkness beyond.
"Proceed."
As they marched forward, the Reaper's Fang seethed.
"You had her," it muttered. "One clean strike, and you faltered. Pathetic."
Aethon's jaw tightened. "It wasn't her."
"It was a shadow wearing her face," the sword snapped. "And you let it get you."
Ahead, Ilris glanced back, his greatsword Godsgrave rumbling with amusement. "Trouble in paradise?"
The Reaper's Fang hissed. "Mind your business, butter knife."
Ilris smirked. "At least my wielder doesn't weep for ghosts."
Aethon ignored them both.
The corridor opened into a vast, circular chamber—empty save for a single pedestal at its center. Upon it rested a gauntlet, its metal blackened as if by fire.
The Trialmaster's voice boomed:
"The Gauntlet of Resolve. He who claims it shall face the final trial alone."
A murmur rippled through the candidates.
Lady Virelle's lightning-whip crackled. "A trap."
Korbin's glass dagger shimmered. "Or a test."
The Reaper's Fang pulsed eagerly. "Aethon. Take it."
Aethon hesitated.
The sword snarled. "Or are you too soft for that too?"
Gritting his teeth, Aethon stepped forward—just as Ilris did the same.
Their eyes locked.
The final trial had begun.
The moment Aethon's fingers brushed the gauntlet, the runes underneath them lit up, (it a buy one gat all free situation as no one was safe, they all teleported to theri respective battlefields) fire lanced up his arm. Visions flooded his mind—his mother's death, not as he remembered it, but as it truly happened: not a noble sacrifice, but a mistake. A hesitation. Just like his.
The Reaper's Fang bellowed in triumph. "Now you see! Weakness kills!"
Aethon wrenched the gauntlet free—
—and the world shattered again,plunging into an abbyss of darkness
A trap-
When the darkness cleared, he stood alone in a wasteland of ash and bone. Before him loomed a figure clad in familiar armor.
The visor lifted.
Aethon's breath caught.
His own face stared back. his own sword,except that it rediated a black wisp of energy
"is that you ?"he asked the reaper'sfang
"yeah, albeit the upgraded version of me"
"Welcome," said his reflection, drawing a blade identical to the Reaper's Fang. "Let's see if you've learned anything."
The sword laughed. "Oh, this'll be fun."
Aethon raised his steel.
The final trial had begun.
And this time, hesitation meant death, in real time.
Aethon's reflection moved before he did—a perfect mirror of his stance, the Reaper's Fang's twin glinting with the same hungry light.
"You know why you're here," his double said, circling him. "Not because you're strong. Because you're broken."
The sword in Aethon's grip snarled. "Ignore the theatrics. Kill it."
But Aethon hesitated.
His reflection smiled—a cold, knowing thing. "Still holding back? Even now?" It lunged.
Steel shrieked as their blades met. Aethon staggered under the force. It was like fighting himself—every counter he planned, his shadow already anticipated. Every feint, already read.
"Pathetic," the reflection spat, twisting its blade to scrape against Aethon's guard. "You couldn't save her. You can't even save yourself."
Aethon's breath came ragged. His mother's face flashed in his mind—her laugh, her blade, the way she'd fallen.
"Focus!" the Reaper's Fang roared.
Aethon gritted his teeth and struck—but his shadow sidestepped effortlessly, slashing a line of dark energy across his ribs.
"Too slow," it mocked. "Just like always."
Blood dripped onto the ashen ground.
The Reaper's Fang vibrated with fury. "You're better than this! Stop thinking and FIGHT!"
Aethon wiped his mouth. "How?"
"Stop seeing her in every shadow!" the sword screamed. "Stop seeing yourself as the boy who failed! You are a weapon—now act like one!"
The reflection raised its blade. "Last chance, little hawk."
Aethon's fingers tightened.
Then—he let go.
Not of the sword.
Of the guilt.
The Reaper's Fang howled in triumph as Aethon moved—not with hesitation, but with fury. Not with grief, but with purpose.
Steel shrieked as their blades crossed. Aethon barely twisted aside as his mirror-image reversed grip mid-swing—his own favorite feint—and the Fang's twin grazed his cheek. Warm blood trickled down his jaw.
"You know all my moves," Aethon panted.
"Better than you do," the shadow smirked. It flowed into the Viper's Retreat, their mother's signature stance. Aethon's heart stuttered—
CRACK!
The shadow's boot smashed his ribs. Aethon flew backward, skidding through ash. The Reaper's Fang screamed in his mind:
looking at his side he saw Ilris in the distance fighting with her double,he could see everything but none could see him
Aethon hit the ground hard, ash billowing around him as his shadow's blade cleaved the air where his head had been. Stone shattered where steel met earth, razor-edged fragments spraying his face. He barely had time to register the sting before instinct took over—
The Reaper's Fang lanced forward in a silver blur, aimed perfectly for the shadow's jugular—
—only for the reflection to flow aside like water, its movement so minimal it might have been breathing rather than dodging. Aethon's blade passed so close it parted the smoke-like hair framing his doppelgänger's face.
" STILL Predictable," the shadow sneered, its voice dripping with contempt.
Before Aethon could recover his stance, the shadow's backhand slash came whipping across his torso. He twisted—
Too Slow
The Fang's twin bit deep, parting cloth and skin in a hot line across his stomach. Blood welled instantly, staining his tunic black in the ashen light.
The shadow didn't let up.
Aethon's old training injury flared white-hot as his shadow drove a knee into his left thigh. The exact spot where his mother's practice sword had shattered his stance years ago. His leg buckled. more attacks came
Steel flashed in reverse. Aethon barely registered the crushing impact to his sword hand before his fingers spasmed open. The Reaper's Fang nearly slipped from his grasp—only sheer will kept it in hand.
His shadow moved like liquid death, forehead smashing into Aethon's brow with a sickening crunch. Stars exploded across his vision. Warmth trickled down his nose—blood or sweat, he couldn't tell.
"This is who you are," it whispered, stepping over Aethon's faltering form. "Weak. Hesitant. A boy pretending at being a warrior."
The Reaper's Fang screamed in his mind, its voice the only thing keeping him conscious:
"GET UP! It's using your past against you! Stop thinking—FIGHT!"
Aethon spat blood, fingers tightening on his sword. The shadow raised its blade for the killing stroke—
—and in that moment, Aethon saw it.
The tiny hitch in its stance.
The same mistake he'd been too slow to exploit then.
But not today.
Aethon's world narrowed to the descending blade. Time seemed to fracture—each microsecond stretching into eternity as his body moved without thought, without hesitation, for the first time in the fight.
His wounded leg chose to fail. Where before it had been a weakness, now it became a weapon. Aethon didn't resist the collapse—he accelerated it, throwing himself forward with deliberate imperfection. The shadow's blade, calibrated for his usual defensive stance, cut nothing but air where his neck should have been. His knees hit the ground hard enough to bruise bone, but the pain was distant, unimportant.
His left hand moved like a separate creature—a desperate, clawing thing that remembered every dirty trick his mother had ever taught him in their back-alley sparring sessions. Fingers raked through the ashen soil, coming up with a fistful of grit and something worse—the powdered bone fragments that littered this wasteland. The shadow, mid-follow-through, had no defense as Aethon whipped his arm upward, flinging the choking cloud directly into its eyes.
For one glorious instant, the perfect reflection stuttered. Its head jerked back—not much, just a fraction, but enough. The first mistake. The only one Aethon needed.
The Reaper's Fang found its home in a motion so brutally simple it couldn't be countered
Aethon drove upward from his kneeling position, putting his entire body weight behind the thrust. The blade entered just below the ribcage, where the shadow's own momentum had left it unprotected.
His wrists rotated automatically, the way his mother had drilled into him years ago—"Always turn the blade, little hawk. A straight wound heals, a spiral kills."
Aethon didn't stop pushing until the crossguard slammed against the shadow's abdomen. He felt the tip scrape spine, then punch through to the other side. Black ichor—not blood, but something thicker and darker—gushed over his hands.
His reflection's eyes widened.
The blade struck home.
Black blood bubbled from its lips as it looked down at the blade. Not with pain—with A SMILE FILLED WITH pride.
"Finally... you learned..."
The reflection dissolved like smoke in wind, leaving only the echo of his mother's voice:
"A sword's only as good as the heart behind it."
Aethon knelt in the ashes, gasping. The Reaper's Fang vibrated with something almost like... respect?
"Thirty-two," it murmured. "And for once... not entirely terrible." aethon said in response giving a light smile
"THIS MIGHT HURT A LITTLE"THE SWORD SAID BEFOR TURNUING BLACK just like the one aethon's doppleganga had wielded
Aethon's knees hit the ground before he realized he was falling.
It started as heat—the kind that comes from pressing your palm to a stove and holding it there. The Reaper's Fang's crossguard melted into his skin, the metal turning liquid-black as it seeped into his flesh. He could feel it merging with the bones of his hand, tendrils of molten steel threading between his knuckles like roots through stone. His fingers locked around the hilt, muscles spasming, tendons standing out like cables.
Then the cold came making him grit his teeth
It spread up his arm in jagged black veins, branching out beneath his skin like cracks in ice. Frost bloomed across his forearm, tiny crystals forming in the sweat along his wrist. The chill sank deeper than his flesh—it settled into his marrow, into the spaces between his thoughts, until his very breath came out in white plumes despite the heat of the Trial's chamber.
And then—
—the needle.
Not metal. Not anything physical. The sword's spirit slid into his mind like a blade between ribs, precise and intimate. It didn't just speak. It rearranged. Every memory, every instinct, every fear—it touched them all, not with the clumsy fingers of a torturer, but with the deft, terrible certainty of a scribe correcting a manuscript.
"There," it whispered, not in his ear, but in the spaces between his heartbeats. "That's better."
Aethon gasped. His free hand clawed at his wrist, nails drawing blood, but the mark was already there—a twisting, living sigil burned into his skin, its edges still glowing faintly red, befor turning black
The Reaper's Fang hummed in satisfaction.
And for the first time, Aethon realized—
—it wasn't just in his hand anymore.
It was in his blood.
a sword tatoo appeared on his wrist, the sword accepting him as it wielder
"thanks" he said softly
the sword humed in response
Blood dripped from Aethon's wounds onto the ashen ground. Somewhere in the distance, a warhorn sounded.
Aethon remained kneeling, the Reaper's Fang now supporting his weight as much as he supported it. His breath came in ragged gulps, each one tasting of blood and ashes. The sword's usual commentary was conspicuously absent—just a low, approving hum in the back of his skull.
Then, from the nothingness, a single pair of hands began clapping. Slow. Measured.
"Finally," said a voice that wasn't the sword's. "You've earned your name maguses."
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