Chapter 43: The Bloom Beneath the Blood
The air in the Ikemba training sanctum outside Lagos shimmered with condensed aura. This was no ordinary dojo, no martial yard lined with stone slabs and jade statues. This place—carved into a hollowed, forbidden cliff—was alive. Walls whispered with forgotten tongues. The floor pulsed faintly with power too ancient for names.
Karen stood at the center of a cracked obsidian platform, her clothes soaked with sweat, her arms trembling as she gripped the long black shaft of her weapon: the Abyss Scythe—a soul-bound weapon forged not of steel, but of darkness harvested from her own dormant wrath. It drank light. It pulsed with hunger. And right now, it resisted her.
"Again," Rose commanded, voice flat but absolute.
Karen gasped, her lungs burning, but she obeyed. The scythe flared to life, shadows peeling away from its crescent blade. She swept it in a wide arc, and from the wake of the motion, it bloomed—a ring of violet-black flowers unfurled beneath her, the petals made not of plant matter but shadowy embers. Her proto domain: Shadow Bloom. A curse-born technique layered with beauty and death.
But the bloom wilted.
The shadows recoiled, unstable. The blade faltered. Karen dropped to one knee.
"I'm trying," she muttered, voice hoarse.
Rose Ikemba stood at the edge of the platform, arms folded, eyes gleaming like garnets in low light. She hadn't moved since dawn. Her presence alone felt like standing beside an erupting volcano frozen in time—contained only by her will.
"You're trying," Rose repeated. "And failing. Do you think your enemies will give you time to try?"
Karen clenched her jaw. She tried again.
Shadow flared. The bloom returned, but weak, jagged. The flowers cracked at the edges. The scythe's curve lost integrity. Karen screamed as her aura buckled.
And then—Rose moved.
The Red Sovereign didn't need to walk. She was there, and then she wasn't. One moment, ten feet away. The next, her palm was against Karen's chest, searing heat and pressure enough to rupture bone behind it.
Karen froze.
"Your proto domain is beautiful, Karen. But beauty isn't enough. It needs pain. Purpose. You call shadows, but shadows come from what?"
Karen's throat tightened. "From light…"
"Exactly. And what is light?"
Karen hesitated.
Rose's eyes narrowed. "Light… is suffering. It is exposure. It is truth. Shadow Bloom comes from a heart that has seen the light and chosen to stand beneath it anyway. Not hide. Not break. Stand. Do you understand?"
Karen nodded shakily. She raised the scythe again.
This time, her feet were firmer. She didn't summon the bloom.
She commanded it.
The petals exploded outward, not like before—this was full. Full bloom. Each shadow-petal cut into the training platform, hissing with dense aura. The flowers wept embers. Her eyes glowed silver-violet.
The Abyss Scythe responded in kind, shifting—growing heavier, crueler, realer.
Rose gave a faint nod.
"You're touching it now. Your domain isn't death, Karen. It's choice. You show the world its end in the most beautiful way possible—and let them choose whether to kneel or burn."
Karen lowered the scythe. Her aura flickered around her shoulders like trailing black roses in a storm.
"And if they don't kneel?" she asked softly.
Rose turned away, her voice quiet.
"Then you cut the roots."
No more words. No praise. No smile.
Only training.
Because the girl who would stand against gods one day—had to learn what it meant to bloom in the darkness first.