The transition was instant. One moment, Kafka was closing his eyes in his quiet room; the next, a piercing, soul-rattling shriek ripped through his consciousness.
"KEKEEKEKEKEKEKEK!"
He was in the Monarch's dead-grey desert again. But this time, Sung Jin-Woo was not the one waiting for him. Two figures stood before him, kneeling in perfect, silent obedience to an unseen master.
The one on the right was a figure of nightmare majesty. A knight, clad from head to toe in obsidian-black armor so intricate it seemed woven from night itself. Violet light leaked from the seams of his armor and from the slits of his visor. A magnificent, blood-red plume flowed from the top of his helmet, the only spot of color in the monochrome landscape. In one hand, he held a massive greatsword, its surface reflecting a cosmos that didn't exist in this sky. His aura was one of absolute, unwavering loyalty and disciplined, lethal force. This was Igris.
The figure on the left was a different kind of terror. It was an impossibly large, bipedal ant, covered in a gleaming, dark-blue exoskeleton. It had four arms, each ending in claws as long and sharp as scythes. Its insectoid head was adorned with glowing, crimson eyes, and its mandibles clicked with a hungry, predatory energy. A set of translucent wings, shimmering with mana, were folded neatly on its back. Its aura was a chaotic storm of raw, savage power and a gleeful, sadistic bloodlust. This was Beru.
These were the Monarch's Marshals. The two strongest soldiers in his entire legion. And they were now Kafka's tutors.
[The lesson begins,] Jin-Woo's voice echoed from the sky, a disembodied god setting the terms of the trial. [First, Beru will teach you how to endure. Your greatest flaw is your fragility. Your monster form is powerful, but you still fear pain. Fear makes you hesitant. Hesitancy leads to death. Beru will… cure you of this weakness.]
Beru, the Ant King, slowly rose to his feet. His head tilted, his multiple crimson eyes fixing on Kafka. The gleeful, sadistic aura around him intensified. He let out another blood-curdling screech, a sound of pure, predatory joy. He had been given a new toy to play with.
"My liege has commanded it," a telepathic voice, sharp and hissing like grinding insect parts, echoed in Kafka's mind. It was Beru's. "I am to teach the new one what true pain is, so that he may learn to overcome it! It is an honor! Kiek!"
Beru vanished. He didn't run. He just disappeared in a blur of speed that made Soshiro Hoshina look like a stumbling toddler.
Kafka had no time to react. He didn't even have time to manifest his armor.
A blow, harder than Kikoru's axe, harder than the orbital strike, slammed into his stomach. The phantom sensation of every bone in his body shattering and every organ rupturing washed over him. His dream-self was blasted backward, tumbling through the grey desert.
He reset, standing back in the center, gasping, his soul aching.
"Too slow! Kekeke! Your mortal shell is so wonderfully fragile!" Beru's voice cackled as he appeared before him, his claws flexing.
For what felt like an eternity, Kafka was subjected to the most brutal, one-sided beating imaginable. Beru was not just attacking his body; he was attacking his will. The Ant King was a master of breaking his opponents, a sadist who took artistic joy in his work. He'd strike with a claw to cripple a leg, then use his incredible healing magic—a skill he'd absorbed from his past as a healer ant—to mend the wound, only to break it again in a more painful way.
Kafka tried to fight back. He summoned Blackwing, forming claws, blades, shields. Beru shattered them all with casual, overwhelming force. He moved so fast that Kafka's new, enhanced perceptions couldn't even track him. It was a complete and total humiliation.
Reset. Reset. Reset. Pain. Agony. Despair.
He was being broken. The lessons were brutal. He learned that tensing for a blow only made the break worse. He learned that trying to armor up against an overwhelming attack was a waste of energy that could be used to evade. And most importantly, he learned that pain, no matter how intense, was just a signal. A sensation. He learned to detach from it, to observe it, to let it wash over him without letting it control him. His will was being forged into diamond in the crucible of Beru's gleeful torture.
[Enough,] Jin-Woo's voice finally commanded.
Beru, who was holding Kafka's dream-self up by the head, ready to inflict another creative form of agony, instantly ceased. He bowed his head respectfully. "As you command, my liege. Kiek. The hatchling is a fast learner." He then skittered back, his crimson eyes still gleaming, and knelt beside Igris once more.
Kafka reset, standing whole but psychically battered, his soul feeling like a thousand-year-old training dummy.
[You have learned to endure,] the Monarch stated. [Now, you will learn to fight. Your monstrous form is a crutch. Your esoteric shadow abilities are a novelty. A true warrior can be stripped of all his weapons and still be a weapon. Igris will teach you.]
The obsidian knight, Igris, rose silently to his feet. He reached back and planted his colossal greatsword into the cracked ground. Then, with a quiet clink, he unbuckled his gauntlets and dropped them. He faced Kafka, unarmed and unarmored from the wrists down.
His aura was the complete opposite of Beru's. There was no chaos, no glee. Only a profound, bottomless abyss of pure, disciplined martial skill. A quiet, deadly honor.
"The Monarch has decreed," Igris's telepathic voice resonated in Kafka's mind. It was a deep, noble baritone, like the tolling of a great iron bell. "You will be taught the fundamentals. You rely on the tricks of your power. You have no foundation. I will provide one."
[Your Kaiju powers are sealed,] Jin-Woo's voice commanded. [You will face Igris as a human. Use the body that was born to you. Show him what it can do.]
Kafka felt the connection to Kaiju No. 8 and Blackwing sever completely. He was just a man again. A thirty-two-year-old man in decent, but unremarkable, physical shape. And he was facing a legendary undead knight, a master of a million battles. This wasn't a lesson. This was suicide.
Igris adopted a simple, open-handed fighting stance. "Come."
Kafka, seeing no other choice, charged. He threw a punch, the best he could manage. It was the clumsy, telegraphed punch of a street brawler.
Igris didn't even seem to move. His body shifted, just a fraction. Kafka's fist passed harmlessly by his head. In the same motion, the edge of Igris's armored hand chopped down on the back of Kafka's neck.
Instant reset.
Again, Kafka charged. This time he tried a low kick. Igris's foot came up, hooking Kafka's ankle, turning his own momentum against him, and sending him sprawling to the ground. An armored elbow dropped onto his sternum.
Reset.
For hours, the lesson continued. It was a different kind of torture. It was the ego-death of having his every pathetic attempt at combat be effortlessly, perfectly dismantled. Igris wasn't just blocking and countering. He was teaching.
With every reset, Kafka would feel a phantom echo of Igris's technique. He would feel the way Igris shifted his weight. The perfect balance. The efficient transfer of power from the feet, through the hips, into the strike. He learned how to parry, how to block not with muscle but with bone and leverage. He learned footwork, timing, rhythm.
His clumsy brawling was slowly, painfully, being stripped away and replaced with the building blocks of a true martial art. He was a slab of cheap iron being hammered against the anvil of a master swordsmith, the impurities being beaten out with every single blow.
Finally, after what felt like a thousand defeats, he threw a punch, and this time, something clicked. He didn't just swing his arm. He pivoted his foot, rotated his hips, and put his entire body into it.
Igris, for the first time, didn't simply make it miss. He raised his hand and blocked it, palm to fist. A dull, phantom thud echoed in the dreamscape. Igris didn't move back, but for the first time, he hadn't been able to just effortlessly evade. He'd been forced to acknowledge the blow.
A profound, silent moment of understanding passed between them.
Igris slowly lowered his hand. "You have a foundation," the knight's voice declared. "It is weak. It is shallow. But it is there. The lesson for tonight is over." He turned and knelt once more, his duty done.
Kafka stood there, his dream-body aching in a completely new way. It was the satisfying ache of learned skill, not the raw agony of punishment.
[Acceptable,] Jin-Woo's final judgment echoed. [You are still pathetic. But you are slightly less pathetic than you were yesterday. This will continue. Every night. Beru will harden your will. Igris will harden your body. Until the day you can stand before them and not be shattered.]
The grey desert began to fade, the waking world bleeding back in.
Kafka awoke with a gasp, his entire body drenched in a cold sweat. His alarm clock was blaring. It was 0430. He was exhausted on a level he had never known was possible, but he also felt… different.
He stood up, his body aching in places he didn't know he had. He walked into his small bathroom and looked in the mirror. He wasn't bigger. He hadn't grown any new muscles overnight. But his posture was different. The way he stood was balanced, centered. There was a new, quiet deadliness in his own reflection, a confidence that hadn't been there before.
The Monarch's brutal pedagogy was working. He was being reforged, body and soul. The question that haunted him was, when the process was finished, how much of Kafka Hibino would be left?