The academy had long faded behind him. The city that had once felt alive now seemed small, insignificant, a distant memory. Eryndor followed his father across the sprawling estate at the edge of the city—gardens stretching into artificial hills, training grounds carved with obsidian and stone, and towers that reached for the clouds.
"Six months," his father said, voice calm, clipped, almost like the slice of a blade, "and when you leave, you will not return the same. You will understand power in ways that mere survival never taught you."
Eryndor's hands flexed, the storm in his veins thrumming faintly. He had already survived the White, defeated an elder, and crushed city-level threats. But this… this was different. His father's eyes carried authority and knowledge honed over decades. What he had learned of the White, the void-born, and elemental forces in the city was only the beginning.
The first weeks were pure conditioning.
Every dawn, Eryndor rose before the sun, running the hills, leaping across rocky outcrops, each jump and landing calculated to push his body to the limit. His father had constructed specialized training dummies—replicas of void creatures, monstrous in shape and weighted to mimic the strength and unpredictability of real monsters. Each strike had to be precise, every movement a perfect flow of power and speed.
By week two, his father introduced combat drills. These were no ordinary sparring sessions.
Hand-to-hand combat: Eryndor learned techniques that blended martial arts from multiple continents—swirling, spinning strikes that flowed with the natural storm in his veins. His fists could strike with the precision of a surgeon or the force of a battering ram. Energy integration: Lightning that had once flared uncontrolled now moved like water through his body. His father taught him how to charge strikes, amplify movements, and even redirect energy mid-combat. Reflex and perception training: Using specialized devices that simulated multiple attacks from various angles, Eryndor learned to anticipate and react in milliseconds, creating an almost preternatural sense of awareness.
Weeks became months. The storm inside him grew, responding to intention rather than instinct. His father tested him relentlessly: chained strikes, multi-attacker simulations, and endurance trials designed to push both his body and mind to the breaking point.
After three months, his father began the lessons of history. It wasn't about kingdoms, politics, or borders—it was about the monsters that haunted the world.
"From the beginning," his father said, voice low and measured, "humans were not the only apex. There were beings born of chaos, of elemental extremes, and of voids beyond your imagination."
He handed Eryndor a codex, a mixture of scrolls, stones, and fragments of ancient knowledge.
Primordials: Titans of elemental chaos, often mistaken for gods, who shaped the continents. Fire-breathing, earth-crushing, and sky-rending. Most were sealed or slain, but traces remained. Void-born: Creatures from the depths of the White. Most were small and insidious, spreading corruption or manipulating prey. The largest could consume entire villages before being noticed. Beast-Kin: Creatures that evolved alongside human settlements—wolf-lions, armored serpents, and chimeric hybrids. Some could speak rudimentary language, others hunted purely by instinct. Eldritch Remnants: Ancient horrors whose forms could drive humans mad. Rarely seen, but their influence warped reality around them.
He mapped their distribution across continents. Each landmass had its own ecosystem of threat. Some monsters were endemic, others migratory. He showed Eryndor ancient battle sites, ruins of civilizations swallowed by creatures long forgotten.
"Know them," his father warned. "Not all can be killed. Some must be outwitted. Some must be contained. And some… you must learn to become, if you hope to survive beyond the city."
By the sixth month, Eryndor was no longer a boy carrying storm-born power; he was a weapon tempered by knowledge and discipline.
His hand-to-hand combat was now a blur to the eye, blending strikes and parries with lightning energy seamlessly. His lightning manipulation had reached a level that allowed him to create defensive fields, explosive bursts, and even minor environmental control—sending sparks along metal surfaces, drawing electricity from the sky. He had unlocked the ability to channel energy through weapons, augmenting slashes and stabs to a deadly level even against heavily armored opponents.
On the final day of training, his father set the last trial: a simulation using replicas of the most dangerous monsters known, including void-born, beast-kin, and primordials.
Eryndor moved as one with the storm. Each strike precise, each dodge fluid, each step measured. The trial ended with him standing in the center of a ruined courtyard of stone replicas, unharmed, unflinching, and alive.
His father's voice echoed softly across the grounds. "You are ready. The world beyond this city is harsh. More than the White. More than any one enemy. You will face monsters that defy imagination, and humans who wield power as recklessly as you wield yours. Never forget: survival is only the beginning."