The fracture Hannas received from the **New Moon Slash** still shimmered faintly in the air, like a scar etched into existence itself. It refused to vanish, stubbornly marking the patriarch's barrier as though declaring to the world: *The boy has struck the father.*
Hannas's gaze lingered on the mark for a heartbeat longer than he wished. His eyes narrowed into blades.
"You dare," he said coldly, his voice carrying across the silent arena, "to stain the clan's sacred technique with such… abomination."
His aura surged.
---
### The Weight of the Patriarch
It wasn't his full strength—not even close. But **10% of Hannas Alostrio's power** was still the equivalent of a mountain crashing down from the heavens.
The arena trembled violently. Stone tiles cracked like glass. Dust and fragments rose from the floor as if gravity itself had been shattered. The sheer weight of the patriarch's aura warped the air, pressing down upon everyone present.
Many of the weaker juniors in the stands fell to their knees, their faces pale, hands clutching at their chests as though their lungs had been bound in steel chains. Their bones creaked audibly, skin flushing from the pressure of invisible hands.
"Ugh—!"
"I can't breathe!"
"This… this is only 10%?!"
Even elders who sat in silence, their expressions unreadable, had their brows furrowed. Their hearts clenched.
*Ten percent… isn't this too much for a fourteen-year-old boy?*
The judges glanced at one another, hesitation flickering in their eyes. To interfere with the patriarch's judgment would be to challenge the very authority of the Alostrio clan. No one dared to take that step.
It was not just power that pressed on them—it was **lineage, supremacy, inevitability.** Hannas Alostrio did not stand as a man, but as a symbol of dominion.
---
### Ryner Against the Storm
Ryner staggered. His knees buckled for the briefest of moments. His ribs screamed as though each breath might be his last. His blood churned inside him, boiling and seething, desperate to burst out.
It was crushing. It was suffocating. His bones felt ready to snap under the invisible weight.
And yet—he smiled.
The crowd gasped. To smile under Hannas's aura was to mock the heavens themselves.
*So this is the weight of ten percent of Hannas's aura,* Ryner thought, his mind razor-sharp even under torment. *If it were me from the past, I'd already be broken. A stain left in the dirt, forgotten before my bones cooled.*
*But now…*
His chest rose and fell, steady. His eyes glimmered, not with fear, but with challenge.
Within his body, three forces intertwined—mana, aura, and life force—flowing as one. The **Crown Vessel cultivation** was not a cage, nor was it a container. It was a bridge. It bent where others broke. It channeled where others collapsed.
Instead of resisting Hannas's power head-on, Ryner allowed it to pour into him, guiding it through his body like a river curving around jagged rocks. The pressure sought to break him, but he let it pass through, bleeding it out, bending but never breaking.
His arms trembled, yet his grip did not loosen. Slowly—step by step—he raised his sword again.
---
### The World's Reaction
The gasps of the crowd echoed like a thunderclap.
"How… how is he still standing?"
"He's only fourteen! Even most elders can't hold their ground under the patriarch's ten percent!"
"This… this is no longer talent. This is monstrosity!"
The words rippled through the arena, striking each listener with shock. Nobles who had sneered at him for years could only stare, their jaws locked tight, as though fearing to utter another insult lest it rebound upon them.
Among them, Alia's fingers trembled against the rail. Her eyes shone with awe. *Ryner… you've hidden this deep?*
Hannas's lips pressed into a thin line. He had expected Ryner to crumble, to collapse into unconsciousness, to beg for mercy or for air. Yet here the boy stood, rising from the weight of his father's aura like a shadow forged in the crucible of the abyss.
And then—Ryner spoke.
---
### Words Against the Patriarch
"Father."
The word alone carried such steadiness that some nobles flinched. There was no fear, no hesitation—only steel.
Ryner's voice cut through the roaring pressure like a blade of shadow:
"If this is all you have… then you'll never erase me."
The silence that followed was suffocating. To stand against Hannas's aura was madness enough. To defy him with words—unthinkable.
The crowd's disbelief erupted into hushed panic.
"He… he spoke back to the patriarch!"
"Ryner's gone mad!"
"No… no, he's declaring war."
Hannas's gaze sharpened to a spear. His aura flared again, growing denser, heavier. But this time, Ryner's own presence stirred in response.
---
### The Rebirth of the Slash
His sword trembled, not with weakness, but with gathering power. Shadows coiled along its length like serpents, weaving and twisting. Temporal Darkness seeped from his soul, restrained but not tamed.
The **New Moon Slash** was forming again.
But unlike before, it was no longer a fledgling strike born of experimentation. Under the crushing weight of Hannas's aura, it was being reforged—tempered by fire, honed by steel, sharpened by the abyss.
Every fracture in his bones, every crackle of strain, every ounce of pressure only poured fuel into its rebirth.
The crowd felt it—the shift in air, the tightening of their throats, the sensation that something far beyond their understanding was clawing its way into existence.
Even the patriarch himself narrowed his eyes.
---
### The Patriarch's Reflection
In Hannas's mind, a storm raged silently.
*This boy… this child I dismissed, ignored, allowed to rot under mediocrity… he has grown fangs.*
He thought of the fracture in his barrier. The defiance in Ryner's words. The terrifying composure in his gaze.
Hannas had faced countless enemies, slaughtered countless foes. But rarely—so rarely—did he see this kind of gaze in one so young.
A gaze that said: *Even if the heavens crush me, I will not bow.*
It was dangerous. More dangerous than arrogance, more dangerous than brilliance.
For such a boy would not simply live under the Alostrio clan. He would seek to surpass it.
---
### The Arena Holds Its Breath
Ryner inhaled slowly.
The shadows surged. The blade hummed, its edge gleaming faint silver but cloaked in darkness. The New Moon Slash was no longer just a crescent. It was an eclipse, a void edged in moonlight, a promise of night swallowing day.
The stands fell silent. The juniors who had once mocked him, the elders who had once dismissed him, even the judges who had once ignored him—every single gaze was locked on Ryner's trembling sword.
For in that moment, there was no mediocrity. No stain of the family.
Only the boy who stood against a patriarch.
Only the boy who smiled under the weight of a mountain.
And only the boy whose slash threatened to break even the night.
---
(to be continued…)