The Wyrm's Edge Archive sat in the library's furthest corner, where dust motes floated through amber light. Null materialized between the shelves without sound or warning.
Three scrolls lay before him, each centuries old. The first detailed the Phantom Blade technique—strikes that existed in multiple dimensions simultaneously. The second contained the Severing Wind style—cuts that traveled beyond the sword's physical reach. The third showed the Eclipse Edge—a method of folding attacks through shadows themselves.
His eyes moved across the texts at inhuman speed. Diagrams, annotations, centuries of refinement—all processed as raw information. Each technique brilliant. Each fundamentally limited.
They assumed physics mattered. That distance was real. That a blade needed to exist in one place at one time. For someone who bent reality itself, these constraints were meaningless like teaching a bird to climb when it could already fly.
The obsidian training chamber stretched fifty feet in every direction, walls reinforced with dragon-forged alloys. Null stood in its center, hand raised.
The skill crystallized in his mind: Sword Mastery. Not learned but created, shaped from understanding itself. Knowledge became instinct. Theory became muscle memory that had never existed.
He formed his katana—cosmic ether given shape. Darker than night with stars traced along its edge.
First test. Blink Strike.
He moved, not through the intervening distance but around it. One moment standing still, the next his blade completing an arc on the chamber's far side. A glowing gash sizzled across the reinforced wall, edges still crackling with distorted reality.
Second test. He raised the katana overhead and brought it down in a simple vertical cut.
The blade never touched anything physical. Instead, reality tore. A rift opened—not black but wrong, showing glimpses of somewhere else. The edges sparked and hissed as existence tried to repair itself.
Null observed the damage with detached interest. The reinforced walls showed stress fractures radiating from both strikes. This chamber, built to contain elder dragons, couldn't handle what he was becoming.
He needed somewhere else.
The Stormcrown Peaks rose twelve thousand feet above the kingdom, perpetually wrapped in blizzards and lightning. No one came here. Nothing lived here.
Perfect.
Day Seven
A rockslide thundered down the mountainside—tons of stone moving at lethal velocity. Null stood in its path, katana held loosely at his side.
The first boulder reached him. He shifted his grip and cut upward.
The massive stone split perfectly, each half passing harmlessly to either side. The second, third, and fourth—each cleaved with surgical precision. Not through strength but through understanding. Finding the exact angle where reality was weakest and exploiting it.
Day Twenty-Three
The magical blizzard wasn't natural. Ancient enchantments on these peaks created weather that could strip flesh from bone. Visibility dropped to zero. Ice formed instantly on any exposed surface.
Null moved through it as if it weren't there.
Blink Strike carried him between the gaps in the storm. Not fighting the blizzard but existing in the spaces where it wasn't. A hundred yards in a heartbeat. A thousand in three. His blade carved patterns in the air—practice forms that left temporary scars in reality itself.
Day Forty-One
Lightning split the sky every few seconds—each bolt seeking the highest point—currently him, standing on the narrowest peak.
The first bolt descended. Null's blade moved, and the lightning bent. Not blocked but redirected through a spatial fold, emerging fifty feet away to strike empty stone.
The second, third, and a dozen at once. His katana wove patterns that rewrote the laws governing electrical discharge. Lightning became ribbons he could guide, shape, dismiss.
A slight smile touched his lips. This wasn't survival. This was a dance.
Day Sixty
Between training sessions, he studied. Information on Lord Elarion was sparse—intentionally so—Son of the Life Nexus, the Elven Matriarch herself. Though records confirmed he was no older than nine, his list of accomplishments was profoundly unsettling for someone so young.
Notable achievements: Ended three wars through negotiation and never lost a duel. Once made an entire demon army surrender by speaking seven words.
Personality: Unknown. Goals: Unclear. Weaknesses: None recorded.
Interesting.
Day Ninety
The final morning came with unusual calm. The peaks, for once, were quiet. Null stood on the highest point, looking down at clouds that hid the world below.
Three months of isolation. Three months pushing against limits that kept expanding. The sword style he'd developed had no name because it needed none. It wasn't a technique to be taught. It was his alone—reality bending to will, distance becoming meaningless, existence itself just another medium to cut through.
He was ready.
The throne room felt smaller after the mountains' endless expanse.
Aurora stood by her throne, regal but unable to hide the concern in her eyes. Her son had returned differently. Sharper. The casual warmth replaced by something harder to define.
"You've been training," she said. Not a question.
"Yes."
Before she could respond, the air changed. Aria materialized without warning—no flash of light this time, just suddenly present.
She studied Null for a long moment, those limitless eyes seeing more than they should. "Three months have passed, Prince Null. Lord Elarion awaits."
Aria extended one hand, and reality split behind her. Not a door but a wound in existence itself, showing glimpses of somewhere else—white marble, golden light, impossible architecture.
"Are you prepared, Prince Null?"
He turned to Aurora. Their eyes met—cosmic darkness and solar gold. A lifetime of words in a single glance. Pride, worry, trust, fear. Everything unsaid but understood.
He faced Aria.
"I am."
No hesitation. He stepped through the portal.
It closed behind him, leaving Aurora alone in the throne room with only the echo of her son's certainty.
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If anyone is reading, I'm only doing one chapter because I'm trying to make new characters, the Nexus children, and it's hard trying to give each character their own personality and backstory, but I'll try to post maybe 5 tomorrow