The cave's air pressed heavy on his lungs. Alpha's muscles screamed as he raised the shard of iron one last time. Sweat dripped into his eyes, stinging. The Nameless Knight had drilled him for hours, correcting each movement with silence and shadow. His legs shook, but his stance no longer collapsed under its own weight.
The knight stopped, lowering its broken blade. It tilted its skull toward the mouth of the cave. A gesture. A command.
Alpha hesitated. He had grown used to the safety of the cavern, to the rhythm of practice. Outside, the Labyrinth waited. He didn't need the skeleton to explain—the lesson was clear: training meant nothing without blood.
His grip tightened on the shard. He nodded.
The knight did not follow. It returned to its slab of stone, sockets dimming. Alone, Alpha stepped back into Viren's corpse-strewn ruins.
---
The night beyond was not quiet. The Labyrinth whispered with faint rattles and groans, as though the stones themselves breathed. Broken walls jutted like crooked teeth, and moonlight pooled in the cracks between them. Alpha's eyes darted left and right, his chest tight with anticipation.
Then he heard it.
The scrape of bone against stone.
A figure lurched from the alley—a skeletal husk draped in tattered cloth, empty sockets burning with pale hunger. Its jaw clacked open and shut, a sound like breaking wood.
Alpha's knees nearly buckled. He had fought these things before, but always with panic driving him. Now, he forced himself to remember the stance. Feet apart. Blade steady. Breathe.
The undead lunged.
Alpha stepped back, the iron shard trembling in his grip. He swung, too high, the blade cutting through air. The skeleton's claw raked his arm, tearing cloth and skin. Pain flared hot and sharp.
He staggered. Panic clawed at his chest. Run, his body screamed. But the Nameless Knight's shadow lingered in his mind—unyielding, silent, patient.
Alpha gritted his teeth. He raised the shard again, adjusted his stance. Lower. Steadier.
The skeleton hissed, lunging once more. This time, Alpha did not flinch. He pivoted his weight, dragging the shard across its side. The strike connected with a crack of bone. Not deep, not killing—but real.
The monster reeled.
Alpha's heart thundered. His arms burned. But he pressed forward, clumsy but determined. Another swing, another crack. His movements lacked the Knight's grace, but each was steadier than the last.
The undead staggered back, ribs shattered. Its pale light flickered. Alpha drew in a ragged breath and thrust the shard forward. It pierced the skull with a dull crunch.
The skeleton collapsed.
For a moment, silence returned. Then, faintly, a glow pulsed within the ruins. From the monster's corpse rose a faint crystal—small, dim, yet undeniable. Another Dreamstone.
Alpha bent down, his hands shaking, and picked it up. Its glow pulsed faintly in rhythm with his heartbeat.
Not luck. Not scraps. His.
He stood there, panting, blood dripping from the shallow wound on his arm. The shard in his hand was slick with grime, his body trembling from exhaustion. But he was alive. Alive because of discipline, not desperation.
---
He stumbled back toward the cave.
The waterfall mist chilled his wound, stinging but steadying him. When he entered the chamber, the Nameless Knight had not moved. But as Alpha approached, the sockets of its skull flickered faintly.
Alpha raised the Dreamstone in his palm, letting the pale light spill across the chamber.
For the first time, the Knight lifted its broken blade and tapped it against the ground. A sound like approval.
Alpha dropped to his knees, half from exhaustion, half from something heavier pressing on his chest. For the first time since the chains had fallen, he felt pride flicker inside him. Small. Fragile. But real.
---
That night, as he lay against the stone floor, Alpha turned the Dreamstone over in his fingers. Hunger gnawed at him. Pain lingered in his arm. Yet he felt stronger than any day in his life.
Not because he had won. But because he had learned
And in the silence of the cave, the Nameless Knight's shadow watching over him, he whispered to himself:
"I will not die in chains again."