Morning came early in Mythril.
Too early.
Yet the capital square was already overflowing.
From the main avenues to the narrow alleys feeding into the plaza, lines of military aspirants stretched endlessly, armor clinking, boots scraping stone, breath fogging in the crisp dawn air. Some stood tall and confident. Others whispered prayers. A few trembled, gripping weapons they barely knew how to wield.
Banners of steel and sigil-cloth fluttered above the square.
At the center stood four elevated platforms, each marked by an insignia—officers holding crested standards, their presence alone enough to silence nearby chatter.
The Military Corps of Mythril.
The Vanguard Concord — All-Around Offensive Corps
Fighters trained to survive any terrain, any threat. Blade, fist, bow, body.
The Arcanum Spiral — Mage Corps
Spellcasters, Magi, ritualists, and Axiom engineers.
The Bastion Grace — Support Corps
Healers, buffers, tacticians, stabilizers—the spine behind every victory.
The Thunder Foundry — Artillery Corps
Siege specialists, long-range devastation, and mechanized Axiom weaponry.
Yna stood beside me, her cloak drawn tight, her expression calm—but I knew her well enough now.
This was the moment.
"This is where we part," I said quietly.
She nodded. "I see."
The officers began calling out corps assignments. Groups peeled away like currents splitting in a river.
"Well then…" she said, already turning.
"Let's see each other again after this."
She paused only once, glancing back over her shoulder as she walked toward the Arcanum Spiral banner.
"To put it in modern terms," she said lightly, without stopping, "try to keep up, Elrin."
"…Ah," I replied—a quiet agreement, half promise, half challenge.
And just like that—
We parted.
She disappeared into a sea of robes and staffs.
I turned toward the Vanguard Concord.
—
Hours passed.
The sun climbed higher, yet the square grew no emptier. When at last the officers took the stage, their presence crushed the remaining noise into silence.
Generals.
All of them.
But then—
I felt it.
A pressure.
A weight that didn't rely on magic.
My eyes widened.
There he stood.
Steel armor polished to a muted glow. Golden hair tied back. A scar crossing his jaw like a badge rather than a wound.
General Ignis.
The Great General of Steel.
And—
Handler of the Vanguard Concord.
My breath caught.
He stepped forward.
No amplification spell at first. No theatrics.
Yet his voice carried.
"Those standing before me," Ignis said, "are not soldiers."
A pause.
"You are candidates."
The crowd stiffened.
"You will not be coddled. You will not be praised for effort. And you will not be forgiven for weakness."
His gaze swept the plaza.
"This exercise is not about glory. It is about endurance. Awareness. And the will to keep moving when your body tells you to fall."
He turned slightly.
"If you fail—you return alive."
Another pause.
"But you will carry that failure."
Then, as if that were his final mercy—
He raised his hand.
At once, hooded figures emerged.
Mages.
Hundreds of them.
They formed a vast ring around the capital square, staffs raised in perfect unison.
Runes ignited midair.
The ground beneath us lit up in layered sigils, overlapping colors spiraling outward like a living circuit.
A group-based teleportation collaboration spell.
The air vibrated.
ᛋᚱ ᛋᚨ ᚲᛉ ᚨᛏ(Serra Sanctum Conflux — Spatial Convergence)(Mass displacement of defined entities across synchronized coordinates.)
Light swallowed everything.
—
I landed hard.
Not just on the ground—into it.
Dirt burst up into my face, dry and bitter on my tongue. Leaves crumpled beneath my palms, slick with dew, their veins pressing against skin as roots jabbed painfully into my ribs. The impact rattled my teeth and drove the breath from my lungs in a sharp, humiliating gasp.
For half a heartbeat, the world spun.
Dirt. Leaves. Roots.
Forest.
I pushed myself up instinctively, lungs burning, senses already screaming that something was wrong.
Not a natural one—I could feel it.
The air itself carried tension, like a stretched string about to snap. Every tree hummed faintly, not with life, but with structure. Axiom signatures layered over one another—too uniform, too deliberate. Even the soil beneath my boots felt… reinforced, as if reality itself had been compacted and disciplined.
The General's voice echoed overhead, calm and inescapable, amplified by a magic-imbued apparatus that seemed to vibrate through the bones of the forest itself.
"Vanguard Concord," Ignis said evenly. "Traverse the forest. Reach the mountain's foot by sunset."
I swallowed, eyes scanning the treeline.
A pause.
"This forest contains Axiom Familiars—controlled summons."
So that's how they'd do it.
Not monsters.
Weapons.
I narrowed my eyes, jaw tightening.
"When defeated," he continued, "they will return to void. When you are defeated—you will return here. Eliminated."
The word eliminated landed heavier than death ever could.
So that's it.
"No deaths," Ignis finished. "Only failure."
A sharp crack split the sky.
A signal flare erupted overhead, bleeding red through the canopy before dissolving into sparks.
The trial began and moved instantly.
No hesitation. No deliberation. I casted a basic spell to boost my movements.
ᚲᛋ ᚠᛏ ᛋᚱ(Crucis Flux — Vector Step)(Force conversion into directional burst.)
The familiar pressure built in my calf, the runic logic assembling—
—and then it shattered like glass.
Not faded.
Shattered.
Glass-like fragments of broken logic dispersed midair, reflecting warped pieces of the forest before vanishing entirely.
What?
My foot struck the ground harder than expected, momentum dead, balance ruined.
"And I forgot to mention," Ignis added calmly, almost casually, "this field is protected by an Anti-Axiom Suppression Layer."
My teeth clicked together.
Hard.
"Every step. Every breath. Monitored."
I exhaled slowly.
I see.
Magic as infrastructure.
Technology through Axiom.
A battlefield designed by someone who understood both power and restraint.
No wonder Mythril dominates.
Around me, aspirants froze in disbelief. Spells fizzled mid-cast. Incantations collapsed into static. Panic spread fast—too fast. People shouted. Someone screamed as their spell backlash knocked them to their knees.
I didn't wait.
I ran.
"GHHHHH—!"
The forest swallowed me whole.
Branches clawed at my clothes as I tore through undergrowth. The canopy crushed daylight into false dusk, turning noon into something closer to evening. Roots snagged my boots without mercy, and wet leaves slick with morning dew turned every step into a gamble.
Breathing grew harsh.
Heart pounding.
Then—
Movement.
A pressure shift.
Claws.
I rolled instinctively, shoulder slamming into earth hard enough to knock the wind from me.
A massive black wolf landed where I'd been, its weight shaking the ground. Its eyes glowed with artificial awareness, and embedded in its forehead was a glowing Axiom crystal, pulsing like a living heart.
Screams echoed deeper in the forest.
Flashes of light—brief, sterile—marked eliminations.
Think.
Think!
My magic cannot be utilized.
Air traversal using levitation is not possible.
My routes are limited.
Then—
The an axiom crystal on the familiar's forehead.
Exposed.
I stumbled, foot catching a stone, momentum pitching me forward. I hit the ground hard, rolling through dirt and pain, lungs screaming.
The wolf didn't hesitate.
Its jaws closed around my side.
Pain sat in—white, blinding, total.
I screamed.
But my hand closed around something smooth.
A stone.
Cold and heavy.
"LET—GO!"
I smashed its eye.
Once.
The wolf recoiled—but didn't release.
Again.
Again.
I tore into its fur, fingers slipping, nails breaking, blood smearing against black hide. I snarled like something feral, vision narrowing, heart hammering so loud it drowned out everything else.
"I WILL NOT FAIL!"
I slammed the stone into its crystal—
Once.
The Axiom frequency shrieked, a sound that vibrated through my skull.
Twice.
The crystal fractured, light stuttering.
Third strike—
It shattered.
The wolf unraveled mid-snarl, body collapsing into drifting void fragments that dissolved into nothing.
I collapsed beside it—gasping—blood soaking my clothes, vision pulsing at the edges.
Then—
Warmth.
Not gentle.
Efficient.
My wounds sealed with practiced indifference, flesh knitting itself back together like I was just another variable being corrected.
Above the forest, barely visible through the canopy—
A colossal layered magic circle.
A colossal magic cricle programmed for healing, monitoring, and barrier.
Of course.
They accounted for everything.
—
I lay there for a moment longer, staring up through the shattered lattice of branches.
Breathing.
Feeling the forest breathe back.
The pain was gone, but the memory of it lingered—etched into muscle, into bone. My hands trembled slightly, not from fear, but from aftershock. From the realization that if the healing circle hadn't been there… I would have died bleeding in the dirt.
Slowly, I pushed myself up.
Blood stained my clothes, though my skin was whole again. My heart still raced, ribs rising and falling hard as I steadied myself against a tree trunk. Around me, the forest was quiet—too quiet—like it was watching.
No.
Like someone was watching.
I looked up again, past the canopy, toward where I knew the command center had to be.
General Ignis.
He couldn't use magic.
In a world ruled by Axiom, where power bent reality and gods bled into history, that should have made him weak.
And yet—
A battlefield without death, but not without pain. A place where magic was stripped away, where only judgment, instinct, and decision remained. A trial designed not to test who was strongest… but who could adapt.
He didn't dominate through spells.
He dominated through systems.
Through preparation so thorough it felt like fate.
Through leadership so absolute that even the land obeyed his intent.
I clenched my fist.
My magic had failed me.
My body had almost failed me.
But my will—
That was still mine.
"…You're terrifying," I muttered under my breath, lips curling into something between a grin and a grimace. "Not because you're strong… but because you know exactly how to make others stronger—or break them."
A general who didn't need magic to command those who did.
A man who wielded intellect, discipline, and human resolve like weapons sharper than any spell.
I exhaled, steadying myself.
If this was the standard…
Then I couldn't afford to rely on power alone.
I adjusted my stance, eyes sharpening as I listened for movement deeper in the forest.
"This isn't just training," I whispered to myself. "It's refinement."
And if General Ignis was the blade shaping us—
Then I would endure the grind.
No matter how much it hurt.
Because conducting my revenge and surviving the Blight wouldn't be about who had the most Axiom.
It would be about who could stand when everything else was stripped away.
I stepped forward, deeper into the forest.
The trial was far from over.