The garden waited.

Neither of them moved. Leo stood with Tempest in his hand, his hair falling across his forehead, his eyes fixed on his sister with an intensity that made the air around them feel heavier.

Sylvia stood across from him with her own blade gleaming in the afternoon light, her black hair swaying slightly in the breeze, her expression caught somewhere between fury and guilt.

Before either of them could make a move, a voice cut through the tension like a blade through silk.

"That is enough."

Leo turned his head.

His father was walking toward them, his hair disheveled, and his eyes calm but firm.

His mother was behind him, her emerald eyes wet with tears she was trying to hide, her hand pressed against her chest like she was trying to hold her heart in place. They had been watching from the bench the entire time—listening to every word, hearing every accusation, every painful confession that Leo had never spoken aloud before.

Noah von Celestial stopped a few feet away from his children, his arms crossed over his chest. His expression was unreadable, but his eyes, those ocean-blue eyes that all three of his children had inherited were bright with something that looked like pain.

"I am not going to stop you from fighting," he said, his voice low and steady. "You are both adults. You have the right to settle your differences however you see fit. But you will not do it in the garden. There are some rules to a duel."

Isabella sniffled behind him, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

She wanted to stop this—every instinct in her body screamed at her to pull her children apart and force them to hug and make up and pretend that everything was fine.

But she knew better.

She had fought with her own brother when she was young, had screamed and cried and thrown things at his head, and her father had never interfered. He had let them work it out on their own, and they were stronger for it.

Her children were no different. They had to solve this themselves.

"There is a training hall in the east wing," Noah continued, gesturing toward the house. "It has reinforced walls, a proper floor, and enough space for you to fight each other without destroying the furniture. Use that."

Leo looked at his father for a long moment. Then he nodded and turned toward the house without a word. Sylvia followed a step behind, her blade still in her hand, her eyes still blazing.

_

The training hall was at the end of the east wing, a large rectangular room with walls reinforced by mana-infused steel and a floor made of polished stone that could withstand strikes that would shatter concrete.

The ceiling was high, lined with rows of mana-lamps that hummed softly as they flickered to life, casting the room in a pale, clinical light.

Weapon racks lined the walls, filled with practice swords and training dummies and all the equipment that generations of Celestials had used to hone their skills. In the center of the room, a large circular platform was raised slightly above the rest of the floor, marked with boundary lines that glowed faintly in the dim light.

Leo stepped onto the platform and turned to face his sister. Sylvia followed, her boots echoing against the stone, her blade held loose and ready at her side.

Noah stood at the edge of the platform, his arms crossed, his expression unreadable.

Isabella stood beside him, her hand still pressed against her chest, her eyes fixed on her children with a mixture of fear and hope and something that looked like guilt.

Mia was there too, standing between her parents, her small face pale, her eyes wide with confusion. Seris stood a little further back, her crimson eyes watching Leo with an intensity that hadn’t left her face since the garden.

No one spoke. The only sound was the soft hum of the mana-lamps and the distant echo of their own breathing.

"Rules are simple," Noah said, his voice carrying across the room. "First to yield or be disarmed loses. No killing blows, if I see either of you aiming for something fatal, I will step in. This is a duel, not an execution. Do you understand?"

Leo nodded. Sylvia nodded.

"Then begin."

Sylvia moved first.

She came at him like a storm, her blade cutting through the air in a wide arc aimed at his shoulder. Leo raised Tempest to block, and the impact jarred his arms, sending a shockwave through his shoulders. Steel screamed against steel, and sparks scattered across the platform, and Leo stumbled back a step, caught off guard by the weight behind her strike.

She was faster and stronger than him. All of Leo’s opponents were always stronger than him.

Her technique was flawless—every strike precise, every movement efficient, every step calculated. This was Celestial swordsmanship at its finest, a style that had been passed down through generations, refined and perfected over centuries.

It was beautiful in the way that a perfectly cut diamond was beautiful—cold, sharp, and utterly deadly.

Leo’s style was nothing like that.

He had learned to fight in the mud and the blood of the War of Faith, in a village called Wayford where a broken mercenary named Roran had taught him that the only rule of combat was survival.

His movements were rough and brutal, efficient in a way that had nothing to do with grace or elegance. He didn’t dance around his opponent’s strikes, he cut through them. He didn’t parry, he redirected. He didn’t block, he made his opponent regret swinging in the first place.

Sylvia’s blade came at his throat, and Leo didn’t step back.

He stepped forward, inside her guard, and slammed the pommel of his sword into her wrist. She hissed and pulled back, her grip loosening for just a moment, and Leo used that moment to swing Tempest at her side.

She blocked it at the last second, her blade catching his, and their eyes met over the crossed steel. "You fight like you’re trying to kill me," she said, her voice low.

"I fight like I’m trying to survive," Leo replied. "There’s a difference."

He pushed forward, and she pushed back, and they broke apart, circling each other like wolves.

Sylvia’s next attack was different.

She shifted her stance, her weight dropping lower, her blade angling upward in a way that made Leo’s instincts scream. He had seen this before, in the game, in the descriptions of Celestial techniques that he had studied for years.

Thunderclap Strike.

She lunged, and her blade seemed to disappear, moving so fast that Leo’s eyes couldn’t track it.

He didn’t try to block it. He couldn’t.

Instead, he folded the space between them, using his affinity to shift his body six inches to the left. The blade whistled past his ear, close enough to cut a few strands of white hair, and he drove his elbow into her side as she passed.

Sylvia stumbled, caught herself, and turned to face him with wide eyes. "You dodged that?" she said, disbelief coloring her voice.

"I didn’t dodge. I moved the space between us."

"That’s cheating."

"That’s my affinity." Leo raised Tempest, his expression cold. "You have centuries of technique. I have space manipulation and the kind of experience that comes from fighting things that would make your academy instructors wet themselves. We all have our advantages."

Sylvia’s jaw tightened.

She came at him again, faster this time, her blade a blur of gold lightning that crackled along the steel and left trails of light in the air. Leo blocked and dodged and parried, each impact sending tremors through his arms, each near miss grazing his skin or tearing his clothes. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

She was better than him.

He could feel it in every exchange, in the way she anticipated his movements, how her blade was always exactly where he didn’t want it to be.

Her rank was higher—Expert High to his Elite High, and that gap was wider than he had expected. Fighting against monsters had taught him how to survive against things that were stronger and faster than him.

However... fighting against a human was different.

A human thought. A human adapted. A human learned from his mistakes and adjusted their strategy accordingly.

...And Sylvia was learning fast.

"You’re slowing down. Don’t think too much. Just fight," she said, pressing forward with a series of quick strikes that drove him back toward the edge of the platform.

Leo said nothing, parrying a strike aimed at his chest.

She swung at his legs, and he jumped over the blade, twisting in the air to bring Tempest down toward her shoulder.

She caught the strike on her own blade and shoved him back, hard enough that he nearly lost his footing. He stumbled, caught himself, and raised his sword just in time to block another strike aimed at his head.

The impact drove him to one knee.

Sylvia stood over him, her blade pressing down against his, her eyes blazing. "Yield," she said.

Leo gritted his teeth. "No."

He pushed back, forcing her blade up, and scrambled to his feet. She came at him again, and he blocked and dodged and parried, but he was losing.

Fighting against monsters had taught him to endure. Fighting against a human taught him that endurance wasn’t always enough.

You want to win, don’t you?

The voice came from nowhere and everywhere at once—a whisper in the back of his mind, soft and seductive, like smoke curling through the cracks in his skull. It was not Nova. Nova was silent, watching, waiting.

This was something else. Something older and hungrier.

You don’t want the world to look down on you, do you? You don’t want to be the failure anymore. You want to be strong. You want to prove that you’re not the same weak child who couldn’t protect anyone.

Leo’s hands tightened on Tempest’s hilt.

Then use me. Let me out. Let me burn.

Let the whole world burn, and rise from the ashes as something new.

Something that no one can ignore.

Something that no one can hurt.

The voice was familiar. It was his own.

Or rather, it was the part of him that he had been trying to keep buried—the anger, the rage, the desperate hunger for power that had been growing inside him ever since the trial.

The soul flame pulsed in his chest, warm and hungry, and Leo felt something shift inside him. He stopped moving.

Sylvia’s blade came at his chest, and he didn’t block it. He just stood there, his head bowed, his shoulders trembling, and she pulled her strike at the last second, her eyes widening in confusion.

"Leo? What are you—"

She felt it before she saw it.

The mana in the air changed. It grew denser, heavier, pressing against her skin like a physical weight. The temperature dropped, and the lights flickered, and the shadows in the corners of the room seemed to grow longer and darker.

Leo raised his head.

His eyes were hollow, empty, reflecting a void that seemed to swallow the light around them. Black mist curled from his shoulders, thin and wispy at first, then thicker, darker, spreading across the platform like smoke from a dying fire.

...And then the flames came.

They started at the edge of Tempest’s blade, small and black, flickering in the dim light like dying embers. But they grew quickly, spreading across the steel, pulsing with a hollow purple light at their core. The flames made no sound and gave no heat.

They just existed—hungry and patient, waiting to be fed.

"Leo." Sylvia’s voice was sharp, urgent. "Leo, stop."

He didn’t hear her. The voice in his head was louder now, drowning out everything else.

Yes. Yes. Let it out. Let it burn. Show them what you really are. Show them what you became in the dark.

Leo raised Tempest above his head. The black flames roared, climbing higher, and the hollow purple light at their core pulsed like a heartbeat. The mana in the room was thick now, choking, and Sylvia could feel her own core straining against the pressure.

"Eclipse of the Singularity," Leo whispered. "Second Form—Heaven’s—"

"LEO!"

A hand closed around his wrist.

The grip was iron, unyielding, and the mana in the room surged as Noah von Celestial stepped between his children.

His eyes were cold, and his aura pressed down on Leo like a mountain, forcing the black flames and the hollow light to dim, and the voice in Leo’s head retreated into the shadows where it belonged.

"Are you trying to kill your sister?" Noah’s voice was low and dangerous, but there was fear in it too. "Look at yourself, Leo. Look at what you were about to do."

Leo blinked.

The black flames flickered and died, retreating back into his chest like a wounded animal slinking into its den. The hollow light faded from his eyes, replaced by the familiar ocean-blue that Sylvia had known her entire life.

The temperature returned to normal, and the shadows retreated, and the mana in the room settled into something almost peaceful.

Leo looked at his sword. Then he looked at his sister. Then he looked at his father’s hand wrapped around his wrist, holding him in place.

"I..." His voice cracked. "I am sorry. I lost control."

He pulled his wrist free and sheathed Tempest in one smooth motion, the blade sliding into its scabbard with a soft click. He didn’t look at anyone. He just turned and walked toward the door, his footsteps echoing against the stone floor, his white hair hiding his face from view.

No one stopped him.

Isabella watched him go, her hand pressed against her mouth, tears streaming down her cheeks. Mia stood frozen, her small hands clutching the fabric of her dress, her eyes wide and confused. Seris watched from the shadows, her expression unreadable.

And Sylvia stood on the platform, her sword hanging limp at her side, her hands trembling. He had almost killed her. She knew that with a certainty that settled into her bones like ice water.

And the worst part—the part that made her stomach churn and her heart ache—was that she wasn’t sure if he would have stopped.

She wasn’t sure if anyone would have been able to stop him.

"...Leo," she whispered, but he was already gone.

The door closed behind him with a soft click, and the training hall fell silent.

No one spoke. No one moved.

The mana-lamps hummed softly in the ceiling, and the shadows lay still on the floor, and the only sound was the quiet, ragged breathing of a family trying to understand what had just happened.