Nouel was gripping his bow so tightly that his fingers trembled slightly.
Not from fear.
From exhaustion.
The Aether hung heavy in the air, like a thick, invisible layer over the grotto. It was quiet – too quiet. The kind of silence that feels like a wrong breath in your chest.
"Hey," he said, voice short but controlled. "Don't do anything reckless. Step slowly into the light so I can see your face."
He didn't speak loudly. The room was too cramped, too still. Any word could trigger an echo, and an echo could mean a misunderstanding – and a misunderstanding in this grotto meant death.
His breathing was thin. The Aether flow here felt strangely fractured.
Something in his chest tightened, as if the room itself were pulling his skin tighter.
He raised the bow.
Drew the string.
Slowly.
The figure at the other end of the corridor moved forward.
Unevenly.
A step, then a pause.
A drag, a scrape.
The closer it came, the clearer the sounds became. Footsteps sticking on wet stone. Heavy, wheezing breaths, like someone trying to extinguish a fire in their lungs. And droplets – droplets falling from skin that shouldn't have been bleeding.
Nouel's gaze narrowed.
Cold as glass.
He prepared himself for anything.
Then the figure stepped into the light.
Clothes torn to shreds.
Blood dripping from arms and cheeks.
Breath rough and ragged, like someone trying to stamp out a blaze in their chest.
And then Nouel recognized him.
His whole body froze.
The bow slowly lowered.
"By all Aether currents… it's you."
It was a sound caught somewhere between relief and shock.
"What in the world… do you look like…?"
Alvios smiled.
Despite everything.
A small, crooked, tired smile – the kind of smile that said: I'm still here. Don't worry.
He closed his eyes and pitched forward.
Nouel barely managed to catch him in time.
"Hey! Stay with me! You are not dying on me on our very first mission, got it? Hey!"
But Alvios was unconscious.
Before that moment
A few dozen meters away – in another chamber of the same grotto.
Alvios stood facing his clone.
No wind.
No dripping.
Only two swords crossed, metal under tension, sparks burning into the stone like tiny stars.
The room was listening.
The Aether was listening.
The world was listening.
It felt like this fight meant more than the ground beneath their feet.
Both fighters stood so close they could hear each other's breathing.
For seconds, nothing happened. No movement, no words.
Then everything happened at once.
The clone moved first.
An ancient martial art – a style buried under dust and time.
A discipline that was no longer passed down.
And yet Alvios knew these steps.
He knew them better than anyone.
It was his father's style.
The clone pressed his foot into the ground and turned in a circle so clean and smooth that dust lifted. The motion swept Alvios' stance out from under him like paper. As he fell, he lashed out with a desperate but precise attack.
The clone slipped aside.
Glided away.
The blade skimmed Alvios' forehead – a clean cut, shallow but sharp.
Blood ran into his eye.
Alvios wiped it away with the back of his hand and pushed himself back up.
His expression grew more serious.
He leveled his sword forward.
The clone mirrored him.
The air between them thinned.
Their blades wanted blood.
The Aether listened to their voices.
Alvios moved first.
He dashed in, a frontal strike – direct, honest, fast. The clone blocked. Metal screamed against metal. Alvios spun, both hands on the hilt, and swung low in a powerful, sweeping cut at his opponent's legs.
Nothing.
The clone leapt over it and turned elegantly in mid-air. The moment he landed, he counterattacked.
Alvios brought his sword up behind his back and blocked.
If he hadn't, that blow would have cut him clean in two.
With a sharp exhale he shoved the strike upward and away.
"Aha! Got you there!" he shouted with a wide, determined grin.
He struck – a slash at the throat.
Not enough to take the head, but enough to kill any human.
But the clone wasn't human.
The wound closed in a second.
Sanitas gleamed under the skin like pure, liquid light.
"Sanitas? Seriously?" Alvios blinked. "Well, that explains a lot…"
A brief flicker of memory.
His mother. Her voice.
Her lessons about the Aether flows.
"Sanitas heals anything you can wound, Alvios. But be careful. It also heals what should never be healed."
Alvios thought.
Fast.
Pounding.
"If he's using Sanitas… Ignis should work. Damn… damn it! I can't use Ignis!"
He shook his head.
"Okay, okay, think… What am I good at…?"
Then a spark.
A grin.
"Fulmen. That might work."
He raised his sword.
"Fulgur mihi inimicos meos secare adiuvat."
The room darkened at once.
Heat flooded the grotto, like a dragon's breath running down their necks.
Blue light flickered.
The temperature rose – not from fire, but from pure electrical tension.
Lightning formed in the air.
It crawled like living, searching veins toward his sword, drawn to it as if by instinct.
The blade began to sing.
A high, vibrating hum that ran down into the bones.
Alvios lifted it and exhaled.
"Let's go."
He sprinted forward in fluid, unpredictable steps. A sequence of sudden direction changes, short bursts, low spins and explosive lunges that looked like a dance but were pure instinct.
The clone rushed to meet him.
Their swords clashed.
Lightning surged across the blades, into the clone's flesh, boring through muscle, burning nerves. The clone jerked, and Alvios seized the opening.
He stepped to the side.
A clean, powerful strike – both of the clone's arms were severed.
But Alvios wasn't done.
He spun, built momentum – and cut straight across the torso.
Blood sprayed through the room like a fine mist. The regeneration couldn't keep up.
The clone's teeth ground together, his face a mask of pain.
But just as Alvios raised his sword for the finishing blow, Sanitas erupted again inside the clone – liquid light, hot as boiling breath.
The wound sealed over.
"What…? You…?!"
The clone calmly picked up his sword again, as if nothing had happened.
Then he stepped in.
A single kick.
A shove like a falling boulder.
Alvios flew several meters and tumbled hard across the floor.
"Ow!" he gasped, but scrambled right back up. "Not bad! But I've got more!"
The clone held the sword beside his head.
A stance Alvios knew.
Too well.
His heart clenched.
That's…
A heartbeat of silence.
A blink.
The clone vanished.
A burst of wind behind him.
Too fast.
Way too fast.
Alvios saw – in slow motion – his sword hilt flying one way… and his hand the other.
The pain hit a heartbeat later.
He didn't scream.
He clenched his teeth and clutched the bleeding stump.
The clone came again.
This time going for his head.
Alvios rolled sideways, grabbed the fallen sword with his remaining hand and swung it up. An upward slash that just barely missed.
He jumped to his feet.
The pain was a storm – but he was smiling.
"You know…" he said, lifting the sword.
"That was a mistake."
The clone's expression didn't change.
"You're using my father's martial art. And that…"
His voice dropped, almost vibrating.
"…was a big mistake."
He gathered Aether.
A lot of it.
Lightning crawled along the blade again.
But this time it was different.
Not just lightning.
A black-beige aura wrapped around him, curling at the edges like living shadow. His pupils thinned for a moment, his features growing harder, sharper, unfamiliar.
Something inside him stirred.
Something old.
Something that didn't belong to him – but knew him.
The air vibrated.
For the first time, the clone hesitated.
"Enough games," Alvios said quietly.
"I'm going to tear you apart."
They moved at the same time.
The Aether couldn't keep up.
Strike after strike.
Sparks flying.
Blades flashing like bolts of light.
The clone was faster than before – but now Alvios was faster than him.
He pierced the clone's upper body multiple times.
Sanitas tried to heal the wounds, but it couldn't keep up anymore.
"Fulmen Ruptura!"
The strike was like an explosion.
His sword came down from above, an electrified arc as wide as a bramble vine. The clone's body shattered, blasted across the chamber and slammed into the wall.
Roots jutting from the ground coiled around him, holding him in place like a dead animal.
Alvios walked toward him.
Sweat dripped from his chin.
Blood from his arm.
And still, he smiled.
"You're still alive? Good."
He raised the sword.
"Your suffering has only just begun."