The training grounds assigned to the Blue Dragons stretched across the Citadel's southern approach—vast open fields of golden grass that rippled in constant wind, the stalks tall enough to brush against knees, creating waves of movement that looked like a living ocean frozen mid-surge.
The sun blazed overhead without mercy, summer heat making the air shimmer, creating mirages along the horizon where sky and earth blurred together. No shade existed here by design—comfort was antithetical to the kind of training that produced elite warriors, and whoever had chosen this location understood that principle thoroughly.
Mana barriers glowed faintly in the distance, marking the grounds' perimeter—translucent walls infused with enough power to contain techniques that would level buildings, the shimmering surfaces creating a dome that trapped heat and prevented environmental damage from spreading beyond designated areas.
The entire Blue Dragons unit stood in perfect formation despite the heat, twenty-three members arranged in precise ranks, backs straight, attention forward, years of military discipline overriding the instinct to seek shade or complain about conditions.
Captain Lucky Adams commanded the front position—early thirties, built lean and hard from constant combat deployment, her iron sword strapped across her back in the traditional position that allowed quick draw. Her gift was Iron Manipulation and Enhancement—not just control over existing metal but the ability to reinforce any iron-based weapon or armor to supernatural durability, to make blades hold edges that defied metallurgy, to turn simple swords into legendary artifacts through sustained application of her will.
She'd once held a defensive position for three days straight against Level 8 Shadow Beast assault, her reinforced blade never dulling despite constant use, her armor never cracking despite impacts that should have shattered steel. The Blue Dragons' reputation for defensive excellence started with her ability to make equipment literally unbreakable.
Beside her stood Vice Captain Kyo Kara—younger by five years but matching her intensity, his specialty providing perfect offensive complement to her defensive focus. His gift was Lava Generation and Manipulation—not fire exactly, not earth exactly, but the molten state between them, magma conjured from nothing and shaped according to tactical necessity.
He could create lava spheres that exploded on impact, molten walls that flowed and reformed to block passages, rivers of superheated rock that pursued enemies across battlefields. His techniques combined destructive power with area denial, making him invaluable for operations requiring scorched-earth approaches or preventing enemy retreat.
Together they'd led the Blue Dragons through successful campaigns that other units considered suicide missions—their defensive/offensive synergy allowing them to hold positions that should have been overrun, to break fortifications that should have been impregnable.
The rest of the unit reflected tactical diversity:
Soren Windcaller - Wind Blade specialist who could create cutting currents invisible until they struck, perfect for assassination and surprise attacks.
Elena Stormborn- Lightning manipulation focused on precision strikes rather than area bombardment, her techniques surgical where others were sledgehammers.
Marcus Earthshaper - Ground manipulation that created defensive structures and offensive spikes, providing battlefield control.
Aria Watershaper - Liquid control that worked defensively, creating barriers and neutralizing fire-based attacks.
Plus seventeen more members with gifts ranging from enhanced strength to tactical clairvoyance to poison generation—a well-rounded unit built for sustained operations where both offense and defense mattered equally.
They stood now in the brutal heat, waiting for their assigned instructors, knowing that whatever came next would redefine their understanding of combat capability.
Footsteps approached from the Citadel entrance.
Two figures emerged—one moving with barely contained energy that made his walk seem like preparation for explosion, the other moving with calm that suggested complete confidence in his ability to handle whatever occurred.
**Heavenly Star General Leon Jamex** was instantly recognizable even without his legendary armor—mid-thirties but carrying himself with the dangerous grace of someone who'd been fighting since childhood and had survived every encounter through skill rather than luck.
His gray training robe did nothing to disguise the power that radiated from him like heat from forge-fire, ambient tan so intense that walking near him probably felt like approaching an open furnace. His eyes were sharp, hungry, the gaze of someone who viewed combat as entertainment rather than necessity, who genuinely enjoyed the violence that most people endured.
His reputation was built on aggressive unpredictability—fighting styles that shifted mid-combat, techniques that violated conventional strategic wisdom, an approach to warfare that valued decisive action over careful planning. He won battles through overwhelming force applied at unexpected angles, through doing what no reasonable commander would attempt and succeeding because his execution matched his ambition.
Beside him walked **Vice General Anthony Davis**—taller, composed, moving with the measured precision that suggested every action was calculated three steps ahead. Where Leon radiated barely controlled chaos, Davis embodied structured order, his presence creating calm that offset his superior's intensity.
His gift was Strategy Manifestation—the ability to make tactical planning physical, to create constructs based on game theory and combat mathematics, to turn abstract concepts like "checkmate" into actual techniques that enemies couldn't escape regardless of power differential.
Together they represented an unusual pairing—chaos and order, intuition and calculation, the wild fighter and the tactical genius. The Blue Dragons would learn from both approaches, would be forced to adapt to contradictory philosophies, would become stronger through synthesizing opposing methodologies.
Leon stopped twenty feet from the assembled unit, Anthony positioning himself slightly behind and to the left—a formation that allowed the Vice General to observe while Leon engaged directly.
Leon's voice cut through the heat and wind like a blade through silk—sharp, carrying, impossible to ignore.
"You all know the information about the upcoming calamity, right? The Star Vision, the prophecy, the man who kills Heavenly Star Generals and Mothers and ends the world? That's all been explained already?"
No one answered verbally—they didn't need to. Twenty-three sets of eyes meeting his confirmed understanding better than words could.
Leon continued, his voice dropping lower but somehow carrying further, intensity building despite decreased volume.
"Good. Then you understand exactly how inadequate your current capability is. You've spent years becoming skilled fighters—competent, reliable, capable of handling conventional threats. That ends today. From this moment forward, you're training under me, and you need to know something important about my teaching methodology."
He smiled—wild, almost feral, the expression of someone anticipating violence and welcoming it.
"I hate holding back. I hate gentle introduction and gradual difficulty increase and all the safe pedagogical approaches that produce adequate soldiers. We don't need adequate. We need impossible. So I won't coddle you, won't ease you into techniques, won't pretend that kindness serves any purpose when apocalypse approaches."
The Blue Dragons squad members shifted slightly—unconscious tensing, bodies preparing for what was coming even if minds hadn't fully processed the implications.
Leon gestured toward Anthony without looking away from the unit.
"But before we begin actual training, we need accurate assessment of your current capabilities. My Vice General will be conducting the measurement test. Pay attention to what he demonstrates—it'll teach you more about strategic thinking than a month of classroom instruction."
Anthony stepped forward with the calm of someone about to perform a familiar task, his expression neutral, movements economical.
Leon's grin widened.
"But so you know—his gift is something you fundamentally can't win against. Not at your current level. Maybe not ever, depending on how thoroughly you internalize what we teach. His techniques operate on principles that transcend simple power differentials."
He turned to walk back toward the sidelines, voice carrying over his shoulder.
"Oh well. Best of luck. You'll need it."
Anthony raised one hand—palm forward, fingers spread, the gesture almost casual despite what it initiated.
"Now then. We begin."
A massive chessboard manifested in the air above the training ground.
Not metaphorical. Not symbolic. An actual board—perhaps fifty feet across, black and white squares glowing with contained power, floating twenty feet above the grass on principles that had nothing to do with conventional physics.
The board was perfect—right angles exact, colors absolute, the kind of mathematical precision that suggested this construct existed according to rules rather than improvisation.
Anthony moved his hand and a black pawn advanced two squares—standard opening, the kind of move any chess player would recognize as conventional development.
The pawn piece appeared in physical space.
Not miniature. Life-sized—an armored soldier eight feet tall, carrying sword and shield that looked functional rather than decorative, standing on one of the board's black squares which had extended downward to create a platform in real space.
Then Anthony played the white response—mirroring the pawn advance, standard symmetric opening.
Another life-sized piece manifested—white pawn, similarly armored, occupying physical space according to the board's logic.
He continued playing both sides.
Black knight to f6. White knight to f3. Black bishop to c5. White bishop to c4.
Each move created another physical manifestation—knights on armored warhorses, rooks that looked like mobile stone towers, bishops wielding glowing staffs that hummed with power.
Within thirty seconds, sixteen pieces occupied the field—eight black, eight white, all moving according to chess logic but existing as actual combatants rather than abstract representations.
Then the pieces began fighting each other.
Not randomly—according to standard chess capture rules, but expressed as actual combat. The white knight charged the black pawn, lance lowering, the collision producing sound of metal on metal. The black bishop fired energy from its staff at the white rook, the projectile shattering against stone armor.
Anthony played both sides with perfect strategy, the game progressing at tournament level while the physical manifestations enacted each move as genuine warfare.
The Blue Dragons watched in momentary paralysis—trying to understand the technique's mechanics, trying to identify weaknesses, trying to process information their training hadn't prepared them for.
Captain Lucky Adams broke the paralysis first, her combat instincts overriding analysis paralysis.
"Engage! Destroy the pieces before they overwhelm us! Standard combat formation!"
The unit responded instantly, years of drill making the command become immediate action.
Lucky drew her iron sword from its back sheath in one smooth motion, the blade singing as it cleared the scabbard, her gift activating the moment metal touched air.
"Iron Gift: Sword Blade Tempest!"
She slashed in a horizontal arc—not aimed at any single piece but creating a technique, her reinforced blade generating cutting waves that extended far beyond the physical steel. Three separate cutting currents launched forward, each one traveling twenty feet, striking three different chess pieces simultaneously.
Two black pawns and one white bishop shattered on impact—the reinforced cutting force exceeding their structural integrity, the pieces dissolving into energy that dispersed rather than leaving corpses.
Vice Captain Kyo Kara conjured a sphere of molten rock between his palms, the lava glowing white-hot, heat distortion making the air shimmer around his hands.
"Lava Gift: Inferno Orb!"
He hurled it at a cluster of pieces—the sphere growing as it traveled, expanding from basketball size to boulder size, the surface roiling with contained destruction.
It struck in the middle of several pawns and a knight, the impact triggering detonation that sent molten rock spraying outward in a sphere of superheated death.
Several pawns burned to slag instantly. The knight's armor melted, the construct collapsing as its structural material became liquid.
The rest of the unit unleashed everything they'd mastered—
Soren's wind blades cut through a white rook, the invisible currents finding joints in the stone armor and tearing the construct apart from inside.
Elena's lightning struck a black bishop with surgical precision, the electrical discharge frying whatever energy animated the piece, making it seize and fall.
Marcus raised earth spikes beneath a charging white knight, the horse and rider impaling themselves on stone that erupted too fast to dodge.
Aria created a water barrier that caught a black pawn's sword strike, the liquid hardening at the moment of impact, trapping the weapon while she counterattacked.
The Blue Dragons fought with coordination built through years of joint operations, techniques flowing together, each member's contribution enabling others' attacks, the kind of teamwork that made units more than the sum of their parts.
They destroyed dozens of pieces.
The board reformed them instantly.
Every captured piece returned to its starting position and advanced again, the game resetting while continuing, Anthony's gift treating the physical combat as separate from the strategic layer, maintaining both simultaneously without apparent effort.
The Blue Dragons realized the problem almost immediately—they were fighting an unwinnable war of attrition, destroying pieces that simply reappeared, expending energy while their opponent remained fresh.
Lucky made the tactical decision:
"Focus on the Vice General! If we eliminate the source, the technique should collapse!"
Half the unit redirected toward Anthony, abandoning the pieces, charging the man himself.
He moved his hand—calm, precise, almost gentle.
"Checkmate."
The board's state shifted.
All remaining pieces—black and white both, perhaps twenty constructs still active—combined.
They didn't merge gradually or require time to fuse. They simply became one thing where multiple things had been, reality editing itself according to Anthony's gift logic.
A towering chess king manifested—thirty feet tall, composed of black and white energy that swirled in hypnotic patterns, crown blazing with power that made the air taste like ozone, the construct radiating presence that suggested it operated under different rules than normal combatants.
It raised one massive hand.
A devastating blast erupted from the palm—not fire, not lightning, not any identifiable element but pure kinetic force, pressure wave that traveled faster than sound, impact that hit like being struck by falling building.
The entire Blue Dragons squad was knocked unconscious instantly.
Not killed—Anthony's control was too precise for accidental lethality. But every member went down simultaneously, bodies hitting the grass in rough formation, alive and breathing but completely incapacitated.
Twenty-three fighters eliminated in a single technique.
Silence settled over the training ground, broken only by wind through grass and the fading hum of Anthony's gift construct dispersing.
Leon walked over from his observation position, clapping slowly—the sound mocking and approving in equal measure.
He tapped Anthony on the shoulder with casual familiarity.
"You really know how to show off. Could have just beaten them individually, but no—had to demonstrate strategic superiority and overwhelming force simultaneously. Very subtle."
Anthony's expression remained neutral.
"You're clearly mistaken, sir. This was pure efficiency—assessment complete in minimal time with comprehensive data collection. Individual combat would have taken hours and taught them nothing beyond 'I can beat each of you separately.'"
He looked at the fallen unit, sprawled across golden grass, their formation broken but their positioning still suggesting discipline even in unconsciousness.
"This unit has great potential. The captain's reinforcement techniques could reach legendary tier with proper development. The vice captain's lava manipulation shows creativity beyond normal elemental users. The rest demonstrate solid tactical thinking and genuine coordination. Raw material is excellent."
Leon glanced at the unconscious forms of Captain Lucky Adams and Vice Captain Kyo Kara specifically, his wild grin shifting into something more dangerous—the smile of someone who'd found a challenge worth pursuing.
"Then let's break them until they reach it. Push them past every limit, force them through techniques that should kill them, rebuild them into something that can actually contribute when the Vision's prophecy manifests."
He began walking toward the nearest fallen fighter.
"Wake them up. We start actual training in ten minutes. No rest for measurement—they can recover while learning."
Anthony made a small gesture and the unconscious Blue Dragons began stirring, consciousness returning, bodies protesting, minds processing defeat and trying to extract lessons.
They would learn.
Or they would die trying.
Either way, the Blue Dragons would become stronger.
Because the alternative was dying when it actually mattered.
And that wasn't acceptable.
End of Chapter 35