They had warned me…
They told me to be careful of him, of his circle, of his family, of his name. And despite that, I hadn't really listened. They say it's in the hardest days that a person truly understands who they are, so I can tell you clearly…
[That day was the worst of my entire life.]
I couldn't make sense of my feelings anymore. But one thing was certain, my whole being was nothing but fire and pain.
My blades burst out from my fractures all around me, a magnificent sight if you forgot the reason. They pointed at the enemy, the only enemy, like beasts desperately trying to break out of their cage. My body launched forward, my fists wildly searching for his face. But in vain. Every strike accompanied by a tearing cry couldn't reach its target.
The house was collapsing before my eyes from the impacts.
The walls cracked, the ceiling broke open, the windows shattered. Every attack barely scratched him. I was like a fool thrashing for nothing. And for some reason, he landed no blows on me, he simply walked through the storm.
Step after step, he dodged every one of my attacks without effort. He used a single finger to redirect my power as if it were nothing.
— So this is the famous Iron Vongold, he said in a voice carrying nothing but disappointment.
His eyes, from his height, fixed on me with a mix of contempt and boredom.
— In the end, you have all the tools but none of the ability. You're just a fool who thinks his anger can change the outcome of a fight, but you're wrong…
He could even lecture me, as if he had no interest in fighting me seriously. My fist, just missing him, crashed into the floor and cracked it open. I looked up but Cassian was already gone.
By the time I turned around, it was already too late.
His foot swept my legs while crushing my ribs in the same motion. Not even a scream came, but the pain was very much there.
I was coughing up blood as my body crumpled to the floor. I struggled to get back up, because I always got back up.
— What? Giving up already? Come on, get up "Vongold" — we're not done, he continued.
Cassian was the kind of being you were better off running from than fighting. The glaring gap between us was absurd, he was by far the strongest in every way. But as I said earlier, at that point in my life I was subtly arrogant, and my blind obsession with making him pay and honoring my house's name was clouding my judgment terribly.
— You know… things didn't have to go this way, but you made your choices. In an ideal world, you should have kept living your miserable little life, in ignorance, and ended up dying in that hole like all your kind. But you made a different choice, didn't you… and it's that choice that brought you here, today, to this precise moment on the timeline.
Maybe it was planned from the beginning, and we are destined… to follow a path we can't see, but that we can vaguely sense, while fate takes us by the hand and guides us toward the inevitable.
Every word he spoke was an insult to the human condition. Because the person in front of me was not human. No, he had the appearance of one, but as for the rest…
No matter how many attacks I threw at him, he danced through them all.
His movements were fluid and calculated, as if he was letting me believe I could actually hit him. Like an adult playing with a child armed with a stick.
He let me get close, almost opening up, but at the last second he tilted his head slightly, and my hit demolished the wall behind him, reducing part of the house to dust.
And him… he sighed.
— I feel sorry for you…
His hand shot out from the dust and grabbed me by the throat.
The pressure he exerted on my neck was unbearable. I had to get away, far, very far, or I was truly going to die. And then my feet left the ground.
— You think flying makes you a god? That ability is nothing but a burden. Living proof that you dream too high, and that those beings from before deserved to disappear.
He threw me to the floor like garbage.
My defeat was total, almost embarrassing, to be honest. He hadn't even used his powers. Just his physical strength. And the result was my body broken to pieces while he didn't have a single scratch.
— You have nothing else to show me?! Nothing? Unbelievable, you really are just a filthy thing I've been given the unpleasant task of cleaning from this world, all things considered.
He took a step toward me, then another, and each step sounded out my sentence.
My body lay in the rubble of the living room. I couldn't even breathe properly.
Cassian, for his part, had not drawn his sword.
Not once.
He approached slowly, his footsteps ringing out like hammer blows on the anvil of my will. His cold blue eyes reflected nothing… no anger, no passion, just the crushing calm of someone who already knows they've won. Then he grabbed me by my locs and forced my head up. My blood ran down my mouth to my chin.
— Alalala… I will resent the Vongold my whole life, they have this awful habit of recruiting frogs like you. But even that isn't the real problem. The fact is, you are proof that we have gone soft. There was an age when previous generations were ruthless, if we didn't have the strength to protect what was ours, others would come to tear it from our corpses. Do you understand? But look at us now, weakness is everywhere, at every moment, and it makes me sick… Well, I'll put things back in order once I become the Patriarch of my House, believe me…
I spat a blood-soaked tooth at his feet, my eyes still burning with rage despite the beating I was taking.
He smiled as his fist came down on my face several times before slamming me into the corner of a wall. The pain rang through my entire body. Before I could even lift myself up, he was already there, his foot crushing down on my chest.
— Listen carefully, because no one will ever say this to you this clearly so you understand what's really going on.
He leaned down to my face.
— As you know, there are three tiers for us Thorn bearers: Protophetos, Magisterion, and Aseides. You know that. But you don't know what it actually means.
He pressed so hard against my ribcage I could hear my bones splitting.
— The gap between them is a gaping chasm — each one also divided into three Classes. But here's the thing, you could live a thousand lives, train until your Thorn consumes you… and you still wouldn't reach half of what I already am. That is a fact.
He lifted me with one hand, my body dangling like a puppet. His eyes were cruelly intense.
— I'm seventeen years old. And my level is already close to reaching the rank of Aseides, in just a few years.
His smile then turned more mocking, as if tormenting me was the most entertaining thing imaginable.
— Do you understand what that means? That I am the most powerful heir of my generation. The one destined to trace the path the rest of humanity will follow, and who will crush not only you, but everyone who dares stand against me.
His fist hit my stomach three more times, even harder. I lay there half unconscious. He crouched beside me, his eyes locked into mine.
— And the worst part, Iron, is that I don't even need to kill you, not really. It's just that "someone" advised me it would be better this way.
His fingers closed around my throat again. The pressure was so great that my vision blurred. And that "someone" he mentioned would become the source of many nightmares to come.
I could have tried to focus my power, my Thorn, one last time, but my body no longer responded.
And him… he laughed. As if my despair, what he was putting me through, was nothing but a distraction to him.
He let me drop heavily to the floor. This was the second time I had tasted total helplessness and come face to face with my own weakness. He talked too much, because he could afford to. Me, I was too terrified and broken to say a thing.
And just as my house was already in ruins, the door blew off its hinges, and I felt a titanic aura pour out of the dust.
An aura I recognized…
It was Bruno.
His one eye blazed with rage, his aura flooding the entire room.
— MONTCLAIR!!!! he cried.
And that was the moment Cassian's smile faded slightly, not from fear, just the surprise of seeing a new distraction walk in.