Blackout Ascension: Return of Primordial Heir-Chapter 59: Silent Training
The tall iron gates of the Solaris Royal Academy usually filled Kairos with a sense of pride. Just a few months ago, walking through these gates meant he had escaped his dusty farming village. It meant he was someone important.
Today, the ornate iron gates just looked like the bars of a fancy cage. Kairos walked across the pristine cobblestone courtyard. The midday sun was shining brightly over the green lawns and the marble statues of past headmasters. The academy was bustling with life. Hundreds of noble students dressed in crisp, clean uniforms were hurrying to their afternoon lectures. They carried textbooks on basic elemental theory and complained loudly about their upcoming written exams.
"I completely ruined my new leather boots yesterday," a young noble boy said to his friend as they passed by. "A stray E-Rank slime spat acid on the heel. The dungeon instructors are too harsh on us."
Ignis stopped walking. The fiery royal slowly turned his head, his red eyes firmly stared onto the complaining student. Ignis was wearing a torn black shirt, his ribs were tightly wrapped in medical bandages, and his knuckles were bruised black and blue from punching an ancient shadow phantom.
Ignis took a slow step toward the complaining boy. A massive hand clamped down firmly on Ignis’ shoulder. Terravarous pulled his cousin back without saying a single word. The giant’s dark eyes offered a silent warning. Leave it. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎
"He is crying about a slime," Ignis whispered, his voice shaking with a mix of raw anger and exhaustion. "A stupid, mindless green puddle. Do you know what I would give to fight a slime right now? I would hug it."
"They don’t know," Kairos said quietly, keeping his gaze straight ahead. "They didn’t see the black sky. They didn’t watch the festival turn to ash. Let them worry about their boots, Ignis. That is exactly what we are supposed to be protecting."
Ignis clicked his tongue, shoving his hands into his pockets. He didn’t argue, but his arrogant swagger was gone.
They kept walking, ignoring the strange, whispered rumors from the regular students. The other kids pointed at their bandages and their grim faces, but nobody dared to approach them. The gap between the four Vanguard Generals and the rest of the academy had widened into an infinite canyon. They were no longer just talented students. They were veterans of a terrifying war.
They avoided the main dormitories. They didn’t go to the grand lecture halls or the magical theory classrooms.
Seyana had kept her promise. She had spoken to the royal quartermaster early this morning. The quartermaster had locked down a private, subterranean training facility located beneath the academy’s oldest stone tower. It was off-limits to everyone except them.
Kairos pushed open the wooden door leading into the basement, a cranking sound echoing in the room. The air inside the room was different from the sunny courtyard above. It was cold. The room smelled of damp stone, old rust, and sweat. There were no chairs or soft mats. The walls were lined with racks of dull iron swords. The floor was covered in rough gravel and training logs, and someone was already using it.
CLANG!!
The loud, harsh sound of iron striking solid stone echoed through the basement.
Kairos, Ignis, and Terravarous stopped in the doorway.
Standing in the center of the rough gravel floor, there was Luna Zephyros. The Night Emperor looked like a total mess. He had stripped off his usual dark uniform jacket. He was wearing a plain gray undershirt that was drenched in sweat. His pale skin was red, and he was breathing heavily, his chest heaving and gasping for air.
Luna was holding a massive, blunt iron training sword with both of his bare hands. He raised the weapon high above his head, his thin arms shaking under the immense physical weight. His silver hair clung wetly to his forehead. He gritted his teeth, letting out a frustrated shout, and brought the iron sword crashing down onto a wooden training log.
CLANG!!
The dull iron bit into the hard wood. The recoil shuddered straight up Luna’s arms. He dropped the sword, staggering backward, falling onto his hands and knees in the gravel, exhausted.
Terravarous frowned, walking into the room, his boots crunching loudly on the stones.
"Luna," Terravarous rumbled, his voice echoing in the cold room. "What exactly are you doing? The High Healers ordered you to rest for a full week. Your core is depleted. You cannot use your gravity magic right now."
"I am not using magic," Luna gasped, spitting a mouthful of bitter saliva onto the gravel. He didn’t look up. He stared at his own bare hands. His palms were forming nasty, red blisters from the rough iron grip. "Magic is a crutch. Magic is the reason we almost died on that balcony."
Ignis walked over and kicked the iron sword with his boot. "You weigh less than a wet dog, Luna. You are a genius mage. You aren’t built to swing chunks of iron around. You will break your own wrists."
Luna slowly pushed himself up from the gravel, smearing the beads of sweat on his forehead.
"The Black Mist Knights don’t care about my genius," Luna stated, his voice lacking his usual lazy, sarcastic drawl. It was serious. "If I cannot open the Cosmic Lock to read their minds, I am useless. I am just a liability standing in the back, waiting for you guys to save me. I hate feeling useless."
He walked back to the wooden log and reached down to pick up the iron sword again. His blistered fingers trembled as they wrapped around the cold metal grip.
"I promised Soltheia," Luna whispered fiercely, his pale eyes burning with an intense resolve. "I promised her I would be the strongest. I will not break that promise just because my muscles hurt."
He raised the sword again, letting out another exhausted shout, and brought it crashing down onto the log.
Kairos stood by the doorway, watching the silver-haired boy abuse his own body. Luna had spent his entire life avoiding hard work. He had slept through classes, skipped physical training, and relied on his overwhelming magical talent. Watching him intentionally choose to suffer, watching him willingly embrace the brutal pain of physical labor, hit Kairos hard.
If the laziest genius in the world was willing to bleed for a chance to win, then Kairos had no excuse.
Kairos unbuckled the leather scabbard holding Asteria and gently placed the holy sword on a wooden bench near the door. He didn’t want to use the relic for this. He needed to feel his own limits.
He walked over to the weapon rack and pulled down two identical iron swords. He tossed one to Ignis. Ignis caught the iron blade clumsily, wincing sharply as the sudden weight pulled on his broken ribs. "Hey! Warn me before you throw metal at a wounded man!"
"You said you wanted a fight," Kairos said, stripping off his jacket and throwing it aside. "No fire magic. No armor. Just basic physical strength and speed. We spar until we cannot stand up anymore."
Terravarous nodded slowly in silent agreement. The giant picked up an iron club from the rack. He stepped into the center of the gravel room, facing Ignis.
"Come on, cousin," Terravarous challenged, raising the club. "Show me if that royal arrogance can block a physical strike."
Ignis glared at the giant. He tightened his grip on the iron sword. The angry royal let out a yell and charged directly at Terravarous, swinging the blade in a horizontal arc.
Terravarous didn’t flinch. He easily parried the strike with his club, stepped smoothly inside Ignis’ guard, and shoved his shoulder into Ignis’ chest.
Ignis flew backward, crashing into the gravel.
"Too slow," Terravarous critiqued. "You are relying on the heat of your fire to push me back. Without it, your footwork is sloppy."
Ignis groaned, clutching his bandaged ribs. But he didn’t complain this time. He spat the dust out of his mouth, gripped the iron sword tightly, and forced himself back to his feet. "Again."
Kairos walked to the far corner of the cold basement.
He held the iron sword in his right hand. He closed his eyes and took a steadying breath.
Blackout, Kairos commanded internally.
The bright blue digital interface flared to life inside his mind. The screen displayed his active titles, his leveling progress, and his magical affinities. The golden letters of Conqueror of Time pulsed at the very top of the screen, practically begging him to use it. It was a safety net. It was a god-like power. But Kairos remembered the agonizing, stabbing pain in his heart. He remembered the feeling of his own life force draining away just to buy him ten seconds of frozen reality. The System was a transaction. It wasn’t giving him power for free; it was stealing his future to pay for his present.
If the Fallen forced him into a prolonged, brutal fight, Kairos couldn’t just stop time forever. He would die of old age in a matter of minutes.
Mute all temporal alerts, Kairos ordered the System.
[CONFIRM COMMAND: DISABLE CONQUEROR ALERTS? YOU WILL NOT RECEIVE EMERGENCY DOMINION PROMPTS DURING FATAL COMBAT.]
Confirm, Kairos thought firmly.
The golden letters of his supreme title dimmed significantly, fading into the background of the digital interface. He intentionally turned off his weapon. He locked it away. He would only use it if the world was ending.
He shifted his focus to the bottom of the blue screen. He opened the most basic, fundamental tab available.
[BASE ATTRIBUTES.]
[STRENGTH: 42]
[AGILITY: 55]
[ENDURANCE: 38]
The numbers were high for a normal human teenager, but they were pathetic for a Vanguard General preparing to fight a god.
Kairos opened his eyes, gripping the iron training sword with both hands. He didn’t swing it wildly like Ignis. He didn’t try to crush the logs like Luna. Kairos focused purely on precision and raw speed. He fell into the basic, fundamental sword stances he had learned in his dusty village, long before he had ever heard of a magical system.
He swung the iron blade forward.
WHOOSHHH!!
It felt sluggish. The iron didn’t sing through the air like Asteria did. It dragged vehemently, and his wrists ached. The muscles in his forearms burned in protest. But Kairos didn’t stop. He pulled the blade back and swung again. And again. And again.
He fell into a brutal, rhythmic trance. He swung the iron sword until his palms bled. He swung until his lungs burned for oxygen. He swung until the painful, hollow ache in his chest from the time stop was replaced by the good, honest pain of tearing muscle fibers.
****
Hours passed inside the cold, subterranean basement. The bright sunlight above the academy slowly faded into a dark evening. But the four young boys did not leave the training room. The sound of clashing iron, exhausted shouts, and breathing echoed continuously off the damp stone walls. They were stripping away their royal titles. They were burning away their childish arrogance. They were destroying their complete reliance on mana.
Luna collapsed onto the gravel for the twentieth time, his hands raw and bleeding, but he dragged himself back to the wooden log. Ignis was covered in fresh bruises from Terravarous’ club, but the fierce royal refused to stay down on the mat. Kairos swung the iron sword until his arms felt numb, forcing his base Agility and Strength stats to slowly, agonizingly tick upward by a single point.
They were no longer students of the Solaris Academy. The beautiful building above them felt empty and irrelevant. They were soldiers preparing for an absolute slaughter.
When the eclipse darkened the sky again, the Black Mist Knights would not find a group of scared, panicking children hiding behind their magic. They were going to find four unbreakable monsters forged in the dark.
