We started to prepare for the potential threat looming around us. Draughts and Naughts took their battle positions on the borders.
They trained amongst themselves during the time we judged there was no threat that day. The clash between aura and magic was spectacular.
Everyone around me was training, and I was doing the same: sword practice. I can't practice much magic since I have low mana, but this sword is quite useful in battle. I had been able to defeat other Draughts and Naughts. My record till now was 67 wins, 34 losses, and 12 ties.
Most of the losses were due to my own overconfidence, and some were because the opponent was too skilled. So that's why I was back to training with my sword teacher. He was teaching me new techniques of the sword.
The air hummed with disciplined chaos. To my left, a Draught mage wove shimmering barriers of light, which a Naught warrior immediately pummeled with focused aura strikes, testing for weaknesses. To my right, mixed pairs practiced coordinated assaults—a Naught creating an opening with a brute-force charge, followed by a Draught launching a precise, concussive blast into the gap. The sound was a symphony of grunts, chanted spells, and the crackle of clashing energies.
And in a cleared circle of packed earth, I was sweating, my muscles burning. My teacher, an adult Draught named Kaelen whose own sword was notched from a hundred battles long before I arrived, watched me with hawk-like eyes. He was a relic, one of the few who believed the sword was best suited with magic.
"Again!" he barked, his voice a dry rasp. "Your form slackens when you anticipate the win. You see an opening and you lunge like a hungry wolf, all fury, no finesse. That is why you have thirty-four losses."
I reset my stance, the weight of the longsword familiar in my hands. "I thought it was because of overconfidence," I grunted, catching my breath.
"Overconfidence is the name for the sickness. Sloppy technique is the symptom," he countered, circling me. "You rely on your strength, on the strange speed you brought with you from your world. You do not rely on the sword. Now, parry. Show me."
I nodded, falling into the familiar, fluid motion. Block, deflect, redirect. It was a defensive technique, one that felt passive compared to the explosive attacks I preferred.
I tried, flowing from the parry into the low, spinning sweep. It was clumsy. I over-rotated, leaving my back exposed for a fatal moment.
"Stop." Kaelen's voice was flat. He stepped into the circle and, with shocking speed for his age, demonstrated. His movement was one uninterrupted, beautiful, and deadly motion. The parry bled seamlessly into the sweep, his body a perfect axis of power. "You still have a lot to learn."
He stepped back, his critical gaze softening a fraction. "You carry the weight of this alliance on your shoulders. It makes you heavy. It makes you desperate for wins. You must shed that weight. In a real fight against this 'dark being,' there are no points for style, no record of wins and losses. There is only survival, or there is death. Your sword must be an extension of your will to survive, nothing more."
His words struck a deeper chord than any of his physical corrections. He was right. I was still fighting for a record, for validation, even in practice. I wasn't fighting to simply, and utterly, end the threat.
I took a deep breath, centering myself. I let go of the image of the cheering crowds, the tally of my wins, the sting of my losses. I thought only of the void, of the cold darkness that sought to erase everything. I thought of it standing before me.
"Again," I said, my voice quiet but steady.
I raised my sword. This time, my mind was not on the technique, but on the target. My body felt lighter. As Kaelen initiated a simulated lunge, my body reacted. The parry was not a block, but a guide. The transition to the sweep was not a decision, but an inevitability. The practice sword whistled through the air, perfectly positioned.
I didn't complete the strike. I held it, the longblade a hair's breadth from Kaelen's leg.
For the first time that day, a faint smile touched the old Draught's lips. "Better," he said. "Now, do it a thousand more times until it is not a technique you remember, but a truth you forget you ever knew. The enemy will not give you a second chance."
---
[Background]
Slowly, a crack appeared in the sky above. The crack in the sky was no larger than a thread, a hairline fracture in the fabric of reality high above the training field. It emitted no sound, no pulse of dark energy. It was a silent, growing flaw, unnoticed by the mages testing their wards and the warriors honing their aura.