The sky over the borderlands was a bruised, sickly violet, the kind of light that didn't illuminate so much as it exposed. Arkin leaned against a blackened oak, the bark crumbling like charcoal beneath his touch. He didn't breathe with the rhythmic ease of a living man; his chest moved in slow, heavy hitches, as if the air itself was too thin for the void inside him. He looked at his hands. The grey, stone-like texture of his skin had settled, and the liquid darkness in his veins pulsed with a faint, rhythmic cold.
Every time his heart beat—or whatever had replaced it—he felt the phantom echoes of the souls he had consumed. Ten voices, fragmented and jagged, whispered in the back of his mind. They weren't memories he wanted; they were the petty greeds and final terrors of the bandits he had unmade.
Information. Resources. Blood.
The thoughts weren't entirely his own—they were the hunger of the Abyss, a void that demanded he move forward. He needed a map of the Demon Territories, and more importantly, he needed to know if the "blessing" of the Goddess Syrial reached this far into the mud and the rot. He stood, the earth groaning beneath his heavy boots, and began the long trek toward the flickering torchlight of a border village named Grey-Hallow.
Grey-Hallow was a place for the forgotten—a settlement built on the bones of older, failed civilizations. It was a haven for mercenaries, cutthroats, and those hiding from the blinding light of the southern kingdoms. Arkin walked through the muddy main street, his tattered rags fluttering like a crow's wings. People didn't just move out of his way; they felt a physical chill as he passed, a drop in temperature that made their breath mist in the air.
He entered the village "Guild"—a low-slung shack that smelled of sour ale, wet dogs, and the metallic tang of unwashed steel. The man behind the counter, a grizzled veteran with a missing ear, didn't even look up from a stained ledger until a handful of rusted, blood-stained copper hit the wood.
"Registering," Arkin rasped. His voice sounded like two dry stones grinding together in a deep grave.
The clerk looked up, his eyes widening as they hit Arkin's crimson gaze. There was no mana crystal here, no golden halls of testing. The clerk didn't ask for a name or a lineage. He just reached under the counter and slapped down a jagged, rusted iron plate.
"F-Rank.
Lowest of the low," the clerk stammered, his hand shaking slightly as he pulled back. "Don't die in the first hour, freak. The crows are already fat enough this winter."
Arkin took the plate without a word and walked toward the village inn. He didn't need food—the hunger in his chest was for something far more substantial than bread—but his mind was fraying. He needed the silence of sleep to settle the voices.
But sleep was no sanctuary
The moment his eyes closed, the silence was replaced by the roar of the bonfire. He saw his mother's face—not the gentle woman who had tucked him in, but a mask of terror reflected in the flames. He saw Nopheria, not as a home, but as a pyre of white heat and golden light. He felt the spears of "divine" light piercing his chest again, and the laughter of the Goddess ringing in his ears like a serrated blade.
"You are an error," the dream-voice of the Goddess whispered. "A shadow that shouldn't exist."
Arkin bolted upright in the dark room, his hand instinctively clawing at the wooden bedpost. The wood didn't just break; it withered. A grey rot spread from his palm, turning the sturdy timber into fine dust in seconds.
"The light didn't save us," Arkin whispered into the dark, his red eyes burning with a fresh, cold hatred. "It only watched us burn. If I am an error... then I will be the one that deletes the world."
Three hundred miles away, the sun over Riveria was annoyingly bright, casting long, sharp shadows across the Great Guild's training grounds.
"Again," Zoro said.
He wasn't even standing. He was sitting on a weathered crate, balancing a bottle of cheap sake in his left hand and a heavy wooden training sword in his right. He had one eye closed and his right arm tucked firmly into his green haramaki. He looked more like a man waiting for a bus than the strongest swordsman in the city.
Erin was gasping for air, his pristine white Elandor uniform now stained with Riveria's red clay and sweat. His hair was matted, and his chest heaved with every ragged breath. "You... you haven't even moved your feet! How is this... training?"
"Why would I move?" Zoro yawned, scratching his ear with the hilt of the wooden blade. "You're moving enough for both of us. All that jumping, all those 'Aurelian' flourishes... you're like a golden squirrel in a blender, kid. Lots of movement, zero intent. You're trying to look like a hero in a book. Real monsters don't read books."
Erin roared in frustration, his mana flaring. He launched forward, his blade a streak of divine light. He focused everything on that one point—the center of Zoro's chest. He poured his frustration, his fear of the shadows he had seen in the woods, and his desperate need for strength into the strike.
"Aurelian Flash!"
THWACK.
Before Erin's blade could even complete its arc, Zoro's wooden sword hissed through the air like a strike of lightning. It didn't hit Erin's sword. It hit Erin's forehead with the precision of a surgeon.
Erin hit the dirt, hard. The world spun for a moment, the blue sky replaced by a kaleidoscope of stars. There wasn't a mark on Zoro; not a hair was out of place.
"Intent, kid," Zoro said, finally standing up and stretching his limbs. The laziness vanished for a split second, replaced by a pressure so heavy that Erin felt like he was being crushed into the dirt.
"You're swinging because you were taught that a hero always swings. I swing because the other guy needs to stop existing. There's no beauty in it. There's just the end of the fight."
Zoro walked over and hauled Erin to his feet by the collar of his ruined tunic.
"You've got the power of a god, but the soul of a choir boy," Zoro grunted, looking at the D-Rank card tucked into Erin's belt. "If you want to survive the things that live in the dark—the things that wiped out that village you saw—you have to stop trying to be 'magnificent' and start being 'lethal.'
A sword isn't a wand, Erin. It's a tool for ending lives."
Erin wiped the mud from his face, looking at his shaking hands. "Is that what you are? Lethal?"
Zoro didn't answer immediately. He just gripped the hilt of his dark blade, and for a second, the entire training yard seemed to grow quiet, as if the wind itself was afraid to make a sound. "I'm a swordsman. The rest is just noise."
Just then, the two other members of Nightfall Oath walked onto the grounds. There was Dax, a mountain of a man carrying a tower shield that looked like it belonged on a fortress gate, and Lira, a woman with sharp eyes and a staff topped with a glowing blue orb.
"Zoro! You moss-brained idiot!" Lira yelled, her voice echoing off the guild walls. "The Guild Master said light sparring! Why is the boy's forehead the color of a ripe plum?"
Zoro blinked, looking at the massive, glowing red bump that was currently forming on Erin's brow. It was impressive, really—a true horn of a bruise.
"Uh. He ran into my sword. It was a tactical error on his part. He zigged when he should have stayed down."
"A tactical error?!" Lira marched over and smacked Zoro upside the head with a satisfying thud. "You swung at him while you were half-asleep! He's a rookie, not a punching bag!"
"I was perfectly awake!" Zoro argued, holding his head and wincing. "And besides, he's an Academy Hero, right? Heroes are supposed to have thick skulls! It's part of the job description!"
Dax let out a low, rumbling chuckle, leaning on his shield. "The kid's got spirit, Zoro. Most rookies would have quit after the first ten minutes. He's still standing. Mostly."
Erin stood there, caught between the terrifying realization of how vast the gap was between him and a true S-Rank, and the sheer absurdity of his new mentor. He looked at his reflection in a nearby puddle—the golden boy of Elandor now had a forehead that looked like a pomegranate and a uniform that would never be white again.
"Heh," Erin let out a small, tired laugh, wincing as the movement hurt his face. "A tactical error, huh?"
Zoro looked at him, a glint of genuine authority in his one open eye. "Hey, you're still conscious. That's a win in my book.
Now, let's go. Lira's buying drinks, and you're going to tell us exactly how you managed to break that mana crystal."
"I'm not buying!" Lira snapped, though she was already heading toward the tavern. "But the kid can come. He looks like he needs something cold for that head."
As they reached the edge of the training grounds, the group prepared to head back into the city. The sun was setting, casting long, jagged shadows across the cobblestones.
"Hey, Zoro," Erin called out, holding his throbbing head. "Which way to the tavern? I can't see straight with this bump."
Zoro didn't even hesitate. He pointed a finger with absolute, unwavering confidence toward the left, where a dark, narrow alleyway led toward the city's sewage district.
"It's obviously that way. Left. Don't fall behind, kid."
With that, Zoro turned and began walking—not left, but directly to the right, heading straight toward the city's weapon-smithing district and away from every tavern in Riveria.
Erin stood frozen, his mouth hanging open as he watched Zoro march with purpose in the completely wrong direction. He looked at Lira and Dax, who were already sighing and turning to follow the moss-haired swordsman.
"Wait!" Erin yelled, pointing to the sign that clearly said 'The Sleeping Dragon Tavern' in the opposite direction. "He said left! Then he went right! The sign is right there!"
Lira just patted Erin on the shoulder as she walked past him. "Welcome to the team, kid. Just follow him. If we let him go alone, he'll somehow end up in another kingdom by sunrise."
Erin watched Zoro's disappearing back, his eyes wide with disbelief. "He's the strongest swordsman in the city... and he can't even tell his left from a hole in the ground?"
He shook his head, a mixture of exhaustion and amusement bubbling in his chest. "I'm definitely not in the Academy anymore."