Chapter 488. The First Day of Training a Particularly Dangerous Recruit

Chapter 488: 488. The First Day of Training a Particularly Dangerous Recruit

Alden screamed a sound that wasn’t human, but the sound of metal grinding against bone, and unleashed a flurry of strikes so fast they created afterimages of violet shadow. Each impact sounded like a thunderclap.

CRACK. BOOM. SHATTER.

William spun, his blade a silver blur, parrying a strike that would have severed his spine, the feedback sending a jolt of pain up his arms that made his elbows pop audibly.

The tension in the courtyard was absolute; it was no longer a duel of men but a collision between a disciplined soul and a collapsing void.

Alden didn’t respond with words. His response was a primal scream of displaced reality.

He thrust both palms forward, and from them erupted a lance of compressed Umbral energy: a solid bolt of screaming violet darkness that tore through the air like a physical scream.

WHOOOOOM.

The projectile struck the ground inches from William’s feet, but William didn’t flinch. He didn’t retreat.

With the cold calculation of a man who had survived a thousand battlefields, he simply tilted his torso three degrees to the left.

The lance shrieked past his ribs, close enough that the superheated air singed the fabric of his sleeve and left the acrid smell of burnt wool clinging to his skin.

Instead of backing away from the explosion, William used the displaced air to propel himself forward, closing the distance while Alden was still recovering from the magical recoil.

"You spent weeks telling your fiancée she only needed to look pretty beside you," William said, his voice carrying with unnerving clarity through the chaos.

Aetherion flashed in a tight, lethal arc, a silver crescent aimed directly at Alden’s throat.

Alden panicked, throwing up a hasty shield of solidified shadow.

CLANG SHHHH!

The blade met the barrier with a bone-jarring impact that sent visible shudders through the violet light, cracking the shield like ice under a hammer.

"And you genuinely believed that was the most dangerous thing in this courtyard," William continued, his eyes locked on Alden’s twitching pupils. "That’s almost sweet, Alden."

"In the saddest, most pathetic possible way."

"Shut your mouth!" Alden shrieked.

The doubled echo in his voice wasn’t performative anymore; it was cracking with genuine, unfiltered fury. The corruption beneath his skin seemed to boil, black veins bulging grotesquely across his neck as he surged forward.

The fight devolved into something far more intimate and brutal. Alden swung with inhuman strength, his fists wrapped in necrotic energy that acted like sledgehammers.

CRACK.

William parried a left hook, but the sheer force of the magical shockwave sent a tremor up his forearm that made his elbow joint pop audibly.

’Gods, he’s stronger than he was five minutes ago,’ William thought, his teeth grinding as he forced Alden’s arm aside. ’The relic isn’t just empowering him; it’s replacing his tendons with something harder and more volatile.’

Alden’s next strike was a vicious spinning back kick aimed at William’s temple. William ducked, feeling the wind of the attack whistle over his scalp, and immediately drove his shoulder into Alden’s ribs.

THUD.

The impact was wet and heavy. William felt something give beneath the prince’s embroidered coat the unmistakable sound of cartilage snapping.

Alden gasped, a spray of blackened blood spattering William’s cheek, but the pain only seemed to fuel the Umbral Concord. "I’ll kill you!"

"I’ll erase you from existence!" Alden roared, his left hand suddenly elongating into a claw of pure shadow.

He lashed out, the dark appendage raking across William’s chest.

SHHHH RIP.

William grunted as the shadow claw tore through his tunic and carved three parallel furrows across his pectoral muscle. Blood immediately began to well up, hot and crimson against the cold air.

He didn’t stop.

He couldn’t.

He stepped into Alden’s space, using the momentum of the injury to drive Aetherion’s pommel directly into Alden’s solar plexus.

OOF.

Alden doubled over, coughing up a glob of dark ichor. For a split second, the prince’s guard was down; his eyes flickered from violet back to a terrified hazel.

"No," William said simply, his voice dropping to a whisper that felt more threatening than any shout.

He caught Alden’s next desperate, flailing strike on Aetherion’s flat side, shoving the arm wide with contemptuous ease. "I don’t think I will."

"You talked plenty when you thought nobody could touch you, Alden..."

"You preened. Your posture d. You played at being a god."

William stepped closer, his face splattered with Alden’s corrupted blood, his own blood dripping steadily from his chest. His eyes were twin chips of frozen steel.

"I’d like you to sit with how that feels now that someone finally can."

William drove forward, but he wasn’t charging blindly. His movements became a deadly dance of assessment.

He unleashed a series of short, controlled strikes—stabs with the tip of Aetherion, precise palm thrusts, and lightning-fast parries—all designed to probe the boundaries of Alden’s corruption.

He was cataloging every microsecond of delay, every tremor in the dark barrier, and every tell in Alden’s stance.

To any onlooker, it looked like a massacre in progress; to William, it was simply the first day of training a particularly dangerous recruit.

’Left side lags when he swings.’

’The barrier flickers when he breathes.’

’He’s compensating for the weight of the artifact; it’s slowing his recovery time.’

Finding the seam he sought, William feinted a high slash, drawing Alden’s shield upward. In that split second of vulnerability, William pivoted his hips and drove a vicious, precise elbow directly into the gap in the dark energy.

CRUNCH.

The sound was the sickening wet snap of cartilage and the dull thud of bone meeting flesh. Alden’s ribs buckled inward.

The prince was thrown backward, his boots skidding across the courtyard as he gasped, a sound that was equal parts agonized pain and shattered disbelief.

"There it is," William said, his voice almost pleasant, as if he were announcing the arrival of good weather. "Fragile at the core..."

"Exactly like I said."

But Alden was no longer a man; he was a wounded predator, driven by the feral instincts of something ancient and starving. His response came faster than William’s calculations anticipated—not a tactical counter, but a desperate, explosive lunge born of pure panic.

As William turned to track Alden’s retreat, assessing the damage, Alden unleashed a raw, uncontained burst of Umbral energy. It wasn’t a lance this time; it was a shotgun blast of necrotic force. William had been fast, but not fast enough to fully clear the radius.

BOOM.

The energy caught William across his left ribs. The impact felt like being struck by a battering ram wrapped in lightning.

The air was punched out of his lungs in a ragged wheeze, and the world blurred as he was lifted off his feet, sent skidding several feet across the jagged, cracked stone. Blood sprayed from his lips as he tasted copper, his vision swimming with sparks.

He finally managed to dig a boot into a crack in the masonry, grinding to an arrest, leaving twin furrows in the stone.

Up on the balcony, the silence of the witnesses was broken by a sharp, terrified gasp. Kaela’s hand flew to her mouth, her eyes wide with horror as she watched the man she loved stagger across the courtyard.

Beside her, Catherine’s grip on the marble railing turned white knuckled, her breath coming in short, panicked stabs.

William stayed down for half a heartbeat, forcing his lungs to expand against the blooming fire in his side. ’Broken ribs. Possibly two...’

’Don’t breathe too deep or you’ll puncture a lung.’ He swallowed the blood in his mouth, steadied his heartbeat, and straightened slowly.

One hand pressed briefly against his side, feeling the heat of the fresh injury beneath his torn tunic.

When he finally looked up at Alden, there was no trace of agony in his expression.

No grimace.

No plea for mercy.

There was only that faint, almost approving smile that was more terrifying than any battle cry.

"There," William said.

His voice remained maddeningly calm and steady despite the way his body screamed in protest. "That’s the first thing you’ve done—all fights that actually counted for something."

He adjusted his grip on Aetherion, the silver blade gleaming with a cold, anticipatory hunger. "Hold onto that feeling, Alden."

"Treasure it..."

"Because I don’t imagine you’ll get another chance to feel anything at all today."