Chapter 240: Responding To Messages

Richard Red woke up hard, already out of breathe, and with his hands already raised like he was still in the middle of a fight.

He looked around with wide eyes.

His bedroom was intact. The posters were on the walls. The bed frame was whole. Morning light came through the curtains the ordinary way. For a few seconds he just sat there with his heart hammering, waiting for the broken room and the silent pressure blast to come back.

Nothing did. Everything was normal as it should be.

"A dream," he muttered. "Just a stupid dream."

He swung his legs out of bed and rubbed his face. The memory was still too sharp.

The dork, Manchester standing in his room. That look. The way the air itself had hit him.

People did not usually remember dreams in that kind of detail, but stress did strange things. He had been thinking about the tournament brackets and old academy rankings too much. That was all.

Richard opened his system to check his morning training plan.

The screen loaded wrong.

Skills that should have been there were gone. It’s not like they were on cool down, or even with their ranks lowered. The were completely Missing.

His main offensive skill. The reinforcement passive he had built for months. A movement technique he used in every spar. Whole lines that had been part of his kit since before the duo tournament simply were not on the list anymore.

He stared at the blank spaces and refreshed the interface.

Still gone.

Then he checked titles.

The new, and only one he had earned recently was missing too. He had only earned it last month after a practice match win, a combat title that boosted pressure resistance and gave him cleaner skill activation under stress.

It had been sitting at the top of his title list yesterday. Now the slot was empty, like it had never been awarded.

Richard’s mouth went dry.

He tried doing all the recommended things when situations like this started, but nothing was working.

His rank was still there. His basic attributes were still listed. They were just lower than they should have been, dragged down hard across the board, and every skill and title that mattered had been stripped out overnight.

He tried to activate a simple reinforcement skill by habit.

Nothing answered.

Richard stood in the middle of his room in his sleep clothes and felt, for the first time in years, genuinely weak. Not tired. Not sore. Weak. Like someone had reached into his system and removed the parts that made him dangerous.

The dream memory came back again, clearer this time. He recalled just how vivid it was.

When Kalon erased him from existence in that dream world, it did not feel like a dream. Even upon waking up, Richard felt the true fear of wondering whether his life has really be taken from him.

Could that have had an effect on me? Could he be the cause?

...

No, Manchester isn’t that strong. No way, I’m losing my mind. I just need to wake up properly, then everything will be fixed.

Richard sat down on the edge of the bed and did not move for a long time.

...

Kalon woke the next morning to sunlight and a stack of messages already waiting on his phone.

He washed his face, put water on, and only then sat at the counter to read them in order. The apartment was quiet. Outside, London was already moving. He let the ordinary noise of the city settle him before he opened the first thread.

The first important one was from Atlas.

[Atlas]

[You ready for tomorrow? I’m sure you haven’t forgotten your fight with the eight dragon, Oliver Moniqart. I haven’t seen you around the facilities and people are starting to ask if you’re actually prepared or just ignoring the camp work.]

Kalon typed back while the kettle boiled.

[I’m ready. Don’t worry about it.]

Atlas replied faster than expected.

[Atlas]

[Good. Keep it that way. The media are gonna be watching this fight like a hawk, so make sure you win.]

Kalon sent a short confirmation and moved on. Atlas did not waste words when a match was close. That was fine. Kalon had no interest in sitting through extra camp sessions for show when his real preparation had been happening off-world and in places Atlas would not understand.

The next message was from Ruby Red.

[Ruby]

[I’ll be watching your fight with the dragon tomorrow. I’m wishing you all the best... I mean it.]

He looked at that one for a second longer than the Atlas thread. Ruby had been crawling back toward something like decency for a while now. Whether it would last was another question. He still answered.

[Thanks.]

Her reply came almost immediately, a simple thumbs-up reaction and nothing else. That was fine. He put the phone down, poured the water, and only picked it up again when the next name appeared.

Sun Greatest.

[Sun]

[Kalon. About the other day at the estate. Can we talk before your match? Please.]

He read it once, remembered exactly what he had walked in on in that side room, and closed the thread without answering. There was nothing useful to say to her. She had already shown him what she was when she thought no one important was watching. A message before a public fight did not change that.

He drank half the cup before another message landed on top of the stack.

Thea.

[Thea]

[I resigned from the academy this morning.]

Kalon stopped with the cup halfway back to the counter.

He opened the thread fully and read it again to make sure he had not missed a second line. There was nothing else yet. No explanation. No joke. Just the bare fact, sent in her usual blunt-ish style.

Thea had left the academy.

This took him by suprise, and made him want to see her.

He sent her message telling her that he was coming over, but she replied saying that she will come to him.