Chapter 34

Rohan’s eyes flick toward him. The disdain is instinctive, but under it lies something else — resignation.

Aster could walk away. Should, maybe. But there’s something about the challenge in Rohan’s stance, the ugly satisfaction in Cassian’s grin, that lights a small, stupid fire under his ribs.

Rohan moved first.

Shoulders low, fist already chambered. A step, a twist, and the air between them snapped with a dull crack as he surged forward through the mud, aether blazing through the engraved runes along his wrists.

Aster barely sidestepped. The punch clipped his sleeve and the air pressure alone stung.

The second strike came immediately — low and brutal.

Aster twisted, staff intercepting with a sharp wooden crack. The impact jolted straight through his wrists and into his shoulders.

Pain bloomed immediately.

Rohan didn't pause.

Another punch. Another.

He fought like gravity had personally appointed him as its regional enforcement officer. Every blow carried full-body momentum, boots tearing trenches through the mud as he advanced in relentless, metronomic succession.

Aster stumbled backward. His tether flared instinctively beneath his heel.

The world lurched sideways as the punch missed his face by inches.

The tether reeled his body out of range fast enough to leave his stomach about three philosophical objections behind.

Gasps rippled through the arena.

Aster barely heard them. His body snapped around the tether-point hard enough to wrench his shoulder, momentum whipping him into a spinning rebound he absolutely had not planned for.

"Oh shit—"

He came hurtling back toward Rohan shoulder-first — a projectile launched by someone with only a vague moral relationship to physics.

Both of them crashed through the mud.

Aster rolled instinctively, coughing rainwater and grit.

Rohan recovers instantly.

The bastard practically lived inside his own centre of gravity.

"So you fight by running?"

"Strategic repositioning," Aster replied, breathless. "Very advanced concept. Rich people invented it to avoid taxes."

That earned a grunt. Then Rohan charged again.

He didn't bother with feints — just barrelled forward in a rhythm too dense to read, gauntlets hammering in rapid succession. Each strike left a pulse of heat in the air, faint steam rising from the rain where his knuckles passed.

Aster pulled another anchor as the tether snapped taut. This time he felt the route before he moved — a pulse, a vector, a line through space.

Point Burst detonated.

The air cracked.

Aster vanished diagonally —one second, he was in front of Rohan, the next above him, body horizontal as the tether slingshot him through the air at an angle no normal footwork should have allowed. His staff swept downward mid-flight.

Rohan blocked instinctively. The collision boomed across the pit. Mud sprayed. Aether hissed.

Aster hit the ground badly, nearly lost his footing, then rebound-kicked off another anchor before his body had fully stopped moving.

Too fast. Everything was happening too fast. His own Scripture felt less like a martial art and more like being mugged by momentum at a street corner.

The fight collapsed into rhythm after that.

Rohan kept coming forward with the stubborn inevitability of structural poverty — every punch fully committed, aether roaring through his gauntlets hard enough to steam the rain from the air around his fists.

At first the tethers gave Aster an edge.

Anchor. Burst. Recoil.

He snapped sideways through the arena in violent bursts of momentum, appearing in front of Rohan, then above him, then rebounding low across the mud with his staff whipping toward Rohan's knees.

Rohan blocked. The impact hurled mud and rain and debris through the arena.

Aster hit the ground already moving.

Another tether. Another burst. Another—

But the windows were getting smaller. Rohan was learning where the movement wanted to go before it happened. Reading the trajectories.

Which felt deeply disrespectful to the amount of effort Aster was putting into being unpredictable.

He launched himself diagonally across the pit — and Rohan stepped directly into the path this time. The gauntlet caught Aster across the ribs mid-burst.

Pain detonated through his side.

The impact twisted his trajectory sideways so violently his tether destabilised entirely. He crashed shoulder-first through the mud, skidding hard enough to spray sludge across the front row.

"You move fast," Rohan spat, chest heaving. "But you still hit the ground like everyone else."

Aster groaned, dragging himself upright. "That's because the ground is a committed socialist. Eventually it comes for everyone."

Rohan stared. "...What?"

“Nothing. Forget it.”

Aster’s stomach burns. He needs to keep distance. Control the field.

But Rhoan isn’t letting him.

Another step — the Wanderer is on him again, the rhythm of his punches syncing with his breath. Each exhale a strike, each inhale a step. There’s something almost sacred in the simplicity. No wasted movement. No elegance. Just the ugly purity of trying to break another human being’s bones before they break yours.

Aster blocks, counters, ducks. Mud sprays, Faith hisses, staff cracks against metal.

The fight compressed into brutal close-range violence as the arena keeps shrinking around Aster one forced step at a time as Rhoan bullied him backward through the mud, gauntlets hammering forward in relentless succession. Every blocked strike sent vibrations screaming up Aster’s arms.

Anchor points flickered around the battlefield like dim stars. Brief golden flashes embedded into posts, mud, broken stone, the edges of the ring itself.

Routes.

Possibilities.

But the windows kept getting smaller.

Rhoan was learning where the movement wanted to go before it happened.

Aster burst forward again.

Then sideways.

The crowd physically lost track of him for a second.

Rhoan didn’t.

Which honestly felt deeply unfair.

Aster snapped upward off another tether-point, body whipping around a support beam in a blur of gold—

—and Rhoan turned with him immediately, gauntlet blazing red as he intercepted Aster mid-burst

Aster twisted.

Barely redirecting in time.

His trajectory collapsed.

The momentum slamming Aster shoulder-first into the ground hard enough to bounce.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Aster could feel Rhoan adjusting in real time now.

Learning the recoil timing.

Predicting the vectors.

That should not have been possible this quickly.

“Jesus Christ,” Aster laughs as he gets back. “You adapt like capitalism discovering child labour.”

Rhoan barked out something halfway between a laugh and a snarl.

He charged toward Aster, mud streaked across his face, gauntlets steaming in the rain.

This time Aster met him head-on.

Staff cracked against reinforced gauntlets in a rapid series of impacts that echoed through the pit like gunfire.

Rhoan’s style was brutally efficient now that he’d adjusted to the movement patterns.

Aster burst left.

Rhoan cut him off.

Anchor.

Rebound.

Counter.

Impact.

The fight accelerated violently.

Aster became increasingly less certain his feet were participating voluntarily anymore.

Three tether-points ignited simultaneously.

Mud blasted upward as Aster ricocheted between anchors in rapid succession, body snapping through impossible angles fast enough for afterimages to briefly smear through the rain.

Left.

Right.

Above.

His staff collided with Rhoan’s guard—

—and suddenly he was somewhere else entirely.

Another strike slammed into Rhoan’s shoulder from behind.

The crowd recoiled audibly.

This was controlled collision masquerading as combat.

Rhoan snarled and adapted.

That was the terrifying part.

Instead of retreating, the Wanderer planted himself directly in the centre of the chaos and began timing the rebounds themselves.

One punch missed Aster by inches.

The next nearly took his head off.

The third—

A ridge of ice erupts under Rhoan’s foot, throwing him off balance. His punch goes wide, just enough for Aster’s counter to land by pure reaction.

Rohan hits the ground, hard. Rolling before coming up on one knee, gasping, one hand gripping his side.

Aster turns his head toward the edge of the pit.

Cassian.

Palm casually touching the ground, eyes alight with soft, malicious satisfaction.

“Whoops,” he says, voice honeyed. “Stray spell. Aether is unpredictable.”

Confusion flickered across Rohan's face. Then humiliation.

Aster took a step forward, guilt and adrenaline churning together into something messy. "That wasn't—"

"Shut up." Rohan pushed himself upright slowly. Mud streaked across his face. His eyes burned with the kind of anger people carried when they'd been laughed at by systems too big to fight back against.

Something clicked.

This isn't about me.

Rohan didn't hate him. He hated what Aster represented. And right now, in this mud, accepting gifts from Legacies in a ring that was starting to look very much like staged execution — Aster looked exactly like every person who had ever made his life harder.

Cassian chuckled softly from the edge. Satisfaction radiating off him like heat from an open kiln.

Aster feels the shift. Rhoan’s hesitation hardens back into anger, not at Cassian, but at him. Because of course that’s how it looks. The pampered Legacy getting “help” from his own kind.

Aster’s stomach sinks. “Hey—”

Rhoan lunges.

The gauntlets blaze. The first punch cracks through the air like a thunderclap. Aster brings up his staff just in time, the impact numbing his arm to the elbow. The second strike follows immediately, tighter, closer, brutal in its efficiency.

He barely ducks under it, the edge of the blow slicing air where his jaw had been a second before.

“Stop—damn it, listen—" but Rohan was beyond reason now. Fighting ghosts. Fast, furious, precise in all the wrong ways. His strikes weren't about winning anymore. They were about not being humiliated again.

The fight tightened further. Will against muscle. Staff against fist.

Aster felt another sharp pulse beneath his feet — another tremor. Cassian, not even hiding it now, nudging the terrain just enough to send Rohan half a step sideways mid-swing. But Rohan had started anticipating the interference, adjusting — changing a hook into a brutal uppercut.

Pain flared white. Aster's head snapped back.

He hit the mud. Hard. Rolled. Spat iron and rainwater.

Cassian’s laughter comes light, musical. “Your parents must be so proud. Losing against a Wander even with help— a Void Cursed stays trash even if sealed away.”

Aster lies there a heartbeat too long. The temptation to stay down whispers like an old friend. Let them laugh. Let them get it over with.

Then he sees Rhoan. Not gloating. Not smiling. Just breathing hard, chest heaving, eyes wild. Like someone who doesn’t want to win this way either.

Aster’s jaw tightens.

He pushes himself up, his tethers flickering but holding.

The exchange that follows isn’t clean.

It isn’t even skillful. It was the kind of fight that peeled back whatever polish Galamad tried to layer on its students — raw, ugly, personal.

Rohan's movements were jagged, improvised. Aster's were erratic and fuelled by raw instinct, Will Tethers snapping him between strikes like recoil.

Rohan slipped again mid-lunge — another ice patch, Cassian's work — crashing to one knee. He growled, tried to rise, and a second patch clipped his other leg.

He hit face-first into the mud. The wet slap echoed.

Cassian shrugged pleasantly. "Just keeping the natural order intact."

Rohan stayed down a moment too long. When he pushed himself up, mud in his hair, blood from a split lip, his gaze never leaving Aster.

He limps slightly, favouring one foot, but his eyes have gone hard—no fear left, only muscle memory and instinct. This fight isn’t over, not by a long shot.

"I get it," Aster said quietly. "You think I'm like them."

Rohan's laugh was short and hoarse. "I don't think. I know."

Aster recognised that expression. He'd worn it himself. Back on the Material Plane, every time authority decided the rules were decorative.

Nothing he could say would fix it. Words were wind to someone who'd only ever been beaten by people who talked about fairness.

So he didn't argue.

He took a step back, squared his stance, and lifted the staff again.

"Fine," he said. "Then I'll show you after I beat you."

Rohan met his gaze — defiance and disbelief in the same instant — and lunged.

His strikes were heavier now. Aster's staff whistled arcs through the air, Rohan's fists answering in staccato bursts. Relentless. Every time Aster created space, Rohan forced it closed again.

Aster's shoulders burned. His legs felt unstable every time a tether released.

Rohan looked just as bad — blood mixed with rainwater beneath his nose, mud streaked across his jaw, one gauntlet flickering unevenly where the runic channelling had started overheating.

But he kept coming.

People like Rohan learned young that stopping just gave the world another chance to hit you.

Three tether-points ignited.

Left. Above. Behind.

Rohan pivoted desperately, gauntlets blazing crimson as he intercepted strike after strike through pure instinct.

Aster slammed into one tether-point, twisted with it, redirected the force — then opened the Faith valve fully, letting raw energy course through the Scripture as it launched him twice as fast toward Rohan's blindside.

Rohan turned perfectly.

Gauntlet flaring. Counter incoming.

Aster couldn't block. This was it.

Then ice flashed beneath Rohan's boot. Tiny. Almost invisible. But enough.

Rohan's footing vanished mid-pivot.

Aster saw it happen — saw the microsecond confusion cross Rohan's face, saw his defence collapse. And by then he was already moving too fast to stop.

"Oh fuck—"

The staff came around with the full rotational force of the Faith-fuelled tether burst behind it.

The impact landed across Rohan's ribs with a sound like wet timber cracking apart. The momentum lifted him partially off the ground before sending him crashing sideways through the mud hard enough to carve a trench.

Aster's stomach dropped.

Rohan tried to rise and immediately failed, one arm wrapped around his side as pain twisted across his face.

Around them — laughter. Not everyone. But enough.

Cassian applauded slowly from the edge of the ring.

"Beautiful," he called. "See? This is why breeding standards matter. Eventually nature reasserts itself."

Aster looked toward him sharply.

Cassian saw the disgust and smiled wider.

"Don't stop now. You're finally acting like a true Legacy — you've already broken him." His eyes flicked meaningfully toward Aster's Dantian, where the brass spider waited. "Finish the lesson properly."

Public humiliation. The final act.

Rohan laughed once. Short, bitter, bleeding. "There it is. Knew eventually you'd side with your own."

Aster stared at the spider in his Dantian.

Then slowly looked back toward Cassian.

And somewhere behind his exhaustion — behind the adrenaline — something deeply unwise began to smile.

He turned slightly, as if readying for another swing. The crowd leaned forward.

Rohan tensed.

Cassian smiled wider, sensing victory. "That's it. Show him what a real cultivator looks like."

Aster exhaled and quietly opened his Faith valve again. It flared through his veins, light bleeding under his skin like lightning under glass. His eyes stung. The world sharpened.

He moved.

The tether rocketed him forward in a burst of impossible acceleration.

Not toward Rohan.

Toward the edge of the pit.

Toward Cassian.

The air shifted. The drizzle seemed to hesitate mid-drop. The mud paused. The collective breath of the watchers caught in a pregnant moment between anticipation and disbelief.

Cassian's grin faltered — just slightly. The first crack in his carefully curated arrogance.

The spider launched midair, propelled by stored recoil and Aster's precise throw, its limbs unfolding like a mechanical predator taking flight.

It screeches to life.

Metallic legs snapping open, runes flaring orange as it latched onto Cassian's perfectly sculpted face with a sound like a cork wedged into the pit of hell.

The effect was immediate.

Cassian's composure shattered. He screamed — a high, undignified sound that ripped through the silence, clawing at his face as the spider's limbs clamped down and began to hum, sealing themselves with an ear-splitting hiss.

Cassian staggered backward, hands flailing, spinning in a circle as the artifact clicked and twitched, sparks shooting from its joints like a particularly vindictive fireworks display.

"GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF ME!"

From the corner of his vision, Rohan's expression changed — from guarded tension to bewildered, involuntary awe.

Cassian flailed again, slipping backward in the mud, shrieking in high-pitched, incongruous panic. The audience erupted. Tears streaming. Cassian scrambling through the mud, bronze limbs clamped across his jaw, ice-Aether flaring in unplanned bursts.

Aster straightened slowly, dusting off his sleeve with mock politeness. "You said it'd add some needed entertainment," he said, loud enough for everyone to hear. "Guess you were right."

Rohan finally laughed.

Students scrambled out of Cassian's way as he stumbled blindly, the spider's legs twitching across his cheeks like a carnival mask from a fever dream. He tripped over a training dummy, face-planting into the mud with a wet thud.

Aster sighed, tone heavy with feigned concern. "Careful. Ground's unpredictable."

Rohan's chest heaved, shoulders still trembling with exhaustion, fists still curled in mud-slick gauntlets. A bruise bloomed across his cheek, angry against pale skin streaked with black mud. His hair plastered wet to his forehead, eyes bright with a complicated mix of relief and disbelief.

The suspicion had dimmed. Something reluctant and fragile had replaced it.

Respect, maybe. Or just the absence of contempt.

"You... threw it at him?" Rohan asked, voice half a croak.

Aster shrugged. "You looked busy. Figured I'd multitask."

They both looked back at Cassian.

The Legacy was still running in circles, bronze spider clamped to his face, mud dripping down his uniform, shouting muffled fury into the rain.

Rohan wiped a smear of mud across his cheek. "Guess you Legacies aren't all the same," he said. Half-joking. Half-sincere.

Aster extended his hand. Deliberately slow.

The gesture hung in the air between them — heavy with unspoken acknowledgment, the mud still warm between their fingers when Rohan finally took it.

Cassian finally yanked the spider free with a combination of curses and brute effort. The artifact had removed both eyebrows and left him with a haircut that could be charitably described as conceptually avant-garde, the freely bleeding scratch marks across his forehead adding a certain je ne sais quoi to the picture of wounded aristocracy.

He staggered upright, dripping mud, glaring at Aster with venom and disbelief in equal measure.

"This isn't over," he spat, voice shaking.

"I sincerely hope it isn't," Aster said. "I've got so many more lessons I'd love to share."

Cassian's mouth opened. Closed. Whatever threat he'd intended collapsed under the weight of the laughter still circling him.

He turned and stormed out, boots squelching, pride bleeding out behind him like oil from a broken engine.