Chapter 42: Invincible Realm

Three days passed in Helheim City.

With only three days remaining before Helheim Academy opened its registration and entrance examination, the city seemed to grow busier by the hour.

More eligible children arrived from across Grandel territory, accompanied by parents, instructors, servants, guards, and entire household convoys.

Inns filled, restaurants remained crowded deep into the evening, merchant districts overflowed with customers purchasing last-minute equipment, and the great avenues carried an almost continuous stream of carriages.

Every arrival added another handful of rumors to a city already obsessed with the coming intake, and wherever young martial artists gathered, comparisons inevitably followed.

Sigurd paid almost no attention to any of it.

He trained.

That was essentially the entirety of his three days.

The invitations began arriving the morning after Wolfram’s visit. Some came from noble households maintaining estates within Helheim City, others from the Great Branches and Vassal Houses, and several were invitations to smaller gatherings organized specifically so this year’s entrants could become acquainted before entering the academy.

Wolfram himself hosted a banquet and invited the prominent children attending Helheim this year, including Sigurd. Ottilie brought the invitation to him while he was cultivating. Sigurd read it once, placed it beside him, politely sent his regrets, and returned to circulating Vis.

He had no interest in spending an evening smiling across a table while adults watched which child spoke to whom.

There would be plenty of time for family politics once he entered Helheim.

Several households tried a more direct approach after their invitations were declined. Representatives arrived at Sylvia’s estate carrying gifts and carefully worded greetings.

A few nobles requested brief audiences. Sigurd accepted the courtesy of their gifts when refusing them would itself create unnecessary insult, returned appropriate greetings through the estate staff, and declined every request to meet.

He wasn’t trying to offend anyone. He simply saw no reason to sacrifice hours of training to conversations that would inevitably consist of introductions, compliments, questions about his Martial Soul, and subtle attempts to learn how strong he had become.

So while Helheim City celebrated the approaching admission period, Sigurd disappeared into the estate’s training grounds.

His mornings began before sunrise with physical conditioning. After breakfast came sword practice, followed by cultivation and circulation exercises. In the afternoon, Captain Hartwin became his sparring partner, a role the captain had accepted with considerably more enthusiasm than Sigurd expected.

Hartwin’s talent might never have been exceptional by Grandel standards, but eight years inside Helheim followed by ten years on the Outer Battlefield had left him with something Sigurd valued more than impressive numbers: experience.

Hartwin knew how people actually fought when mistakes carried consequences.

By the third day, their sparring had stopped resembling instruction.

Steel rang across the private training ground.

Sigurd vanished from where he had been standing, packed earth bursting beneath his foot as he crossed the distance between them. Hartwin’s sword came up immediately.

CLANG!

Sparks scattered from the collision.

Hartwin had suppressed his strength and Vis to approximately Sigurd’s level before they began. At first he had expected that restriction to force him to rely more heavily on technique and experience. Instead, twenty exchanges later, he found himself retreating.

Sigurd’s sword came from the right. Hartwin parried. Sigurd allowed the deflection to turn his wrist, stepped around Hartwin’s leading foot, and transformed the failed cut into a thrust toward the ribs.

Hartwin twisted aside and answered with a descending strike aimed at Sigurd’s shoulder. Sigurd shifted half a step rather than fully retreating, letting the blade miss by centimeters before his own sword snapped upward.

CLANG!

Hartwin blocked again.

Too late.

The force drove his sword backward until the flat nearly struck his chest.

Hartwin’s eyes tightened.

They separated for barely an instant before Sigurd attacked again.

To an ordinary observer, the training ground had become difficult to follow. Two blurred figures crossed between bursts of displaced dust, their weapons colliding hard enough to scatter sparks through the afternoon air.

Hartwin possessed vastly more experience and far greater true strength, but under the restriction he had imposed on himself, neither advantage translated as cleanly as it should have.

Sigurd was adapting.

Every exchange gave him something.

Hartwin deliberately repeated a shoulder feint he’d used several minutes earlier. Sigurd didn’t react. The captain transitioned into the real thrust, only for Sigurd’s blade to already be waiting. Steel scraped against steel as Sigurd redirected the point past his waist and stepped inside Hartwin’s reach.

Hartwin retreated.

Sigurd followed.

Three cuts came in rapid succession, each connected to the next without wasted movement. Hartwin blocked the first, redirected the second, and barely avoided the third. His boots carved lines through the dirt as Sigurd continued pressing him backward.

He’s ten.

The thought flashed through Hartwin’s mind for perhaps the twentieth time.

Then Sigurd’s posture changed.

Hartwin saw the shift immediately.

The attacking foot landed. Sigurd’s hips turned. Vis moved from his Core through his body as the sword followed the shortest cutting path toward Hartwin.

Severing Line.

Hartwin raised his weapon.

Their blades met.

CLANG!

For a fraction of a second, Hartwin’s expression changed.

The strength he had restricted to Sigurd’s level wasn’t enough.

Instinct overruled the conditions of the spar. Hartwin released part of the suppression on his Vis and raised his output one level higher just as Sigurd’s strike crashed through his guard. The additional force stabilized his sword and stopped the blade before it could continue toward his shoulder.

Silence followed.

Sigurd immediately withdrew his weapon and stepped backward.

Hartwin remained still.

His sword trembled faintly in his hand.

Not because Sigurd had physically overpowered his real strength. The difference between their actual cultivation remained enormous. What disturbed Hartwin was considerably simpler.

He had been forced to break the restriction.

Hartwin slowly lowered his sword and stared at Sigurd with visibly shaken eyes.

After several seconds, he released a breath and said, "Young Master, I have to admit something. At the same Rank, you’re becoming ridiculous. If this continues, I don’t think it will be long before you step into the Invincible Realm."

Sigurd had been checking the edge of his sword when the unfamiliar term made him pause. He lifted an eyebrow and looked directly at Hartwin. "The Invincible Realm? What’s that?"

Hartwin blinked, apparently surprised by the question. Then he remembered who had trained Sigurd for the last five years and sighed as though Osric had personally inconvenienced him from miles away.

He rested the flat of his sword against his shoulder while considering how best to explain it. "It isn’t a Martial Rank, Young Master, and it isn’t a cultivation stage. Think of it as a recognition of combat ability within a Rank. Normally, two people can both be Awakened and still differ enormously in their foundations, Martial Souls, techniques, experience, Vis control, instincts, and actual fighting ability."

Sigurd nodded for him to continue.

Hartwin planted the tip of his training sword lightly against the ground and explained, "Among those people, very rarely, someone reaches a point where opponents within the same Martial Rank simply stop being meaningful threats. Not because that person has higher cultivation, no they don’t. They still belong to the same Rank. But their total combat ability has reached such an extreme that defeating them while remaining within that Rank becomes practically impossible. Those people are described as having entered the Invincible Realm of that Rank."

Sigurd’s eyes sharpened with interest.

Hartwin continued before Sigurd could interrupt. "It doesn’t mean literal invincibility. Enough unusual circumstances can overturn almost anything. Poison, formations, artifacts, terrible matchups, ambushes, Eden has too many variables for anyone sensible to claim absolute invulnerability. The term means that under genuine combat conditions, using power belonging to that same Rank, the person has established a level of dominance where ordinary same-Rank opponents no longer have a realistic path to victory."

That made considerably more sense.

It wasn’t some mysterious tenth cultivation stage hidden between Awakened and Master. It was a description of overwhelming superiority inside an existing Rank. An Awakened who stood so far above other Awakened that remaining within the boundaries of Awakened Rank was no longer enough to challenge them.

Sigurd couldn’t stop the small smile that appeared on his face.

Undefeated within the same Rank.

Arrogant.

Extremely arrogant.

"But I liked it."

Sigurd rested his sword against his shoulder and muttered, "How did that old man Osric never tell me about something this interesting?"

Hartwin spread both arms in a helpless shrug, his sword still held loosely in one hand. "Young Master, after hearing about your training over the years, I’ve learned not to question Instructor Osric’s decisions. Perhaps he intended to tell you later. Perhaps he wanted you to discover it yourself. Or perhaps he simply thought it would be funny when someone else eventually explained it."

Sigurd considered all three possibilities.

Annoyingly, the third sounded very much like Osric.

He looked back at Hartwin and asked, "Then how do I know when I’ve actually entered the Invincible Realm?"

Hartwin opened his mouth, paused, and thought about the question for several seconds.

Eventually his expression became strangely amused. "You’ll know when you enter it, Young Master."

Sigurd stared at him.

Hartwin maintained a perfectly serious face.

Sigurd rolled his eyes so hard it almost hurt. Of course. Apparently everyone in this world had attended the same secret lesson on answering important questions with mysterious nonsense. You will understand when the time comes. You will know when you experience it. Wait until you’re stronger.

Osric had infected everyone.

Sigurd shook his head with a long sigh and turned toward the western horizon.

The sun had begun descending, staining the distant sky as Helheim City’s towers darkened beneath it. Beyond the estate walls waited millions of people, countless arriving families, and an academy he had spent years hearing about.

Tomorrow, he would finally stop waiting.

Sigurd’s fingers tightened slightly around the hilt of his sword as a faint smile returned to his face. "Tomorrow is the entrance examination."

His iron-grey eyes remained fixed on the sinking sun.

"Things are finally starting to move forward."

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Author Notev: I’ve changed the family name from Zierghardt to Grandel. Sorry for the inconvenience.