CHAPTER 62: THE SOUND OF BREAKING

The Proving Grounds of Azurefall Academy were not designed for comfort. Unlike the polished marble of the Grand Seminar Hall or the open grassy expanse of the courtyard, this was a pit.

It was a circular arena sunk ten feet into the earth, surrounded by steep stone steps that served as seating. The floor was packed dirt and gravel, designed to absorb blood and impact. Today, the air above the pit shimmered with heat—not from the sun, but from the tension radiating off the thousand students packed onto the steps.

On the south side, the Azurefall students sat in a sea of nervous blue robes. They were silent, their eyes fixed on the center of the ring.

On the north side, the Iron-Clad Academy students sat in disciplined gray rows. They weren’t silent. They were humming—a low, rhythmic, guttural chant that sounded like the idling engine of one of their war machines.

IRON. IRON. IRON.

In the center of the ring, Headmaster Alistair raised his hand. The humming stopped instantly.

"The terms are set," Alistair announced, his voice grave. "Five rounds. Single combat. Victory by submission or incapacitation."

He gestured to the Azurefall champion for Round One.

"Representing Azurefall: Marcus Steel."

A cheer went up from the blue side, though it was tinged with anxiety. Marcus stepped into the ring. He was the picture of an Azurefall elite. Tall, handsome, his uniform perfectly pressed. He wielded a slender, beautifully crafted longsword inscribed with wind runes. He moved with the grace of a dancer, spinning his blade in a dazzling display of dexterity.

"Show them, Marcus!" someone shouted.

Marcus smirked, pointing his sword at the Northern side. "I’ll make it quick."

Headmaster Joric, standing on the opposite viewing platform, grinned. It was a wolf’s grin.

"Representing the Iron-Clad Academy," Joric boomed. "Erik... The Breaker."

From the Northern tunnel, a heavy, rhythmic thudding silenced the Azurefall cheer.

THUD-HISS. THUD-HISS.

Erik walked out. He wasn’t just big; he was industrial. He wore heavy plate armor that covered everything but his lower jaw. But it was his arms that drew every eye in the arena.

He wasn’t holding a weapon. He was the weapon.

Encased over his forearms were massive, brass-and-iron gauntlets, oversized and intricate. Pipes ran along the sides, venting small puffs of white steam. A mana-crystal glowed angry red at the elbow of each gauntlet. They were Magitech pistons, designed not for dexterity, but for crushing siege walls.

Erik stopped in the center. He didn’t spin a sword. He simply slammed his gauntleted fists together.

CLANG.

A shockwave of sound rippled through the pit. Steam hissed from the vents in his armor.

"Cute sword," Erik grunted, his voice muffled by the collar of his armor.

Dain Ragnor, watching from the front row with Squad 7, leaned forward, his eyes narrowing. "Those gauntlets... they aren’t just armor. They’re hydraulic. If he hits Marcus with a powered strike..."

"Marcus is faster," Kaelan whispered, clutching his staff. "He has the Wind Step technique. He won’t get hit."

Ilya didn’t say anything. She was watching the way Erik stood—flat-footed, knees bent. He wasn’t preparing to chase. He was preparing to catch.

"Begin!" Alistair commanded.

Marcus moved instantly. He was a blur of blue and silver. "Wind Step!"

He vanished, reappearing behind Erik in a gust of displaced air. His sword lashed out, aiming for the gap behind the knee—a classic, textbook disablement strike.

CLACK.

The blade didn’t cut skin. It bounced off a reinforced iron plate. Erik hadn’t even turned around.

"Too light," Erik rumbled.

Marcus frowned, darting away before Erik could retaliate. He circled, his speed increasing. He became a tornado of strikes, testing Erik’s defenses. Ping. Clang. Scratch. He struck the helmet, the pauldron, the ribs.

The Azurefall students cheered. Marcus was dancing circles around the lumbering giant. He was landing ten hits for every step Erik took.

"He’s winning!" a first-year shouted.

"No," Dain whispered, his knuckles white on his shield. "He’s not doing any damage. He’s just annoying him."

Erik stood in the center of the whirlwind, turning slowly. He took the hits. He let the wind-enhanced blade scratch his paint. He was waiting.

Marcus, frustrated that his strikes weren’t penetrating, decided to end it. He stopped circling. He channeled his mana into his blade, the wind runes glowing bright green.

"Aerial Slash: Severing Gale!"

Marcus leaped into the air, bringing his sword down in a massive, vertical arc composed of compressed air and steel. It was a move that could cut through stone.

Erik looked up. He didn’t dodge.

He raised his left gauntlet.

HISSSSSS.

Steam erupted from the elbow vents. The piston in the gauntlet engaged with a mechanical ka-chunk. Erik punched upward, meeting the blade.

It wasn’t a block. It was a collision.

The gauntlet met the sword mid-air.

CRUNCH.

The sound was sickening. It wasn’t the ring of steel. It was the sound of metal screaming and failing.

Marcus’s beautiful, rune-inscribed longsword shattered into a thousand shrapnel shards.

The force of the piston-punch didn’t stop at the sword. The shockwave traveled up Marcus’s arm. His wrist snapped audibly. The kinetic force lifted him out of the air and slammed him into the dirt five feet away.

The arena went dead silent.

Marcus lay in the dust, gasping, clutching his broken wrist. His eyes were wide with shock. His sword—his pride—was dust.

Erik lowered his smoking gauntlet. He shook a few shards of steel off the brass plating.

"Is that it?" Erik asked.

Marcus, fueled by adrenaline and humiliation, scrambled to his feet. He had lost his weapon, but he was a mage. "I’m not done!"

He thrust his good hand forward. "Wind Bullet!"

A sphere of compressed air shot toward Erik’s face.

Erik didn’t block. He stepped into it. The wind bullet hit his chest plate and dissipated harmlessly.

"You people," Erik growled, walking forward. The hydraulic hiss of his armor grew louder. "You think fighting is about tricks. About dancing."

He reached Marcus. Marcus tried to dodge, to use Wind Step again, but he was hurt, unbalanced.

Erik’s right gauntlet shot out. Not a punch. A grab.

The massive brass fingers closed around Marcus’s head.

The Azurefall students screamed.

Erik lifted Marcus off the ground by his skull. He held him there, feet dangling, the senior swordsman clawing uselessly at the iron wrist.

"Fighting," Erik said, his voice cold and mechanical, "is about breaking the other thing before it breaks you."

Erik squeezed. Not enough to crush the skull, but enough to make Marcus scream in agony as the pressure built.

"Yield," Erik commanded.

"I..." Marcus choked, tears of pain streaming down his face. "I... yield!"

Erik opened his hand. Marcus dropped to the dirt, curling into a ball, sobbing.

Erik didn’t look at him again. He turned to the Azurefall stands, raised his steaming gauntlets, and slammed them together again.

CLANG.

"Round One," Erik bellowed. "Iron."

The Northern side erupted. They stomped their feet, a rhythmic earthquake. IRON. IRON. IRON.

On the Azurefall side, there was only silence. The illusion of their superiority, the comfort of their elegant magic, had been shattered along with Marcus’s sword.

Dain stared at Erik. He didn’t look afraid. He looked grim.

"They don’t fight to score points," Dain murmured to Kaelan. "They fight to end it."

Kaelan swallowed hard, looking at his single hand. "Vance... the mage I have to fight... he’s going to be just as brutal, isn’t he?"

"Yes," Ilya said, her face pale. "This isn’t a mock battle. It’s an extermination."

Miles away, in the misty silence of Aethelgard, there was no cheering. There was no clanging of iron.

There was only the rhythmic sound of breathing.

Kairen sat on the crystal platform. His eyes were closed. His hands were resting on his knees, palms open.

He was aware of the time. He knew, intellectually, that the battles were starting today. He knew his friends were in the Proving Grounds.

The "Heart" connection he had forged the day before—the bridge to his squad—was still there. It was a hum in the back of his mind, a radio frequency he could tune into at any moment.

He could feel the spikes of static on the line. He could feel a sudden surge of shock from the direction of the city—the collective gasp of the Azurefall students as Marcus fell.

But Kairen did not tune in.

"Do not look," he whispered to himself.

"Why?" Vanamali’s voice came from the shore. The Sage was testing him.

"Because if I look," Kairen said, his voice steady, "I will want to act. And if I act before I am ready... I become the weakness."

He visualized the silver door in his chest. He could see the threads of connection running out from it, glowing faint blue. He imagined a hand—his hand—gently grasping the handle of the door.

He wasn’t locking it. He was holding it shut.

"The Fourth Seal is not just about opening to let love in," Kairen recited, the lesson internalizing. "It is about the discipline to keep the chaos out. Empathy without boundaries is self-destruction."

He felt the spike of fear from Kaelan in the distance. He felt the ripple of intimidation from Dain.

It took every ounce of his willpower not to send a pulse of reassurance. Not to send a burst of golden fire to warm them.

You have to stand on your own today, Kairen thought, sending the thought into the void of his own mind, not down the bond. I cannot be your crutch. If I carry you now, you will never learn to walk.

He took a deep breath, inhaling the damp mist of the valley. He focused on the beat of his own heart. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

He was training his heart to be a filter, not a funnel.

"I am here," Kairen whispered. "I am separate. I am whole."

He tightened his mental grip on the door handle. He let the distant noise of the battle wash over the outside of his fortress, but he did not let it in.

He sat in the silence, suffering the terrible, heavy burden of letting his friends bleed, so that one day, he would be strong enough to make sure they never bled again.