CHAPTER 233: THREAD’S EDGE

Dylan nodded without a word. Julius’s words echoed within him, far clearer than the buzzing fatigue in his skull.

"A thread, not a wave." He stood up, knees trembling, and took his place before the stone monolith once more.

He closed his eyes, ignoring the mud caked on his face, the taste of iron on his tongue. He took a deep breath, not to inflate his lungs to bursting, but to seek out that faint spark within himself. He imagined it not as a devastating torrent, but as a thin stream of light, a vein of gold in the darkness of his own flesh.

His hand settled again on the rough, cold surface. He didn’t push. Not yet. He simply felt the stone, its inertia, its absolute weight. He felt the contact of the earth under his feet, the coolness of the air in his throat.

Then, he called on the Essence.

Not by forcing it, but by inviting it. Like guiding a fragile flame along a wick. A warmth answered, distant at first, then more precise. It didn’t erupt in him like an inferno, but flowed, gently, sinuously, down his spine, into his pelvis, followed the path of his legs anchored in the ground, rose along his torso, flowed into his shoulder, his arm, all the way to the palm of his hand pressed against the rock.

It was a radically different sensation. It was no longer an uncontrollable explosion that drained and burned him. It was a slow rise, an internal tide that sheathed his muscles without violating them. The heat was there, intense, but channeled, concentrated.

He opened his eyes. His arm no longer trembled.

Then, and only then, he pushed.

It wasn’t a blow of brute force, but a continuous, implacable pressure. The stone grated, but it was no longer the mocking screech from before. It was a dull, deep sound, that of a mass yielding, inexorably, millimeter by millimeter.

Sweat beaded on his forehead, but his breathing remained controlled. The pain was still present, a dull ache in his damaged muscles, but it had become mere background noise, drowned out by the steady flow of Essence he now managed to maintain.

He advanced. One step. Then another. His feet sank into the mud, tracing two neat furrows behind him. The rock followed. Slowly. Very slowly. But it followed.

There was no more rage, no more spiteful defiance. Just absolute concentration, a fusion between his intention, the energy within him, and the inert mass he was taming.

Julius watched, immobile, his piercing gaze had lost its amusement, retaining only a sharp, almost grave attention. He saw the difference. Not in the speed or the distance, but in the posture, in the regular breath, in the absence of tremor.

Dylan continued like this for several meters, until a sharp cramp pierced his calf, shattering his concentration. The flow of Essence dissipated like smoke, and fatigue caught up with him all at once, as violent as the previous night’s collapse. He stopped, bent double, hands on knees, panting.

The stone was motionless, but it had yielded ground. Far more than during his chaotic attempts.

When he looked up, meeting Julius’s gaze, he saw the man offer a tiny, barely perceptible nod.

"Did you feel the difference?" Julius asked, his voice neutral.

Dylan, unable to speak, nodded in turn.

"Good," said Julius. He turned to look at the path leading into the forest. "Now, rest. And this afternoon, you start again. Not until exhaustion. Until the thread becomes as strong as a rope. And after that, we’ll see about something else."

He tossed a piece of dry bread and a water canteen to Dylan.

"Eat. You’ve earned your breakfast."

Dylan caught the canteen, his fingers covered in mud and scrapes closing around the cool metal. He drank deeply, water streaming down his chin, and looked at the rock. For the first time, it was no longer an adversary, nor a judge.

It was a training partner.

And he had just won the first round.

-----

Dylan sat heavily on a tree stump, the dry bread between his fingers, chewing without really tasting it. The fatigue still weighed on him, but something within him vibrated differently: a sensation of precarious balance, like a taut rope he hadn’t yet snapped.

Julius, a few paces away, had regained his eternal nonchalance, leaning against a tree, arms crossed. Yet, Dylan felt the man was observing every detail, even behind his half-closed eyelids.

A long moment stretched out, disturbed only by the noise of the forest: the wind in the branches, the chirping of an insect, a bird unseen. Then came something else. Deeper. A cracking sound. Not that of dry wood, but that of a heavy paw crushing the mud.

Dylan raised his head, his tired eyes searching the shadows between the trees.

"Julius?" he murmured.

The captain offered a thin, almost carnivorous smile.

"You have your sword, don’t you?"

Dylan turned towards the blade lying near him. His heart was already beating too fast. The training had barely begun, and now theory was about to become practice.

The rustling intensified, a hoarse breath rose in the air. The beast wasn’t yet visible, but its fetid odor was already spreading, a mix of carrion and wet earth.

"Remember," Julius continued in an even tone. "Not a wave. A thread. And above all... look, listen. The beast is only waiting for your mistake."

Dylan tightened his grip on the sword’s hilt, his palms still covered in mud. He inhaled, felt the fragile flame in his chest. His legs trembled, but not like before: it was no longer weakness that shook them, but adrenaline.

The shadow finally emerged. A massive, quadrupedal silhouette, its eyes gleaming with a yellow sheen in the canopy’s gloom.

And Dylan understood he wasn’t going to face a stone this time. But something that bit, that bled, and had no intention of giving him time to breathe.

The beast’s breath formed a cloud of fetid vapor in the cool morning air. It was a boar, but twisted by the wild Essence of the woods: larger, more massive, with tusks that looked like twisted flint blades and a mane bristling with hairs stiff as thorns. Its small yellow eyes, bloodshot, were fixed on Dylan, shining with a primitive and voracious intelligence.

The dry bread fell from Dylan’s fingers. His hand closed more firmly on the hilt of his sword, so rudimentary against the mass of muscle and rage advancing towards him.

"Don’t look at it like a monster," said Julius’s calm voice, still leaning against his tree. "Look at it like another rock. A charging rock. The principle is the same."

"A charging rock." The thought was so absurd it almost made him laugh, a laugh tinged with panic. But he remembered the sensation: the thread, not the wave. Concentration, not fury.

The boar scraped the ground with its hoof, ploughing the earth. A deep grunt, utterly inhuman, vibrated in Dylan’s chest.

He inhaled.

Instinct screamed at him to flee, to brandish his weapon while screaming, to unleash all that fear in a brutal flux of Essence. He held back. He closed his eyes for half a second, found the inner path again. He didn’t try to draw from an ocean, but to pull a single thread, luminous and warm, from his own center.

The Essence answered, more docile than before. It flooded his aching muscles, sheathed his trembling limbs, sharpened his senses. The world around him seemed to slow down. The beast’s grunt became a continuous rumble, the crack of branches under its feet a distinct melody.

The boar charged.

It was an explosion of raw power, a projectile of several hundred kilograms propelled straight at him. Dirt flew under its hooves.

Dylan didn’t move. He planted his feet in the mud, exactly like facing the rock. He didn’t take a step aside, didn’t try to parry. He focused on the thread of Essence, guiding it into his arms, his shoulders, into the blade he held with both hands.

"Now!" barked Julius.

At the very last moment, as the hot, fetid breath already stung his face, Dylan pivoted. Not by much. Just enough. He didn’t dodge the charge; he *shifted* within it. In the same movement, he guided the point of his sword not to strike, but to *place*.

There was no violent impact, no clash of metal against bone. Just a sharp, tearing whistle.

The blade, sheathed in a thin stream of concentrated Essence, entered the beast’s flank like butter and came out just as fast, tinged with red.

The boar rushed past him in a momentum that suddenly seemed devoid of meaning, and crashed heavily a few meters away, sliding on the sodden ground. It got up almost immediately, staggering, a whimper of confusion and pain coming from its maw. A clean, deep gash scored its flank, from which blood began to spurt in bursts.

The beast looked at him, and in its yellow gaze, fury had given way to hateful incomprehension. It had barely felt the weapon, only the burning bite that had sliced through muscle and skin.

Dylan remained standing, short of breath, his sword slightly trembling. He had felt it. The difference. It wasn’t his strength that had done that. It was the precision. The Essence channeled into an infinitesimal point of contact.

"Good," said Julius, and that single word resonated like an ovation. "You see? It’s not the power that counts. It’s the edge."

The boar, wounded and grown unpredictable, turned in circles, grunting, its blood staining the mud. It wouldn’t charge the same way again.

Dylan tightened his grip on his sword, the thread of Essence still present, faint but constant in his veins. The rock had yielded. The beast had bled.