Steel hummed—not with clang or clash, but with promise.
Beneath the Arkanveil estate, where torchlight flickered against stone and silence was its own kind of echo, Lucien stood alone.
No spectators. No ceremony. Only shadows for company.
He exhaled slowly, muscles loose but coiled. His hand gripped the hilt of a blade—not ancestral, not ceremonial. A simple training sword, yet it moved as if it had a will of its own. Or perhaps, it bent to his.
This was not knightly form. It held no bows, no polished stance.
This was something he had built himself. Piece by piece. From battle, from instinct, from death.
Shadow Sword: Form I — Silent Fang.
Lucien stepped forward. Then vanished.
Elric blinked.
One moment, Lucien stood before him. The next, his presence melted into the dark—and the very next, the flat of the blade tapped the side of Elric's neck from behind.
No wind. No footstep. No shadow warning its own arrival.
Elric turned, breathing heavy. "I didn't even sense you."
Lucien said nothing. He stepped back, repeating the motion, this time slower.
He sank low, shifted his center of gravity, and dragged mana through his limbs—not outward like a spellcaster, not inward like a knight's core—but along the folds of his body, weaving it into motion.
"Shadow is not the absence of light," Lucien said quietly, eyes focused on the floor, "It's a presence. It lives where focus doesn't. Where attention strays. Where fear blooms."
He moved again.
From the front, he was still. A breath's pause. And then—blur.
Another strike.
This time, Elric saw the flicker. The slight shift in air, the moment when Lucien's figure flowed like water along the edge of sight.
It was terrifying.
It was beautiful.
"Teach me," Elric said, breathless.
Lucien nodded once. "You already understand pain. That's the first step."
They trained in silence for hours.
Lucien demonstrated the transition between forms: from Silent Fang to Flicker Step, a movement technique designed to simulate teleportation using illusion and timed bursts of mana. From there, into Black Bloom, a follow-up strike pattern that created phantom afterimages to distract the enemy.
Elric failed the first dozen attempts.
His blade trembled. His weight shifted too early. The shadows rejected him.
But Lucien never scolded. Never explained more than necessary.
Because this style couldn't be taught. It had to be understood.
It was born from Lucien's Devour trait, refined by the Proficiency Panel, shaped by hundreds of simulations and real kills in past lives—and in this one. It required a cold mind, a patient heart, and a willingness to vanish from light.
And Elric… had the spark.
He had bled. He had lost. And now, he had purpose.
By the fourth hour, he moved differently.
Not perfectly. But something shifted.
Lucien's eyes narrowed. He nodded.
"Again," Lucien said. "Strike me."
Elric obeyed.
His blade disappeared mid-lunge.
Lucien raised his sword and parried—but only barely. For the first time, Elric's strike made him move.
The clang echoed through the cavern like a bell of recognition.
Elric stepped back, chest heaving, a grin breaking through his usually reserved features.
"That—" he began.
Lucien cut him off with a slight smile, rare and sincere. "You vanished."
And in that moment, they both understood:
This was no longer just training.
It was foundation.
A style meant for war. For shadows. For the world that would one day rise against them.
Shadow Sword.
Lucien turned, eyes narrowing toward the wall beyond the torchlight.
There would be more Forms.
Form II: Echo Slash.
Form III: Grave Bloom.
Form IV: Veil of the Last Breath.
But for now, Silent Fang was enough.
A seed planted.
A legacy unfolding.
And beneath the earth, in the dark heart of Arkanveil, two blades danced—not as knight and squire.
But as predator and shadow.