Chapter 20 – A SNOWBALL’S CHANCE

My new life was officially a nightmare.

The sun was just starting to crest the impossible peak of the mountain behind me. It cast long, sharp shadows across the clearing. The air that flowed down from the heights was cold and thin, and every breath was a battle. It felt like trying to breathe water.

I was already exhausted.

Leo’s idea of a “warm-up” had been to have me simply stand and hold the wooden practice sword for an hour. My arms screamed. My lungs burned. My spirit was a shriveled, pathetic thing. And now, he wanted me to go to a tournament.

“The Oakhaven Gauntlet,” Siegfried had called it.

Leo’s master, the blind guy with the chiseled jaw and the legit legendary hero sword. He was a lunatic. A cool, dramatic lunatic, but still. He had described the tournament with so much scorn, yet he was sending me there anyway. He was sending me to die.

I couldn’t fight. Not really.

That one time in the alley against Kael, that wasn’t me. That was the sword. It was a cold, terrifying power that used my body like a puppet. I didn’t know how to control it. I didn’t even know how to properly swing a piece of wood.

My hands trembled. I looked down at them, scraped and bruised from my constant falling. I just wanted to go home. I wanted to give the sword back, apologize to whoever made it, and go back to my sketchbook and my quiet, miserable life. At least that misery was familiar.

Damn it. I couldn’t.

I was trapped. Trapped by a piece of junk from a scrap heap. Trapped by these insane mountain people who thought I was some kind of chosen one. Leo, my personal tormentor, was supposedly one of the weakest people here. The weakest. That thought was so terrifying it was almost funny. What kind of monsters lived at the top of this mountain?

I’d probably never find out. The air at the very base was enough to kill me.

But then I thought of Siegfried’s sword.

The Blade of Endless Light. It was a shimmering, impossible weapon, glowing with power. A real hero’s sword. And he had said my broken piece of junk was in the same class. He said it was a divine weapon.

If that was true… if this rusty, busted blade really held that kind of power…

Maybe I had a chance.

It was a tiny chance. A stupid chance. A snowball’s chance in a furnace. But it was the only thing I had. It was a flicker of light in a universe of pain and humiliation.

Leo’s shadow fell over me.

He had been standing perfectly still for the last hour, watching me. Judging me. His patience was inhuman. His disappointment was a physical weight.

The real training was about to begin.

He tossed the wooden practice sword.

It landed in the dirt a few inches from my feet with a soft thud. I stared at it. It looked heavier than a mountain. My arms ached just looking at it. Leo stood with his arms crossed, his face a mask of bored indifference.

“Stop overthinking it.”

His voice was flat. Devoid of any emotion.

“Your thoughts are weak. Your stance is weak. Your breathing is weak. The only thing you have is the Master’s will, embodied in that sword. And you are not worthy to hold it. Show me you are trying to change that.”

I grit my teeth. The anger felt better than the fear.

With a groan, I bent down and wrapped my shaky hands around the hilt of the wooden sword. I pulled. The simple piece of wood felt like it was bolted to the ground. My muscles screamed. Finally, I tore it free and staggered to my feet, holding it in a two-handed grip like a shield.

“Attack.”

My fear and frustration boiled over into a single, ragged yell.

I charged.

It was a clumsy, stumbling run. My feet felt like they were stuck in mud. The heavy air resisted my every movement. I swung the wooden sword in a wild, desperate arc aimed at his head.

Leo didn’t even brace himself.

He took a single, fluid step to his left. The air where he had been standing whistled as my sword sliced through it, throwing me completely off balance.

His hand shot out.

It wasn’t a punch. It was a gentle tap. The tips of his fingers brushed against the side of my wrist. A jolt, like lightning, shot up my arm. My fingers went numb and sprang open against my will.

The sword fell from my grasp.

My own forward momentum did the rest. I tumbled head over heels, landing in a heap on the cold, unforgiving ground. I coughed, tasting dirt and shame.

He hadn’t even tried.

I pushed myself up, my body protesting every movement. I crawled over to the sword and grabbed it. My wrist throbbed with a dull, echoing pain.

I got back into my pathetic stance.

“Again.”

This time, I tried to be smarter. I swung low, aiming for his legs. It was a telegraphed, ugly motion, but it was all I could manage.

Leo simply lifted his foot.

He lifted it no more than a few inches off the ground. My sword smacked against the sole of his sandal with a dull thwack. The impact vibrated up my arms, rattling my teeth. It was like hitting a stone wall.

Before I could process it, his other foot swept out.

It hooked my ankle with calm precision. My legs went out from under me. The world spun sideways, and I crashed onto my back. The impact knocked the precious, heavy air from my lungs in a painful rush.

I lay there, staring up at the hazy sky, gasping like a fish.

Leo loomed over me, a silent silhouette against the morning sun.

“You are too weak, Reiji.”

His voice was not cruel. It was a simple statement of fact. Like saying the sky was blue or the ground was hard.

“I am not even using a weapon. I am not even using any effort. And you fall. Your attacks are flailing. Your defense is nonexistent. You are a danger only to yourself.”

Damn it. I knew.

I squeezed my eyes shut. I was useless. I was a failure. Even with a magic sword, I was still the same pathetic kid from the alley.

“But…”

The word escaped my lips before I could stop it. A tiny seed of protest.

“No.”

Leo’s voice was sharp. Final.

“There are no ‘buts’ here. There is only effort or failure. Get up. Continue.”

I pushed myself up again. My entire body felt like one giant bruise. My pride was even worse. This was my life now. Failure on a loop. It got worse every single day.

A stupid, desperate idea popped into my head.

I looked at Leo, this boy who was maybe only a few years older than me. He moved with the grace of a predator and the strength of a golem. He was terrifying. And they said he was weak.

“Why don’t you go to the lower world?”

The words stumbled out of my mouth. I was too tired, too beaten down to think straight.

“You’re so strong. You could do anything you wanted down there. You could be a king. A hero. You could make a living, have a good life. I bet you could achieve anything.”

The change in him was instant and terrifying.

The bored disappointment on his face vanished. It was replaced by a cold, sharp fury that made the air crackle. His eyes, usually so impassive, blazed with a righteous fire. It was the first real emotion I had ever seen from him. And it was aimed directly at me.

“Are you trying to corrupt me?”

His voice was a low, dangerous whisper. It was infinitely more frightening than his shouting would have been. The pressure in the clearing suddenly tripled. It felt like the mountain itself was angry with me.

I scrambled backward in the dirt, trying to put distance between us. It was useless.

He moved.

It wasn’t a sparring technique. It was a blur of pure aggression. One moment he was ten feet away, the next he was right in front of me. His hand shot out and clamped around the front of my tunic.

He lifted me from the ground as if I weighed nothing.

My feet dangled uselessly a few inches above the dirt. His grip was like an iron cage around my ribs. My breath hitched in my throat. His face was inches from mine. His eyes were like chips of ice.

“Their world is a disease. Its comforts are poison. Its praise is a knife in the back. Its life is a slow death of the spirit. You would have me abandon my Master, my duty, for that filth?”

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I could only shake my head frantically, my eyes wide with terror.

“No! Absolutely not! Never!”

The words came out in a choked squeak. I had never been more scared in my entire life. Not even when Kael had me cornered. This was a different kind of fear. This was the fear of a god’s anger.

He held me there for a long, silent moment.

His cold eyes searched my face, looking for any sign of deception, any hint of the corruption he was so sure I carried. He found only pure, pathetic terror.

He dropped me.

I landed in a heap, a discarded toy. I curled into a ball, coughing and trembling uncontrollably.

I had crossed a line. A sacred line I didn’t even know existed.

I had insulted his home. I had insulted his Master. I had insulted his entire reason for being.

I finally pushed myself onto my hands and knees, my head hung low. I didn’t dare look at him.

I just needed to get back to training.