The marble dueling ground was silent.
Not the kind of silence that felt safe, but the kind that pressed on the skin like wet cloth, thick and charged with breathless anticipation. Moonlight, enchanted by ancient Elven rites, bathed the arena in a pale glow, washing everything in silver hues. Even the wind held its breath as two figures stood opposite each other — motionless, coiled, eternal in that heartbeat before violence.
Riven exhaled slowly, nostrils flaring.
Across from him stood Sylas the Windpiercer — barefoot, clad in flowing white silk, twin curved blades in his hands that shimmered faintly with inscribed runes. His hair, long and pale like the moon itself, moved as if the breeze favored him. Sylas didn't look like a killer. He looked like a song half-whispered into the night. But Riven had seen killers in many forms — and the ones who smiled gently were always the most lethal.
"They call you Windpiercer," Riven said, his voice calm but sharp. "Let's see if wind can cut steel."
Sylas blinked — surprised. Elves were used to reverence or disdain from outsiders. Not this… dry, measured defiance. Not from someone so young.
Then he smiled. "I've never faced a human who could stand still without shaking."
Riven didn't smile back. "You've never faced me."
The horn sounded. The duel began.
Sylas vanished.
Not figuratively — quite literally. One blink, and the elven warrior was no longer there, only a streak of movement twisting through the air like silk in a storm. His feet never seemed to touch the ground, his form flowing like water. He was above Riven in an instant, blades humming with wind magic — one aimed for the shoulder, the other for the ribs.
Fast. Too fast for the eye.
But Riven wasn't watching with his eyes. He was watching with instinct — sharpened over years of pain, blood, training, and failure. The system fed his brain with feedback, his upgraded Agility and Precision kicking in. The world didn't slow down — he sped up.
He ducked under the first blade. The second came too close.
A shallow cut opened on his arm — not deep, but sharp. Sylas had already moved past him, twisting midair to land like a leaf on the ground, then spinning low in a sweeping slash meant to take Riven's legs.
Riven didn't retreat.
He stepped forward — into the danger — and grabbed Sylas mid-spin.
Ssireum. Basic grip, followed by back hook.
The moment his hands clamped onto Sylas's torso, he felt the difference in their frames — the elf was lithe and strong, but Riven was a hammer wrapped in skin. His body moved like a machine. With a savage motion, he pivoted, sweeping Sylas's legs out while hooking his own foot behind him, then slammed the elf into the ground with enough force to rattle the arena.
The marble cracked.
Gasps echoed from the watching crowd — not screams of outrage, but of awe.
No outsider had ever laid hands on Sylas in a duel. Let alone made him bleed.
Sylas groaned, blood trailing from the side of his mouth. He looked up, dazed — and saw Riven standing over him, hand extended.
Not gloating. Not mocking.
Just waiting.
"You fight like a monster," Sylas said, coughing.
"No," Riven replied. "Monsters kill without purpose. I fight to survive."
Sylas took the hand.
The crowd didn't cheer. They didn't need to. The silence itself was reverent.
Later, under the shifting canopies of the Emerald Veil, Riven sat cross-legged in the inner sanctum of an ancient elven shrine — a reward for winning the duel. The shrine, carved from living crystalwood and rooted around the trunk of a colossal tree that pulsed with light, housed a spirit warden—an ancient elemental guardian bound to knowledge and training.
The spirit did not speak in words, but in emotion and pressure — testing Riven's resolve, measuring the weight of his will. He didn't falter. Even when his bones felt like they would split from the inside, even when every breath tasted like copper and smoke, he endured.
He was granted something rare.
A gift of Velarion: a cloak of spiritthread — impossibly light, woven from the silk of forest soul-worms, enchanted to evolve with the wearer's strength. Its surface shimmered faintly, like mist trapped in fabric.
But what mattered more was what happened when he meditated.
Alone beneath the world tree, his thoughts began to drift — then darken. His breath slowed. His mind sank deeper.
A whisper brushed his mind.
"Three awakenings… but only one crown. And the first has already begun."
Riven opened his eyes slowly.
That wasn't the forest.
That was something older.