The training field stank of exhaustion and old steel. Sunset had stained the sky a burnt orange, like fire melting across the horizon. Sweat-soaked students stumbled to their knees, collapsed into the churned dirt, or slumped over training posts with glassy eyes and bloodied knuckles.
The air hung heavy with the scent of blisters, vomit, and raw, frayed spirits. A distant bell tolled the hour, deep and mournful, echoing through the stone bones of the royal keep.
Kael Ishiro stood at the far end of the yard, alone—untouched, unbroken, unbothered.
He let his chest rise and fall with controlled effort, masking how steady his breath really was. A thin film of sweat traced his temple, staged and convincing. His fingers flexed slightly, the only sign of tension, as if clutching pain he didn't feel. The limp in his right leg had become habit now—a tool in the theater of mediocrity.
Sir Garron's voice, rough and rumbling like gravel in an iron drum, rolled across the field.
"Enough! Fall out. Clean yourselves up before you stain the halls with weakness."
His scarred face twisted into a sneer as his gaze passed over Kael.
"Except you, Ishiro. No class, no blessing, no spine. If you can't contribute, you can be buried early and save us all the waste."
Kael met his eyes for a heartbeat—long enough to acknowledge, short enough to submit. Then he bowed his head, silent.
He turned and limped off the field.
Behind him, voices bubbled up, quiet at first, then rising like steam from boiling water.
"…I heard he's nothing. Not even a single skill."
"No magic. The priests scanned him twice. Got nothing both times."
"Maybe he's cursed. Or broken."
"More like garbage. Doesn't even have a title."
Kael let them speak. He'd long ago learned that silence could weaponize pity more than words ever could. He gave them the broken boy they needed. The outcast. The weak link. The punchline.
He passed beneath banners of sun-gold silk and silver-stamped lions, through halls older than most bloodlines. The marble underfoot gleamed with polish, but it couldn't reflect him—his cloak absorbed the light, and so did his shadow.
Inside, he was a storm.
[Skill Returned: Flame Reinforcement – Level 2][Host reflex time improved. Neuromuscular latency reduced by 12%.][Passive Trait Inherited: Layered Burn Immunity][Sync Status: Stable – 73% Efficiency]
The Bondforged System purred behind his thoughts, its voice cold and clinical, edged with quiet satisfaction.
He trained less than all of them.
And gained more than any of them.
That night, the castle slept.
And Kael moved.
The moons—twin pale crescents—hung over the battlements like cracked coins. Clouds coiled through the sky like slow, silver serpents. Within the dormitory, thirty students breathed in heavy rhythm, sprawled across wool blankets and straw-mattress cots.
Kael's eyes opened without a sound. Crimson irises, clock-marked and gleaming faintly in the dark, swept the room.
He sat up, movements practiced to be noiseless. Pulled on a black tunic, rough wool trousers, and slipped his hands into worn gloves. Over that, a cloak of gray—a servant's cloak he'd lifted from the laundry vault.
A dagger, oiled and honed, nestled against his hip.
He didn't look back.
The castle's inner courtyards yawned wide under the stars. Night birds croaked and rustled in the upper rafters. Kael moved like mist, hugging the shadows along servant paths and chimney scaffolds, skirting guard patrols by memory. The layout was a clockwork of predictable loops. He had mapped it all.
The southern gate had a weakness—two pillars overgrown with ivy, just enough footholds. Kael vaulted them, rolled into the far garden, and didn't break stride.
[Side Quest Activated: "To Bleed With Your Own Hands"]
[Objective: Slay a monster 3 Tiers above baseline]
[Target Location: Outer Ravine – Exile Den]
[Success Reward: Bondforged Expansion v1.1 Unlocked]
[Failure Consequences: Skill degradation. Sync instability. Possible system lockout.]
The moment the last message faded, the trees swallowed him.
The forest outside the kingdom walls was not a place of balance or beauty. It was a wound. The path twisted through skeletal trees, blackened bark flaking like old scabs. The air tasted like rust and rot. Even the moonlight seemed to dim here, its silver touch swallowed by moss-choked stone and dead leaves.
The Outer Ravine waited at the edge of sanity, where the veil between the physical and magical had thinned to threadbare mist. Magic here was not divine or elegant—it was feral. Burnt. Broken.
Kael moved through it with quiet reverence, every sense honed. The silence was too complete. Not even insects whispered.
[Zone Entered: Exile Den]
[Threat Level: Class C Apex]
[Target Identified: Wretchspawn Knight – Corrupted Heroic-Class]
[Recommended Status: Blessing Tier IV+]
[Current Host: Unblessed | Unclassed | Level 0]
[Sync Status: 91%]
He crouched beneath the twisted roots of a dead elmsworn tree and surveyed the clearing ahead.
There it stood.
A suit of black armor—once ceremonial, now cracked and warped. Rust fused with bone. A tattered crimson cape flapped in wind that did not exist. The helmet's slit glowed with ghostfire, and from between its joints, tendrils of dark mana pulsed like veins from a poisoned heart.
The Wretchspawn Knight did not pace. It didn't breathe. It simply stood, broadsword planted in the earth, as if waiting for an enemy it had long since forgotten how to kill.
Kael's heart thudded once—sharp and hard—and then stilled.
He drew no weapon.
Instead, he reached inward, letting the Bondforged System unfold like a second mind.
[Combat Protocols Engaged]
[Available Skills: Ghost Step, Imperial Blade Doctrine I]
[Initiating Predictive Flow Mapping]
[Strategy: Strike Timing + Positional Disruption Suggested]
He moved.
Not fast. Not loud.
Precise.
His first step was angled through shadows, right foot brushing moss without sound. He didn't run. He didn't sprint. He ghosted—every movement plotted like lines in a diagram only he could see.
At twenty feet, the Wretchspawn stirred.
Its head turned slowly, cracking at the neck. That glow—hungry, hollow—locked onto him.
Kael smiled.
"Come on," he whispered.
And the knight moved.