The Anomaly's Path

The side doors had barely clicked shut behind Morgana when the room came back to life.

Students grabbed their bags in a rush of noise and fast moves. The heavy silence was gone, replaced by a shaky, nervous energy.

No one wanted to talk too loud, but everyone wanted to leave. Bags were thrown over shoulders, chairs scraped against the stone floor, and the calm exit of a normal class turned into a fast retreat.

Down in the front row, I stayed in my seat, my back straight and my legs feeling like jelly.

Arthur stood up a row ahead, stretching his arms with a tired groan. His eyes found mine and gave a small, tired nod — a quiet knowing between two guys who had both been thrown across a stage by a Transcendent and lived to tell the story.

He turned toward the side exit where Amelia was waiting, her silver-violet eyes moving between us before she fell into step beside him. Her gaze lingered on me for a second longer than the others — a flicker of something unreadable, there and gone, before she turned away.

Riven, however, was already gone.

One moment he was bent over a few feet away, staring at his shaking hands with a cold, angry look, and the next he had vanished into the moving crowd. His silence was louder than any yell. I could feel the weight of his hurt pride following him like a dark shadow.

The front row emptied within a minute.

Overhead, the lights hummed softly, casting a pale blue glow across the empty desks and the broken stage where the dust was still falling. I sat there staring at the stage where Morgana’s left boot had been.

She hadn’t even been trying.

The thought sat in my chest like a cold rock. I had survived my grandfather’s strike yesterday, but he had been holding back. Morgana had been holding back too. I was not a smart fighter. I was not strong. I was just very lucky — and luck always runs out.

A shadow fell over my lap.

”You look like someone ran over your dog, bro.”

I didn’t bother looking up. I already knew the annoying voice. Roan dropped into the seat next to me like a cat missing a windowsill. His silver hair was a mess, and his storm-silver eyes studied my face with a look trying hard to look normal.

”You are not dead, man” he said, tilting his head. ”Good. I thought you got turned into a decoration down there. Staring at the ceiling, mouth open. Very dramatic.”

My lip twitched. I did not dignify that with a response.

Behind Roan, Alice appeared.

She did not sit. She just stood there with her arms crossed, her crimson hair wild and her amber eyes locked on me like she was trying to decide whether I was worth the effort of checking on. Her foot tapped against the stone floor in a fast, steady rhythm.

”You two,” I said, glaring at them both. ”You two bastards. You left me down there alone to deal with that crazy woman while you sat up there faking stomachaches and pretending to study random pieces of paper.”

”We did,” Alice said, her chin lifting. ”Uh... well, I really had a stomachache. It’s not like I was pretending. And hey, you also have to say that aloud? Who in their right mind says something like that?”

Roan coughed and clapped his hands together. ”Well, well. Anyway, we came to check on you. And that’s what friends do in real time, don’t they? Anyway. Let’s go. As you know, we have the same building. Classes are over for the day.”

I sighed and stood up, forcing my shaky legs to hold me. I had just enough pride left to pretend I was perfectly fine.

_

Our footsteps hit the floor in a clear, three-part beat as we walked through the halls and stepped outside. The cool, fresh air was a big change from the thick, hot air of the lecture room. The sun was going down, painting the sky in bright shades of orange, purple, and deep red.

The building sat at the edge of the school grounds — a big tower of white stone and dark wood covered in glowing lights that pulsed like a sleeping heart.

We pushed through the glass doors into the shiny lobby. The tired woman behind the desk looked up, her eyes stopping on my platinum Primus badge for a second before she gave a small nod and went back to her screen.

At the elevators, Roan hit the button. The doors opened quickly, and we stepped inside.

The elevator rose, the soft chimes echoing in the small space. Alice stared at the numbers. Roan had his hands in his pockets. The doors slid open on the fifth floor. Alice stepped out, turned back, raised her middle finger, and said, ”Don’t die, idiot.”

The doors closed. The elevator climbed higher. Roan stepped out on the floor just below mine without a word. Just a lazy wave. The doors closed again. I went up to the top floor alone.

The doors opened onto a private hallway with a single door at the end. My floor.

I slid my crystal card against the lock. The lock clicked, and the big room opened up. High ceiling, big windows looking out at the fire-lit sky of the city, and dark wood furniture.

Standing near the glass, her back straight and hands behind her, was Lyra. Her green eyes moved over me, taking in the dust on my uniform and the small shake in my left hand.

”...Young master,” she said smoothly. ”Do you want anything?”

”No. Leave me, Lyra,” I said, walking past her. ”I’m not hungry. I just want to test something and it will take me some time. So, you could go back.”

Lyra’s eyebrow rose, but she didn’t argue.

”Oh, and Lyra?” I called out, stopping near the hallway. ”If you can, check into Instructor Morgana’s background. See what you can dig up from the Academy records.”

Lyra paused, her green eyes reflecting the fading sunset light. She gave a firm nod. ”I will do it, young master. I will ask around quietly.”

”Thanks. And one more thing...” I rubbed the back of my neck, clearing my throat. ”You know, my last packet of chocolate is almost done. So if you could please bring some new stuff from the academy city when you have time... Oh, and do tell me how much they cost, alright?”

A small, almost hidden smile touched her lips. ”...Of course, young master.”

She walked past me, and the front door clicked shut behind her, leaving me in heavy, total silence.

I let out a long breath and stood there for a moment, staring at nothing. My mind was still spinning from the day, from the fight, from the weight of everything my grandfather and Morgana had said. I needed to clear my head. To focus.

So I closed my eyes, counted to ten, and let the silence settle into my bones. Then I opened them again.

I felt it — a restless itch under my skin. If I didn’t test what was brewing in my head right now, if I let the thoughts scatter without trying to make sense of them, I knew I would regret it. So I pushed off the wall and moved.

_

I walked straight to the private training room.

The door slid open at my touch, showing a space that was bigger than it should be. The walls were lined with dark metal that soaked up mana and hummed softly with every step I took. The floor was strong, covered in thin lines of silver that glowed faintly in the dim light.

There were no windows.

No distractions. Just the training rings in the center and the weapons rack against the far wall. This was the room that the Primus got — the soundproof fortress that let you push your limits without worrying about breaking the building.

I stepped inside, and the door closed behind me with a soft hiss.

The silence here was different. Heavier. It pressed against my ears like water pressure, and for a moment, I just stood there, breathing, letting the weight of it settle over me. Then I walked to the center of the room and sat down cross-legged on the floor, placing Tempest across my knees.

I closed my eyes.

...And I listened.

The first thing that came back was my grandfather’s voice.

”Normal fighters fight with mana and skill. That is fine from Initiate to Grandmaster. But when you step into Transcendent, the world changes. To be a Transcendent means you step into the world of demigods. Your will starts to matter more than your muscles. And to be a Sovereign? It means you are a living law. Your word becomes real. Your strike carries intent, not just force.”

It was will — not mana, not strength, not the size of your core or the sharpness of your blade, but will.

I had felt it during the fight with Morgana.

The way her presence had pressed down on me, not like weight, but like a command. The way the air itself had changed around her. My mana had felt sluggish and wrong, like it was fighting against something it could not see.

She had not been trying to kill us; she had been showing off, demonstrating the gap so that we would understand what we were aiming for.

And still, we had lost.

”What you saw during my strike was the path of Will. But let’s get one thing straight, brat — you didn’t perceive it because you are ready to use it. You perceived it because your sensory skill forced you to recognize when an Intent was being used against you. It opened the path for you to understand what true Will looks like.”

The path.

That word again.

I opened my eyes and looked at my hands.

They were resting on my knees, palms up, fingers loose. Pale skin, unmarked — the bloodline had erased every cut, every burn, every sign of the fights I had survived. But the memory of them was still there, settled deep in the bones.

Roran’s voice came next, from somewhere deep in my memory.

”It is the moment your soul decides what it is willing to die for.”

I had been willing to die in that corridor against Kael and the demons, just as I had been willing to die in Wayford — lying broken on the orphanage floor with nothing but the dark and the sound of children running, their small faces pale with terror as they fled, while I watched Roran fall and the village burn around me.

I had been willing to die for Mia too, kneeling in that freezing laboratory with her blood on my hands and her last breath on my cheek, holding her as she slipped away because there was nothing else I could do.

And I had survived. Not because I was stronger or smarter, but because I had refused to stop moving. I had refused to stay down. Every time the world had knocked me to my knees, I had dragged myself back up and kept going.

”You are stubborn, Leo. More stubborn than anyone I have ever met. That is not a weakness. That is your strength.”

My grandfather had said something similar during our spar. ”Remember who the fuck you are.”

Who was I?

I was the boy who crawled out of a trial that should have killed me, returning seven months later with a hunger I couldn’t explain — not for power, not for revenge, just hunger for something I could not name.

I was the one who could not let go of a promise made to a dead girl, carrying her soul flame in my chest like a debt I would never stop paying. I was the one who learned to swing a sword from a broken drunk in a village that no longer exists.

I burned a statue that had been weeping for eight hundred years, not because it was a monster, but because it was a man who had knelt down and never got back up, and I understood that.

I was the older brother who made pinky promises to a six-year-old, the son who made his mother cry too many times.

I was the anomaly, the piece that did not belong — and I was tired of pretending that I did.

That is Leo.

Just a stubborn bastard who refuses to stay down.

The flames in my chest flickered — not hot, not hungry, just present and waiting.

I had feared them for so long, terrified of losing control and becoming the monster the whispers said I was, dreading that one day the fire would consume everything that made me human and leave nothing but ash.

But Morgana had not been afraid of me. My grandfather had not been afraid of me. They had looked at me and seen potential. Something worth sharpening, worth pushing, worth the effort of teaching.

Roran was not afraid either.

When my black flames first surfaced, when the hunger in my chest started to wake up, that drunken bastard did not step back. He did not call me a monster. He grinned, knocked me on my ass, and told me to do it again.

And Mia — Mia looked at me like I was still human. Even after everything she saw in that laboratory, even after the flames and the hollow eyes and the blood on my hands, she never flinched. She just held on and asked me to stay.

”The gap between Grandmaster and Sovereign is not about training harder. It is a full change in what kind of being you are. Most people who try to force their way into this rank die trying. Their souls get crushed under the weight of trying to make the world bend when it does not want to bend. Breaking through needs a mind and a will stronger than the laws of nature.”

The laws of nature.

The thing that Vance had spent half the lecture explaining, that Aether bent, and that Sovereigns overwrote with a word and a thought. I was not a Sovereign. I was not even close. I was an Expert Low and a body still learning to keep up with the demands I placed on it.

But I was standing on the path.

I closed my eyes again and pulled my mind inward. The physical room was gone, replaced by the empty space.

The narrow, grey stone road of my soul space was changing. Because I had started to get real control over my Soul Flames, the space showed the change. The cracks in the floor were glowing with a soft, pulsing silver light, but under that light, a dark, quiet, violet heat was starting to move.

The black lightning of my power curled like a sleeping snake around the handle of Tempest, still stuck in the middle of the path. Around its steel, space was bending and folding in on itself, then opening again like a steady, steady beat.

The three powers — Lightning, Space, and Soul Flame — were waiting.

Before, when I had first come to this place, the space had been empty, cold, and quiet. The path had been dead stone, and the dark had pressed in like it wanted to swallow me whole. I had been alone.

Now... the space was breathing.

I could feel its weight and presence. It wasn’t hostile, just patient, as if the darkness was not my enemy but simply the part of me that I had not filled yet.

My grandfather’s words echoed in the quiet: ”How will you ever forge the foundation of your soul space if you fold under a simple breeze?”

Purpose.

I had answered that question in the corridor against Kael when I raised Tempest and declared what kind of sword I wanted to be: ”I am here to protect the people who stayed. To defy anything that tries to take them from me. I will be the wall that does not break.”

That had not changed. But something else had — the flames, the way I looked at the world. I had been so focused on controlling the flames that I had forgotten to ask what they wanted.

”We are always hungry,” they had whispered back when the hunger felt like a curse. ”We are you, and you are us.”

What if they weren’t lying?

What if the flames weren’t a curse to be contained, but a part of me I had refused to accept? What if the hunger wasn’t destruction, but purpose? What if the fire didn’t want to burn the world, but simply burn bright enough to light the way for the people I was trying to protect?

I reached out and touched one of the glowing cracks in the stone.

The light surged up my arm. It wasn’t burning or painful, just warm, matching the heat in my chest. It felt like they had been waiting for me to stop fighting and start listening.

I am not here to win.

The thought came on its own, solid and heavy. I was not here to prove I was stronger than anyone. I was here to protect, to fight, and to stand between the people I cared about and anything that wanted to hurt them.

I am not a weapon that kills because it is angry. I am a blade that cuts because it is sharp.

The light spread faster, climbing the walls of the empty space, filling the cracks, and pushing back the dark inch by inch. The path under my feet groaned, growing wider as the lines of light and dark violet fire spread further than they ever had before, making lasting marks in the floor of my soul space.

Eclipse of the Singularity. The name of my art. Two forms were already mine: Fractured Eclipse and Heaven’s Divide.

A third was waiting in the dark, just out of reach.

I had been trying to force it through sheer desperation and pain, treating it like an enemy to be conquered or a door to be kicked down.

But I finally understood my grandfather’s words. I had seen the path of Will, but I had not walked it. I had glimpsed the peak, but I was still at the base of the mountain, learning to put one foot in front of the other.

I was not ready to use it yet.

But the base was changing. The seed was locking into the ground, and the soul space was getting stronger, becoming less like a weak path and more like a fort taking root. I could see the edge of it now — the shape of what it wanted to be.

The raw pressure inside me peaked, and the whole empty space broke like glass.

My eyes snapped open.

I was back in the training room, sitting on the floor, covered in a cold sweat.

My chest moved hard as I gasped for air, my uniform shirt sticking to my skin. Every muscle in my body ached, and my head pounded from the strain of going into my soul space, but as I looked down at my hands on Tempest, the shaking was gone.

They were steady.

The warmth in my chest had settled into something calm, constant, and focused.

”Close,” I muttered to the empty room, pushing myself up onto stiff legs as a grin spread across my face. I was very close — I just needed a bit of a push.

I walked out of the training room and into the bathroom, pulling off the dusty uniform. I stepped into the deep stone bath, letting the cold water shock my hot skin. I leaned my head back against the smooth stone, closing my eyes as the total silence of my private floor finally let my racing mind calm down.

For twenty minutes, I just lay there, letting the water wash away the tiredness until my core fully settled. Then I pulled myself out, dried off, and pulled on a pair of loose pants and a simple black shirt — nothing fancy, just something to wear that wasn’t a towel.

I walked back into the living room, needing a drink and a long night of sleep.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

The sudden, sharp sound of someone banging on my door echoed through the quiet room.

I stopped, my eyes narrowing as I listened. Lyra had said no one would bother me for the next few hours. For someone to be knocking like this, whatever was happening could not wait another second.

Who is that then?