"...One down," Kai muttered under his breath, his gaze fixed on Leo for a heartbeat longer before snapping back to Ryen.
Ryen didn’t scream.
Didn’t flinch.
Didn’t even blink.
He just stepped forward.
Alone now.
One sword. One breath. One heartbeat.
His shadow stretched long across the broken ground, distorted by the sickly glow of Kai’s magic. The tension in the air coiled tighter and tighter, like a string pulled to its breaking point.
Kai tilted his head.
"Oh? No witty remarks? No declarations of justice or revenge?"
Ryen didn’t answer.
Instead, he shifted his stance.
Kai’s smile wavered, just a bit.
Then—Ryen moved.
Fast. Fluid. Precise.
A single slash. Silver light trailing behind his blade like the arc of a falling star.
Kai raised his staff just in ti—clang!
The impact sent a shockwave rippling through the ruined arena. Dust exploded outward, cracks spiderwebbing beneath their feet.
But Ryen wasn’t done.
He spun, ducked low, and unleashed a flurry of slashes in rapid succession—clean, controlled, relentless.
Kai parried, barely. His staff rang with every impact, glowing with defensive enchantnts. But he was being pushed back.
Step by step.
Slash by slash.
This wasn’t just raw strength.
This was swordsmanship.
Technique sharpened to its limit.
Ryen’s movents flowed like water—each strike feeding into the next, no wasted motion, no hesitation. His blade sang through the air, a rhythm of defiance and fury.
Kai clicked his tongue.
"Enough."
He slamd his staff into the ground.
A pulse of magic exploded outward, dark and twisted. The ground cracked, a wave of corrupted energy rippling through the arena.
Ryen leapt back, avoiding the worst of it—but his footing faltered slightly.
Kai seized the opening.
With a flick of his wrist, five black chains erupted from the ground, snaking toward Ryen like serpents. They hissed through the air, faster than arrows.
But—
Clang. Slash. Crack.
Ryen’s blade moved faster.
He cut through the first chain.
Dodged the second.
Spun and shattered the third with a reverse slash.
Ryen was moving fast, so fast that Kai Foster was very hard ti in attacking him more then before.
Kai was getting annoyed, very much.
His artifacts that were once invincible seems to be nothing now in front of Ryen and that didn’t suit very well with Kai Foster
It was like entire situation has been changed.
At this ti, Kai couldn’t control his expression behind that mask.
He took a step forward.
The shadows at his feet curled outward like tendrils, responding to his movents.
Another step.
Another pulse of dark energy.
"You will die alongside with everyone else here."
Kai’s eyes glead with defiance as he raised his staff again.
"I am not. You will be the one facing that fate."
Ryen.
The protagonist of this world. The one who was supposed to rise above all odds.
’Ryen talent was special.’
Ryen’s talent was sothing special, especially when compared to Leo’s Weapon Master ability, even though both of their talents were ranked the sa.
The na of Ryen’s ability? The Holy Sword of Justice.
It was an A-rank talent, but not in the sa way Leo’s was.
Where Leo’s Weapon Master talent was simple, direct, and powerful, Ryen’s was unique.
Every action he perford with a sword was buffed. His strikes were faster, more precise. And any object he recognized as a sword, as a "sword" was fair ga.
Steel, wood, bone—if Ryen called it a sword, then it beca one.
And his talent would treat it accordingly.
But that wasn’t the true reason Kai feared him.
No. The real terror ca from the second part of Ryen’s talent—
Justice.
A concept most dismissed as romantic nonsense. But not here.
Not with this talent.
Because the mont Ryen deed soone an enemy of justice, the system tilted in his favor. His blade would strike truer, his instincts would sharpen, and his body would move faster.
It was as if the world itself bent just a little to help him bring down those it judged unworthy.
And right now, Ryen had chosen him.
Ryen’s boots crunched against the fractured ground.
He didn’t blink.
Didn’t breathe too hard.
Didn’t hesitate.
The dust still clung to his uniform, blood sared along his temple, and his arm—slightly trembling—held the blade like it was part of him.
No fear.
Only resolve.
"You talk too much," Ryen said quietly.
Then—he lunged.
Faster than before.
Faster than Kai could process.
A single flash—silver against black.
Kai barely raised his staff. Sparks flew as tal t reinforced wood, enchantnts screaming under the pressure. The ground beneath them buckled, the arena groaning like it was about to collapse under the weight of their power.
And then—
Ryen twisted.
He shifted the montum mid-strike, turning what should’ve been a direct blow into a feint.
Kai stumbled forward.
Too late to adjust.
Slash.
A clean cut across Kai’s side—through the reinforced robe, through layers of enchantnt.
Blood splattered across the broken stones.
Kai gasped.
He stumbled back, clutching his ribs. The runes etched into his robe flickered—failing, glitching, struggling to absorb the force of that hit.
"...Impossible," he whispered, voice strained with pain. "That cut through three layers of shielding..."
Ryen’s blade glead, coated in faint silver light. Magic-enhanced. But not brute-forced.
Focused.
Precise.
He wasn’t just attacking.
He was aiming.
Reading.
Countering.
Like a swordsman, yes.
But more than that—like a hunter.
And Kai?
He was the prey.
"You’re not the only one who’s been through hell," Ryen said, voice low and cold. "You’re not the only one who fought to survive."
Kai’s grip on his staff tightened. His mask hid most of his face—but not the rage burning in his eyes.
"Shut up," he snarled.
The ground quaked again as he summoned another surge of dark mana. Shadows burst outward, forming claws, blades, tendrils—every dark spell he could conjure without chanting. The arena beca a storm of darkness.
And yet—
Ryen stepped in.
Through the chaos.
Dodging.
Cutting.
Enduring.
He charged straight through the black tempest, his blade dragging silver arcs through the magic as if carving a path through night itself.
And then—he was in front of Kai.
Too close.
Far too close.
He struck.
SLASH—!!!
A perfect diagonal slash aid at the heart.
"Ahhhh!"
Kai roared and raised his staff again, but he was too slow. The blade cut through the staff’s shaft like it was paper.
Kai’s eyes widened.
Crack.
The staff snapped in half, and the magic around him shattered like glass.
Silence.
Ryen stood over him, sword lowered.
Kai fell to one knee, the broken halves of his staff clattering to the floor. His body shook—not just from pain, but from disbelief.
He’d lost.
Not to talent.
Not to privilege.
But to skill.
To growth.
To soone who had suffered—and kept going.
Ryen raised his blade again, breath steady, eyes cold.
But he didn’t swing.
Not yet.
Instead, he said, "You think we’re soft because we were born lucky?"
His eyes narrowed.
"Maybe. But we’re not weak."
The point of his sword hovered inches from Kai’s throat.
"Yield. Or I finish it."
Kai looked up at him.
His breathing was ragged. Blood dripped from his side. Shadows flickered weakly at his fingertips, barely holding shape.
And for a brief mont, sothing flickered in his gaze.
Not hatred.
Not fury.
But sothing far more dangerous.
A smile.
"You think this is over?"
Then—his hand twitched.
Ryen sensing sothing was wrong imdiately jump backward.
While the confrontation between Ryen and Kai unfolded, I watched from a distance, my expression unreadable.
But on the inside I was very much in the pain.
Ribs broken with internal bleeding at this ti I could feel taste of the blood in my mouth.
I don’t know how much I could hold on now.
In fact, I was conscious because of my willpower.
To be honest, I never liked Ryen’s character from the start.
He was written as the self-sacrificing type—the kind of hero willing to throw away everything, even his own life, to save soone. But in the end, he never truly saved anyone.
...And then he’d drown in despair and self-pity.
Whenever ...Whenever I read that part in the original story, I couldn’t help but scoff.
All that pain, all that sacrifice—and for what?
A hollow ending?
He was just a puppet of fate, dancing to a script he didn’t write.
But now?
Now he was breaking it.
Ryen, the tragedy-soaked hero, wasn’t falling this ti.
He was fighting back.
I watched him from where I stood with support of the shattered pillar, blood soaking into my uniform, ribs stabbing with every breath. My vision blurred at the edges, every heartbeat like thunder in my ears.
But I didn’t look away.
Not from him.
Not from this version of Ryen.
He wasn’t just fighting Kai.
He was fighting everything.
Fighting fate. Fighting the narrative. Fighting the very world that had decided he was dood to suffer.
And sohow... he was winning.
The smile on Kai’s face faded the mont Ryen jumped back, instincts sharper than reason. Because right where Ryen had been—boom—a blast of magic ruptured the stone floor, sending out a plu of smoke and fla.
Kai, coughing blood, tried to rise again, tried to summon sothing, anything.
But the staff was broken.
The artifacts were cracked.
His mana—draining fast.
And Ryen?
Still standing.
His blade glead like a star forged from resolve.
"You should’ve ended when you had the chance," Kai hissed, shadows bleeding from his mouth, his fingers curled into a trembling claw.
That bastard wasn’t even using his own magic anymore. He was leaning entirely on the demon magic that he has gotten through contract.
The magic nad was Deathfla, a devastating 6th-tier fire spell.
It was suside spell.
Anyone wouldn’t even dare to even touch this kind of spell.
But Kai Foster?
He was a lunatic—a guy who committed terrorist attacks just to relieve his stress.
So of course, to relieve his stress, he would do anything—even if it ant burning everything to the ground with 6th-Tier DeathFla.
And let tell you, even if Ryen used every ounce of strength he had, he wouldn’t even able to save himself.
Gone.
Along with everyone else, including .
DeathFla wasn’t so small-scale spell. It wasn’t sothing you could dodge or defend against with sheer willpower. It was a wide-range annihilation spell, consuming everything in its reach and reducing it all to ash.
The situation wasn’t just bad—it was a death sentence.
I knew what was coming in the next few minutes. Or at least, I could predict it.
Everyone was going to die.
The cadets, the instructors—hell, even Kai Foster himself. Because DeathFla wasn’t just a spell. It was ...a curse.
A spell ant not for war—but for extinction.
DeathFla.
A 6th-tier forbidden spell, outlawed across kingdoms, sealed in grimoires that were supposed to be lost to ti. Not because it was hard to cast.
But because it didn’t leave survivors.
The very air began to twist, growing heavier by the second. The broken ground cracked further as black fire bled from Kai’s hands—slowly, steadily, hungrily. The shadows around him hissed and writhed like they were afraid of what was being born.
Ryen’s eyes widened.
His sword wavered slightly—not from fear, but calculation.
He had seconds. Maybe less.
A single thought crossed his mind.
Could he stop it?
Kai’s body convulsed as the spell began carving into his own life force. The veins in his neck bulged. His teeth clenched. The runes etched deep into his skin—his last fail-safe—lit up like molten iron, pulsing erratically.
"I’ll take everything with !" Kai roared, blood foaming in his mouth.
He was going to do it.
He was really going to burn everyone.
And then—
A voice cut through the madness.
"Ryen!"
Mine.
My voice.
I didn’t know where I found the strength. I could barely breathe, the taste of blood thick in my mouth, every inch of my body on fire. But I forced myself to stand.
No one was going to stop this if he didn’t.
No—if we didn’t.
I ran towards him with full speed, using every inch of my strength.
At the sa ti, I couldn’t help but chuckle at Irony.
If he faced that attack he will die.
But ...
This world needed him.
And that ant I couldn’t let him die here.
Because he was the protagonist.
I, on the other hand, was just a disposable side character.
If I died, the story wouldn’t change. The world would move on without .
Ha... looks like I’m really gonna die just minutes after getting this second chance at life, huh?
A dry chuckle escaped .
Guess fate couldn’t be changed after all.
If this world wanted dead, so be it.
But I wasn’t going down without a fight.
Alright, folks—
It’s ti for the grand entrance of...
Rin Evans!
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