At first, there was only the wind.
A hush clung to the garden court, muffling even the gasps of the spectators. Nocth stood loosely, fingertips twitching with latent rhythm, his heartbeat thundering like ancient war drums beneath pale skin. His black hair fluttered slightly, but his expression was carved from something more ancient than emotion — a look caught between hunger, serenity, and something darker blooming within.
Across from him, Dravien Greel straightened slowly. Blood leaked from the corners of his mouth, thick and strangely luminous. But his grin was stretching, sharp as a snapped vein.
"You think it's over?" Dravien said, voice gravel-drenched. "You think that's all I am?"
He pressed his palm to his chest — and tore.
The flesh peeled apart in jagged rings, revealing something beneath his ribs: a second skin, rough, pinkish-red like a pulsing pomegranate rind.
Gasps burst from the crowd.
Instructor Yen's expression changed. She reached for her sealing sigil, but another elder placed a hand over hers. "Let it unfold. Let the boy learn his fear."
Imius squinted, parasol spinning faster. "That's not Ascendancy Stage One… it's a split-marrow mutation."
"Split what?" a nearby student whispered.
"Means his body doesn't know what it's becoming," Imius replied with glee. "Which makes it delightfully unstable."
Nocth blinked slowly as Dravien's chest opened like a blooming injury.
From within his core rose fibrous red threads — a strange vascular bloom, as if his veins had become sentient. They uncoiled and fused into sharpened whips of flesh, crackling with defensive instinct.
"I call it Pith Bloom," Dravien growled, licking his lips with slow hunger. "It drinks pain. Grows sharper when I bleed."
He pointed at Nocth with a single tendril.
"You made me bleed first. I owe you something back."
Then he lunged.
The threads lashed out. Not just one — but seven. Spiraling, twisting, aiming for points on Nocth's limbs, his shoulders, his neck. Their precision was inhuman — an attack pattern born of biological programming.
Thump.
Nocth's heart answered.
He stepped once, into the flurry. One vine scraped his cheek. Another caught his forearm — drawing blood.
But his smile widened.
He welcomed it.
> "This… yes. It's like I've been asleep for centuries. And this pain? This reaction? I want more."
Nocth's movement was no longer passive. His fists met tendrils. One cracked bone. Another severed a vine completely, sending fibrous liquid splattering the garden tiles.
Dravien howled. Not from pain — but pleasure. "Yes! Break it! Let's see if I can survive you! Let's see if you survive me!"
A whirl of vines twisted downward. Nocth ducked — and slammed his palm into the ground.
CRACK.
Stone split. He leapt up from the shattered earth, flipped midair, and drove his knee downward toward Dravien's face — just as a defensive whip wrapped around his ankle.
Too slow.
Dravien's mouth split open in joy and he jerked the vine downward — attempting to slam Nocth into the floor.
Midfall — Nocth twisted. Hand reached for his ankle. With terrifying clarity, he redirected momentum.
Instead of falling flat, he turned it into a sickle-kick that spun him like a wheel.
His heel crashed into Dravien's temple.
BOOM.
The vine control snapped. Dravien fell sideways, skidding and coughing blood into the grass.
Imius clapped once. "Bravo. He turned a mistake into ballet."
A few nobles started cheering. The crowd grew louder.
But Nocth… knelt, panting. Blood trickled from his lip. His ankle was marked, but not broken.
His grin faded. He stood again — calmly.
Dravien staggered, nose broken, grinning madly. He was wobbling, but still alive — barely.
His eyes, however, held something else. Not rage. Not despair.
Reverence.
He licked the blood from his lips and whispered through cracked teeth: "You're not human."
Then slowly, eyes narrowing, he said with strange certainty, "I'll break you… not today, but someday. You'll see. You'll see when someone like me is reborn. I'll drag you down smiling."
He turned — and collapsed.
Instructors finally intervened, lifting his twitching body away with subtle concern.
Nocth stood alone in the center. Breathing deeply. Heart pounding.
The crowd watched him like something ancient had awakened.
Imius walked up beside him and smiled sideways. "I think you like getting punched, Nocth."
Nocth didn't answer.
But his hand — slightly trembling — curled into a fist.
And in his mind, he whispered:
"That wasn't enough. There has to be more."