The Path of Ruin

The sky frightened many people, but it also gave peace to many others, especially the dark but stunning sight of the star-studded night. And it was still the same now.

But it was in its last moments... at least for this particular moment. Because the moon, accompanying the stars of the night, was slowly setting. Slowly rising from the east, another tiny, pale star, as bright as it was pale, appeared among the gray that replaced the darkness.

The central continent was waking up to a new day. And so did every other city... and so did the capital of the Empire.

The dawning of the new day slowly woke people from their slumber as the sun began to rise.

"Ugh..."

And among all these people was a young man of small stature who had recently turned sixteen. He was in a building in the garden of a huge palace in the very heart of the huge capital. His eyes were narrowed by the sunlight shining on his face through the window glass, causing him to make an expression of discomfort.

Slowly, the young man\'s eyes opened. His brown eyes, which looked quite ordinary in the midst of his black hair, which had grown considerably longer than normal, slowly fixed on the ceiling.

He waited for a while, just watching the ceiling. Then, with a slight movement, his eyes shifted to the window, to the sky. With a few quick calculations, he tried to figure out what time of the morning it was, and he did.

"Haaaah..."

He slowly got up from the bed. Though, what he was lying on now could hardly be called... a bed. After all, it was simply a rock, which was hard as a rock and smooth as a concrete slab.

.net

\'It\'s part of the training, you say... I\'m sure it is... fuck, it still hurts.\'

As usual, he stretched his body, trying to relieve the numbness, while complaining in his mind. Then he got out of his \'bed\'.

He put back on all the clothes he had taken off to get some sleep, which was actually a light armor, and then tied his hair behind his head with a short cloth thread.

\'I should cut my hair sometime...\'

He had chosen to grow his hair long himself, for a change. But... he was not very satisfied with it.

Sighing slightly, he placed his daggers at his waist in their usual place. After washing his face with a small amount of water in the corner of the room, he approached his window and took one last look at himself.

When he left the room, he headed for a place he had been visiting regularly for the last few weeks... a place whose route he had long since memorized. Without really looking where he was going, he walked down about two floors and stopped in front of the door to a large room under the ground.

He knocked softly, but entered without waiting for an answer.

\'Did I do it this time?\'

His eyes quickly scanned every corner of the huge room. It was only when he noticed the black figure leaning against a wall that he couldn\'t help a grimace.

\'I have to come even before the sun rises.\'

The figure, whose eyes were as black as the clothes he wore, slowly lifted his head while Kael was in the middle of these thoughts. Under his mask, his lips curled upwards slightly.

"You will never make it, Kael."

"Don\'t you ever sleep, though?"

"Who knows? But, like I said, you will never make it."

Kael clicked his tongue as he approached the man, Hakon.

This was what he had been trying to do for the last few days, to get to this room before Hakon. But... no matter how early he got up, he couldn\'t do it. Hakon was always here before him, leaning against the wall as if he had been waiting for hours.

For a short time he thought about what had happened after he arrived in the capital.

After his \'deal\' with General Loukan, everything had gone smoothly, he was now working for the Empire... but before he could actually start working, he had to be trained, and Hakon had been personally assigned by the general to do exactly that.

Normally, their training began an hour or so after sunrise. But since Kael had been coming here earlier and earlier every day, they had been starting early for the last few days.

The only problem... was that the time when their training ended did not change. So no matter how early he came to the room, the time he spent training did not decrease, but increased.

He wasn\'t complaining too much, though.

It was just... hard to understand how Hakon could walk around anytime at every time as if he never slept throughout the day.

"What are we going to do today?"

Kael had been here for almost three weeks. He was now at the beginning of the fourth week.

During the first week, Hakon had made him train entirely on how to move his body, told him that he needed to improve his body, and then gave him a training program to follow every day.

The second week, he had shown him how to use the daggers more easily and efficiently, and also added that on top of the previous one... doubling the time he spent on training.

The third week, he taught nothing new, just watched him improve his body and his use of the daggers.

Was there going to be something new this week too, or was he just going to watch him repeat what he had done before like the third week?

"Today... we\'re going to talk a little about eon."

Kael couldn\'t help raising his eyebrows slightly at his words.

Eon was something that really intrigued him, he wondered what actually it was and how it was supposed to be used. But... he had always thought of it as the final stages of training.

Had he trained his body enough? Had he learned to use his daggers like a professional?

Frankly... he didn\'t think so. Hence his confusion.

"I can see exactly what you\'re thinking from your face."

Hakon widened his smile and finally detached himself from the wall he was leaning against. Slowly, he began to approach Kael.

"And you\'re not wrong in what you think. But don\'t worry, we know what we\'re doing. Now... first of all, sit down, cross-legged or whatever you are comfortable with."

Kael quickly crouched down. Hakon put two meters between them and did the same.

"What do you do when you strengthen yourself using eon? Tell me in detail."

"I can create a warmth in my heart, wherever I direct it in my body, it gets stronger. The more warmth, the more power."

"In your heart... I see, so how do you channel your eon through your body? Just by thinking? Or some other way?"

Kael was silent for a while, thinking. Hakon quickly realized what was wrong.

"You don\'t know... I get it, you don\'t have to force yourself."

Kael couldn\'t help feeling a little... defeated. Still, he kept his focus completely on Hakon.

"Let\'s start from the beginning. The biggest mistake in using Eon, Kael, is using it like... adrenaline. It\'s absolutely wonderful that you learned it on your own, but it\'s also quite wrong. Why is that? Can you think of anything?"

"No."

Kael answered honestly. He knew almost nothing about eon to be able to answer such a question.

"Because you use it, you focus it on one part of your body, and then you throw it away. Eon strengthens your muscles, it makes you faster... but you leave it where you send it and it leaks out of your body after a while because it can\'t stay still. In short, you\'re wasting a lot of it. This leaves you unable to use it for more than short bursts of power."

Kael continued to think as he narrowed his eyes slightly.

Hakon... wasn\'t wrong.

Everything he had experienced in that town a month and a half ago was fresh in his mind. He remembered how Tharon and General Loukan had used their eon. He may have had a hard time feeling it, observing it... but there was one thing he remembered.

And that was that their eons never stood still, never ran out... it was as if they were on an endless loop.

"Everyone uses their eon differently, Kael. It\'s creative to fire them in short bursts to gain sudden bursts of power and speed. So even if I say that the way you use your eon is wrong, it\'s not a technique that is never used. It\'s just, as I said, inefficient."

"I have to keep my eon in my body at all times, right? Not in a fixed point, but... in motion. Keeping it inside, not letting it escape outside my body."

Hakon was actually going to continue, but he paused at Kael\'s words and nodded.

"My eon... I was starting to accumulate it in my heart first. I don\'t know if it\'s right or wrong, maybe it\'s different for others... but can\'t I use it this way?"

When he saw Hakon\'s smile widen, he knew he was on the right track and continued.

"So... instead of forcing it into my body of my own volition, why don\'t I just let it flow? It generates and accumulates in my heart... and my heart is constantly pumping blood through my body. The blood is constantly circulating through my body, using my veins as a pathway. Can I mix the eon... into the flow of this blood?"

Hakon looked at him in silence for a while, as if... fascinated. Then he nodded his head slightly.

"You have the right idea. What you\'re talking about is one of the techniques for using eon under \'body enhancement\'. And an effective one nonetheless."

Kael paused at what he heard.

"Are there other methods?"

"Of course there are. Remember what I told you, eon has no singular use for anything. It is diverse, more diverse than you can imagine. And each technique has its own advantages, disadvantages, strengths and weaknesses."

Hakon was about to continue when he saw Kael\'s thoughtful expression and paused.

"So... can the method I learned to use on my own also be used as a \'fine\' technique? If it could be developed and found out how to use it more effectively, for example..."

Maybe he was doing too much, yes... but Hakon couldn\'t help a smile returning to his face.

"Body enhancement techniques are many and varied. Also, each one takes a long time to master. That\'s why most bearers or followers learn only one, rarely two, or extremely rarely three different techniques in their lifetime. But you are not wrong. What you say is very doable."

And with those words, he watched Kael fall back into thought. He was fascinated again and again as he thought about what kind of ideas were running through his mind.

\'The general was right.\'

At the very beginning... he was not very enthusiastic about training Kael. He had only agreed because the general had asked him to, because he trusted him more than perhaps anything else in his life.

So what if he had potential and was a little smarter than normal people? He had seen hundreds of people much smarter than him, and even if he was smart, it wasn\'t mind-bogglingly so. He was just a little above average, that\'s all.

And his potential? There was no way they could be sure of that.

General Loukan had quite literally gambled by taking this boy named Kael under his wing.

But after a short time, Hakon understood that he was wrong. Really wrong.

\'Kael is not just a bright boy with potential.\'

He was so much more. He was perhaps the most talented kid he had ever seen. The way he was like a genius with a dagger, the techniques he used to train every day to improve his body, the speed with which he learned new things and practiced them correctly... and so much more.

Kael didn\'t realize it because he didn\'t know much about other people... He probably thought everyone was like him. He didn\'t think he was a genius, so he was striving too hard.

But he wasn\'t just a genius.

No, he was more than that.

He was a monster, in every sense of the word.

\'We hit the jackpot.\'

This was what Hakon now thought about Kael. And he was sure that he would continue to surprise him, everyone.