Nayra's breath fogged in the cold night air as he stood alone in the ruins of an old training ground. The stones beneath his feet were worn smooth by time, cracked in places where others had tried—and failed—to leave their mark.
This was not martial arts.
Martial arts demanded discipline, precision, the honing of one's body through years of repetition. It was about control, about channeling strength through form.
This was not chakra-based cultivation, either.
Cultivators sought harmony with the world, drawing energy from the earth, the sky, the unseen currents of the universe. They wielded power like a borrowed blade, elegant and refined.
This… was something else entirely.
Demonic Art.
It did not ask for weapons. It did not need tools. It required only flesh, bone, and will.
Nayra bent his knees slightly, rolling his shoulders. His body ached—not from exhaustion, but from the unnatural shifts happening beneath his skin. He clenched his fists, feeling the tendons tighten like coiled wire.
Then—
Crack.
His bones slid out of place, just for an instant, before snapping back with a wet, grinding sound.
Most would scream. Most would collapse.
Nayra barely flinched.
Pain was an old companion. He had long since learned to embrace it.
"This is nothing," he muttered, flexing his fingers.
His muscles twisted, hardening, reshaping—not like flesh, but like forged steel. He could feel the power humming beneath his skin, raw and unrestrained.
With a single, fluid motion, he drove his fist into the stone beneath him.
BOOM.
The ground shattered. Not just cracked—shattered, as if struck by a falling meteor. Dust and debris erupted around him, the shockwave rippling outward in jagged lines.
A martial artist would have broken their hand. A cultivator would have needed to gather energy, to focus their chakra.
But Demonic Arts did not care for such limitations.
This was power in its purest, most brutal form.
Nayra exhaled slowly, straightening. His bones settled back into place with quiet, unsettling pops. He flexed his hand—no blood, no fractures. Just the lingering heat of destruction.
His gaze lifted toward the sky, where the moon hung like a pale, watchful eye.
"This world… it was never meant to be fair" Six lands, each a battlefield in its own right.
But one loomed larger than the rest.
The Northern Continent.
A place where the wind carried the scent of iron and rot. Where survival was not a given, but a privilege earned through blood. Where Demonic Arts had been born—not as a discipline, but as a necessity.
Monsters walked there. Not beasts, not spirits—*men*. Men who had twisted their bodies into weapons beyond nature's laws.
Nayra's fingers twitched.
"If I ever want to master this… I'll have to go there."
Not today. Not while he still had weaknesses to purge.
But one day—
"I will step into that hell… and I will return as something even they fear."
The ghost of a smirk touched his lips.
Then, without another word, he clenched his fist again— and after some time he returned to his house.
Dawn painted the academy grounds in pale gold as Nayra walked through the gates, the morning dew dampening his sandals. The air smelled of freshly cut grass and the lingering smoke from the kitchen fires—ordinary, familiar scents that should have meant nothing.
Yet the moment he stepped onto the training field, the world shifted.
Whispers slithered through the crowd like snakes.
"That's him."
"The one who got the Bone-Tempering Weed."
"No way he earned it."
Eyes burned into his back—some envious, some hateful, most simply waiting for him to stumble.
Nayra kept his expression blank, his steps measured. He had expected this.
But expectation didn't make the weight of their stares any lighter.
Liam Torvin stood at the center of the courtyard, surrounded by his usual entourage. The Red Hawk Faction's golden boy, broad-shouldered and smug, his arms crossed as he watched Nayra approach. The morning light caught on the silver embroidery of his academy robes—a privilege, not an achievement.
Liam's lips curled.
"Well, well. If it isn't the lucky one."
Nayra slowed but didn't stop. "Lucky?"
Liam barked a laugh. "Come on. You expect us to believe you actually *earned* that weed? A runt like you?"
The crowd tittered.
Zefora, ever sharp-eyed, studied Nayra with narrowed emerald eyes. "Even an injured boar wouldn't just keel over. Your story doesn't add up."
Sistie Clausia of the Golden Snake Faction twirled a lock of hair around her finger, smirking. "Honestly? I don't care if he cheated. But if he's going to strut around like he's better than us now..." She let the implication hang, sweet as poison.
Liam cracked his knuckles. "Time to remind you where you belong, weakling."
The first punch came without warning.
Nayra let it land.
Not fully, of course—his body shifted almost imperceptibly, dispersing the force, turning what should have been a gut-wrenching blow into little more than a shove. But he still stumbled back, gasping, clutching his stomach.
A performance.
And they bought it.
Liam grinned. "That's more like it."
Another strike. A kick this time.
Nayra twisted just enough—letting the heel glance off his ribs instead of cracking into them. He hissed through his teeth, staggering.
The crowd roared with laughter.
"Look at him!"
"Pathetic!"
"And he thinks he's strong?"
Zefora frowned. "Why isn't he fighting back?"
Sistie snorted. "Because he can't."
Fools.
Every blow they landed only fed their arrogance. Every stumble, every pained gasp, every moment Nayra let them think they'd won—
It was another stitch in the noose around their necks.
Liam grabbed him by the collar, yanking him close. His breath reeked of mint and arrogance. "Use that fancy herb strength of yours. Or are you too scared?"
Nayra met his eyes—just for a second—and let his own flicker with just the right amount of fear.
Liam's grin widened.
He didn't see the calculation beneath.
Didn't see the way Nayra's fingers twitched, itching to break his wrist right then and there.
But no.
Not yet.
When they finally tired of their game, they shoved him into the dirt and walked away, laughing.
Nayra lay there for a moment, listening to their fading footsteps.
Then he sat up, brushing the dust from his clothes.
His ribs didn't ache.
His stomach wasn't bruised.
But the academy's eyes were still on him—watching, judging.
So he let his hands shake as he stood.
Let his breath hitch.
Let them think they'd won.
For now.
Because when the time came—
When they least expected it—
He would ruin them.
And they would never see it coming.
The murmur of students filled the classroom like the hum of cicadas on a summer night—loud, incessant, meaningless. Nayra stepped through the doorway, his shadow stretching long across the wooden floorboards as morning light streamed through the windows.
He moved with deliberate slowness, his posture relaxed but precise, the way a hunter might approach a clearing where prey gathered. Unthreatening. Unnoticed.
The whispers followed him anyway.
"That's the guy who got the Bone-Tempering Weed."
"No way he actually earned it."
"Probably cheated."
Nayra let the words wash over him, his face a mask of indifference. He had learned long ago that silence was its own kind of armor—one that fools mistook for weakness.
His seat near the back of the room waited for him like an old accomplice. He slid into it, his fingers brushing the worn grooves in the desk where generations of restless students had carved their frustrations.
Then his gaze drifted, almost lazily, to the front of the class.
To Liam Torvin.
Liam lounged in his seat like a prince holding court, surrounded by his usual entourage of Red Hawk sycophants. His laughter was loud, his grin effortless, his confidence radiating like heat from a forge.
The academy's golden boy.
The Red Hawk Faction's pride.
A prodigy.
Or so they all believed.
Nayra watched him with detached amusement.
Then—
A flicker.
A memory, sharp as a blade sliding between ribs.
Blood.
So much blood.
Liam, older now, his face gaunt with exhaustion, his once-bright eyes dulled by years of war. His fingers trembled around the hilt of a broken sword. His armor—emblazoned with the Red Hawk sigil—was cracked and stained.
"I never wanted this…" Liam's voice was raw, stripped of arrogance for the first time in his life. "I just wanted to live a normal life."
A confession.
A truth he had buried so deep even he had almost forgotten it.
Nayra had heard it only once.
In the final moments before he drove a dagger through Liam's heart.
The memory faded.
Nayra blinked, the classroom snapping back into focus around him.
Liam was still laughing, still basking in the adoration of his peers, still completely unaware.
Unaware that Nayra knew the truth.
Unaware that his father, the ruthless head of the Red Hawk Faction, had broken him long before Nayra ever would.
Unaware that his arrogance was just armor—poorly fitted, cracking at the seams.
A slow, almost imperceptible smile tugged at the corner of Nayra's mouth.
Not yet.
For now, he would let Liam play the prodigy.
Let him strut and preen and believe himself untouchable.
Because when the time came—
When Nayra finally peeled back that armor, piece by piece—
He wouldn't just break Liam.
He would take everything.
His pride.
His faction.
His legacy.
And when Liam lay broken at his feet, gasping out his final breaths, Nayra would lean down and whisper the same words Liam had once sobbed to him in another life:
"You never wanted this, did you?"
But that was for later.
For now, he simply rested his chin on his hand and watched, silent as a shadow, as the classroom buzzed around him.
Patient.
Waiting.
Hungry.