He had stood on this ground before, not long ago, and what had unfolded there had upended his life in ways he hadn’t seen coming, all from one person’s hatred.

Now he stood here again. Different circumstances but the same ground. This time, he wasn’t the one being framed. He was the one holding the frame.

His target. Ekko.

Second-year cadet, dark hair, painfully average looks. He held his wooden sword with rage in his eyes, stance already assumed.

Challenging an upperclassman meant the duel was on Leomaris’s terms. He chose swords.

The eyes found him immediately, more of them than when he’d faced Emerald, which was surprising enough. Everyone here wanted him to win. That much was clear. The doubt, however, was equally clear.

That was exactly what Leomaris wanted.

Emerald’s claims had done their work. It had painted him as an unworthy fool, someone who threatened a poor girl rather than honour a duel.

Weak. Incompetent.

Now he had two things in mind, and both would clear the rumours in one stroke: perform the divine sword arts and defeat an upperclassman.

Ekko was an unknown quantity, and that made him uneasy. The novel had covered his story: targeted for serving the Lady of the Frozen Veil, hated until anger took over, and he was expelled.

His abilities had been detailed somewhere in those pages. What Leomaris had retained was a single fact. Ekko was a Summoner.

His chest tightened. Not from doubt, just the pressure of it, the tension sitting uncomfortably beneath everything.

The pretense was simple: Ekko had brutally injured his butler, and he wanted revenge. He needed to look angry. He adopted the expression precisely.

The officiator came from the sidelines with the air of someone who had drawn the short straw. Discouraged, unhurried, almost reluctant to arrive. After a few glances between Leomaris and Ekko, he produced his pocket watch... held it open, watching the seconds pass with studied patience.

His eyes never left the watch. Transfixed, perhaps, by the mechanical ticking, the buzzing clicks, the gentle beats. Or perhaps he was simply waiting on something. Or someone.

Five seconds. Then his head snapped toward the stands. Four instructors. Two faces he recognised. But his eyes found one before the others, drawn there by something that had nothing to do with familiarity. The malice was unmistakable. Instructor Abigail.

A smile found the officiator’s lips at last, and it had nothing to do with the duel. That much was plain.

Ekko had served a rival goddess and injured someone in plain sight, and still, these staff members wanted Leomaris to lose. The bias was institutional.

Honour didn’t factor into it. They wanted Leomaris to crumble. That was the satisfaction they were after.

Leomaris grimaced. The pieces were pointing in one direction: Emerald had an ally, someone capable of amplifying the hatred others felt toward him. That it worked on instructors too, which meant the person was powerful. Very powerful. Probably a Sorcerer.

The officiator looked to Leomaris, then to Ekko, a moment of confirmation passing between them.

He raised his voice. "Let the duel begin!"

The words had barely left the officiator before Ekko moved fast, impressively so. By the time he was within reach, the strike was already coming, and Leomaris, who hadn’t fully settled, struggled to block it.

He scraped by, barely. And Ekko gave him nothing after that.

One strike, then another, each one carrying the full weight of every anger Leomaris had carefully stoked in him until this moment.

Sweat broke across Leomaris’s brow. The intensity was pushing him back, step by step. He had the training. He had mastered Mercy of Death. What he hadn’t accounted for was executing it under pressure, with no room to breathe.

The thought of Sebastian came to him mid-strike, his mother’s butler, and their training sessions together.

"You may be skilled..." he had said. "But experience isn’t something I can teach you here. You will have to gain it yourself."

In either of his lives, this was his first real fight. The violence of it was straining his body in ways he hadn’t prepared for, but his mind held. He was going to win this.

He’d been driven close to the boundary. He’d blocked most of what came, but not all. The bruises across his shoulders said as much. Ekko’s anger hadn’t cooled; if anything, it had sharpened. And to the crowd, Leomaris was simply a joke.

Whoosh.

Then, a whooshing sound tore through the air. A second passed. Ekko’s sword, intact a moment ago, shattered.

The crowd fell silent. Leomaris stood exactly where he had been.

He hadn’t moved, as far as anyone could tell.

And yet the certainty that he’d attacked settled over everyone. Murmurs began. Ekko, meanwhile, was having the worst of it.

He backed away slowly. Not by choice, his body moved on its own. The anger was gone. Confusion and terror had taken their place, and the sinister aura radiating from Leomaris pressed down on top of all of it.

The attack was fast, that alone was enough. But layered beneath it was Leomaris’s innate ability, Conceal, which made the already difficult near impossible to comprehend for most who faced it.

Leomaris read the panic and pressed forward with a step, closing the distance, and his sword tore through the air again. Too fast for Ekko to track. Too fast to retaliate against.

"Arghhhhh!"

Ekko’s scream was the only proof... agonising, tearing from his throat as his hands found his chest, clutching the wound that had opened there without warning.

Leomaris had attacked. That was all anyone could conclude.

The stands erupted in exchanged glances and murmured accusations, most of them already certain Leomaris had used his ability during a sword duel. Then a renowned figure among them spoke, and the rumour died where it stood.

"Cut your bullshit. That’s the sacred sword art, Mercy of Death."

"Mercy of Death? Hasn’t that technique gone two centuries without anyone mastering it?"

"The Firstlight Goddess gave it to the Apostle of Death, correct?"

"Are you telling me this coward actually managed to learn that?"

The murmurs went on and only grew louder.

Leomaris kept his eyes on Ekko. Deep wound across the chest, clothes soaking through with crimson, hands clutching it in agony.

He didn’t linger on Ekko long. His eyes found the person who’d recognised the technique: dark hair, deep blue eyes, and a posture built entirely on confidence. A proud grin and hands in his pockets, as though the arena had been arranged for his entertainment.

The strongest swordsman in the entire academy. Someone even Raine, the heroine herself, would struggle to surpass with a blade. Cloud Marques.

Leomaris celebrated in silence. His heart was racing.

Inflicting a wound that deep on someone was its own kind of weight, but the satisfaction held regardless. There would be more of these. He knew that much.

’I expected many things... but not this. Cloud? I didn’t expect to see you here.’

He had to hold the angry demeanor. That left him devoid of expression entirely. Celebration would have to wait.

"What are you waiting for, officiator?" Cloud’s voice carried easily from the stands.

"He won. End the duel, and get the other guy to the infirmary before he bleeds to death."

He was already descending the stairs as he said it, making his way toward Leomaris on the field.

The officiator hesitated.

He looked to the stands and found them empty of instructors. Every one of them was gone. With a heavy heart, he declared Leomaris the winner and asked some cadets to help Ekko to the infirmary. Both things clearly cost him something.

Cloud stood before him. A few inches taller, enough that his gaze came down at an angle that carried something unspoken and faintly terrifying in it.

"You’re Rosay’s little brother, aren’t you?" He didn’t wait for an answer. He laughed instead.

"I thought having her as a master was more than enough. And yet here’s her younger brother... a once-in-a-billion prodigy."

The laughter died, and he offered his hand. "Call me Cloud." Leomaris took it, reluctantly.

"Leomaris, yes? Can I call you Apostle of Death?"

Leomaris looked confused, his brow rather deeply furrowed.

"You just used a technique that hadn’t been used for two hundred years. Something that even experts and sword masters couldn’t learn. The only logical conclusion is that you are the reincarnation of the Apostle of Death himself."

The furrowed brow eased. A soft smile found his lips. "Is that so?"

Cloud grinned. "This will bring you a great deal of attention. I hope you’re ready for it."

He didn’t wait for a response and was already heading out of the arena. "Good luck, Apostle of Death."

Eyes sweeping the area, Leomaris took in the dumbfounded cadets around him. That was exactly what he’d wanted. He’d accounted for the attention this would draw and was ready for every bit of it.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

He smiled to himself. ’Another thing that had shifted from the story. Cloud was a Calamity in the novel. He was never under Rosay.’

He massaged his temples and let his sword fall to the floor. Then, with the most graceful and prideful walk he could muster, he made his way out of the arena.

He’d done what he could. The rumour just needed to spread wide enough to bury the bad ones and build him a strong enough reputation before his father’s visit the following day.