Rhea's training camp was affectionately—no, bitterly—dubbed "The Ninth Hell" by Kai and Lysander. Every dawn began with bone-snapping stretches, followed by hours of physical combat, Aether manipulation, meditation under waterfalls of crushing force, and tasks that made death seem like a vacation.
"You call this breakfast?!" Kai groaned as he stared down a bubbling pot of wild root stew and dried sea-bug jerky. The pot steamed beside a makeshift firepit in the wild woods surrounding Solstice Citadel, miles from civilization.
Lysander, wiping sweat off his brow from the pre-dawn sparring match, replied dryly, "Better than what the Twilight Order gave me. They served trauma with a side of cult worship."
Kai chuckled, holding his bruised ribs. "Fair enough."
They had been in Rhea's "Extreme Conditioning and Evolution" program for nearly three months. Despite every protest, injury, and breakdown, both of them had grown immensely—physically and spiritually.
Rhea, true to her reputation, was relentless.
"You're still relying too much on your brute strength, Kai!" she shouted during one particularly brutal session. "Raw Aether is untamed! You can't just swing and hope it works. Let it speak to you!"
"And you," she turned to Lysander, who was kneeling, panting. "Your technique is elegant, but you hesitate. That hesitation is the only reason you're not dead."
Lysander spat blood onto the dirt, muttering, "You're very motivational."
But despite the suffering, a bond had formed. Kai and Lysander, different as night and day, grew closer through shared scars and pain.
Kai was the storm—impulsive, emotional, unfiltered. Lysander was the blade—precise, measured, but deeply wounded. They balanced each other.
One night, as they lay under the stars recovering from a session that ended with both nearly drowning in a whirlpool Rhea summoned, they spoke freely.
"You really think we stand a chance against the World 5?" Kai asked, staring up at the broken moon, the largest fragment of the Sacred Eclipse hanging in the sky like a wounded god.
Lysander was silent for a moment. Then, "No."
Kai turned to him, surprised.
"Not yet," Lysander continued. "But maybe someday. If we keep growing. If we keep pushing past what we think is our limit."
Kai grinned. "That's the spirit. You almost sounded hopeful."
Lysander smirked faintly. "Don't get used to it."
---
As the weeks passed, their Aether control grew sharper.
Kai learned how to partially suppress and shape his Raw Aether, no longer letting it lash out in every direction. He trained to focus it into his sword, coat his body in it like armor, and even fire short, precise blasts that didn't level half the forest.
Lysander refined his control of Pure Aether to an artistic degree—creating illusions of himself in battle, shaping his blade with invisible force, and even imbuing his strikes with silence itself, making them impossible to hear or predict.
Rhea watched with pride, though she would never admit it aloud.
One day, she called them to a special clearing at the peak of the nearby Solstice Ridge—a place laced with ancient runes and broken remnants of the old world. This was once a battlefield during the Fracture War.
"This is where your final test begins," she said, arms crossed, eyes hard. "You've both grown. But now you'll fight me."
Kai blinked. "Wait, what?"
"You'll both fight me. Together," she clarified. "No holding back. This is to see if you're ready to represent Solstice when the time comes."
Lysander drew his katana with a sigh. "I knew peace was temporary."
---
The battle began with shockwaves. Rhea moved like lightning, Pure Aether wings flaring behind her. She blitzed forward, her spear flashing in arcs of silver light.
Kai blocked her first strike but was launched into a tree, which cracked in half.
Lysander dashed in from the side, blade coated in white mist. He landed a clean strike—only to see Rhea's afterimage dissolve. She appeared behind him mid-spin and kicked him into a rock formation.
"Faster," she barked. "More instinct. Less thought!"
Kai roared and let his Raw Aether burst again, flaring red as he moved like a demon, clashing with Rhea midair. The ground quaked beneath them. Rhea parried him with fluid grace, then spun and met Lysander mid-strike as he returned.
The duel raged for nearly an hour—Pure versus Pure and Raw, mentor against students, experience clashing against raw potential.
In the final moments, Kai managed to trap Rhea with a vortex of Raw Aether, giving Lysander the opening to disarm her.
Breathing heavily, she held up her hand. "Enough."
The boys collapsed beside each other in the grass, soaked in sweat and blood, but grinning like fools.
Rhea stepped over them, spear resting on her shoulder. "You both passed. Barely."
Kai groaned. "Do we get a trophy?"
"No. But you get respect. And that's rarer."
She walked off, leaving the two to laugh, battered but victorious.
---
That night, they sat before a fire in silence. Kai held his father's blade in his hands.
"You really believe we can take down the World 5?" Lysander asked.
Kai looked at the red shimmer pulsing faintly in the blade. "Yeah. We have to. For my father. For the Solstice. For all the people the World 5 keeps under their boot."
Lysander nodded slowly.
"I'll follow you. To the end."
Kai smiled. "Glad to have you, partner."
Above them, the stars glimmered like the shards of the Sacred Eclipse. And somewhere far away, the World 5 stirred.