Konrad spent a few days in Bright Castle, and for the first time since entering the Dream Realm, he felt safe. The stone walls were solid, the defenses strong, and the air thick with the presence of powerful Sleepers. There were still dangers beyond the walls—monsters lurking in the shadow-choked ruins of Dark City and the shifting chaos of the Forgotten Shore—but inside the castle, he could finally breathe.
For once, he didn't have to sleep with a blade in his embrace or flinch at every shadow.
He ate well, moved quietly through the castle halls, and listened. He listened to whispers, gossip, reports, anything he could piece together about the Bright Lords, the crumbling alliances, and the growing instability both outside and inside the castle gates. Who ruled, who conspired, who killed in the name of power. The bloody struggle for succession was in full swing. Bright Lords rose and fell. Sleepers died in alleys, courtyards, and corridors. The hierarchy was fractured. He watched, listened, and remembered names. But he didn't get involved—not yet.
But Konrad was never one to rest for long.
When he wasn't gathering information, he trained. Not just to stay sharp, but to evolve.
The battles in the caverns of the Underworld and the hostile expanse of the Forgotten Shore had changed him. The raw, survival-driven combat against monsters and unspeakable horrors had beaten his old style into something new. He had learned what worked and what didn't when the cost of a mistake was a torn throat or crushed spine. The battlefield was a brutal teacher, but the lessons hadn't taken root.
The battlefield had been his teacher, and the lessons were written in blood. Every creature he fought taught him something new. Some taught him to be faster. Others taught him to be still. A few taught him that sometimes, the only way to win was to run.
All of it—the victories, the failures, the narrow escapes—bled into his blade.
Now, behind the relative safety of Bright Castle's walls, he had the chance to reflect, dissect, and rebuild.
He trained. Each morning, long before the castle stirred, he made his way to the cold, open training yards. He moved through drills alone, silent and sharp. His twin swords moved with purpose, not flourish. There was no wasted energy, no unnecessary motion. His style had always been brutal—direct and unrelenting—but now, it had grown refined. Not cleaner. Deadlier.
He remembered Master Arthur's teachings.
Fundamentals.
Foresight.
Posture.
Control.
Distance.
But Konrad's style was not his master's. It was shaped by hunger, fear, and instinct. And now, in the quiet space of Bright Castle, he began to forge it into something that was wholly his own.
What he learned from Master Arthur still served as the foundation. Arthur had taught him discipline, economy of movement, the fundamentals of reading an opponent and how blend clairvoyance with his martial art.
But Konrad had outgrown pure technique. He was shaping something else now—something more instinctive, more lethal. His combat style had begun to evolve into a personal martial art, one built around a singular, unflinching truth:
The essence of combat is death.
Not art. Not glory. Not tradition. Only the quiet certainty that someone would die. And he will deliver it his enemy.
His martial art didn't have a name. So he named it Destined Death. It lived in the tight coils of his muscles, in the stillness before a strike, in the ice of his breath when a fight began. It was built around his greatest weapon:
[Clairvoyance]
Konrad could see a few seconds into the future. Not always clearly, not always with perfect detail, but enough to turn him into a nightmare on the battlefield.
He could see moments into the future. Just a sliver, just enough. Enough to know when a sword would swing. When a claw would rip through the air. When a spear would pierce his back. In battle, it was less a vision and more a feeling—a ghost of what would happen next. His body would react before his mind caught up. Reflexes guided by prophecy.
And so, he began to shape a martial art around that truth.
No wasted movement. No hesitation. If he saw a death, he made it real. If he saw an opening, he took it.
Everything else was stripped away. He didn't parry unless it was needed. He didn't block unless it bought him an opening. His essence in combat was not about struggle or endurance.
It was about ending the fight.
Swiftly. Brutally. With finality.
Death was the core. His strikes were not about dominance or flourish. They were promises. If his blade moved, someone would die. That was the point.
His enemies must die. Nothing more. Nothing less.
***
In the yard, Konrad drilled relentlessly. Movements began to stitch together into something smoother. He practiced reacting to false futures, setting traps based on what his clairvoyance showed him. Sometimes he would fake an opening—not because it would work now, but because he knew in a moment, his enemy would fall for it. He learned to delay a strike by half a heartbeat if it meant the killing blow would land clean.
His martial art was not elegant. It was not beautiful. It was efficient. It was terrifying.
He moved like a phantom, striking from angles that didn't exist, sidestepping into gaps between time and breath. He killed with intent, not aggression. There was no anger in him when he fought—only resolve.
His sparring sessions with the castle guards caused rumors. He was too fast, too precise. Even the veteran warriors struggled to keep up. The name Night Haunter was gaining some renown in the Bright Castle, not because of how he looked, but how he moved—like he was already there before you swung.
But Konrad wasn't satisfied. He knew that he was only at the beginning. He had forged a core, but the martial art he dreamed of was still unfinished.
---
At night, when the walls of Bright Castle were quiet and the others slept uneasily, Konrad turned inward.
He sat cross-legged on the cold stone floor of his chamber, eyes closed, hands resting lightly on his knees. No sword. No armor. Just breath, mind, and will. Here, in the silence, he hunted not monsters, but mastery.
Clairvoyance had always been his edge. A brief glimpse into the future. A flicker of what was about to happen. But now, Konrad wanted more than just flashes—he wanted control. Precision. Depth. He wasn't satisfied with reacting faster; he wanted to own the outcome before it arrived.
He pushed himself, harder every night. He forced his mind to dive deeper into the visions, demanding more data. He began tracking not just movement, but the subtle shift of weight in his opponents' feet, the tremor in their muscles before a swing, the give of stone under pressure, the rhythm of breath and fear. He strained his thoughts to register temperature changes, pressure, air flow—anything that could be translated into prediction.
Each vision became a web of details: motion, sensation, direction, distance and speed. A flood of raw input.
Then came the second part: compression. He trained his brain to calculate faster. To reduce the noise and lock on to what mattered. He built frameworks in his mind—algorithms of precision—shapes and sequences that turned foresight into decisive action.
He started building sequences based on predicted outcomes—attacks that would land not just because of speed or strength, but because they were mathematically inevitable. If his opponent shifted left, they would die. If they blocked, they would die. His style became a series of layered traps, each movement narrowing the enemy's options until the only path left was a blade through the throat.
And if the vision failed? If his foresight faltered or fed him false signals? Then instinct would carry the rest. Instinct sharpened by pain, failure, and countless near-deaths. Instinct that didn't flinch.
Sometimes the effort made his head throb. Blood would drip from his nose. But he didn't stop.
Konrad was not looking to glimpse the future anymore. He was trying to master it.
Because in his world, in the Dream Realm, hesitation was death. And death only destined to his enemies.
***
One night, he pushed too hard. His nose bled freely. His eyes stung. He felt like his brain was boiling in his skull. But just before he passed out, he saw it.
A imaginary fight.
His opponent moved.
Konrad moved before him.
Not reacting. Not predicting.
Commanding.
He had stepped not into the future, but *through it*.
He woke with a scream, but he was smiling.
From then on, his movements changed. Sharper. Quieter. More final. Each strike was an ending. He didn't waste energy. He didn't dance or play with his food. He entered combat like a blade sliding into a sheath: direct, inevitable, and absolute. His martial art is complete....f or now.
Every opponent would die. Must die. That was the center of his style. Not aggression. Not defense. Not survival. Just inevitability.
A storm doesn't negotiate. A guillotine doesn't hesitate. Konrad of Night had become both.
Bright Castle gave him time. That was all he needed.
Because the next time he stepped outside its walls, the Forgotten Shore would meet someone it had never seen before:
Not a survivor.
Not a wanderer.
But a reaper.
And Death walked a few steps ahead of him, showing him the way.