The fire crackled low around the Stone Hollow, casting long shadows across the ground.
Kahel stood inside the circle, the cloth band tied tight around his arm, the broken-blade symbol brushing against his skin.
Five figures circled him slowly.
None of them wore expressions of anger or mockery.They looked at him with the calm calculation of predators sizing up new blood.
At the edge of the ring, Varen leaned casually against a stone, arms folded.
The red-haired woman, the one in command, raised her hand.
"Begin."
The first move came without warning.
A boy darted forward, quick, low to the ground, aiming a sweeping kick at Kahel's legs.
Kahel sidestepped, pivoted, and lashed out with a short punch to the boy's ribs.
A solid hit.
But not enough.
The boy absorbed the blow, twisting midair and swinging his elbow down toward Kahel's shoulder.
Kahel ducked, barely.
At the same moment, a second opponent closed in from behind.
Kahel spun, catching a flash of steel, a short training dagger, slicing toward his side.
He moved instinctively, dropping into a roll, feeling the blade's edge pass inches from his ribs.
The moment he was on his feet again, a third figure attacked from above, a flying kick aimed straight at his chest.
Kahel met it head-on with a raised forearm, grunting as the impact rattled his bones, but holding firm.
The attacker recoiled, staggering back.
Kahel exhaled slowly.
They weren't testing his skill.
They were testing his survival.
Minutes passed like hours.
Sweat poured down Kahel's back.
His breathing grew heavier, but his movements remained sharp.
His training, the years of solitude, the countless hours striking wood, running under waterfalls, refining his qi without a master, all of it now burned through his muscles, guiding him.
He wasn't faster than them.
He wasn't stronger.
But he was calmer.
Every attack was answered with brutal, efficient movement. Every feint was met with unshakable focus.
One opponent faltered, misjudging a step.
Kahel seized the opening.
He slipped inside their guard and drove a palm strike into their sternum.
The boy dropped, gasping for air.
Four left.
"Good," Varen muttered under his breath. "Better than I thought."
The red-haired woman said nothing, her sharp gaze never leaving the circle.
She watched not Kahel's strength, but his intent.
His choices.
His reactions.
She saw no arrogance. No hesitation.
Only that cold, burning determination.
A trait the Association valued more than any flashy technique.
Inside the ring, Kahel's world narrowed.
There was no night sky.No forest.No firelight.
Only movement, breath, and survival.
Another attacker rushed, this one faster, sharper, striking with a short wooden staff aimed for Kahel's head.
Kahel shifted inside the blow, grabbed the staff mid-swing, and twisted violently.
The attacker lost grip.
Kahel reversed the staff in a blur and cracked it against the boy's shoulder.
Another down.
Three left.
The last three hesitated now.
They circled slower, exchanging glances.
Kahel's chest rose and fell with steady rhythm.
He said nothing.
There was no need.
His presence spoke for him.
I will not fall.
I will not yield.
The commander's hand lifted again.
"Enough."
The remaining fighters immediately dropped their stances and stepped back, breathing hard.
Kahel stood alone at the center, sweat-drenched, fists clenched, blood from a shallow cut dripping from his forearm.
But he stood.
Straight.
Unbowed.
The woman stepped into the ring, boots crunching against the dirt.
She stopped in front of him, looking him dead in the eye.
"You have no master," she said.
"No background. No techniques beyond what you carved into your own body. No resources."
Kahel said nothing.
"And yet you stand."
She pulled something from her coat, a thin, black token carved with the broken-blade symbol.
She offered it to him.
"Welcome to the Association, Kahel of Vouille."
Kahel reached out.
Took it.
The firelight caught the edge of the token as he closed his fingers around it.
A weight heavier than iron settled into his chest.
This was no longer training.
No longer preparation.
This was real.
And he had only just begun to climb.
Above, far beyond what any mortal eye could see, Jalior watched from the highest branch of a dead tree.
He nodded once.
A slow, solemn nod.
"The blood of the old still sings," he whispered to the night.
And somewhere, across distant stars and forgotten worlds, something stirred, a ripple at the edge of existence.
The path Kahel had chosen was no longer his alone.