“The blade heals only when fed by its origin. Anatta must fall.” The words, scribed in faded ink, burned into Anatta’s mind. He had read them a hundred times, yet their meaning had only now coalesced, a bitter crystallisation in the quiet of the Vault of Whispers. His hand, Phaeron’s hand, unconsciously traced the sharp curve of the practice sword leaning against the plinth. The irony cut deep: he, Anatta, the Sword God, had been the origin of the Sundered Blade's fracture. His 'merciful' blow, meant to spare Phaeron a crushing defeat, had instead sealed his fate, and his own. A cold tremor, distinct from his own disquiet, ran through him. Phaeron’s lingering ghost stirred behind his ribs, provoked by the unearthed truth, lashing out with familiar venom. Anatta gripped the hilt tighter, bracing against the onslaught, but the anger was too raw, too potent. It wasn't just rage; it was despair, humiliation, a lifetime of unacknowledged pain. The Vault, with its spectral glow and ancient silence, began to twist. The air thickened, heavy with an unseen pressure, and the scent of ozone pricked his nose. The crystalline walls around him shimmered, then dissolved into a blinding white light. He gasped, a sound not his own, but a strangled, desperate inhalation. His vision sharpened, colours bleeding into vivid intensity. The familiar hum of the Obsidian Spire’s Aura-conduits vibrated through the stone beneath his feet, but this was not the quiet Vault. This was the Grand Arena, vast and hollow, its tiered seats already packed with silent, expectant faces. He was standing on the ceremonial duelling platform, the cold wind whipping at the ceremonial robes. Across from him, a figure stood, bathed in the fierce glare of the arena’s zenithal lights. It was him. It was Anatta. He was Phaeron. He felt Phaeron’s heart, a frantic drum against his ribs, not from fear of defeat, but from the precarious balancing act he was attempting. In his hand, the Sundered Blade thrummed, a living thing, its internal fracture a dark, pulsing line visible only to Phaeron’s trained sight. He had spent years, a fortune, a piece of his soul, trying to mend this rupture, to coax the essence of the blade back into coherence. The Sundering, his forbidden technique, pulsed in his veins, a volatile current that promised power, but demanded everything. He stood a breath away from completing the rite, a hair’s breadth from success. He just needed the duel’s energy, the raw clash of Aura, to provide the final impetus, to feed the broken core. Anatta, his past self, looked at him with an expression of serene pity. “Phaeron,” his voice, so calm, so infuriatingly composed, carried across the arena. “Yield. I have no wish to truly harm you.” Phaeron scoffed, a dry, rasping sound. *Mercy,* he thought, *always your mercy, Anatta. You think it makes you noble. It only makes you blind.* He didn't want mercy. He needed the clash, the resonance of soul against soul, to bind the broken core. He needed to push Anatta, to draw out his power, not to win, but to complete the mending. He would be victorious, not in glory, but in the quiet, desperate triumph of mending what had been broken. The metal pendant, cool against his sternum, pressed like a brand—a reminder of the vow sworn before his clan cast him out. Anatta moved first, a blur of motion, his blade a silver streak in the arena’s harsh light. Phaeron met the attack, not to parry or counter for victory, but to guide Anatta’s blows, channeling the impact to feed his working. He moved with a frantic precision, each block, each feint, a calculation to draw out Anatta’s pure, overwhelming Aura. The steel sang in his hand, a high, desperate note. The Sundering technique coiled through his meridians, tightened, ready to unleash its binding power. Anatta’s face, serene and unburdened, drew closer. “Enough,” his past self declared, his tone gentle, but firm. He lunged, a swift, impossibly precise strike aimed directly at Phaeron’s unprotected side. It was meant to be a non-lethal blow, a disabling strike to end the duel without further humiliation. A merciful act. But it wasn't. It was the final, devastating trigger. Anatta’s Aura slammed into Phaeron, overwhelming the unstable rite. The edge shrieked, a screech of agony and final ruin. The controlled energy of the Sundering technique detonated through Phaeron’s flesh in a catastrophic implosion. The arena exploded in a blinding flash of golden light, the ground beneath Phaeron's feet shattering, the air tearing itself apart. He felt his own essence ripping, his consciousness splintering into a thousand fragments, consumed by the very power he had sought to control. His last thought, a raw, burning ember of accusation, was of Anatta’s mercy, the ultimate cruelty, the very thing that had brought about his destruction. Anatta gasped, staggering back in the true Obsidian Spire’s Vault of Whispers, the illusory arena replaced by the familiar crystalline walls. He dropped to his knees, sweat slicking his ribs, breathing hard beneath the assault of borrowed terror. The vision, so vivid, so real, had laid bare a truth more horrifying than any he had imagined. He hadn’t been a benevolent victor; he had been a blind fool, a catalyst of destruction. Phaeron hadn’t been trying to humiliate him; he had been trying to fix *his* mistake, and Anatta’s ‘mercy’ had killed him for it. The goal was no longer merely to honor a rival, but to atone for a sin he hadn’t known he committed. The lingering phantom inside him, no longer merely raging, dissolved into desolate grief. Phaeron’s despair was his despair. The truth tasted like ash. “So, you have seen it.” The voice cut through the stillness of the chamber. Anatta’s head snapped up. Standing by the Vault’s entrance, a small, elegant figure observed him with an unnerving intensity. Phaeron's sister stood before him, her dark gaze fixed, her expression unreadable. In her hand, clutched tight, was the pendant taken from his quarters, enclosing the miniature portrait of Phaeron’s mother. She must have found it, come here. How long had she been watching him? “You are not my brother,” she said, her tone level and cold in the silence. Her gaze remained pinned on him. “Who are you?”

The First Victim