EPISODE 5: A Burning Resolve

Several days after the bloody incident with the Iron Fang, the atmosphere at Kaigan Village's Guild training ground had shifted dramatically. Word of Zenoda dismantling five veteran adventurers in a matter of seconds had made passing outsiders far more careful about how they carried themselves. But for the four young people who had witnessed it firsthand, what had begun as fear had transformed into blazing admiration and an unshakeable resolve.

Zenoda kept his word. He began training Ziryal, Karham, Linaya, and Annesia in earnest.

To the eyes of the former Cosmic God, humans were fragile creatures — yet they possessed something no eternal entity ever could: the potential to evolve under pressure. During the first several days of basic training, Zenoda did nothing but observe — studying the breathing patterns, muscle structures, and mana circulation of the four young people before him. Drawing on knowledge and memories that spanned millions of civilizations, he swiftly mapped out each of their maximum potential.

That night, by the dim light of an oil lamp, Zenoda committed the blueprint of his students' futures to parchment:

1. Karham

2. Ziryal

3. Linaya

4. Annesia

With combat roles assigned to match each of their personalities and gifts, Zenoda divided their training accordingly. Karham and Ziryal were drilled directly by Zenoda in physical combat and lethal tactics. For Linaya and Annesia, however, he arranged special assistance. Not wanting to expose too much of his own understanding of this world's pure magic, Zenoda and Garrick arranged for the two girls to receive dedicated training sessions with Sister Niyana at the church — a place where they could safely refine their holy magic and elemental mana manipulation under proper guidance.

Several nights later, after the day's training was complete, Zenoda made his way along the quiet village path toward a stone building that always radiated waves of heat — the Kaigan Village blacksmith's forge.

The ring of a hammer broke through the stillness of the night. The blacksmith was a middle-aged man built like a bear, and an old comrade of Garrick's. When Zenoda stepped inside, he found Garrick already there, sitting comfortably and drinking barley ale from a wooden cup while keeping the smith company as he worked.

"Ah, our Young Instructor has arrived," Garrick teased with a low, rumbling laugh. "What brings you out at this hour, Zeno? Looking for a new wooden sword after you broke the last one?"

Zenoda smiled faintly and settled down near the furnace. The three of them talked easily, exchanging stories about the progress of the young students. Then the blacksmith set down his hammer, wiped the sweat from his bald forehead, and looked at Zenoda directly.

"So then, young Zeno," the smith began, his voice roughened by years of forge smoke. "Garrick tells me you've been planning something for your students. Any particular weapons in mind?"

Zenoda nodded. He reached into the pocket of his cloak and drew out several sheets of thick parchment. He spread them across the charcoal-stained wooden table. There were four weapon blueprints drawn with extraordinary precision — complete with weight balance calculations, blade curvature specifications, and the placement of mana conductor channels. These were designs drawn from Ursilium's memories of elite Cosmic Knight armaments, adapted and modified to be forged from materials available on Earth.

The blacksmith and Garrick leaned in. Their eyes went wide.

"By the gods..." the smith murmured, his roughened fingers tracing the outline of Karham's shield and Annesia's Phoenix staff. "These... these are no ordinary weapons. The complexity... the aerodynamic balance on these daggers... I have never seen designs this precise in my entire life."

"Can you make them, Uncle?" Zenoda asked calmly.

The smith fell quiet for a long stretch, running through materials and time in his head. "I can... but the precision of the mana conductor engravings on this staff alone will demand absolute focus from start to finish. It will take a very long time, Zeno. Possibly... a full year to complete all four of these legendary pieces to a proper standard."

"A year," Zenoda nodded slowly. "That's no problem. I'll need exactly a year myself to build their bodies and minds into something worthy of wielding them."

As the conversation turned to materials, Zenoda quietly pressed a hand to the coin pouch beneath his shirt. As a village youth, his savings were modest. He was honestly somewhat at a loss as to how he would cover the forging cost for four weapons of that caliber.

"Uncle... about the cost..." Zenoda started, hesitating. "How much do I need to put together? I could hunt a few Class A monsters in the Wrathwood to—"

The blacksmith laughed loudly, cutting him off. "Put your coins away, son. Don't give the cost of these weapons a moment's thought."

Zenoda frowned, genuinely confused. "What do you mean? Your materials and your time are worth a great deal."

The smith set his hammer down and looked at Zenoda with an expression of deep, quiet warmth. "Zeno... since you were small, you've helped the people of this village without ever asking for a single thing in return. You plowed fields when the farmers fell ill, you pumped water into the well during the dry season, you saved the guards' lives from monster attacks, and you took on the backbreaking jobs that left people like us struggling. You've watched over this village as though it were your own home."

Garrick clapped a hand on Zenoda's shoulder with a proud smile. "He's right. Did you think we were blind? We know you hide the full scale of your strength so as not to frighten us. Every person in this village owes you their safety and their comfort. Consider these weapons our way of paying that debt — on behalf of all of us."

Hearing those honest, unhurried words, something warm spread through Zenoda's chest. The human emotion called being moved crept quietly up his throat. In his previous life, trillions of golden offerings and entire planets had been laid before him — all of it out of fear. But here, he was being given something infinitely more precious, out of nothing but genuine affection.

"Thank you, Uncle Garrick. Thank you, Uncle Smith," Zenoda said softly, and smiled — a real one. He said his goodnights and left with a resolve that felt, if anything, more solid than it had an hour ago.

Time is the finest sculptor of all.

Over the span of three hundred and sixty-five days, the sea winds of Kaigan and the relentless demands of training had forged the four young people into diamonds ready to cut through the world. Karham, whose frame now filled a doorway and whose muscles had set like stone. Ziryal, whose gaze was as sharp as a hawk's and whose movements were as soundless as the night wind. Linaya, whose holy aura had grown strong enough to calm wild animals in their tracks. And Annesia, who could shape and direct flame without singeing a single strand of her own hair.

They had become strong. Remarkably strong, by any measure of a beginner adventurer.

Watching their rapid growth, Zenoda decided the time had come for a final examination.

That afternoon, on a wind-swept grassy bluff overlooking the sea cliffs, Zenoda challenged all four of them to fight him simultaneously. He equipped them with specially reinforced training weapons — wooden blades imbued with impact-dampening magic.

Annesia was immediately and vocally opposed. "Zeno! Are you out of your mind?! Even as strong as you are, the four of us have been training day and night for a full year! If we come at you all at once, you could actually get seriously hurt!"

But Zenoda's expression was flat and cold, leaving no room for negotiation. "If you can wound me, you pass. If you hesitate, you'll die out there."

Seeing that their teacher — and in Annesia's case, childhood friend — was absolutely serious, the mood shifted into something taut and focused. Karham, whose spirit of leadership had hardened into something steely, recognized the gravity of the moment immediately. He took command without hesitation.

"Everyone — formation!" Karham bellowed, drawing his wooden sword and raising his wooden shield high.

At the command, they moved as one by reflex. Karham anchored the front line as a living fortress. Ziryal crouched in the middle, hiding the presence of his intent in the shadow cast by Karham's broad back. In the rear, Annesia and Linaya raised their staves and began chanting in deadly harmony.

"Advance!" Karham roared.

The massive young man charged forward like a battering ram, the earth shuddering faintly beneath his feet. He directed his shield straight ahead, driving a collision technique designed to demolish Zenoda's footing entirely.

BAM.

Wind surged as Karham's wooden shield slammed into Zenoda's left palm. The black-haired young man didn't yield so much as an inch. He absorbed the full force of the charge with a single hand, as casually as a man stopping a toddler from falling over.

But that was only ever meant to be a distraction.

From inside the blind spot created by Karham's shield, Ziryal moved like a fired bullet. With a speed that was nearly impossible to follow with the naked eye, the young assassin flickered around toward Zenoda's back, driving the tip of his training dagger directly at the nape of the instructor's neck.

Zenoda very nearly let his guard slip — Ziryal's speed had developed far beyond what he had anticipated. Caught between front and back, Zenoda channeled mana into his legs and launched himself straight upward, letting Ziryal's strike slice through nothing but empty air below him.

"In the air, I'm outside their pincer," Zenoda thought for a single moment.

Then he was surprised.

At the very instant he reached ten meters above the ground, Ziryal appeared directly before him — in midair.

Ziryal's entire body was wreathed in a golden glow. Below them, Linaya had her staff leveled and pointed upward, channeling Holy Magic: Leap of Faith — making Ziryal's body light as a feather and granting him a jump that matched Zenoda's altitude exactly. In the air, Ziryal spun his body and drove his twin training daggers toward Zenoda's throat.

In a flash, Zenoda drew the training dagger from his back and crossed it to block. CLANG. Imaginary sparks flew between their blades high above the ground. Buffed by Linaya's holy enhancement, Ziryal's strength had surged dramatically beyond its normal ceiling.

In the precise second Zenoda was occupied holding Ziryal at bay in the sky, a new threat arrived from below.

"Now, Anne!" Linaya called.

Annesia, her incantation complete, swept her wooden staff through the arc of a full swing. "Take this, Zeno! Meteor Shower!"

Dozens of fire spheres the size of human heads screamed upward from below, aimed precisely at Zenoda, who had no footing and nowhere to go. But there was a fatal complication: Ziryal was floating directly in the same line of fire.

Zenoda's brow furrowed. His immediate instinct was to reposition and kick Ziryal clear of the incoming flames before they hit.

What happened instead stopped him cold.

A miracle of team coordination.

On the ground, Karham's eyes ignited with a vivid blue glow. He activated a newly awakened innate ability. "COVER!"

In what looked indistinguishable from short-range teleportation, Karham's enormous frame vanished from the earth and reappeared in an instant directly in front of the airborne Ziryal. He drove his shield — now plated with dense concentrated mana — forward, interposing himself between Ziryal and Annesia's barrage. The volley of fire spheres crashed into the back of his shield in rapid-fire succession, each detonating in a chain of concussive blasts.

Watching that sacrifice and the brilliant tactics behind it, Zenoda had to immediately reckon with his own defense. He snapped his fingers, released a surge of water magic, and constructed a layered shell barrier around himself.

But their assault was not finished.

The barrage of fire spheres had been nothing more than a diversion — designed to lock Zenoda into a fixed defensive position. Below, the tip of Annesia's staff now blazed as bright as a small sun. The girl was visibly sweating, pouring every last reserve of her mana into the most powerful spell she had learned from the church's ancient texts.

"Break through it — FLAME PHOENIX!" Annesia screamed.

A massive bird of fire, formed from pure plasma, tore through the air. The heat radiating from it incinerated the oxygen in its immediate path. The phoenix slammed directly into Zenoda's water barrier.

CRAAASH.

The collision of extreme water and extreme fire triggered an explosion of superheated steam of staggering scale. Zenoda's water barrier cracked — then shattered completely. The fire bird struck him full in the chest, and the impact was unavoidable.

Zenoda was blasted backward, plummeting from the sky like a meteor that had burned out its fuel, and he hit the grassy earth hard enough to carve out a small crater a meter deep. Dust and hot vapor billowed up, swallowing him entirely from view.

Meanwhile, Karham and Ziryal, having lost the momentum of the Leap of Faith, began to fall. With perfect composure, Linaya turned her staff downward beneath their feet.

"Holy Platform," Linaya whispered.

An invisible platform of radiant light energy materialized directly beneath Karham and Ziryal, easing them gently back to the ground as though they were stepping down a flight of stairs.

Their formation held. All four of them stood catching their breath, staring at the smoking crater where Zenoda had fallen.

"Did we... did we actually do it?!" Ziryal panted, his eyes shining.

"We got him! We actually knocked him down!" Karham whooped, lowering his shield. Annesia and Linaya grabbed each other in a fierce hug. Drunk on the feeling of victory, the four of them let their combat stances dissolve. Adrenaline ebbed. Their guard came down completely.

That was a fatal mistake.

SWOOOSH.

An entirely unnatural gust of wind swept the smoke clean out of the crater. Zenoda was not there.

Before Karham even turned his head, a black shadow flickered through the space between all four of them at once — a speed that the human eye could not track. Even Ziryal, the assassin, caught nothing but a smeared blur.

CRACK. CRACK. CLANG. CLANG.

The sound of wood splitting rang out four times in near-perfect unison.

When the four of them registered what had happened, they found their hands empty. Karham's sword and shield, Ziryal's daggers, Linaya's staff, and Annesia's staff had all been severed cleanly in two.

Zenoda stood five paces behind them, his training dagger resting casually at his side. His linen clothing was slightly singed from the Phoenix strike — but he was completely unharmed.

"While it might seem a little unfair that I used a fraction of my real speed," Zenoda said flatly, "I have to acknowledge — your teamwork has become genuinely formidable. A flawless formation."

All four of them swallowed hard, only now fully absorbing the terrifying gap that still existed between them and the young man standing before them. If this had been a real fight, their necks would have been severed a full second ago.

Zenoda looked at each of them in turn, quiet thoughts of assessment moving through his mind.

Ziryal... extraordinary speed and agility — his killer's instinct conceals his intent so completely it's almost invisible. Karham... he actually awakened two gifts: the Iron Body technique for reinforcing both his body and his weapon against magical force, and the Cover technique that allows him to flash-step in front of a target to shield them. Annesia... her command of the fire element is genuinely excellent. She sustained a major spell without rupturing a single mana circuit.

Then, a ring of sacred green light bloomed outward across the grassy bluff. Every trace of fatigue, every bruise, every minor burn mark across all of them was healed in an instant. Even Zenoda's singed clothing gradually returned to its unmarked state.

Zenoda turned toward Linaya, who still had her eyes closed in quiet prayer, and gave a small, respectful nod, his thoughts murmuring to himself: Linaya... this girl is frightening. Her support magic and wide-area healing have developed with extraordinary speed — almost on par with Sister Niyana herself.

Zenoda re-sheathed his training dagger, then clapped his hands once, cutting through the tension cleanly.

"You have all grown tremendously. I'm proud of every one of you," he said, and his smile this time was genuinely warm. "But remember the final lesson of today: never lower your guard. Don't become careless simply because you believe the enemy is finished. A fight is not over until you are truly, completely safe."

"Yes, Instructor!" the four of them answered in unison, snapping into a bow.

"Training is finished for today. And as your graduation gift..." Zenoda pointed toward the center of the village. "Go to the blacksmith's forge tonight. Your real weapons have been waiting for you there."

All four pairs of eyes lit up at once before they scattered, sprinting toward the village in a gleeful stampede, leaving Zenoda standing there with a quietly amused smile on his face.

That evening, the sky over Kaigan Village was painted in breathtaking shades of deep orange and red. Zenoda sat alone atop a large sea rock at the water's edge. The rhythmic sound of waves washing over sand was the only melody accompanying his quiet contemplation.

He was deep in thought. The one year he had set for himself was complete. His work here in the village felt, at last, truly finished. He needed to move forward — to venture out, push through the boundaries of this continent, and make his way to the Academy in the city of Koreson.

In the middle of his thoughts, the sound of approaching footsteps drifted across the sand.

His father, Brunt. His mother, Mirida. And Uncle Garrick, walking toward him together. They settled down on the rocks beside him, joining the young man in his gaze out over the open sea.

A quiet moment passed before Zenoda finally found the courage to speak — to say aloud the things he had been holding inside for so long.

"Father... Mother... Uncle Garrick," his voice was soft, but steady. "I think... it's time for me to go. I want to study, and I want to enroll in the Academy in Koreson. I want to see what lies beyond this place."

Mirida lowered her head, hiding the tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. As a mother — one who knew exactly what kind of power her child carried — releasing him into the harsh world outside was a terrifying thing. Brunt drew his arm around his wife's shoulders, then looked at Zenoda with the proud, aching smile of a father who has already made his peace.

"We had a feeling this was coming, Zeno," Brunt said, his voice carrying the faintest tremor. "An eagle isn't born to die inside a cage. Though it tears at our hearts to say it, your mother and I give you our blessing. Go, son. Leave your mark on this continent."

Zenoda went still. He had half-expected his father to forbid it outright.

"As something to take with you," Brunt said, and reached behind his back for something he had kept hidden. It was a long object wrapped in black silk. He placed it across Zenoda's lap. "Open it."

Carefully, Zenoda untied the silk bindings. His eyes widened slightly.

Inside the wrapping lay a sword sheathed in deep ebony wood. When he drew the handle, a gently curved steel blade caught the light of the evening sun — sharp beyond ordinary measure. It was a curved blade of eastern design, a katana, but one forged using an ancient mana technique that gave it an aura of cold, deadly stillness.

"This sword..." Zenoda murmured in quiet wonder. The balance was perfect — designed precisely to accommodate both his blinding speed and his transcendent physical strength.

"I commissioned it a year ago, at the same time you were placing your order for your students' weapons," Brunt laughed softly at the stunned expression on his son's face. "The blacksmith and Garrick kept it a secret from you. And more than that — Sister Niyana personally gave it a high-level blessing. The blade will never dull, and it is able to channel and withstand the flow of your elemental magic."