EPISODE 38: Zenoda's Resolve

Red blood dripped and soaked the sandy ground of the Kaigan Village training camp. The sea wind that usually blew with pleasant coolness had come to a complete stop, as though the world itself was holding its breath at the scene before it.

Mirida stood upright, both sheathed katanas at her hip. Her sharp eyes looked straight at her son's body, collapsed helplessly inside the shallow crater left by her Tenryū no Ken — the Celestial Dragon's Blade.

"So... you're ready to give up, Zenoda?" Mirida said, in a cold tone that cut like a blade against the heart.

At the field's edge, Elara, Valerius, Cedric, and Agru could only wring their own hands. Their faces were bloodless white. They desperately wanted their friend and instructor to get through this — but looking at the four crossing gashes, still wide open across Zenoda's chest, it seemed impossible for any ordinary human being to even maintain consciousness.

Zenoda was still lying on the grass and blood-soaked sand. His vision had blurred. But inside his head, his mother's threat about offering her own head to the capital resonated without stopping — burning through everything that remained of his clarity.

Slowly, Zenoda's fingers — which had been rigid — began to twitch.

With a suppressed groan, he forced the torn muscles of his abdomen and back to move. He shifted his body.

Watching her son begin to move despite those fatal wounds, Mirida was slightly taken aback. Her eyes widened by a fraction before she composed herself again.

(Impossible...) Mirida thought internally, her mother's heart pounding with an overwhelming surge of emotion. (Wounds like that should cause even veteran fighters to lose consciousness immediately. But... perhaps because he is my son, he has the resolve to push through this. Hmmm... I am so very proud of you, my child. But this test must continue to its end.)

In the center of the arena, Zenoda drove his ebony sword into the ground. He bit down so hard his teeth nearly drew blood, then used the embedded katana as a support to help himself upright. His leg muscles trembled violently as he forced himself against gravity.

Hah... hah... Zenoda's breathing was labored as he finally managed to stand, though one shoulder dipped slightly lower than the other.

Mirida narrowed her eyes. "Oh... you still look reasonably tough. But can that broken body of yours endure what comes next?"

Zenoda lowered his head for a moment. A thin smile — the smile of someone recognizing a beautiful irony — formed on his bloodied lips.

"I always used to wonder..." Zenoda said quietly, his voice hoarse but steady. "Why does this physical vessel adapt so naturally to the art of the sword, when I never formally studied it. Now... I think I'm beginning to understand where this talent comes from."

He met his mother's eyes directly. "It flows from your blood. And from everything you've given me, Mother."

With a movement considerably steadier than before, Zenoda slid his sword back into its sheath with a sharp click. He raised his left hand into the air.

"Summon. Grey Owl!"

A magic circle of light immediately detonated above Zenoda's shoulder. The three-toned Familiar owl emerged from the spirit realm. Without needing to be commanded, Mincilia in her owl disguise spread her crystal wings and began casting an emergency intermediate healing spell.

Golden-green light washed across Zenoda's body. The gashes across his chest slowly drew together and stopped bleeding. The fractured bone of his forearm was forced to knit itself back together. Although his condition was far from fully restored and a deep aching pain still stabbed through his bones, the healing was sufficient to let him stand and fight properly.

But the healing wasn't what made everyone watching hold their breath.

Because on top of this, Zenoda had now made a complete decision. He refused to remain a source of his mother's worry. He would prove he was ready to face the Southern Continent.

Zenoda stopped holding himself back entirely. The sealing key at the foundation of his soul was forced open.

WUUUNNNGG!

A sound of absolute, resonating energy hummed through the air. Zenoda channeled Ursilium's pure White Energy through every mana circuit in his body.

This time, he was going to be slightly serious. Within seconds, a magical illusion automatically manifested: the long white coat with its gold tribal markings reappeared, wrapping around his body. His deep black hair slowly transformed, shifting to a brilliant luminous white. And most terrifying of all — as Zenoda opened his eyelids, the black of his pupils had vanished, replaced by a brilliant white nearly indistinguishable from his sclera.

The gravitational pressure over the entire training ground became twice as heavy in an instant.

"I will not hold myself back anymore," Zenoda's voice now carried a resonance that sounded like two voices speaking simultaneously from different planes of existence. He looked at his mother with the eyes of a divine executioner. "If you are ready to die... then face me, MOTHEERRR!"

After that thundering declaration, the white energy enveloping Zenoda's body blazed considerably stronger. It burned the oxygen around him, creating a miniature hurricane centered on his body.

Mirida, standing more than ten meters away, felt an overwhelming pressure striking her chest. The hand gripping her sword handle began to tremble involuntarily.

(What is this?!) Mirida thought internally, her eyes going wide with alarm at her son's transformation. (The pressure is this intense — even gripping my sword with full conviction, my arm muscles are trembling on instinct! Is... is this sacred white aura what Zeno has been hiding all this time?!)

"Not going to advance?" Zenoda challenged, breaking through his mother's thoughts. He lowered his stance slightly. "Then I will."

BOOM!

The earth beneath Zenoda's feet detonated, blasting a crater half a meter deep.

Zenoda launched toward his mother at a speed twice what Mirida herself had moved at before. He shattered the sound barrier, leaving a white afterimage trailing behind him.

Mirida managed to react with widened eyes at the impossible speed — but the survival instincts of a Grandmaster Kenjutsu practitioner responded automatically.

Closing in on Mirida, Zenoda drew his katana with blinding speed and launched a horizontal slash aimed to bisect her at the waist.

CLAAANNNG!

Sparks exploded with brilliant intensity. Mirida managed to draw one of her swords in time and parried Zenoda's cut.

Although his blade was blocked, Zenoda didn't stop. Using his rotation's axis, he lifted his right leg and drove a lethal spinning roundhouse kick aimed at Mirida's head.

Feeling the killing wind from her son's leg, Mirida was forced to drop sharply, avoiding the kick by millimeters. Her tied-back hair was swept by the wind wake of Zenoda's foot.

Watching Mirida's upper body posture break from the forced duck, Zenoda sensed an opening and pressed immediately. He rotated his wrist and brought his sword straight down with full force.

CRASH!

Mirida crossed her sword upward to catch the vertical slash. Although she caught the blade, she couldn't absorb the physical pressure behind it. She was thrown backward by the sheer force of Zenoda's swing — tremendous in a completely different way from before. Her feet carved grooves through the sand as she skidded a considerable distance back.

After sliding roughly seven meters, Mirida spun her body and quickly resumed her upright stance. Her arm had gone somewhat numb.

Mirida looked at her son, now standing surrounded by blazing white aura. A fierce, proud smile formed on the mother's face.

"Hmm... I see," Mirida said, her voice now filled with the genuine enthusiasm of a warrior. "If you're going to play at this level... then I will be serious as well."

To the complete surprise of everyone watching, in the middle of this escalating battle — Mirida sheathed her swords. She then sat down cross-legged on the sand with complete calm, folded her hands in her lap, and slowly closed her eyes.

Watching that strange action, Zenoda furrowed his brow. He could have attacked at that very moment, but he chose to wait.

To Zenoda's divine-radiating eyes, he could clearly feel and see a distinctive aura — a dark-blue pressure, sharp as thousands of invisible razors — beginning to gather and coil around his mother's body. It was pure Kenki — Sword Aura — focused to an absolute level.

But Zenoda didn't charge. He kept his focus fixed on Mirida, allowing his mother to complete her preparation.

After a meditation that lasted only five seconds yet felt like eternity, Mirida opened her eyes and rose slowly.

"I apologize for making you wait, Zenoda," Mirida said, her voice still calm — but the pressure in the air around her had changed one hundred and eighty degrees.

"It's fine," Zenoda answered.

The atmosphere around the training ground had become deeply, profoundly cold. Not the cold of Elara's ice magic, but the cold of pure killing aura stabbing directly into the marrow of bone. The spectators at the field's edge — even Karham and Ziryal — felt cold sweat beading on their brows.

Garrick Anderstone, watching with his breath held and arms crossed, made a low remark.

"This is no longer simply a test or a training exercise between mother and son," Garrick murmured, eyes unblinking. "This is a life-and-death duel between two high-class swordsmasters staking their pride against each other."

In the center of the arena, Mirida placed both hands on the hilts of her twin swords. "Are you ready?"

Zenoda rotated his sword elegantly, then slowly slid the katana blade back into its ebony sheath until it clicked. He settled into a low Battōjutsu — quick-draw sword — stance, right hand on the handle and left hand bracing the sheath.

"Yes," Zenoda answered.

Mirida assumed her stance as well — knees lowered, set for the twin-sword quickdraw that was the signature of her lethal southern school.

A suspended stillness hung over everything. The sea wind stopped. A falling leaf from the banyan tree seemed to hang motionless in the air.

And then... the leaf touched the ground.

WHOOOOSH!

Both of them launched toward the center of the arena simultaneously. Sand exploded in their wake.

At the exact moment they converged at the midpoint, both of them drew their swords — at an absolute speed. The speed of those draws was no longer visible to ordinary human eyes. What the spectators could see was only a flash of silver and white.

TRRRRRAAAAAAAANG!

The sound of the blades colliding was enormous. A sonic shockwave detonated from the collision point, sweeping dust and launching pebbles outward. The metallic resonance vibrating with mana was intense enough to disturb the hearing of the spectators — Elara and the others had to press their hands over their ears.

After that earth-shaking first impact, the high-level exchange resumed between Mirida and Zenoda.

Every strike was devastating and fast. Clang. Clash. Shraaaat. Sparks filled the air like fireworks. Zenoda used the speed and power advantage of his Ursilium form to box his mother in with lethal slashes from every angle.

Mirida — watching the storm of strikes coming at her — seemed to know where each blade would land before it arrived. She understood, after all, that her son's sword technique flowed from her own blood.

Until on the next exchange, Zenoda drove his katana upward from below with full force. Mirida crossed both swords to block — but the explosive force behind Zenoda's white energy was too great.

Mirida was thrown high into the air, launched far above the range of the ground.

Airborne with no footing, Mirida understood she couldn't win a contest of raw power at ground level. At the highest point of her arc, she turned her body to face Zenoda below. Only one technique was in her mind now — the one that would end this.

Mirida drew both swords again, crossing the blades in front of her chest. The dark-blue Kenki aura manifested the illusion of a celestial dragon, roaring as it split the clouds above.

Mirida plunged downward in a sharp dive toward Zenoda — falling like twin meteors. Tenryū no Ken!

Watching the same technique that had nearly killed him earlier, Zenoda standing on the ground felt no panic whatsoever. With absolute composure, in the middle of the wind tearing at his face, Zenoda returned his sword to its sheath.

Click.

Zenoda assumed a considerably lower Battōjutsu stance. He focused the entirety of his white energy into a single point at the blade inside its sheath.

And as Mirida closed in — only two meters of air between them—

"HAAAAAAA!"

Zenoda drew his sword with explosive speed, launching an upward slash to meet his mother's attack head on.

CRAAAAASHH!

Both of Mirida's twin blades and Zenoda's white katana collided frontally in midair. The impact of these two finishing techniques meeting each other created a pressure dome so immense that the ground beneath Zenoda's feet sank ten centimeters!

Mirida, positioned above, was shaking. The bones of her arms groaned under the pressure of Zenoda's strike — which somehow kept growing and growing with every second that passed.

Below, Zenoda ground his teeth. His hands shook absorbing the weight of his mother's technique.

"Not yet..." Zenoda snarled, the veins in his neck standing out. "NOT YET!"

At that instant, something that defied all limits of reason detonated inside Zenoda.

Both of Zenoda's eyes — which had been bright white — flickered and shifted to Pure Gold, radiating the absolute authority of the cosmos. And the energy that usually radiated as Ursilium's characteristic pure white suddenly ignited and blended into a semi-golden luminescence.

That was True Divine Energy — the energy of creation — leaking out involuntarily from an explosion of mortal emotion.

Watching her son's energy color and eyes shift to that terrifying gold, Mirida could only stare in shock from above. Her concentration broke for one second.

In that single moment of his mother's lapse, Zenoda poured everything into his arms and swung his sword upward with that golden divine force.

BLLLAAAASSSSH!

The result was decisive. A shockwave of gold tore upward. Mirida's Tenryū no Ken collapsed. The woman was thrown enormously far from Zenoda — launched backward like a ragdoll whose strings had been cut.

"Ugh!"

Mirida's body flew through the air and struck the sandy ground with tremendous force, bouncing several times before heavy dust clouds billowed up around her. The mother lay collapsed at the far edge of the field, motionless, fresh blood flowing from the corner of her mouth from fairly significant internal organ trauma.

Watching his mother collapse and go still, the euphoria of battle in Zenoda's mind shattered instantly. His human consciousness — filled with love — took over completely.

Zenoda's eyes went wide with horror. He understood the catastrophic thing he had just done. He immediately severed every flow of golden mana, returning to his normal appearance — black hair, black eyes.

The young man threw his katana to the ground, and in the same motion, sprinted across the arena at full speed, fighting the sob that was rising urgently in his throat.

"MOTHERRRRR!" Zenoda cried out hysterically, his voice cracking — every trace of a god's arrogance gone from it.

The moment he reached his mother's dust-covered, bleeding body, Zenoda dropped to his knees. His trembling hands carefully lifted her upper body and lowered her head gently into his lap.

"Mother... Mother, are you alright? Please — answer me, Mother!" Zenoda babbled, tears beginning to fall onto his mother's cheek.

Seeing no response, Zenoda's panic peaked. He no longer cared about his disguise or the limits of his power.

"GREY OWL! HIGH HEAL!" Zenoda commanded with a thundering voice to the sky.

The three-toned owl — Grey Owl (Mincilia) — who had been hiding in the tree above, immediately dove and hovered directly over the mother's body.

Responding to the absolute command of "High-Level Healing" from her master, the Grey Owl drew upon and channeled every last trace of pure Golden Energy that had recently leaked into Zenoda's body's circuit! A brilliantly bright, warm golden light enveloped Mirida's body like a sacred cocoon.

Through the application of that golden divine element, the repair of Mirida's internal organs, hemorrhaging, and bones occurred in seconds.

But the cost of forcibly drawing out those last remnants of divine energy was extremely steep for Zenoda's mortal vessel. It was enough to cause an overwhelming wave of dizziness from the sudden massive mana drain — completely exhausting his human cells to absolute zero.

After several seconds that felt like hell itself, Mirida's condition was confirmed stable and no longer life-threatening. Immediately, Mirida's eyelids opened slowly.

The first thing she saw when her eyes opened was her son's dust-covered face — crying with racking sobs — holding her and cradling her head in his lap.

Watching her mother's eyes open and her breathing return to a regular rhythm, Zenoda exhaled with relief. He smiled again — a smile of genuine relief, tears of happiness running down his face. The weight of his guilt was lifted.

And at the exact moment that emotional tension eased, the physical limits of Zenoda's mortal vessel finally gave out entirely. Right then, his eyes closed. His body went limp and he lost consciousness, collapsing against his mother while still holding her in his lap.

Feeling the weight of her son's body fall against her, Mirida came fully alert at once.

"Zenoda! Zenoda! ZENOOOOOO!" Mirida called out in a panic, tapping her unconscious son's cheeks urgently.

For a moment, the training ground held its breath. Garrick, Karham, Elara, and the others ran toward them in anxious panic. But with the arrival of Sister Niyana, who quickly performed a medical aura assessment, the tension dissolved.

"Be calm, Mirida," Niyana said gently, fingers checking Zenoda's pulse. "Both of them are going to be fine. Mirida survived the impact thanks to her own final-second defensive response, and as for Zenoda... he simply fainted from complete physical and mana exhaustion. He only needs sleep."

At that verdict, everyone in the training ground exhaled with relief so profound they nearly fell over. This absolutely insane test of worthiness was finally and truly over.

The sun had begun its descent toward the west, casting warm amber-golden light across the coastal sky of Kaigan Village.

Zenoda's eyes opened slowly, his eyelids feeling as though they'd been glued shut. His vision gradually came into focus. As his eyes opened fully, he saw the evening sky above him. And when he turned his eyes to look around, he saw Elara, Cedric, Valerius, Agru, and the God Wings members training with intense seriousness in the center of the field — trading spells and exchanging physical strikes without rest. All of them had been fired up by the epic battle of the morning.

Zenoda blinked, becoming aware of something very soft and warm beneath his head. He looked above him again, and realized he was lying beneath the shade of the banyan tree, with his head resting in his mother's lap.

Mirida was sitting with her back against the tree trunk, gently and slowly stroking her son's black hair as he lay below her.

"You've woken up, Zenoda," Mirida greeted him. The voice was extraordinarily gentle, warm, and full of motherly love. No longer the cold voice of a cold-blooded warrior.

Hearing that voice — so deeply familiar, so deeply missed — Zenoda felt his heart at perfect peace. He didn't move from his mother's lap.

"This voice..." Zenoda whispered quietly, smiling slightly. "This is the voice of Mother that I know and have missed."

He looked up at her face from below. His eyes radiated a depth of sincerity.

"Forgive me, Mother," Zenoda continued in a hoarse voice. "Perhaps... I can't yet become the perfect obedient son worthy of your pride. My behavior is still often arrogant and careless. But I promise I will always keep trying to learn and to honor you."

Zenoda raised his hand and touched the back of his mother's hand as it stroked his hair. "Because no matter how far I travel on adventures across continents... the only place I ever truly return to is this home. The home where you are waiting for me."

Hearing her son's declaration of love and devotion, Mirida's eyes filled with tears again. Her heart melted completely. The middle-aged woman bent forward and pressed a gentle kiss to Zenoda's forehead with full tenderness.

In her voice — the gentle, unmistakable voice of a mother — Mirida said, "You foolish child... I have always been proud of you, my Son."

Mirida met Zenoda's dark eyes with a gaze full of genuine pride. "Mother always knew you were working incredibly hard out there. Even though you are so talented and blessed with power that defies all reason, you always choose to protect your companions, share your knowledge with them, and you still come home with humility in your heart. As far as Mother is concerned... all of that is more than enough to make me the happiest woman in the entire world."

Zenoda smiled broadly. His exhaustion vanished instantly, replaced by a warmth that filled his chest to the very last corner.

That afternoon, beneath the shade of the banyan tree, the two of them shared a beautiful moment as mother and son. They sat in comfortable silence, watching the colors of the evening sky, watching Zenoda's friends and students training hard in the center of the field... until the sun had fully set, and every last one of them collapsed from exhaustion with smiles on their faces.

The test was over. Mental and physical readiness had been forged. The Southern Continent was waiting for them now.