Smoke curled from the impact crater where his abyssal lance had detonated, the air sour with burnt stone and ozone.

Lucen could still feel his shadow in there, mana humming like a second heartbeat. But instead of pressing the fight, he leaned against a jagged outcrop of stone, head cocked as he watched the others struggle.

'If it's me I'm fighting, I already know the ending. Might as well see if the rest of the circus can keep their act together.'

Garrik bellowed as he slammed into his copy again, shield meeting shield with the sound of two mountains colliding. His anomaly was in full swing now, Lucen could feel it, the air itself sagging under the density shift.

The man moved slower, each step gouging the stone floor, but when his shield connected, the shadow's arm twisted grotesquely, nearly buckling.

"Stay down," Garrik growled, voice guttural. His copy didn't obey. It reared back, weight of its own shield multiplying until the floor cracked under its stance. The two pushed against each other, locked in a dead gravity war.

Lucen smirked faintly. 'The man's basically an avalanche with legs. Subtlety? Zero. But I wouldn't want to be in his way.'

On the far ledge, Rynn loosed arrow after arrow, her movements sharp, restless. Her anomaly bled into her vision, pupils glowing faintly red as she tracked her shadow's movements midair. Every arrow landed, through shoulders, knees, ribs. Each shot perfect.

But the problem wasn't hitting.

Lucen's eyes narrowed. Rynn's copy shifted with each strike, unraveling into threads of abyssal light before reforming elsewhere. She cursed under her breath, pulled the string again, loosed. Hit. Reformed.

"I see it," she muttered to herself, too focused to notice she'd spoken aloud. "Trajectory bent… two degrees left… compensate—"

Her next shot cut the copy's arrow mid-flight, splitting the shaft in two. The backlash knocked her flat on her ass. She rolled, swore, drew again.

Lucen chuckled low. 'Sharp eyes, sharper tongue. But that precision's going to get her killed if she doesn't loosen up.'

Then came Kale. Or rather, two Kales.

Lucen squinted. The boy's anomaly had gone into overdrive, slipping, splitting, scattering him across the battlefield. His shadow flickered the same way, two… three… five versions darting through the haze.

The real Kale blurred, stepping sideways through stone like it wasn't there, emerging behind one of his own phantoms. A dagger flashed, cut through shadow. The copy bled light, then reformed right behind him.

Kale didn't flinch. Just phased again, disappearing into nothing.

Lucen's grin widened, sharp. 'Kid's not normal. None of us are. But him? He's a ghost already. Question is—when does he forget to come back?'

The ground shook beneath Lucen's boots. His smirk faltered.

The smoke around him parted as his own shadow walked out, slow, deliberate, its abyssal spear crackling faintly in one hand. Its face was still featureless, but somehow the grin, his grin, was unmistakable.

It tilted its head.

Lucen tilted his in answer, stepping off the stone like nothing was wrong.

"Alright," he muttered, flexing his fingers as mana licked across them. "Playtime's over."

The shadow lunged.

—

Lucen didn't even look at it. He'd flicked a thought through the link the instructors had left embedded in the field; the anomaly froze at the edge of his reach, the abyssal spear humming uselessly between them. The others still needed the room.

He let it hang there and turned his head toward the noise of Garrik's struggle.

The tank had finally forced his double down onto one knee. The ground was cratered where their shields met, every impact throwing up clouds of dust that sparkled with mana fragments. Garrik's breath came in short, hoarse bursts, but he refused to yield an inch.

Lucen watched him for a while, weighing the rhythm of each blow.

'He's timing his heartbeats to the shield. That's new,' he thought.

The corner of his mouth ticked upward. Garrik might be rough, but he learned quick.

Farther out, Rynn had found her rhythm too. She'd stopped shooting for center mass; now her arrows were landing in a looping pattern that forced her mirror image into the open.

The twin tried to reform, but each re-appearance was a little slower, a little less stable. Rynn's shoulders shook, exhaustion starting to show, yet her hands stayed precise.

Kale's corner was chaos. His copies kept multiplying until Lucen counted eight of them blinking through the haze.

The real one was impossible to pick out by eye, but Lucen could feel the thread of the boy's mana weaving between them like a pulse.

He was learning to use the phantoms instead of fighting them.

Lucen's suspended shadow twitched again, as if it could sense his distraction. He tightened the hold and kept watching the others.

Selindra's voice came through the intercom at the edge of the field.

"Training core holding. Increase intensity by fifteen percent."

The air thickened. Gravity shifted. The whole dome vibrated with a low hum.

Lucen's shadow shuddered, its outline flickering, but the containment held.

He folded his arms. "Don't make this complicated," he muttered.

Down on the floor, Garrik finally broke his reflection's guard. One last swing, a roar that rattled the walls, and the echo scattered into light.

Rynn's opponent vanished a heartbeat later, disintegrating under a rain of arrows. Kale's area blinked out altogether; when it cleared, he was standing alone, daggers still drawn, chest heaving but grinning.

Lucen exhaled through his nose. The shadow beside him dissolved on its own, leaving nothing but faint static. He hadn't even needed to strike it.

'Good,' he thought. 'Maybe they're ready for something that isn't a mirror.'

He pushed off from the rock and walked toward the others as the simulation dome dimmed. Garrik dropped his shield with a thud. Rynn sank to one knee, rubbing at her wrist. Kale was already talking, words tumbling over each other in excitement.

Lucen listened in silence for a while before speaking. "You all kept your heads. That's the point of this test. They don't win by being stronger, they win when you start doubting which side's real."

Garrik wiped sweat from his brow. "And you? Didn't see you breaking a sweat."

Lucen shrugged. "I've met my reflection before."

Kale laughed. Rynn rolled her eyes but smiled despite herself. The tension in the room bled away.

Selindra stepped through the access gate a moment later, her coat fluttering in the residual wind. "Good," she said. "You survived. Take the rest of the day to recover. Briefing at dawn."

Lucen glanced at her, then back at the others. "You heard her. Hydrate, sleep, try not to die before breakfast."

Rynn muttered something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like "smart-ass," and Garrik's booming laugh filled the room.

Lucen only half-listened. His eyes had drifted to the wall of glass that ringed the field. Beyond it, the sea glimmered under the afternoon sun, calm and unreal after the chaos inside the dome.

For a moment he let himself breathe, the taste of ozone fading from the air.

'They're getting stronger,' he thought. 'Good. They'll need to be.'

—

The training dome hissed as its seals released, the shimmering veil of containment fading to a thin mist. The hum of mana stilled. One by one, the hunters filed out, sweat-slick and silent, the adrenaline of the session still raw in their veins.

Lucen was the last to step through. The outside air was clean, laced with salt from the sea that surrounded the island. Sunlight caught on the waves in the distance, a flicker of peace that felt alien after what they'd just been through.

Selindra waited at the exit platform, arms crossed, eyes sharp. Varik stood beside her, saying nothing, gaze sweeping over the group with that steady weight that made even Garrik straighten.

"Not bad," Selindra said. "No one lost focus. No containment breach. That's better than most first anomaly drills."

Rynn, wiping blood from her lip, shot a glance at Lucen. "He didn't even fight his."

Lucen met her gaze, expression flat. "Didn't need to."

Kale snorted quietly, though not mocking, more curious than anything. "You just froze it midair. How?"

Lucen rolled his shoulders, started down the steps. "Practice."

Varik's voice followed, even and low. "No. Control. He overpowered the anomaly through stability, not force. That's harder."

The kid nodded, eyes wide with something between respect and unease. Garrik gave a grunt that might've been agreement, adjusting the straps on his armor.

Lucen didn't respond. He didn't need to. His head was still full of the fight he hadn't taken—the feel of that shadow's aura, the quiet intelligence beneath its movements. It hadn't been pure mimicry. It had waited. Measured.

'Too sentient,' he thought. 'Too close to… me.'

He shook the thought away.

They reached the outer deck, where the island wind hit harder, carrying the sound of gulls and the steady crash of waves below. Hunters moved about in the open courtyard, teams training, smiths repairing gear, healers trading supplies. The island wasn't large, but it was alive, a living camp of power and exhaustion.

Selindra stopped in the middle of the path, glancing over the group. "Rest. We're cycling anomaly control again tomorrow, different parameters. Don't wander off the island's southern half, there's still unstable terrain."

"Understood," Garrik said.

Kale saluted with a grin that earned him a sharp look from Selindra. Rynn just nodded silently.

Varik lingered as the others broke off, catching Lucen's eye. "Walk with me."

Lucen fell into step beside him without protest. They moved past the courtyard and into a quieter path lined with pale stone and sparse trees.

"You're holding it together," Varik said finally. "Better than I expected after what happened in the city."

Lucen gave a humorless smile. "High praise."

"You know what I mean."

They walked a few more paces in silence. The sea stretched endlessly ahead, the horizon bending under the glare of the sun.

Varik spoke again. "You're still resonating with the relic. I can feel it."

Lucen didn't deny it. "It's quieter now. The ritual worked."

"For now," Varik said. "But the energy hasn't dissipated, it's dormant. You're carrying it whether you want to or not."

Lucen's eyes flicked down to his hand, to the faint pulse of dark light that still sometimes flickered beneath the skin. "And if I stop carrying it?"

"Then it finds another host."

He snorted softly. "So that's a no."

Varik's gaze stayed on the sea. "You can learn to use it without letting it eat you. That's what this island is for. Not just recovery. Control."

Lucen leaned against the railing, the wood creaking faintly beneath his weight. The sunlight caught the faint scars on his neck, traces of the abyssal corruption that had nearly taken him before.

"You ever get tired of being the wise one?"

Varik smiled, barely. "Every day."

They stood there a moment longer, the wind tearing the conversation apart into comfortable silence.

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