(Arc 2 Complete!) Path of the Last Champion [Sci-Fantasy LitRPG, Party Dynamics, Earned Power]

You can't go back, the words echoed in his mind, shattering his dreamless slumber into a thousand shards.

Nar opened his eyes to the familiar dim light of a sick bay room, and the gaping hole that now occupied the place of his heart quaked. An inhuman, gravely shriek wailed somewhere deep within him as he stared, unblinking, at the dim, beige ceiling above his head, and he did not stir when the door sighed open, and measured steps walked into the room.

"Nar?"

A familiar voice.

"I'm awake, Kit," he said, covering the shrieking cry howling within him with a blanket of emptiness.

"How are you feeling?" Healer Kit asked, as she stepped into view at his side.

Her ashen dark eyes were frowned with worry as she came to halt next to him, her cut short hair reminiscent of the darkness of the B-Nex in that dim light as she leaned gently over him and placed a hand over his shoulder. It was a familiarity that had grown between them as Nar increasingly visited sickbay after his brutal bouts of sparring with the master over the last two months.

"Fine," Nar said, finally blinking. "I'm fine."

"Do you remember what happened?" she asked him, her tone soft.

He nodded, and either she read from his eyes the silent plea to not be asked to say it out loud, or she herself could tell the unstable, bleeding and oozing wound within her patient, one she could do nothing about.

"I… I need to check on you," she said.

Nar closed his eyes. "Please. Thank you."

His voice came from so far away, it was as though it were someone else controlling his body, and making use of his mouth.

"Can you check your gains, please?" Kit asked him, dragging him somewhat back to reality.

"Gains?" he asked, mutely.

She grimaced. "It's a complex attribute, and we need to make sure you have unlocked it."

Nar blinked at her, and she serenely held his stare as his mind pieced together the meaning of her words. Gains, attributes… They all seemed so meaningless now.

"Sure."

He turned his UI visible and checked his notifications, his sense of self slowly piecing itself together as he focused on something else. Anything else.

"It's there," he said, closing the notification and turning his UI invisible again. "One point."

She nodded. "Thank you. And congratulations, it's kind of a big deal to unlock [Presence] this early, you know?"

He gave her a distant nod, his consciousness nearly fading again as he left her to do her job.

"Done, and everything is looking good," Healer Kit said, startling him awake some undetermined time later.

Nar turned his head to the side, to consider the smiling woman, and managed a shadow of a smile himself.

"Thank you," he said.

"Not at all," she whispered, a touch of pain in her eyes. "And, I… For what it's worth, I'm sorry."

Nar closed his eyes. "Thank you."

Inside, he wondered what was there for the healer to be sorry about. She hadn't known of the impossible goal that motivated his every waking moment, but others had…

TING!

He opened his eyes again.

"Just… Take it easy, okay?" she said, in a hushed tone. "There is a lot to live for out here. You'll see, alright?"

Another silent nod from him.

"Do you need help getting up?"

"I'm okay, thank you."

She nodded, her mouth twisted with indecision.

"The… Masters lead the faculty, but we are the medical staff," she told him. "If it ever gets too much… Too heavy, come to us, okay? To me… Our authority overrules theirs in matters of health. Somewhat, at least."

"Thank you," Nar said again. "I'll remember that."

"Please do."

She took a deep breath. "Alright. I'll see you next time."

A little puff of air from his nostrils. Almost a snort.

"I know I shouldn't say it," she said, a faint smile upon her lips. "But a healer has their own instincts… Plus, you're in here every other day already."

Nar nodded. "Yeah… I'll see you soon, Kit."

"See you soon."

And with that, the healer left him alone, the door sighing behind her, and with gritted teeth, Nar forced his groaning, sore body to sit upright.

Aura overuse again, he thought, recognizing the symptoms as he opened the message.

He considered the three words before him, then he glanced at the clock. It was the dead of the night, just past 3AM.

For a moment, he considered ignoring the message, then he passed a hand over his eyes, holding it in place for several, crushing heartbeats, and at last he pushed back the light blanket and swung his legs to the floor.

Whatever had happened, it didn't change the fact that he still had a job to do. He may have let down his dad, dooming him to the ravages of the Wasting, but he wasn't about to do the same for the party that had gone to every effort and extreme to allow and support his path and goal. And that meant he still needed a master.

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Nar closed the door behind him as he entered.

Flashes of soft light lit up his training room, and his eyes took in the towering rises of storm clouds in the distance. It seemed that the Scimitar was far enough from that storm that the rumbling sounds from those titans clashing in the nigh did not reach them.

Then, his eyes came to rest upon the profile of the Master of Blades, his back a pitch blackness amidst the bright, silent lashes of white light that lit up the darkness.

Without a word, Nar stepped forward, towards the window, and came to a stop at his master's side. He looked down, and found that they were actually also flying over the storm, indicating that the Labyrinth channel they traversed must be truly humongous.

"From the bottom of my heart, of my soul, I am sorry."

Nar didn't know what to say to that.

He had thought about what to tell his master, and the accusations had roared in his head, demanding to be voiced. His rage, hatred, and resentment had howled at the deception, and the way with which his master had used his dad as a motivation for his training, all the while knowing damn well that there was nothing he could do, to make good on the promise he had made to the one who had sacrificed his life for him.

His heart had thundered, his features a ghastly, wraithful thing to behold as his aura churned within him, clamoring to be unleashed in a vortex that would eradicate anything around him… But now that he stood here, now that his master had spoken the words that Nar knew, deep down, that he would say, all he felt was tired. Drained. Empty.

With a weary sigh, he looked to his master… And found the man on the floor, his forehead touching the floor as he bowed down to him in what Nar could only identify was a gesture of supreme humility and regret.

"Wha-what in the pile are you doing?" Nar shouted, horrified. "Get-get up! Master! Get up!"

But the Master of Blades remained where he was.

"I have committed a grave sin towards you, Nar," he spoke, his voice low in the quiet, lightning lit room. "I took your dearest dream and used it for my own purposes. What I did was vile and repulsive, and I am truly sorry for it."

Nar passed a hand over his face.

"Please get up," he said. "And speak to me face to face. Whatever this is… I don't want it. Please."

After a brief moment's hesitation, the man stood up in one fluid motion, and the two of them stared at one another, dark, void-like eyes meeting solid steel. It was almost a startling realization for Nar to remember that his master, whatever race of golden skinned sapient he was, stood a good head shorter than him.

Nar sighed and pulled his eyes away from the quiet regret that shone in his master's eyes, and looked out across the silent storm instead. In his mind, a much louder storm raged, and in the chaos, he pushed through to ask the question that burned him the most.

"Why?" he asked, and tightened his jaw to keep it at just that. To keep the accusation, and the rage, and the hurt, and the betrayal from spewing past his lips.

"For the potential I saw in you," the master said, his voice low but unwavering.

Nar glared at him. "For the guild's gain, you mean?"

His master snorted. "Fuck the guild. Fuck every officer, commander, board member and the very guild master himself. I couldn't care less about the lot of them, or the stock prices, or the profits, or expansions, or whatever…"

He returned Nar's stare with his own.

"No. I am a teacher, so it was for you, Nar. It was all for you," he said. "It was all for the boy that stepped out of those Gates with the shadow of a Named Few stretching far behind him!"

Nar's expression hardened.

"A fool's dream!" he hissed. "For a fool who didn't know anything about reality!"

His master chuckled hollowly.

"You are still a lost babe in the Labyrinth," he agreed. "But I wouldn't say a fool… Ignorant, yes, of the ways, depth and width of Creation. But not a fool, and the potential truly is there."

"Then you are a fool with me!"

"Maybe. It does take a fool to properly dream," the master said, considering the storm below and spreading beyond them. "So I suppose that makes us both fools. But Nar, I've been alive a long time, much longer than you think, and I would like to believe that even in my foolishness, lies a kernel of wisdom and certainty. And of a future you could truly reach for if you continue down this path."

Nar leaned his blistering forehead on the cool reinforced glass, his breath misting the view of the storm beyond.

"And what do you want me to do now?" he muttered. "To just keep on training as if nothing happened? To go on living as if nothing changed?"

A long, jagged line of light lit up existence beyond them. It had to be miles long and it seared Nar's retinas with its brilliance. Despite everything, he couldn't help but drop his month in amazement at the blinding, thick line that seemed to hover in place for a split, eternal moment, before vanishing as though it had never been there. But it's blue afterimage, burned into Nar's eyes, remained as a testament that it had indeed occurred. That it had been true, and that it had been witnessed…

A distant boom reached Nar's ears, the first one to do so, and it was a testament of the might of that singular aetheric thunder. And then it was gone, another wondrous, glorious sight in an endless string that he had witnessed ever since exiting the gate. And another one his dad would never see himself.

"I… I have no children," the master said, and the uncertain tone in his voice made Nar look back at him. "So I cannot be fully certain of what I'm saying. But I've had thousands and thousands of apprentices… And a couple hundred that I personally trained day and night."

He lifted his steely eyes to Nar, and held him with them. They were still a steel gray, even in that dark, as though the strength the man had accumulated throughout the years, the strength that made him, shone from within.

"I like to think that you are all my children," he said, a faint smile touching his lips. "You come under my care, weak, and mostly lost. And I do all I can to give you a chance in this uncaring Creation, and to ensure that when we separate, I have armed you with the tools and the knowledge to make your own future and thrive in this vast, strange reality you find yourselves in. And I do come to care for each and every one of you, you included, as short as our time together has been."

Nar tightened his jaw. Behind his eyes, a burning threatened to spill into more, for why would the betrayal hurt so much, cut so deeply, or burn so hot, if not for the fact that Nar, in the short months they had been together, had come to see the man before him in the same way? If not as a father or a dad, at least as an undeniable parental figure, and one he had come to trust with his whole being, and a figure he did his utmost to make proud.

"It… Wounded me, to lie to your face again and again. But I knew how critical those first months were!" the master continued, pleading. "It was crucial to lay the foundation to all that was to come, and to allow all the potential I could see screaming to be unleashed from within you! And as your master, your teacher and guide… My duty is to ensure that I teach you to the best, and utmost of my ability, no matter how badly I wound you in the process. Or myself."

Nar looked away from him, but he couldn't help give the man a slight, tiny nod. He had already known that would be the reason why. He had already known that there was no malicious intent there. No mockery involved, and no dark plot at large against him… His master had simply made a hard choice, and as much as he felt like snapping and spitting and roaring at it, he had to admit that, most likely, it had been the right one.

With or without his dad, he was outside. And he was weak. The last thing his dad would've wanted was for him to end up dead or someone's plaything, or slave, after everything he had Climbed through. So yes, the master had made the right decision, knowing full well that Nar would one day know the truth and perhaps hate him for it. Except he didn't.

He couldn't.

"What do I do now?" he whispered the question once more. This time not in anger or accusation, but in a true plea as one lost, heart shattered apprentice seeking guidance from his master.

The golden man sighed.

"If I was your dad, I would want you to live, Nar," he said. "I would live with the joy of knowing, of hoping, that you'd made it out, and I would hope that you never came back for me, and that you would forget me. My wish would be for you to live, for you to laugh, cry, love and hate in a full, long and happy life. And it would be my pride, to know that with my sacrifice I'd succeed that much. That I had at least been able to support you long enough for you to stand on your own, and be strong to set out into a better life… That is what I would think, and feel, if I was your dad. And I'd be so damn proud of it for both of us."

The storm blurred before Nar, as silent tears ran down his cheeks. He made no effort to hide them, and they gently rolled down his face, one after the other.

"You have done incredibly well thus far, Nar, and nobody can blame you, especially not yourself, for having come this far and reaching this… This unbreakable wall," the master said in a kind tone. "I know one of Them whispered sweet things in your ear, and I still don't know why It did so, as Their intentions are inscrutable, but you would have to fight the very Radiants in order to go back in there, Nar! And that's just impossible! And there is nothing to be ashamed of, as you didn't fail your dad! It was Creation that failed you both!"

Nar pressed his eyes shut.

"I am not ashamed!" he breathed. "I am… I… I don't know how to feel! What to do with myself now!"

He crushed his hands into shaking fists.

"All I ever did… All I ever wanted… All gone! All for… All for…"

But he couldn't say it. The word would not come.

Kur. Gad. Jul. Viy. Tuk. Cen. Mul… And Rel.

Their faces shone in his mind. Their tears. Their laughter. Their new family… It had all been for something. Something that even now filled his heart near to bursting, and that could not be denied.

Nar flared his eyes open, letting loose the trapped tears within, and wiped at his face. Not in anger, but in determination, holding firm to the one thing that was left to him. The one he would die to protect.

"My party did everything they could for me," he whispered. "They sacrificed and risked themselves for me again and again to get me out and to support my foolish dream of… Of saving my dad and of my hybrid class. They did everything they could… And I will forever owe… No, I want the best of the best for them. Nothing less than that will be enough!"

He stared at his master. "I won't be happy with just the bare minimum. I want to stand at the very top, and know that I have given them everything the Nexus has to offer. Every joy. Every happiness. Every comfort. Whatever dream… Whatever goal of theirs, I will see it met! I will make it happen! And I don't care what, or who, stands in my way."

His master held his apprentice's feverish stare. "And for yourself?"

"This is for myself," Nar said, looking away. "And this is all that matters."

And because he had looked away, he missed the small flicker of sadness in the man's eyes. The pang of hurt that grimaced his features, but it was gone when Nar looked up again.

"So, we will still aim high, then?" he asked Nar.

"As high as possible. To the very, very top."

The master nodded. "Then I have news for you. There have been some developments in the four days you've been asleep…"

"Four?" Nar asked, stunned.

"Yes, and since Named Few is still your goal, I think you will like to hear this news."

Nar frowned at him, expecting to be sucker punched as always.

"Our COO, Tys, Ascending One, has decided to make you her disciple, which basically means apprentice."

Nar blinked at him as lightning enveloped the room in white. "She… Wait, what?"

"Congratulations," the master said, albeit with a slight grimace.

"Congratulations? What in the Pile is going on?"