Martial Demons Ascension

The glow of the golden pillar had faded but its mark lingered inside him

Rhyka sat still cross legged drenched in sweat his chest rising and falling like a bellows He could feel it not just around him anymore but inside him

The Martial Essence

It wasn't mana It wasn't an energy he could "cast" like a spell It wasn't something he could grab with willpower alone It was different didn't answer to words or formulas It answered to movement to rhythm to understanding

At first it was clumsy Like trying to flex a muscle he'd never known he had But with effort painful teeth grinding effort he managed to nudge it To make it stir

A golden flicker rippled faintly inside his chest

It moved wrong like a knot pulling tight The strain made him gag and before he realized what was happening his stomach heaved

He doubled over bile spilling onto the floorboards His throat burned his gut twisted Again and again he vomited his body convulsing until black green streaks mixed with the bile sludge thick and foul smelling bubbling up as though dragged from the deepest parts of him

It didn't stop there Sweat poured from his skin dark and oily carrying a stink like rot and metal His vision swam his ears rang his fingers shook Every pore every organ every vein seemed to be purging something he hadn't even known was there

He was detoxing

His body rejecting filth weakness impurities that had clung to him since birth

The process hurt His bones ached his joints throbbed his skin felt like it was peeling from the inside He collapsed onto his side chest heaving face pale For hours he lay there in the stench of his own sickness unable to move unable to do anything but endure

And yet through the nausea through the shivering he felt it

His body changing

His heartbeat thudded heavier stronger His lungs drew air deeper His muscles even as they cramped seemed denser His senses sharpened His very frame felt sturdier like a blade slowly being reforged

And at the center of it all his heart

The instinct was undeniable All of this the Martial Essence the purging the strengthening it wasn't aimless It had a destination A furnace where everything gathered refined compressed His heart wasn't just an organ anymore It was becoming something else

Rhyka wiped his mouth with the back of his hand smearing bile and sweat across his skin His lips curled into a weak exhausted grin

"…So that's it…"

He understood

This was only the start He could move the Martial Essence now but it was slow heavy unrefined It would take time years maybe to circulate it fully to draw it through every part of him to let it all gather and temper his heart until it became a vessel strong enough to withstand the full weight of Martial Essence

One year Two years Maybe more

But the result would be worth it His body was already shifting His strength speed and endurance were climbing not from training alone but from this hidden refinement

And every beat of his heart pulled him closer to the foundation he needed

He lay back on the floor chest rising and falling the stench of sickness filling the room His vision blurred but behind his eyelids the golden light still burned

He could almost hear it pulsing in time with his heartbeat

Thud Thud Thud

The path of Martial Essence had begun

Rhyka never left the house

Not for a day Not for a week For an entire month his world shrank to his room and the constant burn of his own body tearing itself apart and stitching itself back together

The detox didn't stop after the first purge It kept coming in waves

At night his skin itched so violently he clawed at it until flakes peeled away At first it was dry rough layers sloughing off like sunburn Then thicker patches shed leaving raw red skin beneath The pain was sharp but he gritted his teeth and endured By the second week the shedding wasn't patches anymore it was whole layers His skin came off in thin curling strips dropping onto the floor like discarded snakeskin

What lay beneath wasn't fragile It was smooth Dense Almost like cured leather but flexible alive When he pressed his fingers into it it didn't give the way normal flesh should His skin was becoming armor

His lungs burned daily He woke choking coughing up black phlegm so thick it stuck to his tongue Every breath rattled his chest as if smoke lived in his ribs But with each fit his chest grew clearer He found himself pulling in more air than before deeper and cleaner By the third week he could breathe so sharply it hurt His lungs pulled in the crisp mountain air like a furnace pulling oxygen for fire

His pores bled filth At first it was oily sweat thick and sour soaking through his bedding until the stench was unbearable Then it thickened into tar like ooze sticky and black pushing through his pores as if his body was wringing poison out of every inch of him He bathed constantly scrubbing until his skin stung but within hours the filth leaked again

His senses sharpened with every purge Sounds became unbearable He could hear mice scurrying between the walls the flutter of moth wings against the window the faint creak of wood swelling with the night's damp His sense of smell grew vicious every trace of rot every whiff of sweat every hint of incense in the air burned into him

Worst were his eyes

The first time he looked into the cracked mirror in his room he flinched

They blazed

Not with magic not with fire but with something deeper faint threads of gold in his irises glowing whenever he focused too hard The intensity was inhuman It was as if he could cut through the world just by staring

If anyone saw him like this there would be questions Fear Whispers

He couldn't allow that

So he stayed inside Masking the windows Ignoring the knocks on his door from Loretta from Rinnte from Emmet His blade stayed by his side but he never touched it His training was survival weathering the purges enduring the rebirth

By the end of the month his body no longer felt like the same one he was born with

Every muscle was denser His skin tougher His lungs like bellows his senses honed into weapons The filth was gone replaced by clarity He could move with more precision breathe with more control see with more depth

It was far from over

But his eyes his eyes still blazed faintly with golden threads he couldn't extinguish

Rhyka stood before the mirror shirtless skin gleaming smooth and taut under the lamplight He flexed his hand felt the cords of muscle move under his new flesh and smirked faintly

Stronger Faster Sharper

But not yet ready to show the world

"…Not yet" he muttered

So he stayed hidden sharpening quietly in the shadows waiting until the blazing light in his eyes dulled enough that he could walk outside again