A warm breeze drifted in with the sunlight, carrying the Saintesses’ quiet conversation through the half-open door. In this rare moment of peace, Aaron meditated. Beyond recovering mentally and physically, this had become an act of recognition and gratitude for surviving yet another battle. A private ritual developed during his past life as his understanding of sainthood and the cause he had chosen to serve matured.

  This was the closest he ever came to prayer.

  Once grounded, he shifted focus. He began replaying his recent engagements, reinforcing what had worked. Efficient movements, correct decisions, tactics that had been effective under pressure. Then he reviewed his mistakes. Missteps in decision making, poor footing, inefficiencies in motion and control. With each one, he visualised alternatives, iterating on movements and choices with clinical precision.

  He lingered on Crescendo Temporis. Something different within him had resonated deeply with the phenomena. Not just as a technique, but an echo of himself.

  In hindsight, it was obvious.

  He had been the Saint of Time, but had never held any control over it. Beyond memory and the ability to relive the past, Aaron had never had agency over time itself, until now. The sensation he sought through his experience with the perk felt like the initial stages of a new Higher-Order Concept. It reminded him of Sword Intent, but there was something distinctly different. It was like a second language his body was starting to remember. But the idea left Aaron unsettled, he was no longer the Saint of Time. In fact, it wasn’t until Aaron committed fully into the sword that he made any progress upon its Higher Order concept? So why was he now discovering new insights into a relic from a previous life he had abandoned.

  A part of him was giddy, he had become the Time Saint for a reason after all, but what did that mean for his progression? Should he ignore the sensations and insights to avoid muddying his progression upon the sword path? Or find a way of embracing it, and turning it into a strength? Aaron acknowledged such questions and then set them aside.

  He continued, it was a process that might take days but now took him under an hour. The regenerative effects of Sleipnir’s Heart and the focused clarity provided by his Sword Soul worked in concert. His body relaxed, his mind sharpened.

  As his meditation deepened, the Sword Soul began to offer clarity. He recalled the vertical cut and precise thrust that had ended the golems. The thirty-yard flash-step across stone. The perfect draw of his katana that had severed Volgathar’s legs in a single slice. With hindsight, he could see the pattern. These were not random techniques but important parts of his aspect.

  Movement. Cutting. Thrusting. Drawing.

  Each a pillar of swordsmanship. Each fundamental to his own understanding of the sword.

  Aaron rose and stepped into the centre of the bedroom. He moved through a sequence of forms, slow and deliberate. His stances shifted fluidly as muscle memory took over, allowing his thoughts to roam. The Sword Soul had shown him a path, but it was not the whole map.

  Movement, cutting, thrusting, drawing, yes. But what of stance? Of timing? Guards, parries, reposts? The edge alignment in a bind? The feedback from all senses, the rhythm of initiative, the manipulation of momentum?

  What of the intangible? Awareness. Intention. Presence.

  He moved through a guard, then shifted into a draw cut, following it with a rear-weighted thrust. His eyes narrowed as he transitioned into a fluid parry-riposte, turning the air itself into resistance. Each movement felt closer to something real. Each combination a question, searching for the shape of an answer.

  How far could his understanding of the Sword be pushed?

  And more importantly, what should he refine next?

  Aaron’s stance flowed from high guard to low guard, shifting into a cross block, then turning into a riposte. His hands were empty, but his mind filled the space with weight and steel. He visualised the blade’s mass, the arc of the edge, the tension in the point as it traced lines of attack and defence. Every pivot of his hips, every shift in his shoulders adjusted the angle of an imagined weapon, carving through invisible resistance.

  He stepped forward and swept low, twisting into a tight circle before rising into a vertical cut. For a fleeting moment, Sword Intent flickered into being. A faint grey edge, thin as mist manifested beyond his grip. It hovered, then faded as quickly as it came.

  He frowned and ran the sequence again. Guard. Step. Cut. Nothing.

  He altered his footwork, dropping his weight, tightening the rotation through his hips. His breathing slowed. His focus narrowed.

  On the seventh repetition, something clicked. The movement settled into place as if the air itself responded to his posture. The sword manifested again. Not a beam of force or flare of magic, but a sliver of light. A ghostly-edge. It curved gently, perfectly aligned with the path his imagined katana would have taken.

  He held still, breathing shallow, watching the line of intent tremble and fade.

  It was not power that brought it forth. It was precision and belief. The culmination of stance, motion, and thought working in harmony.

  He began to move again. Guard to thrust. Withdraw. Step and cut. The edge returned with each correct form, faint but real, following the rhythm of his strikes like the echo of something waiting to be born.

  Aaron transitioned into a dual-sword stance, imagining the weight and balance of both blades as his feet carried him across the floor. His muscles responded instinctively, the rhythm of breath and motion. He stepped forward with one blade raised, the other held low, then turned, his heels pivoting as he reoriented his imaginary line of attack.

  He began to imagine combat scenarios. Not one-on-one, but a chaotic melee. Multiple attackers, angles of threat stacking in threes and fours. In his mind’s eye, they came at him from all directions, blades flashing, spears thrusting, blunt weapons crashing. Some strikes he let scrape across imagined armour, directing their force off his reinforced greaves or gauntlets. Others, he could not afford to absorb.

  His awareness sharpened. Every angle, every threat. His body responded before his thoughts caught up. He ducked under a horizontal strike, riposted with a twisting cut, then blocked low and turned, only to find a downward slash descending from his exposed flank.

  He could not reach it in time.

  His mind leapt ahead of his body. He pictured a blade forming where his hands could not go. A third weapon. One formed purely of intent.

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  A faint shimmer of grey light sparked above his shoulder. The faintest edge of a ghostly katana formed in mid-air, intercepting the incoming blow. Aaron followed through with the motion, arms low and turning into a counter-thrust as his feet drove him forward.

  He did it again.

  This time, with deliberate precision, he simulated the attack, the defence, the counter. His own blades controlled space directly, while the third, his phantom weapon, appeared just in time to cover what he could not. There was no mental strain, no consumption of focus beyond what was needed for his control and awareness. This new manifestation of the sword was not conjured by will, but by purpose. Its presence emerged only when necessary, and only when the rest of his motion aligned.

  He practised the pattern a dozen times. Then two dozen. Practised until muscles burned and hair stuck to his sweaty brow. The phantom blade appeared with the last swing and thrust of his kata. It was subtle, as if formed from the edge of a shadow, but it was there. He would need to train and practise harder, until this and all of the Sword Soul’s inspirations became reliable as an instinct.

  Time folded inwards as the exercise became meditation. He did not know how long he’d been moving until a soft knock echoed from the doorframe.

  The knock came again, he wiped sweat from his brow and turned.

  "Come in," he called out.

  Aaron and his companions sat within a large, ornately decorated office. Leather-bound tomes lined two of the walls while golden light from the setting sun spilled through a wide window.

  Across from them sat the Queen, one of her elven advisors, and nearby sat another Saint alongside an Archangel.

  The Saint was familiar. Aaron had seen him before but had exchanged few words with him in his previous life. He had likely been one of Cassandra’s former retinue, though now the grey-haired elven man known as Gaspar, Saint of Records, carried the air of one newly driven by purpose. The kind of purpose that often came after a rise in position and a fresh round of Magisterium indoctrination.

  The angel was someone Aaron did not recognise. A woman with brown hair, yet another striking beauty and the poise of celestial grace. Her expression was placid and unreadable, her eyes calm and absent of judgement.

  Aaron leaned back against the plush leather sofa, content to observe. Magda lounged beside him with an exaggerated air of ease, while Cassandra perched at the opposite end, composed and alert. Behind her stood Debryn, no longer tense but still watchful.

  Across from them, Gaspar inclined his head.

  "Saintess Cassandra, I am glad you are hale and well. Even more so that we found your group so quickly."

  "Quite," Cassandra replied. "How may we help you, Gaspar...?"

  "Yes, Gaspar Sagarius, Saint of Records. Beside me is Archangel Grace, my assigned agent for this mission."

  "Mission?" Cassandra asked.

  "To bring you back, of course. The introductions and inductions at Convexus Magnus have only just begun and we have yet to assign you—"

  "I see," Cassandra said, cutting him off. "I must apologise, but such matters will have to wait. There are more urgent concerns here on Isyndrael."

  Gaspar gave a tight smile. "Yes, I have heard mention of some imminent threat. And while your information may be of interest, there are more pressing duties you and your companions must first—"

  His sentence was broken by the sound of several wet thuds. He flinched as seven severed heads rolled onto the stone floor.

  "May I trouble Archangel Grace to identify these creatures?" Cassandra asked evenly.

  The angel smiled and nodded. With a single glance she answered.

  "Werhmagar Warlocks," she said without hesitation.

  "Indeed. Thank you. These were but a fraction of the forces we engaged in order to obtain the evidence. We also recovered our fourth companion in the process." Cassandra gestured to Alex Monroe, who sat cross-legged nearby.

  The sudden shift in attention made Alex jump slightly, revealing how lost in thought she had been.

  “Uh... hi,” Alex said, offering a small wave.

  “Saintess of Space? But how?” Gaspar asked, his brow furrowing.

  “Indeed,” Cassandra said. “While such inductions may be important, even vital, they are not as urgent and certainly secondary to our primary mission, which is the preservation of life. Do you not agree?”

  Gaspar hesitated, then closed his mouth, his lips pressed into a thin line. Seeing the conversation falter, Aaron stepped in.

  “Hi. Grace, was it? Did Archangel Lauriel, by any chance, inform you of my… special status?”

  “There have been some rumours, passed through the grapevine, as it were,” Grace replied with a faint smile, a slight pause as her eyes lingered on his halo. “But I have not spoken with my colleague directly. Should I take this as confirmation of your nature?”

  Aaron nodded. “We’ll return to Evermarch when we’re done here, promise. In the meantime, let me handle introductions and the important bits. Most of it we’ve already covered.”

  Gaspar looked between them, clearly playing to catch up as his frown deepened into a scowl.

  Aaron met the expression with a casual smile. “Aaron Heuber. True Saint... of Swords.” He gestured to his still-glowing halo, even more pronounced in the early dusk.

  “And this special status?” Gaspar asked, his eyes also stealing glances at his halo.

  “Not for you to know,” Aaron said simply.

  “I see. And is this a consensus shared by everyone here?”

  Aaron glanced at Alex, who nodded. Cassandra, Magda, and Debryn each gave a verbal confirmation.

  “Very well. I shall take my leave and pass this on to the appropriate authorities. Thank you, Your Majesty, for hosting this meeting.” Gaspar stood, bowed to the Queen, and took the Archangel’s arm. Between moments, the two vanished from the room.

  “Interesting,” Queen Aelrida murmured, sipping from a delicate teacup.

  “Which part?” Cassandra asked.

  “I must admit their sudden entrance during court was quite the spectacle. If anything, it supports your claims and offers a clearer glimpse into the world of Saints and celestials. At the same time, this whole exchange hints at the kind of politics you are likely to encounter in the days ahead.”

  “Quite,” Cassandra said, sighing as she sank into her chair. “Perhaps, had I been less curt, we might have gained more support?”

  “Unlikely,” Aaron replied. “Beyond the shock of your initial assassination attempts, they are focused on building a structured cohort. Chains of command, communication protocols, and enough rules to stop everything from collapsing before it begins. But while they organise, realms will burn. The enemy is already cutting our legs off while we’re figuring out how to stand.”

  “Assassination attempt?” the Queen added, raising an eyebrow.

  “A demonic infiltration of the core realm, Evermarch,” Cassandra explained. “We were all sent there during the Calling. Aaron here helped foil it, killing most of the infiltrators before many even realised what was happening.”

  “I see. I assume this ties into your special status?” Aelrida asked, turning to Aaron.

  He simply shrugged.

  “Are they aware?”

  Aaron nodded. “Yes.”

  “And your plans going forward? Do you intend to operate free of the…. ‘chains of command’? Will these… Saintesses here, be part of your efforts?” Her tone was curious, not accusatory but she seemed to catch herself after realising her lack of tact. “Forgive me if my questions are too direct. Though as big sister to this saintess here, you can imagine my curiosity and vested interest.”

  “I understand. It’s only been hours,” Aaron said, trying to deflect. “Less than a day, really. I started this with a few urgent goals, goals I’ve managed to accomplish with their help. So far, we’ve built a good working relationship and it would be a shame to squander that, but I’m happy to see where things go from here.”

  “He’s been reliable,” Cassandra added. “If we keep producing results, I believe we’ll be granted more freedom to act as we see fit.”

  “I admit he’s handy with a sword, when he’s not being a dreadful flirt.” Debryn said, arms folded.

  “He trusts me for some reason,” Magda added, “and that’s more than I could ask for from anyone else.”

  Aaron glanced around at the group, catching their subtle nods and gestures of support. He returned them with a quiet nod of his own.

  “Alright then, with that settled for now” he said, settling into his seat. “Let’s plan our next steps.”