King Harmon was brooding. He was aware of this. And yet, he could not seem to overcome his foul mood. He’d spent hours in contemplation, many thoughts revolving through his mind and unsettling his equilibrium. An unfortunate time for it to happen, as now was when he needed his calm the most.

“It’s those damn kids.” He muttered for perhaps the dozenth time. And indeed, thoughts of five particular children in the youth division had occupied him over and over again. It was absurd. He’d just participated in one of several meetings that would bring together the heads of state from all five nations attending this Tournament of Powers. And here he was, sitting in his private quarters, thinking about some children.

Rightfully, his full attention should be on them. Especially the Central Council, those upstart wretches. His plans would see them dead before the tournament was over. Which meant that now was the most critical time, where he must give absolutely no sign that anything was amiss and he was hiding nothing. A difficult task, as the Ten Thousand Empires delegation had been suspiciously small this time due to his culling of the Council of Kings. No doubt, everyone assumed something had happened.

Since Harmon was the lead delegate for his nation, he would need to conform to their expectations, act as if he was trying to hide something, just not the thing he was actually hiding. Worse, that Damon Vestigious, the only real threat that the Central Authority held, had been eyeing him in a way that Harmon didn’t like. He looked like he knew something. If that wasn’t alarming, King Harmon dreaded to think what could be worse.

And yet, and yet! His mind returned to the five students he’d noted during the opening ceremony. That unbelievable collection of oddities that defied all reason. It ate at some part of his hindbrain, telling him to watch them carefully.

That sensation had only worsened when his hired assassin, equipped with some expensive advanced ethertech from Harmon’s partners in the Central Authority’s downfall, had come back empty-handed. He couldn’t reach them, as they were on a well-defended ethership. One with particularly advanced ethertech.

That had led to its own suspicions. Harmon, not being an idiot, never really trusted the weapon merchant. It wouldn’t have surprised him if they were selling to both sides. In fact, he’d anticipated it to a certain degree. At least, he had contingencies in place for if it happened. As soon as he heard about suspiciously advanced ethertech, he made a request.

The weapon merchant had no way of knowing about Harmon’s assassination attempts. Indeed, they would have no reason to, as a few random students were meaningless to their plans. So when he asked for a catalog of any advanced etherships they had, a casual leafing through it revealed nothing even remotely similar to the one his assassin described.

Harmon went so far as to have another man travel to the docks and capture an image of the ship for comparison. The catalog he had been given seemed like a mass-produced thing rather than a set specifically made for him. With all that in mind, Harmon was relatively confident that the ethership had not come from the weapon merchant. Unless they had created some deeply elaborate scheme, the merchant was dealing with him in relatively good faith.

None of this information did nearly as much as he wished to alleviate his concerns. The most frustrating part of which was the nonsensical nature of it all.

Harmon was a ruler of a conquered and shamed nation, bent on returning his lands to their former glory by hook or by crook; he didn’t care. His training was superlative, and his resources vast. He had spent decades, centuries slowly building a plan for the CA’s destruction. The weapon merchant’s involvement had only accelerated those ideas rather than spark them to life.

The point being, Harmon had spent most of his life swamped in dark deals and bad men of the unsavory sort. He’d poured countless hours and endless days into refining the one thing he trusted most against such foul-minded people.

His intuition.

More than one time, Harmon had a gut feeling that had saved his life. In fact, it happened with such frequency in his youth that he started truly believing there was something to it. More than that, he started trying to refine it. Most of that effort had gone to his aura senses, leading to his uniquely, massively overdeveloped investigative sense.

That was why he was willing to work with the weapon merchant. The only thing he’d ever felt from any member of that group was raw, unsurpassed greed. He knew that, given enough profit, they’d turn on him in an instant. But as long as he kept the money and resources flowing, they’d fulfill their end of things.

His intuition was also the thing so deeply frustrating him. Every time it had reared its head before, Harmon could recognize the signs his subconscious was picking up on. The things his instincts brought to his attention, revealing hidden dangers or opportunities.

And his every sense was screaming at him that these children were a danger, a threat in some way. But for the life of him, Harmon couldn’t figure out why. Initially, he’d thought of them as a threat to his son. His heir. Deaths in the Tournament of Powers were not uncommon, and these five might just be the strongest youth team a Tournament had ever seen in the eons it had been held.

But his intuition’s outsized reaction made the threat feel more basic than that. Harmon truly cared for his son. He was a clever, bright boy with a good head on his shoulders, strong leadership skills, and a powerful shroud to back up his words. Harmon was proud of the boy. But an heir could be replaced, and his legacy was a nebulous thing. After some thought, the king couldn’t think of another instance where he’d felt such an imminent threat from something that would affect his legacy.

What, then, was causing this mounting unease? What was it about these young folk that had him so concerned, enough to draw his attention away from the fulfillment of his every dearly held wish? He was on the verge of success, the reclamation of his father’s lost kingdom. And still, his mind drifted to those five.

What was it? Everything he learned of them only increased their mystery. Harmon had assigned some of his retinue to keep an eye on them, watch any events they participated in. The True Shroud, who was also a dual-shroud, the boy named Caeden, had revealed a bonded monster that Harmon had somehow missed, or perhaps it simply wasn’t at the opening ceremony. He found the second option more likely. But that wasn’t the notable factor.

It was a dragon. Draconic monsters were rare and powerful; very few had the ability or the proper domain to make them. Harmon wondered where the boy got it. But that was just a passing incident. No, the truly interesting factor was the girl with the magic shroud. Cat, she was called. A silly name; her parents must have been fools. It had no majesty or grace. What kind of parent names their child after a base animal?

Despite the less-than-impressive name, the girl was a marvel. Truly, she lived up to the legendary status of a magic shroud. It spoke to the same power the Fire King held. The man managed to single-handedly hold the same amount of territory as the CA and the Wild Queendom, his two neighbors, combined. All of this by virtue of his magic shroud’s overwhelming power.

This Cat girl showed that same potential. Already, after barely a year of training, she’d managed to field an impressive army of monsters pulled from somewhere else. Harmon was a King. He was aware that magic shrouds supposedly pulled from other universes. That didn’t make it any less viscerally terrifying to see in person. Well, through a recording. Either way, watching those black portals ringed in emerald flame…He couldn’t fathom what that woman would be in twenty years, let alone a hundred.

Yes, Harmon was aware that these students represented a true problem for his conquest of the CA. Even the best projections indicated full decades of combat to take over the neighboring nation. More than enough time for these embers to grow into a conflagration that could consume him.

And yet, this line of reasoning felt the same as his original fears. Just as he felt a threat to lineage was too flimsy, a potential threat to his future plans did not explain the absolute urgency he felt when he thought of those five. His instincts screamed to end them now, as if he had little time left before they grew into something he could not handle.

It made no logical sense. Despite the impressive raw potential of those he had seen so far‒Cat especially. Her summoned warrior with the floating weapons sent chills up Harmon’s spine‒they were just that; raw. Refining a shroud into a true power was a labor of decades. The youngest true powerhouses were at least in their thirties before they became real threats. Not teenagers.

Harmon thought himself a smart man. Smart enough to fear what he didn’t understand. Unpredictability was the enemy of planning, and planning was the path to victory. Having five random unknown elements that caused such an intense reaction in him was fraying at Harmon’s nerves. He was almost tempted to resort to more drastic measures.

Almost.

Every time he contemplated a public assassination or directly interfering with an event, his sense returned to him. It would put all his ambitions at risk to do such a thing. If he was found out or even implicated, heavy scrutiny would fall on him. And the last thing Harmon needed right now was scrutiny. And he’d do that for what? A visceral reaction with only the thinnest of logical bases?

No, the much more logical and viable route would be waiting for the Tournament to end in blood and death before striking the young shrouded down. Even if they managed to flee in the chaos, it would be much easier to send a special strike force to end them then rather than do something stupid now.

In that moment, Harmon resolved to do just that. Those five would become his top priority after his ambitions were fulfilled. Even if only for his peace of mind, he would see them dead as soon as doing so didn’t sacrifice his best chances at burning the CA to the ground so he could dance on the ashes.

Little did he know, Harmon would come to regret that decision above all others. He should have killed them. Even if he had to do it with his own hands.

But he didn’t know that yet.

So, the King of the Vast Kingdom, oathbreaker and kingslayer, sat in his room, sipping wine that was almost as old as he was, thinking that everything was going swimmingly. For the first time in his long life, he ignored the raging storm of screaming warnings spilling from the quiet corners of his mind.

He had no idea how much he’d come to regret it.

{}

Caeden sat, legs folded, hands resting on his knees with his palms up and fingers completely relaxed. He breathed, deep and even. Lines of crimson encircled his whole body, scant inches above his skin. They darted and moved in rapid, flitting motions that carried them in zig-zagging patterns.

Every breath in, they were drawn away from his extremities, rushing up his arms and legs toward his head and chest. Some even slipped into his nostrils and partially opened lips. Every exhale would see them flowing back out, rushing to cover every inch of him once again. Every breath out, and the crimson, scaled sections of his left arm and the clawed middle and pointer finger of his left hand would pulse was a red glow.

Over time, in the last few weeks as he had continued this meditation exercise, Caeden had noted the glow becoming ever more intense, the movement of his Sharp shroud becoming faster and smoother, gaining depth and speed in equal measure. His control over the shroud was refined and increased, gaining new dimensions. Of course, he’d immediately applied these gains to refining his favorite mnemonics, like his thorns. Cat was truly inspiring in how she constantly strove to create ever more efficient and powerful mnemonics and spells. Caeden found the attitude infectious, as did his other friends.

Well, not Erik. Then again, Erik was some kind of heaven-blessed natural talent. Whenever the normally profoundly unlucky man applied himself to creating a new mnemonic, it was always damn near perfect somehow.

Caeden was not noting the growing glow of his Embodiment-reconstructed parts or contemplating his recently increased control. He wasn’t even thinking about how absurd Erik was as a general existence. Mere minutes ago, Caeden had reached something of a critical point in his meditation.

This was not the first time he’d entered this state, where his mind was completely immersed in his shroud, and nothing else existed. It had happened several times, once even before he achieved Nascent shroud and a few times before his soul’s fragile situation was revealed to him by the researcher.

It struck him at random whenever his mind and environment were just right, and his consciousness slipped that tiny bit closer to his shroud’s domain. These were the moments when he made the most progress in his soul integration. In fact, from 50% to now, more than half of his gains with Sharp had been made in these brief instances.

Even in light of that fact, this one was especially important. Before this meditation session, Caeden had checked Forged Infinity’s display. 99%. The same as it had been for the last three days. Caeden had been more than hopeful about reaching 100% before arriving at Baserock until he reached this point only a day before they arrived. Since then, it hadn’t changed at all.

Something was missing. Caeden had hoped that it was this. This state of oneness might have been the missing element he needed. A few more breaths and a few more surges of crimson light, and Caeden dropped back into a more normal state of meditation. With no small amount of trepidation, he picked up Forged Infinity from where it was lying next to him.

If this wasn’t the answer, Caeden wasn’t sure what he was going to do. Meditation while manifesting his shroud had been the only real method to advance his integration so far, and even the researcher hadn’t had another answer. With his condition being a complete unknown, anything after this point would be shooting in the dark, hoping whatever he tried would finally get that last percent and fix at least one of his shrouds.

Caeden was chomping at the bit to get started with Physical Enhancement already. The gains he’d seen in controlling Sharp as his integration improved would prove far more useful with his more unruly shroud. He already had impressively strong control over his first shroud. The second was the one he struggled with. A year of training with the guidance of professionals had improved his control by leaps and bounds, but it was still a pale imitation of his refined command of Sharp.

Running his finger along the pure gold portion of his shrouded weapon’s hilt form, he looked at the screen as it popped out. A massive grin bloomed on his face. One of the four circles had been completely filled.

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