“Can I fight this time? I’m soooo boooored!” Erik rolled across the floor of the Hearthhome’s living room. In a rare occurrence, the whole team had ended up in the same space, and talk had inevitably drifted to their next match, one against the first team of the Ten Thousand Empires.

At one point, there would have been much riding on this match, and Caeden would have felt that pressure sitting on his shoulders. After all, this was a match against a country primed to go to war with them. If there was ever a time when they had to show what they were made of, it was now.

But that was two days and over a thousand years of training ago. Now, this barely qualified as a light breeze’s worth of pressure.

Thus, Erik’s boredom. No challenges were in their future until they reached the main combat tournament, where they could face people that feasibly had as much shroud as them. Though, since everyone on the team now had evolved shrouds, which drastically enhanced the growth of shrouds, they were a fair bit farther along than anyone, even at their actual age.

“I don’t see the harm in it this time.” Lily looked up from her CV tablet, where she was going over some numbers and data that were passed to her through a small Entrance Blade.

Lily hadn’t just trained in the Forge. In fact, she and Caeden had worked with the Bladeborne on a wide number of projects. Access to vast amounts of time, a ready and able workforce, and literally infinite resources rapidly started producing results. Especially after Lily got Caeden to grab her tablet from the Hearthhome library. Now Lily had her own research team in the Forge, where they worked on various projects involving her shrouds.

The Bladeborne were curious about shrouds, as they were something Caeden’s children didn’t have access to. With a willing set of subjects in the form of Caeden’s team, the industrious living weapons were making inroads into understanding the subtleties of shrouds.

Keeping the channel between the Forge and her used to mean that there could be no time dilation inside the Forge. Luckily, they’d managed to overcome that hurdle. Now, all Exit Blades in the Forge were kept in a room designed to isolate time differences. Inside the transfer room, time moved in step with the Starry Sea while the rest of the Forge was moving considerably faster.

Caeden could feel Erik’s eyes boring a hole into his back as he looked at Lily. “Well, if you think it’s alright, I don’t see the harm.”

“Yes!” Erik jumped up, dancing across the room. “I have been waiting so long! Oh, all my buddies are going to love this!”

Erik had, strangely enough, developed his own following in the Forge. Whatever else could be said about him, he was charismatic with a certain kind of people. Some of the Bladeborne had taken to both the medical and combat arts. Those that enjoyed both found Erik to be inspiring, a thought that still chilled Caeden to the bone.

“That’s not going to leave anything for the rest of us to do,” Cat spoke up from a plush armchair where she was building a spell construct in the air out of glowing sickly green Mana. Cat had spent almost the entire time in the Forge learning from Dave and a series of other undead that worked at Dave’s company. Apparently, Cat had been hilariously uneducated when she was summoning literal armies of undead.

Caeden hadn’t seen much of what she could do now, and a very large part of him wasn’t sure he wanted to find out.

“Erik’s bad at sharing.” She continued.

“Am not!” He shot back, no longer dancing. Instead, Erik had sprawled out on a couch, throwing single pieces of popcorn in the air from a bucket he somehow got in the last few seconds and trying to catch them in his mouth.

“Ok, give me some popcorn.” Cat rolled her eyes.

“Mine!” Erik clutched the bucket tight.

“There you go.”

“Popcorn is different. Get your own.” He continued to look suspiciously at her like she would jump across the room to steal his snack.

“It’s not like this will be our last match,” Caeden said, not even bothering to defend Erik. “We’ll all get a chance to fight if we want to.”

“Which means it’ll be me and Erik for the rest of them.”

“Oh yeah, definitely.” Caeden nodded. He and Lily weren’t big on fighting if they didn’t have to. Asherta would rather find some new absurd food combination than get in a fight. So it was just Erik and Cat.

“Fine by me,” Erik laughed, missing a falling kernel with his mouth. It stopped midair a moment later, wrapped in tiny popcorn-sized purple chain links.

“It’s almost time to go, isn’t it?” Lily glanced at the clock.

It was. Their next match was supposed to start within an hour. “We’re cutting it close, I think.”

“I’ll take us there. I’m in the middle of something.” Lily nodded at her tablet. “Maybe we don’t all even need to go.”

“I think they’d disqualify us for that, wouldn’t they?” Cat asked.

“Ugh, yes.” Lily sighed. “It’s just a waste of my time. Our time, really. I know you and Erik like fighting, but no one in the youth league is going to challenge you at all. Just be prepared for disappointment.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Erk and Cat responded simultaneously. This was not the first time they’d had this conversation. Caeden felt bad for Lily’s futile attempts to curb their enthusiasm. She knew it was useless, but she kept trying anyway.

Instead of adding to the conversation, Caeden went back to his Physical Enhancement meditation. He was inching ever closer to external integration. His speed was snowballing, increasing continuously just as Sharp had. He was hoping to hit 100% before the main combat tournament.

{}

King Harmon was ill at ease. His sense of foreboding grew as his son’s match grew closer and closer. Now, it was mere minutes away, and he felt as if the Pillar itself was bearing down on him. Like an inevitable doom approached.

Everything was wrong. All of it centered around the CA’s first youth team. Somehow, children who shouldn’t matter for a few thousand years had ended up at the center of his concerns. It all came down to one thing; they did not conform to his expectations.

There was an uncomfortable whiff of fate about them. Harmon put no weight into fate, as a concept. It was too ephemeral an idea, something beyond his control. He only put stock in that which he could touch. But in a world of shrouds, it was foolish to discount the absurd and unusual completely.

That team, they stank of such things.

Just the fact that every attempt he’d made to end them couldn’t get off the ground before it was stopped had his attention. Once was a fluke; twice was unfortunate. A third time? That was something else. And that is exactly what had happened last night.

The weapon merchant had rejected him, but Harmon wasn’t willing to give up so easily, not after Simon had such a bad encounter with his upcoming opponents. He had sent men to their ship to end things, no matter the consequences. It’s not like the CA was in a position to push anything with him, and this all would be over before he’d see any consequences for their deaths.

His men never even made it. They were swept up by wailing ghosts before they even made it to the docking tower. Harmon had no idea how, but Damon Vestigious had found him out. The man was a curse if there ever was one. He alone had seen to the downfall of the Vast Kingdom’s original heights.

Three attempts and three failures. Each attempt only got worse. His first assassin merely balked at the ship, then the weapons merchant rejected him from the start, and now he’d lost men. Harmon wasn’t a superstitious man, but it felt like the Starry Sea itself was punishing him for even trying.

He hadn’t given up. Harmon had not reached as far as he had by balking over an unfortunate series of failures. But none had ever weighed on his mind as much. Perhaps it was his nerves with the culmination of his desires so close at hand. Maybe he was letting the circumstances get to him. Anyone would, considering how much he had riding on this Tournament going his way.

He’d received word from the merchant only this morning that preparations were mostly complete. No wonder he was low on resources. With everything in place, there was little to spare on extraneous jobs. For all that he was not nearly respectful enough, Harmon had to recognize that the merchant certainly delivered.

There was no going back now, not that Harmon would ever want to. Really, there had been no way out as soon as he cleared the chaff from the Ten Thousand Empires. If he did not win, he would die. There were too many sons and daughters with dead parents, and only him to blame. He knew, more than anyone, the power of a vengeful child. After all, he was one of them.

A small chime denoted the match was about to begin. Harmon was not surprised to find that he was the only one in any of the reserved boxes. This was a youth match, normally of little import. Harmon had actually canceled a few meetings to be here, much to the other parties’ confusion. No one was going to skip such important international politics for a mere youth match, not even one that involved their children.

These events were ones to be spoken of after the fact, not witnessed in person. Especially these matches so early on in the youth tournament.

The Ten Thousand Empires team was the first to enter the field. Powerful scions of important royal families, one and all. Power was all-important to shrouded, and these children had been raised under the harshest training and the greatest masters to have the strength to live up to their legacies.

It was with no small amount of pride that Harmon saw Simon standing in the lead. He was the best of them, at massive expense to the Vast Kingdom. It was Harmon’s hope that his son would surpass him one day. And Harmon intended to hand him a legacy of conquest and grandeur rather than the ashes of failure Harmon’s own father had given to him. He would be better in every way.

The Vast Kingdom was a mere echo of what it used to be; no one had expected its heir to be much of anything. Indeed Harmon had gone through dozens of attempts and false starts to reach Simon. So many failures relegated to meaningless tasks in the backwater continents. Simon alone had stood above. So far above that, Harmon was convinced he was one-of-a-kind. A true genius among his peers.

And yet, Harmon had layered him in every ethertech device that the merchant had sold him for his own defense for this match. Because his genius son would be facing monsters today. If his son was the genius of a generation, he’d be facing a team of geniuses seen only once in ten thousand years. All five of them.

Harmon had no allusions; his son would lose. He had seen into the secrets of those four and found a True Shroud that was also a dual shroud, another dual shroud that was Nascent, a magic shroud, an evolved shroud with two bonded monsters the likes of which Harmon had never seen, and a wild-card child that seemed to change age with every observation. He had no idea how the CA had managed to get so lucky, having such prodigies born within their borders, but it had won them the youth league, he was sure.

No, Harmon’s concern was with his son’s survival. He had been optimistic, originally. Though they had overwhelming power, those five had never once failed to show mercy when given the opportunity. A weakness that Harmon had been intent to exploit to his son’s benefit.

Their encounter yesterday had crushed that. What had been Simon suitably punishing some random peasant would not go over well with such soft-hearted people. No, he was willing to bet that they would take a much harsher stance now. In these tournaments, killing was allowed. No one, no matter how soft-hearted, would miss such an opportunity, he was sure.

Even as he assured himself that he’d made enough preparations, Harmon watched the Central Authority team step into the arena. He decided to take a moment and inspect them with his aura. After all, any changes they had undergone could be significant. If one was injured, it would be to his son's advantage. Instead, the moment he reached out his senses were overwhelmed and his mind went blank.

{}

“Hey,” Erik said, arms casually swinging at his side. “Isn’t that dickhead from yesterday?”

“You know what, it definitely is.” Caeden peered across the arena at their opponents. More specifically, the kid in the lead. “Well, that’s a funny coincidence.”

“Ha! I’m going to mess with them a bit.” Erik had a mischievous look on his face that made Caeden worried.

“Don’t go overboard.” He warned.

“Oh, it’ll be fine.” Erik waved him off. “I’m just going to scare him a bit, maybe make him ruin his pants. He’s a piece of crap anyway.”

Caeden couldn’t really argue the point. The guy was definitely garbage. “...Ok, just make sure you don’t kill anyone. We don’t need to offer up any pretenses for the Ten Thousand Empires to start a war.”

“Ugh, you’re so boring.” Erik sighed. “Fine, fine.”

He cracked his knuckles, “Stop killing my fun.”