(Arc: Revenge) Sadness and strength

"What do you mean?" Rey Taylor asked.

"He had reached the sixth stage of energy circulation and the seventh stage of swordsmanship by the age of sixteen; he would have been a force to reckon with"

"You have such a grandson? The Anderson family will prosper."

Despite them currently being on bad terms, they were once the best of friends and were inseparable. Their relationship soured after rumors spread that Carlos had soiled his cherished daughter before being officially engaged. The hearsay greatly humiliated the Taylor family and they were ridiculed by the other clans.

"My grandson is no more...your grandson is no more. Von killed our grandchild."

Lydia was left open-mouthed as she tried to process what she had overheard. Everyone in the room bar Lucas and Carlos was taken aback.

"That's right, Lydia and Carlos had a child. They were forced to abandon him because of your short-sightedness, Rey. That child did nothing wrong but he suffered the consequences of our actions. Von Ellis made him pay in the worst way imaginable. His disjoined arm was found in a pool of blood for God's sake."

Rey Taylor wore a blank face void of life and emotion. His first grandchild had been snatched away from him before he even had the chance to see him.

"How was he?" Rey asked in a cold manner.

"Brilliant," Carlos replied.

The latter was holding onto the body of his partner to prevent her from plummeting to the ground.

"Why didn't you protect him?" she asked in tears with her head resting against his torso.

No valid answers popped up in his mind and he instinctively bowed his head in shame.

The silence in the room was nauseating, the chamber was akin to a grave. A loud and powerful voice broke the silence.

"When are we initiating the attack."

That voice belonged to the Taylor clan's head.

"In three years' time," the Anderson patriarch replied.

At the same time, in a location halfway between the planet's crust and its core, a young man was brandishing his sword relentlessly. The youngster was none other than Rohan. Ian Keller had granted him a few months to further refine his swordsmanship before setting foot in the real world of magic.

The information he received about the other continents rekindled the flame that had weakened. After the allocated time had elapsed, no substantial progress was made, only minor tweaks to his techniques.

"We'll start with a basic skill that's fundamental to the darkness element, Shadow steps."

Shadow steps used the darkness element to decrease an individual's presence and more importantly, the user could use shadows to teleport.

Even though he said that it was basic and fundamental, mastering it was no easy feat. Although I was explained all the minutiae, the concept resembled nothing more than gibberish. From my experience, putting theory into practice was the best way to obtain results, so I got to work.

The first hundred attempts resulted in hilarious failures and there was no glimpse of hope; I sometimes did not even move and stayed in my original position. I simply couldn't fathom my position changing without my muscles doing the work; it was such a hard habit to break as it was instilled into everyone from birth.

My patience was running thin and desperation was written all over my face. As soon as Ian noticed my expression, he grinned and decided to be kind for once and gave me some pointers. He must have been wary of his negative karma!

"You're going nowhere, even a newborn would learn the spell before you. Think of the shadows as a single unit, if that's even possible for your thick head," he said.

"Let's try again, I'll do it this time!"

My sword was placed vertically a few meters away to cast a shadow on the pearl-white floor. My eyes were sewn shut and I visualized the blade's shadow and mine as two ends of a bridge; they represented a single entity. My legs steadily sank into the ground as I felt my body being pulled downwards; I did not resist the flow and my head descended into the abyss.

Besides the sword, a smiling figure began to rise; I had managed to execute it!

"You're still as slow as a tortoise. Your opponent would have the time to eat supper and return before you finish teleporting. Get faster or else you'd be better off practicing ballet."

"For someone who isn't even sure if he's alive, you do talk a big game," I jokingly replied.

"You little bast--"

His fist struck the back of my head; despite him being a hologram, he was still of the physical world and could interact with objects.

"Since you have the time to joke around, you'll be practicing this skill day in and day out until you master it."

With every try, I was making headway in both speed and accuracy; the objective was for shadow steps to be as natural as walking.

After eight entire months of strenuous work, my mastery over the skill had reached a satisfactory level and we proceeded with the next phase of my training.

"Remember fire blast?"

I nodded while trying to guess where his explanation would lead to.

"In truth, the spells that you had to learn were not solely there to defeat the golem, they were also the basics of what I'll be showing you. The only thing that I didn't account for was the merging of the spell with your swordsmanship; however, thanks to your efforts, the attack has been improved."

"I didn't process the last part, can you repeat? Did you just say that I was the best student ever?" I humorously replied.

"How about I lock you in here and make sure you never see the light of day," he said with a sinister grin.

"The same principle you used for fire blast can also be used with the darkness element. The only difference is the outcome; instead of burning the target, the prey will dematerialize and turn to void," he added.

I quickly became aware that controlling the darkness element to generate such an attack was considerably harder than executing it with fire.

'I now understand why a select few choose darkness as their main element. It's truly burdensome, even for me, to execute this.'

Now let's slash!