Five minutes later, Kazuki had gone off to make his preparations, leaving Priam alone with his silent Shadow. Despite the quiet, he felt anything but at peace.

"The first rule of genocide is, there are always survivors. And they'll come for us."

"The first rule of war," Jasmine countered, "is that pacifists die. And I'll handle the survivors."

Priam growled. "You agree with all this? What he said at the end?"

"You care about my opinion?"

"Always."

The young woman smiled and gave a slight shrug. "I don't like it, but the world doesn't give a damn about what I like. As a soldier, Kazuki has to put his people first. You can't fault a general for making hard decisions to protect his nation."

"Does that legitimize a preemptive massacre?"

"Legitimize? So we wait to be attacked just so we've got a moral excuse to defend ourselves? I get that you're immortal, and maybe that gives you a different perspective—but me, I'd rather stay alive, even if it means carrying the weight of a few ghosts. Does that make me a bad person?"

"No. It makes me a hypocrite," Priam sighed.

"More like an idealist," Jasmine said gently.

He gazed out the window at the thousands gathering in the stands. Most of them were laughing, glad for a brief reprieve from the Necromoon's light. "I can't accept Kazuki's decision. Thousands of innocents will die—for what crime? They just want to survive."

Jasmine ran her fingers through his hair, trying to soothe him. "Is it the injustice that bothers you, or the inevitability of their deaths?"

Priam frowned. "What are you getting at?"

"Well… if the Demiurge hadn't shown up to deal with Sumstreh, the Necromoon would've crushed those clans eventually. Who's to say they weren't planning to attack us before that—to secure Log-a-Rhythm, or a path to Proxima? One way or another, Kazuki would've gone nuclear."

"So what, they were doomed no matter what? I don't buy into fatalism."

Jasmine tilted her head. "That a philosophical thing?"

"Mmh. It's the idea that every event is set in stone, that our choices aren't really choices."

"Depressing. But around here, it tracks." She sat down on Priam's lap and locked eyes with him. "If they're too weak to save themselves, that's not your fault. It's not your job to save them. You're not a saint."

"There's a difference between not being a saint and nuking innocents in anticipation of a war," Priam growled. "Fuck, the System knows I'm selfish—I barely care about strangers—but that doesn't mean I'm ready to glass an entire tribal camp when 99% of them haven't done a damn thing to me!"

His gaze drifted to the arena. Two teenagers were kissing. Nearby, a child giggled as he devoured a candy-floss-like treat. Tiny scales framed the corners of his eyes. Not all Snaherts were monsters.

"It's Kazuki's decision, not yours. I don't get why it's bothering you this much."

Priam scowled. "Jasmine, we're going to benefit from their deaths. If I say nothing, if I do nothing, then I'm complicit."

Sensing his frustration, Jasmine took his hand. "My life on Arkana was such a pile of shit that I never had the luxury of pitying my victims. My instructors made sure to kill any empathy I had left… but that's what drove you to save me. I may not fully understand, but I want to. Tell me what's going on in that head of yours."

Priam looked at the woman perched on his lap. In the face of her stormy gray eyes, the weight of the tribes was so light. Her smile scattered the clouds that loomed over his hearts.

"I can't say no to a pretty face," he winked, and her smile widened. "Alright, a bit of context… My civilization is bellicose. Out of the last three thousand years, humanity's had maybe two centuries of peace."

"That's not much. Why so much war?"

Priam shrugged. "People form communities based on shared traits, and they tend to hate anything that's different. Sooner or later, someone lights the match, and it all goes up in flames. That's human nature, and I'm no different. The real problem comes after: most soldiers don't want to die on a battlefield, yet truces take forever. Not just because of the vicious cycle of hate, but because war is good business for some of the people in power. Parasites who grow fat on their people's blood. On Earth, I despised them. Now that I have power, I don't want to become one of them. If the easy way is to kill thousands, I want to walk the hard way."

A flick to his forehead made him yelp in surprise.

"Idiot," Jasmine grinned. "The benefit you gain from Kazuki's plan is the survival of the people you love. That's a hell of a lot nobler than cash. Besides, you assume your veto could actually stop our Hoplite friend. Spoiler alert: all the respect he's got for you won't stop him from protecting his nation. If you don't want him launching those nukes, you'll have to stop him physically."

Priam shook his head. The lives of strangers weighed less than his friendship with the Hoplite. "I could offer him a better plan."

"Got one?"

"Maybe."

All the while, Priam had been running a parallel line of thought, looking for a better way.

"Oh?"

"Cut off the Hydra's head. Without their Tier 4s, the two losing clans won't have the firepower to break through Oasis's barrier or invade Proxima. Kazuki won't need to wipe the rest."

Four or five powerhouses versus thousands of innocents. If the Juggernaut balked at the idea of killing thousands of innocents, he had no qualms about taking out a handful of elite warriors who had tried to assassinate him the day before.

"Without their best fighters, the tribes won't last long either against the Necromoon," pointed out Jasmine.

"Not if they band together. One of the clans will get its land approved by the Empire. With that, they can build real defenses."

"They've hated each other for three thousand years," Jasmine reminded him. "I doubt they'll bury the hatchet so easily."

"That's their problem," Priam growled. "At the end of the day, they're not my responsibility. Just because I'm trying to avoid a slaughter doesn't mean I'm signing up to babysit them."

Once again, Priam was no saint.

"Now that's the Juggernaut I know," Jasmine said with a smirk. "So, if I understand correctly, all that's left is figuring out how to kill some Tier 4s?"

"You think it's stupid?"

The young woman smiled, eyes gleaming. "I'm your Shadow. Give me names, and I'll deliver corpses."

After a moment's thought, Priam whispered a name. Just like that, a Transcendent's fate changed.

"Kazuki the Storm versus Ilhan the Life-Constrictor!" announced Zulkar.

Focused on his breathing, the hoplite paid no mind to the crowd's roaring cheers. The intense conversation with Priam still echoed in his mind. His friend was an idealist—a flaw in the weak, a virtue in the strong. The Juggernaut would sharpen himself by swimming against the current. It took strength to shape the world to your will, and Priam knew it.

"Begin," commanded the Demiurge.

Kazuki opened his eyes and raised his spear. A quarter of a second later, his opponent had already covered a third of the distance between them. He was slower than Rohan. The one who had defeated Jasmine was a once-in-a-millennium prodigy. In comparison, the Snahert was underwhelming.

Another quarter-second passed, and the tribesman coiled. Scales bloomed across his skin, and a luminous halo encased his body. Kazuki blinked and saw a serpent poised to strike. Body Mastery II, Micro II, one Concept, and at least a legendary skill.

An impressive synergy, enough to threaten a Tier 2.

Kazuki didn't feel threatened. Feet firmly planted, hands on his weapon, he struck. [One Thrust - Legendary]

The movement was flawless; the skill, ideal. His spear sliced through the air, caught his opponent mid-dodge, and found the flaw in his draconic scales.

The crowd fell silent, stunned.

Kazuki kicked the Snahert's corpse away and pulled his spear free from the man's left eye. Seeing his weapon, he grunted. The blood staining the shaft was poisonous and would be hard to clean.

"Woah! Victory for Kazuki Arashi… in under one second!" the announcer exclaimed, once he recovered his voice. "An effortless triumph!"

Kazuki grimaced as he headed for the exit. The elf was wrong—the fight had been dangerous. Had the hoplite failed to once again suppress his epiphany, his Supremacy would have advanced.

A Tier 0 unlocking a Supremacy III was a ridiculous idea, but Kazuki Arashi's talent was absurd.

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*

Humanity's blast furnaces would have struggled to melt Promesse, but Priam was more than up to the task. Not only was he a Pyro Sage, but he had also deepened his soul resonance with the Concept to Unity, thus becoming a Pyro Champion. The kind of title expected of a phoenix prince, not a human.

As if I were still human.

"Whenever you're ready," said the elven blacksmith, tools at hand.

Unleashing his flames, Priam cast the shattered fragments of Promesse into the inferno. The shards began to glow, drinking in the hellish heat. His control over temperature was so absolute that the elf—a Tier 0 artisan—didn't even sweat.

With a parallel thought, Priam conjured a kinetic mold, subtly altering the weapon's shape to better suit his current spear skills. His newly upgraded set now possessed a cohesive theme. Kazuki had complimented him on it. In his way.

"Using your Concepts to support your spear skills is an elegant workaround, considering your rather modest natural talent with the weapon."

"Thanks for the compliment, bro," Priam had grimaced.

Deep down, he knew the hoplite was right. Not one of his spear skills had fulfilled five ideal prerequisites by the end of their Rare rank. At best, with [Hoplite Warpath], Spear Mastery, and a tedious feat—like repeating the same motion a hundred thousand times—he could squeeze out three. Meanwhile, all Kazuki had to do was perform a basic strike to unlock something like Perfect Thrust or Slash Proficiency. Another man might have raged at the injustice, but Priam accepted it. The world wasn't a fair place.

Over the past month, the Champion had made peace with that truth, and mourned his lack of talent with weapons. Why persist in a path ill-suited to him, when he could rewrite the rules instead? Rather than swim against the tide, Priam had taken inspiration from [Suffocating Thrust] and conceived a martial style rooted in his Concepts and Aura. His exceptional affinities guaranteed at least one ideal prerequisite.

Thanks to that, he had successfully evolved [Tribulation Piercing Spear] into an ideal spear skill: [Tribulation Heroic Strike]. He hoped this success wouldn't be a one-off.

And that my enemies will stop ruining my spear.

Earlier that day, his duel with Rohan had reminded Priam that martial skills were just one part of the kit of a spearmaster. Without Promesse, his spear skills were nearly useless. If he wished to wield them in tomorrow's match, he needed to repair the weapon the White Tiger had so easily shattered. The local artisans had disagreed.

"A repaired weapon will never be as strong as the original," warned the elf who managed the gladiators' armory. "Re-fusing the pieces together introduces weak points."

"What if we reforge it?"

"Got something in mind?"

"Better than that," Priam had replied, drawing out the Gold Alloy Formula he had earned as a reward for surviving his quintuple Tribulation.

"These materials are costly," noted the blacksmith. "Lady Nyhlaelle's favor won't cover this."

When first contacting the artisan, Priam had been surprised to learn that the High Marshal's apprentice had specifically requested the repair be done free of charge.

"No problem," he said now, opening a portal to the Concepts Archipelago. Half the ingredients he needed had been available at the Sun Shop, and Ymir had procured the rest at the Sun Auction.

Priam retrieved the materials while Promesse's remnants glowed. It took another twenty minutes for the metal to fully liquefy.

"Let's begin. Adding Sun Steel for durability," said the elf, tossing several of Priam's femurs in the mold. Bones from a [Sun Steel Body] made for a worthy substitute for the real ore. Any future upgrade to the weapon would thus require a corresponding upgrade in Priam's resistance.

"Adding Moon Carbon for tensile strength."

Two silver ingots clinked into the overheated mold. The greedy dragon in Priam winced as each was worth half a million Sun Points.

"Star Vanadium for hardness. Astral Chrome for corrosion resistance," the smith continued. His job seemed simple, but Priam was certain the elf was using skills to precisely time each step and enhance the outcome.

Under flames as magical as they were legendary, the metals and other elements began to melt into an alloy of immense value. Invisible to Tier 0 eyes, atoms and molecules swam within the molten blend.

"It'll be your turn in five seconds."

Priam nodded. "Initiating the harmonization ritual," he announced, channeling his aether into the ground.

A rune etched into the stone lit up beneath Promesse's kinetic mold. Lines branched outward to three adjacent sigils, which glowed in turn as energy pulsed from the center to the periphery of the glyph. As the runic sentence was being inscribed, the symbols quivered with the influx of aether, rewriting reality according to the ritual's algorithm.

The array's goal was simple: to summon a magnetic field superimposed over the mold. Its shifting frequency would coax metallic atoms into precise, pre-determined configurations based on intricate crystallographic laws. A specific molecular structure would optimize the weapon's properties.

If Priam were honest, half of it went over his head—even with a master's degree in physics. Melding magic and science was a privilege of scholars more learned than he. Still, one didn't need to be an expert to pump aether into a rune—the magical equivalent of pressing a button.

Less than a minute later, a white spear of molten metal hovered beneath Priam's hand. Despite its liquid state, it seemed solid as every atom was locked in place by the magico-magnetic field. Pyro's flames flared brighter, forcing the stragglers into alignment.

"Beginning quenching," the elf whispered as the metal's glow took on a hue more radiant than the sun.

Drawing on the full extent of his [Kinetic Sovereignty], Priam used the legendary skill to extract heat from the spear's core, inducing instantaneous cooling. In a blink, the weapon's heart solidified.

"Final step: aether nitriding with charged nitrogen."

The elven blacksmith opened a pressurized gas cylinder. Though the atmosphere of Elysium contained a significantly higher concentration of oxygen than Earth's, nitrogen was also present in abundance. Naturally saturated with primordial fluid due to the overwhelming aether density of the Spearhead World, it was ideally suited for the process. The noble gas had been isolated by the hoplites, then converted into ammonia to prepare for the nitriding process.

Priam's add-on activated [Kinetic Sovereignty] to encase the chemical substance around the spear and let it permeate the alloy.

"The formula mentions this process is lengthy," Priam remarked after five minutes of silence.

"Mmh. It can take up to a hundred hours," the blacksmith confirmed.

"What the fuck? Four days?!"

Priam cursed. His resistance pool was vast, but [Impatience Resistance] was not among them.

"Kid, do you even know what aether nitriding is?"

Kid?

Priam winced. The elf looked barely twenty, but it was entirely possible he was three times that age.

"It's a surface-level chemical treatment meant to harden the outer layer of the weapon by enriching it with nitrogen charged in aether," he replied.

Thanks to his eidetic memory, Priam recalled reading that line from a Wikipedia page five years ago during a midnight internet rabbit hole.

The elf raised an eyebrow, then nodded. "A heart as flexible as a reed, a blade as solid as oak—the perfect weapon."

"Sounds great, but I've got a match tomorrow. Any way to speed it up?"

The elf gave him a critical look, then shrugged. "Seeing as I've bet on you, it wouldn't do to let you go there without a weapon, can I? You'd better win."

Priam felt a Domain expand to envelop Promesse. The elf then activated one of his skills. The Champion had sought this particular craftsman out specifically because he was one of the rare inhabitants of the Demiurge's world to still possess skills. The Tribulations of an artisan were less catastrophic than those of a warrior, granting them more time before renouncing the System. The strongest ones could even keep it—as long as they didn't visit Elysium.

Five minutes later, the smith wiped the sweat from his brow. "The nitrogen has permeated the first millimeter of your spear. The treatment was a success."

Fatigue laced his voice, and Priam inclined his head in gratitude. "Thank you. May I?"

"It's your spear."

The Juggernaut reached into the heart of the flames and grasped his weapon. The spear—now almost a lance—thrummed in his hand like the purring engine of a car revving to run. He examined it.

[Promesse - Silver] becomes [Promesse - Gold]!

[Promesse - Bound to Priam Azura - Gold] - Forged in one universe, reforged in another. Bound to its wielder through Concepts, baptized in battle, blessed by resurrections, and reforged with mythical bones and stellar ingots, its potential is linked to its wielder. Tempered by flame, Heroic Aura, kinetic mastery and time. It holds a minor adaptive capacity. A weapon which will learn to resist anything that doesn't break it. An embryonic spirit is detectable within. As a [Bound Weapon], it benefits from a portion of its wielder's Titles and Talents and a small portion of its resistances. Improves the effectiveness of spear-based skills, aether-infused strikes, and Aura-powered assault. Despite the youth of the spirit within, its physical properties grant it Gold rarity. Its physical durability transcends its rank. Meaning Promise in French, Promesse turns its wielder's threats into reality. A weapon worthy of the Juggernaut.

"Satisfied?"

"Satisfied," Priam confirmed. Now, he felt more ready for tomorrow's duel.

But before that, I should upgrade [Art of Movement]. Hey, I didn't spare Rohan for nothing!

Status:

PHYSICAL: Strength 1 249 Constitution 2 083 Agility 1 637 Vitality 2 092 Perception 988

MENTAL: Vivacity (D) 666 Dexterity 891 Memory 1 152 Willpower 1 298 Charisma 990

META: Meta-affinity (O) 1 398 Meta-focus 886 Meta-endurance 1 584 Meta-perception 842 Meta-chance 1 089 Meta-authority 768

Potential: 34 005 Tier 0

[Tribulation]: Three Tribulations pending. Future Tribulations delayed until: Time: 2 months 11 days 23 hours 41 minutes 33 seconds.

Next thresholds: 12 attributes > 900 / 3 attributes > 1 800 / 1 attribute > 2 100

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