2025-12-27 06:03:01The smile stayed on Asta's face even as heat crept up his neck. He wasn't embarrassed exactly,more resigned. Of course Kael would single him out, even without naming him directly.
The old man had spent countless hours trying to coax the dragon flame out of Asta's stubborn body, and they both knew how spectacularly those attempts had failed. But Asta had excelled at everything else,the sword work, the hand-to-hand combat, the tactical drills. That had to count for something, didn't it?
Old man Kael's gaze moved on, and Asta released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. The old man's expression softened slightly as he continued addressing the crowd.
"But I want you all to understand something important."
Kael said, his voice growing stronger, more passionate.
"Difficulty is not the same as defeat. Struggle is not the same as failure. Every single person in this room has faced challenges,that's why you're here in the labor section instead of in some prestigious squad, right?"
A few bitter laughs echoed through the crowd, but Kael pressed on, undeterred.
"But you know what? I've trained soldiers, elite guards, royal flame wielders, and I can tell you with absolute certainty,some of the strongest people I've ever met started exactly where you are now. At the bottom. Struggling. Doubting themselves."
He paused, letting that sink in.
"The difference between those who rise and those who don't isn't talent. It isn't a natural ability. It's not even how powerful your flame is or what prestigious clan you come from."
Kael's hand came up, forming a fist that he held high in the air.
"It's this! It's determination! It's the refusal to give up even when everything and everyone tells you that you should! It's waking up every single morning and choosing to try again, even after you've failed a hundred times before!"
His words hit Asta right in the chest, resonating with something deep inside him. Around him, he could see others straightening, lifting their heads, expressions shifting from resigned to something more hopeful.
"You think the elite squads have it easy?"
Kael continued, his voice rising.
"You think Cassian Xavier and his people never struggle, never doubt, never fail? They do! Everyone does! The only difference is they've learned to push through it, to use their failures as fuel instead of letting them become chains!"
"Yeah!"
Someone shouted from the back of the crowd, and suddenly more voices joined in.
"That's right!"
"Tell them, Old Man Kael!”
The energy in the room was shifting, becoming electric. Asta felt it washing over him, felt his own spirits lifting despite the weight of his repeated failures with the dragon flame.
"So when you face your next challenge."
Kael said, his voice dropping slightly but losing none of its intensity,
“When you hit that wall that seems impossible to climb, when you fail at something you've tried a thousand times,I want you to remember that every failure is a lesson. Every setback is preparation for your comeback. Every moment of struggle is forging you into someone stronger than you were before!"
"Yes!"
The crowd was responding now, feeding off Kael's energy, voices rising in agreement and encouragement.
"Can I count on you all to keep pushing, keep fighting, keep believing in yourselves?"
"Yes!"
The response was thunderous now, hundreds of voices united in affirmation.
"Can I count on you to support each other, to lift each other up when someone falls?"
"Yes!"
Even louder this time. Asta found himself shouting along with everyone else, his fist raised in the air, his heart pounding with renewed determination.
"Then show me! Show the entire academy! Show everyone who's ever dismissed you or underestimated you what the labor section is really made of!"
The crowd erupted, cheering, shouting, whistling. The noise was deafening, filling the quarters and probably echoing throughout the entire complex. Asta was grinning now, genuinely grinning, the smile reaching his eyes for the first time in weeks.
Around him, people were clapping each other on the back, exchanging excited looks, feeding off the collective energy that Kael had sparked.
Old Man Kael stood on the platform, letting the moment build, a satisfied smile on his weathered face.
He raised his hands gradually, calling for quiet, and slowly the noise began to die down, though the energy remained, crackling in the air like lightning waiting to strike.
"Now."
Kael said once he could be heard again, his tone shifting to something more serious.
"I have an announcement to make. And I'm sorry to say, it's not entirely good news."
The mood shifted immediately, excitement giving way to tension. Murmurs rippled through the crowd
“What now? What could possibly dampen the moment they'd just shared?”
"The tournament."
Kael said, and groans erupted before he could even finish. He held up a hand, waiting for silence.
"The tournament has been postponed again."
"Not again!"
Someone shouted
from the left side of the crowd.
The murmuring grew louder, voices overlapping in frustration and disbelief.
"This is ridiculous!"
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Chapter 449
One clean cut, diagonal, across the binding that held the basket sealed and the flame solid material split along the cut line with a sharp crack that echoed through the trees."Jabber!"From below, almost before the word had finished leaving his mouth. "Already on it."The flame shield came up from the ground,wide, cupped, angled perfectly and the basket fell into it, not crashing, just settling, the broken seal falling away as Jabber brought it steady and slow and set it down beside him on the ground with the careful hands of someone carrying something that couldn't afford to be dropped.Asta dropped from the branch and landed beside him.They looked at each other for one second.Then Mira was there, already reaching for the broken seam of the basket, pulling the edges apart, the flame material dissolving at her hands as she worked it open.The basket opened.Fifteen children.Pressed together in the center of it, some sitting, some curled against each other, all of them in the cond
Chapter 448
Then the side of her mouth moved. Just slightly."I won't kill you." She said. "You're too useful to me." She looked at him for one more beat. "Don't do it again."Gull exhaled.The exhale was quiet and controlled and the relief in it was absolutely genuine.He stepped back to his position.Dero looked at the men still kneeling on the ground."Is there a bed somewhere in this place?" She said. Not specifically to anyone. "Somewhere I can rest and recover my strength."Two or three of the kneeling figures began to speak at the same time.She held up one hand.They stopped.She looked at the competing voices, then at the ceiling, then back down."You know what.”She said. "Never mind. I'll find it myself."She turned.And then she looked at Web.The look she gave him was different from anything else she had produced in the last hour. It was slower. And warmer. In a way that was not entirely comfortable."Web.” she said.Web looked at her."Would you mind accompanying me?" She s
Chapter 447
"I genuinely didn't think he would die from that." She looked around at all of them with something approaching mild surprise. "Anyone else? Don't be shy. Come on. You can say it out loud or you can mutter it to yourself,your choice. Either way I'll hear it."Complete silence.Not one person moved.Not one person appeared to even be breathing in a way that could be considered voluntary.Dero looked at them all for one more moment, then straightened up.……………………."She can hear human thought."Kyx said it quietly, from just behind Dero's right shoulder. Not alarmed, Kyx didn't really do alarmed. Just stating it, the way you state a fact that you want on record."Yes." Gull said immediately, from the left.Web turned and looked at Gull. "How?"Gull looked at Web with the specific expression of someone who has been asked to explain something technical to someone they are not sure will fully appreciate the explanation."She has a built-in flame technique." He said. "Passive. Always ac
Chapter 446:Hear Every Whisper
The men in black cloaks were still on their knees.Every single one of them, heads bowed, hands flat on the ground, not one of them willing to be the next person to look up. The silence in the space had that particular quality of a room where something bad just happened and everyone is very focused on not being the reason something bad happens again.Dero stood above them. Unhurried. Looking across the tops of their bowed heads the way someone looks across a field,with no urgency, just observation.Then, from the second row of kneeling figures, something started.A trembling.One man. His shoulders were moving, small and fast, the involuntary shake of someone whose body was doing something his brain was trying very hard to stop. His head was down but his lips were moving, the faintest murmur, barely sound at all.‘’’Oh God.’’’He wasn't saying it to anyone. He was saying it to himself, or to the ground, or to whatever part of his brain was still processing the last two minutes.‘’’It
Chapter 445
He said."From that point." Asta said.Jabber nodded. Then, after a beat… "He is significantly more annoying than I expected a best friend to be, just so you know.""He is the most annoying person I have met in my life.” Asta said pleasantly. "I say that with genuine affection.""Likewise." Jabber said."Truly.""Deeply."Wabash laughed, a real one, short and warm, that moved his whole face. He shook his head."It's good." He said. “What you two have. It's, it's a good thing."Neither of them said anything for a moment.Then Jabber looked at his cup."This tea is actually really good." He said."Glad you like it." Wabash said."What is it?""Old forest blend. The cook makes it before any mission night. He says it helps you sleep when your mind won't stop."Jabber took another slow sip."Smart cook." He said.……………………..Deep in the forest, behind a wall of flame camouflage so thick it swallowed all light and sound, the children were crying.Not all of them, some had gone past
Chapter 444
Asta took his and sat cross-legged across from the prince. Jabber sat beside him, wrapping both hands around his cup.A comfortable quiet settled over the three of them for a moment.Then Wabash looked at Asta."You were about to tell me.”He said.“Before Yuki called the stop. How did you find out."Asta looked at his cup. Then up."Right." He said. "Yeah."He took a short breath."It was my first day in the academy mine pit.” He said. "The underground labour section,first-year students, grey uniforms, pickaxes. Clank clank clank in the dark for hours." He looked at his hands briefly. "I had blisters within the first hour. Didn't stop. Just kept going."Wabash listened without interrupting."There were two older students." Asta said. "Crimson uniforms, proper rank. They had a girl pinned against the tunnel wall." He said it simply, no drama in it, just the shape of what happened. "I put my pickaxe down and walked over and told them to let her go.""Just like that?" Wabash
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