CHAPTER 232: BEFORE THE BLADE

The night stretched on like a taut rope. Dylan stayed awake far longer than he would have thought possible, eyes closed, repeating the exercise until exhaustion took over. His body refused to obey, his muscles trembled, his fingers twitched like twigs rattled by the wind, but his mind refused to give in. Between aborted sparks, he felt the faint warmth of that path he was learning to trace.

When sleep finally came, it was a brutal fall into a bottomless pit.

He collapsed there, on the packed earth floor, slumped against the cabin wall, his cheek pressed to his arm, the dull burn of essence still throbbing in his veins. Julius, silent, watched him drop without a word, then simply tossed another log on the fire before closing his own eyes.

⸻

At dawn, a thin ray of light pierced the gaps in the crude planks. Dylan opened his eyes, mouth dry, muscles heavy, but his mind strangely clear. The air was cool, thick with the dampness of the undergrowth.

He rose without a sound, stepping over Julius, who still slept, head tilted back against the wall, his features calm for once.

Outside, the forest was waking: the rustle of leaves, a few birds calling, the distant crack of a branch. The cabin, crooked but solid, stood like a fragile beacon at the heart of that green chaos.

Dylan stretched, his scars pulling under the skin. Then, without thinking, he knelt in the grass still wet with dew, pressed his palms to the ground, and started doing push-ups.

One. Two. Three. His arms protested, but he pushed on.

Then he rolled onto his back, switched to sit-ups, his breath short, each contraction flaring pain in his bruised ribs. Finally, he crouched and drove into a set of squats, his body rocking in a simple, brutal rhythm, almost primitive.

It wasn’t training. Not in the proper sense, not a program. It was just... necessary. The need to harden the frame that had to carry this fickle essence. The need to feel that he was no longer prey, that he was slowly becoming something else.

He stood, heading toward the great rock nearby. The dark mass loomed like a slumbering beast in the clearing. It hadn’t been there at first. Dylan remembered the hell of it clearly: Julius had forced him to drag it there, brute strength against mute inertia, across kilometers of rough ground, palms torn, back on fire, lungs shredded by the effort.

"If you can’t beat a stone," Julius had said, "you won’t stand a chance against an awakened one."

Back then, it had felt like a cruel joke. Now, the rock had become his mute opponent, an impartial judge, merciless, yielding only to persistence.

He pressed his palms against its rough surface, felt the cold bite of stone, dug his feet into the wet earth, and tightened his whole body.

His muscles screamed at once. Pain spread like a wave, but he clenched his teeth, exhaled hard, and pushed with everything he had. The rock grated against the ground, almost imperceptibly, as if mocking him.

Every inch gained was an intimate victory. Mud clung to his hands, his knees scraped against the soil, his lungs burned with every breath, but he pushed on.

There was nothing else anymore. Not the forest, not the cabin, not even Julius asleep behind him. Just this absurd and sacred struggle between a broken body and an immovable stone.

His mission was to drag it back to its original spot—this useless, ridiculous weight suddenly made into the exact measure of his own survival.

While Dylan strained against the rock, he tried to mix in more than just raw fury. He tried to channel his essence, guide it into his arms, his shoulders, his legs, as Julius had demanded.

At first—nothing. Only pain, mud, the taste of blood in his mouth. Then a shiver coursed through his veins, a hot vibration, uncontrollable, settling in his muscles like a spark waiting to erupt.

He felt his strength surge, but not in a steady climb. It was a discharge. Brutal, unpredictable. His arms shook, his fingers went bone-white with strain, and the rock jolted forward, hopping a few inches as if struck from behind by an invisible hand.

The burst nearly threw him flat. He staggered, caught only by his knee slamming into the mud.

"Fuck..." he rasped, breath shredded.

His muscles vibrated, too taut, refusing to return to normal after the surge. The heat of the essence left his limbs burning from within, almost electric, and the rock, still again, seemed to sneer at him.

He set himself again, slower this time, trying to tame the sensation. To find rhythm. To learn how to ration a force that wanted to burst all at once instead of seeping through.

One wrong spark, one step too far, and the rock wouldn’t be the enemy anymore—it would be his own body.

Dylan pressed his forehead to the stone, breathing deep. He wanted that warmth again, but without it exploding inside him like a misfired grenade. So he forced his breath slower, following the rhythm of his heartbeat.

The essence answered... clumsily. A thin glow beneath his skin, a shiver in his veins, then a sudden jolt, like his whole body refused to behave. His muscles flared with painful fire, and the stone shifted again, scraping the ground with a nerve-wracking screech.

"Move... damn it... move!" he spat through clenched teeth.

One meter. Two meters. Then the force broke. His arms gave out, his legs buckled, and Dylan crashed onto his side, gasping, drenched in sweat and mud. The rock stilled again, perfectly indifferent, as if waiting to see him crawl once more.

He lay there, chest heaving, heart pounding out of control. The pain wasn’t just in his muscles anymore—it was everywhere: in his nerves, his ribcage, his burning throat. Too much energy, badly handled, unleashed like a wild beast he couldn’t tame.

A shadow fell over him. Julius stood there, arms crossed, watching in silence. His eyes shone with that strange light—part amusement, part severity.

"Well?" he said at last, his voice low but sharp. "You wanted to play awakened? This is what happens when you dive into essence like a drunk into a tavern. It burns, it slams, it moves a rock, and then you collapse in your own shit."

Dylan rolled onto his back, lifted a trembling hand, and, despite the exhaustion, let a wicked grin stretch his face.

"... But the rock moved."

A silence—then Julius burst out in a short, dry laugh that echoed through the trees.

"Yeah. The rock moved. And you haven’t blown up yet. That’s a start."

He crouched down, resting a hand on Dylan’s sweat-soaked shoulder.

"Now listen to me. You won’t learn a damn thing burning it all at once. Essence is a knife. You can slam it down with your bare hand, or you can sharpen it until it slices without effort. You—right now—you’re stabbing yourself in the gut every time you swing."

Julius straightened, jerking his chin toward the rock.

"Again. Not to move it. To feel it. Breathe. Bring it in slowly. A thread, not a wave. Otherwise, you’ll die before you ever learn to run."