A sinister quiet had fallen over the orc village. A false peace, born not of serenity, but of extermination. The huts of earth and wood, rudimentary but which had still formed a village just the day before, were now little more than gutted coffins. A stench of copper and death rose from the corpses littering the ground, a macabre harvest offering the eye an endless spectacle of horror.

This place had not been annihilated by an army, nor by a curse. Only by two demons.

Or rather, two men: Dylan and Julius.

At the center of this charnel house, perched on a crudely carved wooden throne – the seat reserved for the clan chieftain, one assumed – Julius lounged. The irony of his pose was as cruel as the act itself. In his dangling hand, he held the severed head of the orc chieftain. A trickle of thick, black blood still dripped from the mutilated flesh, tracing a furrow on the ground.

The silence was torn by a muffled footstep, as if someone was walking with calculated slowness through a puddle of viscous liquid.

Dylan emerged from the shadow of a hut.

A young man with ebony skin that seemed to absorb the faint light. His grey eyes, cold and piercing, swept over the battlefield with an indifference that chilled the blood. He was enveloped in a heavy fur cloak, the pelt of a great brown bear that added to his savage stature. His hair, in dreadlocks, was tied in a severe queue at the back of his skull.

He had all the makings of a predator from the most hostile lands. And his gaze... his gaze was so sharp it seemed able to pierce the world before him, not with anger, but with a cold and absolute clarity.

In his hand, a heavy sword was soaked, its metal sullied with black blood. With a weary, expert motion, he executed an oblique *slash* through the air. An arc of scarlet droplets flew from the blade and crashed to the ground, joining the mud.

Dylan narrowed his eyes, his steely gaze fixing on Julius. "It's already been two months since my damn training started. We've done nothing but slaughter orc villages for a month already. When are you going to teach me to materialize my spiritual breath?"

A smirk split Julius's face. He let the chieftain's head drop onto the hard wood of the throne; the dull thud rang something in the air, like a sinister bell. Then he brought his hand back to his chin, adopting the pose of an exasperated sage.

"Patience, man," he said in a honeyed tone. "You're confusing speed and mastery. Spiritual breath isn't a blade you sharpen by striking heads. It's a pillar you raise, stone by stone. You rush the ascent? You'll end up collapsing."

Dylan let out a snort, but his laugh wasn't mocking—it was tense, charged with an impatience he was trying to mask.

"You always say the same thing. We kill orcs, we take their gems, we move on. I feel the anima burning under my skin, Julius. It's heating up like a fire waiting for someone to blow on it. I want you to show me how to call it, not just how to collect it."

Julius stared at him for a long moment, his smile tinged with a more serious glint. "Fine. You want a lesson? Watch." He extended his hand, palm open, towards a pile of ashes and debris near them. Nothing happened, then a fine black dust began to tremble and lift, forming a complex, temporary pattern in the air before falling back down.

"It's not a question of force. It's a question of resonance," Julius continued, his voice lower, almost confidential. "Your 'fire,' as you call it, is wild. It only wants to consume. But to shape it, you must first understand the silence within you. Not the void. The silence. Like the calm at the heart of the storm."

He leaned forward, his piercing gaze now locked on Dylan's.

"Before you can project your breath, you must learn to listen to it. To feel it flowing within you like an underground river, not a wildfire. These orc gems you're collecting... they're just the fuel. But you, you are the furnace. And if the furnace is cracked, if it isn't sealed and mastered from the inside, all that power you're stuffing into it... it will end up devouring you. It's not by shouting louder that you'll make the metal sing, Dylan. It's by knowing the art of the smith. And for now, you're just an apprentice who barely knows how to hold the hammer."

Dylan's gaze hardened. The wind lifted the edges of his fur cloak, carrying a fetid smell of burnt flesh. The silence between the two men grew heavy, as if made of thick ashes. Then he exhaled through his nose, a bitter laugh on his lips.

"You always liked talking like you're some damn monk."

He sheathed his blade on his back, wiped his hands on his sticky cloak, and added in a rougher tone:

"Silence, the river, the pillar, the smith… it feels like I'm hearing a riddle every time you open your mouth. I don't want to meditate on a stone, Julius. I want to strike."

Julius burst into a short, joyless laugh, a laugh that seemed to shake the dust from the throne.

"And strike without understanding what you hold in your hands? That's like beating a hollow drum, my boy. It makes noise, not music."

He rose slowly, letting the chieftain's body crumple at his feet.

His steps crunched bones in the mud. As he approached, his aura thickened—not a visible pressure, but a density, as if the air itself grew heavier around him.

Dylan felt his throat tighten despite himself. Julius stopped a mere meter away, his gaze anchored in Dylan's.

"Look at me."

He raised his right hand. The air vibrated.

No light, no wind, no sound. Yet the world suddenly seemed to stretch, to suspend. The ashes floating around them froze, then began to dance slowly around Julius, tracing a delicate, silent spiral.

"That, is the breath."

He closed his hand. The ashes fell.

"It's not a force you draw. It's a wave you hear."

Dylan blinked. He wanted to say something, but his words died in his throat.

He had seen something, in that moment—not just the ashes, but a pulsing in the world, an almost living vibration, as if everything, even death, breathed with the same invisible rhythm.

Julius stepped back, his tone turning casual again:

"You want to materialize your breath? Fine. Start by listening to your own. Get on your knees."

Dylan recoiled slightly. "What?"

"On your knees. Breathe. Close your eyes."

The tone brooked no discussion. Dylan sighed and complied, planting one knee in the mud. Julius crouched behind him, his fingers pressing between his shoulder blades.

The contact was light, but a wave of heat immediately spread through his torso.

"Your breath is your inner world. When it's agitated, everything becomes noise. When it calms, everything becomes clear. Breathe. Feel the flow."

Dylan inhaled. Slowly. His body shuddered.

Under his skin, the anima he had accumulated roared. A raw, living, fierce energy. Too fierce.

His breath became irregular, his veins pulsed, his forehead beaded with sweat.

Julius, without moving, murmured:

"Don't hold it back. Let it flow. Observe it."

But Dylan couldn't. The energy invaded him, battered against his ribs, screamed in his muscles.

He spasmed, then a hoarse cry escaped him. The mud around him began to tremble.

Cracks formed in the ground, and a wave of raw energy burst out around him, sweeping the ashes away like a gust.

Julius remained motionless.

When the blast dissipated, Dylan was panting, his arms trembling, eyes wide.

His hands smoked slightly, the skin blackened from his anima overheating.

Julius looked at him for a long time, a smirk playing on his lips.

"There. You just heard your own storm."

Dylan clenched his fists, rage and shame mingling in his voice:

"I failed again."

"No," Julius replied, walking away and picking up his cloak from the back of the throne.

"You just understood why you weren't ready. And that is a first victory."

He cast a glance towards the ashy sky, where a fine rain was beginning to fall, mingling its droplets with the bloody mud.

"Every spiritual breath is a song. Yours is still dissonant, too young, too furious. When you learn to speak to it, then, and only then, will you be able to materialize it."

He paused, nudged the orc chieftain's head with the tip of his boot, and added, in a falsely light tone:

"In the meantime... there's another village to the east. Maybe there, you'll find the right note."

Dylan slowly got to his feet, staring at Julius's back.

A cold glint passed through his eyes.

He murmured, almost to himself:

"Then I'll learn to make my storm sing. Even if it has to burn everything."

And without another word, he followed Julius into the mist, their figures fading into the rain and ash, two demons marching towards another massacre.

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