A heavy black silhouette barreled toward a Skeleton, like a storm cloud rolling downhill.

He lifted his sword high, the Skeleton only an arrow’s flight away.

Edmund didn’t need another step; one downward arc would do.

That oversized greatsword reached like a reaper’s scythe at harvest.

That was exactly what Edmund thought, heartbeat drumming like war drums.

So the greatsword crashed down in a blink, a falling anvil.

The air split; the wind pressure was a butcher’s cleaver.

It could shred cattle and sheep; what chance had brittle bones, dry twigs?

No surprise—the sword tip smashed the Skeleton cleanly.

First it split in two, then wind ground it to powder, a chalky snowfall.

Pure, gray-white powder, the same ash as that earlier bone hand.

Dread surged through Edmund; Ban couldn’t be beaten so easily, and alarms screamed.

Too late, though; the door had already slammed.

The powdered Skeleton seeped into the floor in a blink, smoke into cracks.

It burst from beneath Edmund’s boots, a sand geyser lifting him high.

Before it even shaped a bone hand, the powder wrapped him tight.

The greatsword in his fist flared, a dragon tongue of fire.

But the blaze only kissed a few grains and went cold.

It wasn’t true flame, just power wearing fire’s mask, without heat to burn.

He spent a few motes; the foe paid him back with a flood.

It squeezed Edmund in return for his single drop, a tidal answer.

It clamped his sword wrist hardest; blue veins crawled like snakes under skin.

Everything in this world has a limit; even mountains weather and fall.

So did the black stuff on Edmund’s body; it, too, had an edge.

Ash braided into a vine-whip and bound his wrist, a strangler fig tightening.

The pressure climbed without ceiling, like a tide that never turns.

Hope flickered in him like a candle; he prayed the black armor would last.

But this was spear against shield, unstoppable versus unmovable.

The shield cracked first; the spear stayed keen.

Black armor shattered; the dust storm flayed at naked skin.

High-speed grit scored him, burrowing into his wrist; blood welled like a spring.

If it were only blood, he’d recover fast; his body mended like wind.

But it wasn’t just a wound; the dust ground the cut with malice.

It was like salting a split and rubbing the crystals in with fingers.

The pain was beyond words, a white fire that erased thought.

His spirit refused to kneel, but his flesh failed under torture.

Nerves in his wrist went numb; strength slipped like sand.

No matter how he tried to grip, his fingers uncurled like tired petals.

They opened, and the greatsword couldn’t stay; it fell straight down.

Clang, like a bell tolling from a cold tower.

Someone once said, armor bound to a weapon is the clumsiest design.

Today proved the saying, a dry joke from fate.

The falling greatsword dragged the black armor off Edmund like a shed snakeskin.

The black substance, venom-thick, shrank toward his navel, then sprouted a tendril.

It leaped to the sword’s hilt and dropped with a sharp clang.

Without that shell, to the Skeleton dust, Edmund was an eggshell in a gale.

A tap could kill him, a breeze could snuff him out.

Yet the Skeleton dust didn’t finish him; it chose to swallow him whole.

Yes—exactly like those notorious tentacle scenes everyone whispers about.

Using its dust-born body, it wrapped him from the feet up, like rising silt.

His mana was nearly gone; strength ran out like a drained battery.

He lay in bone ash, barely fighting, and tasted the bitterness of a trap.

It had been a simple bait, yet he charged without a thought.

A brute’s charge, his mistake; shame weighed on him like iron.

Then understanding clicked; Ban’s “song for a brute” meant this.

From the start, the man had read him; Edmund’s loss had its reasons.

Memory stuttered past—childhood games, rough laughter, sunlit dust.

Then adult years—cold steel, cold nights, the road’s long wind.

But no last-minute power-up would bloom; that was a tale for others.

Reality stayed flat and heavy; there would be no miracle.

It’s true that emotion sways strength; anger surges, peril sharpens, despair blackens.

None of that chose Edmund today; no fury, no edge, no dark bloom.

This mess was past saving; no sudden blaze would mend it.

He had lost—plainly, utterly—like a curtain fallen on an empty stage.

Maybe he knew it, too; he lowered the one thing that still moved—his head.

He looked at the sword on the floor; something unreadable flickered in his eyes.

This sword would never lift itself; it was only a sword.

It needed a hand to wield it, a heartbeat to swing it.

Thinking that, he closed his eyes, like a man who accepts winter water.

“Sorry. I broke our deal…”

He didn’t know who he spoke to; the words drifted like smoke.

Maybe to Ling, for failing the promise not to shame them.

Maybe to the sword, for failing the pact between man and blade.

And so Edmund truly shut his eyes; sight went dark, sound went thin.

The world rang the bell for dismissal; class was over.