Shadows in the Dark

My whole body aches intensely, breathing a challenge, every muscle screams for rest, they will not get any, instead, there is only burning and more work, the body had to be pushed to its limit, the goals did not care about the feelings. A simulated battle, but the blows were very real, the pain gave it away, my trainer hated me, for him my presence was something that had to be erased, I fought to show him the opposite, it was said that the sweat saved blood, and yet my body was full of it, gushing from my wounds, for him, it was nothing more than training, for me it was a fight for my life. My body had become very heavy and slow, he took advantage of my leg, the pain was not normal, maybe something had broken, my enemy was on top of me about to finish his job with a blow to my head. Only the sound of the door slamming open was the only one able to save my life, after seeing who had just entered the room everyone got up and presented their greetings as respectful as possible, I for my part could hardly move, which annoyed my rival and considering a lack of respect he kicked me with the soles of his boots.

"Damn you worm, you are in the presence of the Great Emperor Nanami!"
"Get up quickly and pay your respects!"

"Theron! That's enough! He can barely breathe!"
"His chest is purple and his face is disfigured!"
"What you're doing is torturing him, not training him."

"My great Lady, this has been the training that the dark cloaks have been subjected to for millennials."
"No one who does not measure up has the right to remain in our group"
"He will be the weak link that will destroy our chain"
"He is a dead weight"

"Rose will never allow an Atlantean to be with her any longer than necessary."
"We can't put a regular dark cloak as a spy without raising all suspicions."
"That's why we need a human to keep an eye on her and inform us of her plans."
"Having a human as close to Rose as he is is a great advantage that we cannot afford to lose."
"....."
"I'm not asking you to lower the standard, but remember that he is a normal human."
"Lower the entry level for him, then he will still take the same tests as everyone else."

"My Master, you  lost your sanity?"
"We can't lower the entry-level! We never have!"
"It would completely damage the honor that our battalion has always been proud to uphold all these years!"

"Just look around Theron, this is what has caused the damn Atlantean honor!"

"This is all a waste of time, what is this all for?"
"He's a regular human, not even a dragon slayer!"
"He'll be dead in a week anyway, one more dead man won't make any difference!"

"...."
"You're right about that, Theron"
"As your Empress, I order you to kill yourself by cutting your belly with your sword right now."

"Excuse me!?"

"Kill yourself, right here, right now, in front of me."
"It's an order from your Empress, do you intend to disobey a direct order?"
"Are you not a member of the Dark Cloaks? Have you no honor?"

"Madam, you are making a mistake."
"He will only last a week, I am much more useful!"
"I can do missions behind enemy lines, it's much more useful than doing that!"

"I don't care, follow your orders."
"After all, one more dead man won't make any difference, right?"

"Mr. Theron, as a sergeant it is your duty to carry out all the orders requested by the Emperor."
"If you do not comply with them we will be forced to intervene and carry out your will." Said one of Theron's own subordinates, holding his sword ready to unbuckle it.

"Of course... Agreed."
"I will carry out the orders of the Great Emperor."
"Atlantis Eternal"

Theron knelt down and rolled up the top of his armor, one of the guards of the hall left him paper and ink to write his farewell, after meditating a little moment he proceeded to do what his governor had asked him, carrying out the request to the letter, his death was slow and painful, because nobody was given the order to interfere and put an end to his suffering. Nanami watched the whole act without even showing any emotion on her face, it was a clear statement of intent, one that all the other guards had to remember clearly if they did not want to follow the same fate as their master.

"Take that out of here, throw it into the void," said the empress coldly, denying even the wretched man the right to a dignified burial.

Two of the men in the room gathered the body and proceeded to carry it away from the sight of the powerful queen.

"As for you human, it seems that your legs are too badly damaged to walk for the next few days."
"Instead your hands still seem to be working, practice throwing knives."
"Every dark cloak must be a master of this technique if he wants to live the day after the trials of the Infinite Horizon"

"Yes I know... ma'am" I said gesticulating badly due to the swelling of my face.

"Well"
"Ulana! go and treat the human's wounds, then take him to the shooting gallery."

"Yes ma'am" Said the maid who had been by the emperor's side at all times.

My body was so damaged that Ulana had no choice but to ask me to walk to the shooting room. I was only able to move my arms, so I focused on training them to throw the knives well, but it was so useless that Ulana herself had to go to pick them up and put them back on the table in front of me to continue practicing for hours, hours sitting in a chair full of wounds and throwing knives, but despite the immense pain I never complained, I had to endure everything if I wanted to live another day.

When the training ended, Ulana left me behind to return to the Emperor, I was still in pain with my feet, but that would not stop me, I had to go forward, pain or not, just forward. I had to walk leaning against the wall of the castle's corridors, a walk of only minutes turned into hours due to the slow walking and the breaks I had to take. In the middle of the way, I arrived at the castle's mini coliseum, the place where the Centurions trained in full view of all the other soldiers to teach new battle tactics. It was said that the Centurions were warriors who were worth a hundred veteran Atlantean soldiers, worth more than a thousand regular humans.

But today the sight was even more impressive, a single centurion, The White Banisher, had entered into combat against ten of the best white able-bodied at the same time. Although the large figure of the Atlantean warrior seemed to suggest that he was slow, nothing could be further from the truth, he was much faster than his enemies. One of the girls jumped straight at her enemy, swung her katana with speed, but the knight blocked it with his shield, but the girl's plan was different, just to distract him long enough for her sister, the mage, to have time to prepare her spell and cast it, A sea of ice needles filled the ground, the man in white armor instead jumped much higher than a human could, reloaded his spear in the air and before hitting the ground detonated one of his shots, trying to find a safe place for his landing. Even so, the continuous attack did not stop, six dragon hunters ran over him. The White Banisher grabbed Sakura Izumi, the samurai heroine, by the neck and threw her against Rowan Silvercrest, the fire archer, so that he could not fire his charged attack, the infernal needle. Lilith Bloodfang, the team captain, cut a small wound in her arm, the spear sucked the lost blood and for the payment of her sacrifice the weapon increased in power, its bright crimson color indicated that the attack would be powerful. In one step he advanced almost ten meters, with the next foot he held firmly to the ground and threw his spear with devastating power, the knight received the impact head-on, but when the dust dispersed he could see how the shield had protected its bearer, with the spear still embedded in it, the tip was only centimeters away from her helmet, her hand still held the shield, her free hand attacked the girl with her spear, she received a direct blast from the spear gun, she flew into the wall of the coliseum, she had somehow survived what a human could have never survived, but she was out of the battle. Alejandro Del Toro was next, a short sword in each hand, quick and sharp attacks aimed at specific parts to damage his opponent and hinder his mobility. In response, the knight sacrificed a wound in his leg to have both hands available, with both hands he held his enemy's weapons, but for the man with the master-at-arms skill, this was not a problem, so he pulled hard the crimson spear from the shield and borrowed it to wield it against the veteran warrior. His attacks were not as powerful as the original carrier, but they didn't have to be, just to distract him, to hide the fact that he had his back to Mitsuki Izumi, who was finishing one more spell, a joint magic, a strong wind filled the place until it was concentrated in one place, and then with a tongue of flame a huge flamethrower was provoked. When The White Banisher noticed it seemed to be his end, but instead he simply ducked and rolled among the ice needles that were still nearby, when the attack was over the huge warrior was still standing, unlike the sister who was on the ground exhausted, or the man with the spear, damaged by friendly fire. The last of the white cloaks standing, Kwame Zulu, the fast rouge, ran at such a speed that he was almost impossible to see, but his angle of attack was so obvious that the knight foresaw it and grabbed him by the arm as he passed by, without giving him a moment to react he threw him to the ground with force, knocking him out as well.

I had witnessed a brutal battle full of superpowers and magic. The battle power of these people is on a completely different level, one that a normal human will never be able to reach. They trained by honing their special abilities to the best of their ability, hoping that they would be able to change the course of the war. Our most powerful warriors who had the good fortune to be born of a special race, superior in every way to all other humans, the best that ordinary people could be, was simply to sacrifice themselves in order to protect these warriors. Losing just one of them was a great blow, why not trade just one common person in exchange for saving someone important? After all, one more dead man won't make any difference, right?

After watching the battle I went on my way, my training for today was over but I still had work to do. Despite the pain in my whole body from the beating I was given I managed to arrive in time to the lab where Rose was, she seemed to be very seriously engaged in creating something, since I didn't want to interrupt her I assumed my guard position and stayed there. It wasn't until a couple of hours later when after trying something and failing, she walked away looking for a break and looked at me. I hadn't seen the look on my face, but when she looked at me she was surprised and invited me to come inside and sit down and talk to her, as I settled in she pulled out another bottle of alcohol and a couple of glasses, it looked like she was just looking for another excuse to drink more vodka. Although maybe for the first time I saw her offer the fuller glass to the guest instead of keeping it to herself.

"Wow, he went too far again today," Rose said as she handed me the full glass of vodka.

"I can't see out of my left side because of the bumps."
"On the bright side, Nanami grabbed him and forced him to commit suicide right there in front of everyone." I drank almost half of the glass right away just to try to forget the pain.

"Wow, I didn't think I saw you drinking like that, I thought you didn't like alcohol."

"Right now it hurts to even breathe, I don't mind getting drunk in exchange for forgetting the beating."

"Then it's a great occasion! See Cesar drinking"
"Come on отмечаем! Today is a good day then, isn't it?"
"It's good to see the beautiful couple in love taking care of each other."
"Go ahead and drink some more" She said refilling my glass.

"Leave it, I don't know if it's something to celebrate."
"She ended up with a dark mint in exchange for a human in training."
"There's no other way to look at it than lost."

"Don't think like that, don't be like that."
"What she did was to save the person she loves from some проклятые"
"You should be happy"
"There is no clearer sign of love than defending the one you love."

"I know she was trying to help me, otherwise she would have gone to the training without warning."
"Even if she has to act cold towards me in front of others, you could see from her face how worried she was about me."
"....."
"It's just .... it's just that having to be defended by her ..... makes me feel like a completely useless person."
"....."
"It leaves me wondering what the hell I'm contributing to her life enough to have a relationship."

"Oh Cesar, come on"
"It's not about providing something in a relationship, it's not a business looking for profit."
"It's about being together with the person you'd like to be with for most of her life, for better or worse."
"Just think about it, she can have everything she wants in her life, and still all she cares about is one man in a million."
"She forced them to train you as a Dark Cloak to learn how to survive because she wants you to live too."

"And anyway, the statistics say that at best I will live one more month on the front."

"идиот, you already survived a whole year in the Moscow tunnels."
"According to the statistics you should be dead by now."
"...."
"Instead you should be glad to have the opportunity to have a wife by your side."

"Well, that's easy for you to say, you don't have to do all that crap about hiding your relationship with the emperor."

"....."
"But at least you still have a chance to see her daily."
"...."
"Some of us don't have that chance anymore"
"...."

"I'm sorry I didn't know you were already married."

"Don't worry, I never mentioned it because I never had the time."
"...."
"But you know I think this is a good opportunity to tell you about him."
"His name was Damien Raven"
"...."
"He was the basic important one in the relationship as you mentioned."
"...."
"He was the kind of guy who works non-stop for nothing."
"Thanks to him we had money to put food on the table, he paid the bills, and he also somehow managed to find money to support me."
"..."
"I, in turn, was just a constant waste of money, my investments were mostly one stupid thing after another, always limited by time and budgets, you can say that nothing has changed from those times."
"Seriously, I have no idea how he had the patience not to throw me out on the street when we had to sell the furniture when our first company went bankrupt because of me..."
"..."
"But he never complained, as if he was a gentleman he just told me not to worry about it and leave all the problems to him."
"The truth is that he had the same physique, he was quite tall and strong, one time he even drove a car with his arms when his driver insulted me in a parking lot."
"I always mentioned that he was my white knight all the time."
"...."
"Not to bore me with the story, the story changed one night when I had that dream, the Runes, all of them suddenly made sense, and the dragons seemed to be within reach."
"Soon after I was able to succeed and get some momentum."
"Those days were so joyful, working by day to create hope for humans like the Ark batteries, and at night working on the portal."
"...."
"And then that damn day happened, the day I unleashed the apocalypse on the world because of my stupid dream of wanting to see dragons."
"...."
"Damien died less than the first dragon that came out of the portal, he protected me from danger as the knight he always dreamed of become."
"..."
"That was actually the same day we met now that I think about it."