Activating Phantom Arsenal was simple—too simple. A mental switch, a flicker of intent, and the copy of the dagger I had picked up from the ground was there. I couldn’t see it. Couldn’t feel it. But I knew it was there. Like a ghost of a weapon waiting in the air, a presence without form.

  Just like Diana said, I had to memorize exactly where I placed each one. There was no glow, no shimmer—nothing to mark its position. And placing it wasn’t instant. I had to remain still for nearly two full seconds before the weapon embedded into the air. In the heat of battle, two seconds was an eternity. For someone like me, constantly in motion, it felt impossible to rely on during combat.

  I could probably place one, maybe two during a fight. That wasn’t the strength of this skill. The real power came from preparation. If I had time before a battle, I could set up dozens of invisible weapons, layering them across the battlefield like an unseen minefield. There was no hard limit—only how much time I had before the fight began. Once placed, each weapon remained active for up to ten minutes before fading.

  And when I reactivated the skill? Every single weapon would appear at once and strike. It had potential, serious potential. The more I experimented, the more I could see how devastating this could be in the right circumstances.

  But there was a problem.

  I wasn’t just supposed to use the skill. I had to master it. Not just press a button. Not just go through the motions. I needed to internalize it, to make it second nature. If I had to actively think about every placement, every invisible weapon, I’d never be able to use it effectively in combat. It had to become instinct.

  And time wasn’t on my side. The hourglass hanging above us continued to drain, each grain of sand a reminder that I had to get this down fast—or I’d lose it entirely.

  Ssythara’s voice coiled through the air, reverberating around us.

  “If you both are unable to massster the ssskills given, then neither of you will gain a ssskill. Thisss is an exchange, not a gift. Ssso do your bessst—and help one another.”

  I exhaled sharply, glancing at Diana.

  She was practicing Crimson Reconstitution. She wasn’t even moving. She just stood there, staring at her arm—at herself. Then, without hesitation, she cut herself. The blade barely nicked her forearm, just enough to draw a single bead of blood. Almost immediately, the wound sealed shut.

  I sighed, already knowing this wasn’t going to work. She was missing the point. Crimson Reconstitution didn’t work like that. While it could heal scratches, it wasn’t some passive regeneration ability meant for minor wounds. It was built on pain. On suffering.

  She wasn’t suffering.

  I walked toward her, rolling my shoulders, wondering how that habit stayed with me even though I changed bodies.

  She was never going to master the skill like this. If she wanted to truly use Crimson Reconstitution, she needed to understand what it meant to rely on it.

  And that meant understanding pain.

  “You’re doing it wrong.”

  Diana tilted her head, her lips curving into a faint, exaggerated smirk. It was forced. Just another emotion she had chosen to wear, rather than something she felt.

  “Am I?”

  I didn’t answer. Instead, I grabbed one of the daggers from the ground.

  And I stabbed myself. Or rather—I stabbed her.

  A sharp intake of breath. Her fingers twitched. That was the first real reaction I had seen from her.

  Good.

  She hadn’t moved. Hadn’t lashed out. But she felt it. Her eyes locked onto mine, something flickering behind them—not calculation. Not cold analysis.

  Something deeper. I pressed the blade in further, feeling the heat of my own blood dripping down my—her—skin.

  “Don’t just watch.” I twisted the knife. “Feel it.” A tremor passed through her fingers. Her breathing hitched. I pulled the dagger free, blood welling in its place. And then I waited.

  Her smirk had vanished. She stared at the wound, unblinking, lips slightly parted. And then—slowly, hesitantly—her fingers brushed over it.

  She sucked in a breath. And Crimson Reconstitution responded. The injury sealed shut, the flesh knitting together in perfect, unnatural synchronization.

  She exhaled sharply. Not faked. Not forced. Real. I saw it in her eyes. Understanding.

  Then she tilted her head. “Now, your turn.”

  I frowned. “For what?”

  Diana gestured toward the empty air between us. “Phantom Arsenal. You placed some earlier, but I saw your hesitation. You’re still thinking too much about it.”

  I scowled, looking away. “I don’t have your instincts.”

  “That’s why you need to let go.”

  She stepped closer, not invading my space but near enough that I caught the faintest tilt of her lips. A smirk—practiced, calculated. But her words? Those weren’t an act.

  “You’re used to raw strength, to pain. But this isn’t about force. It’s about trust.” Her gaze flicked to my hand, where I had summoned my last weapon. “You can’t see them, but you know they’re there.”

  I hesitated, jaw tightening. “I need to be able to tell if they’re there.”

  “You already do.”

  Her voice was so certain, so matter-of-fact that it gave me pause.

  She gestured toward me. “Your body always tells you when you’ve set up a strike, doesn’t it? When you’re about to throw a punch, you don’t stop to wonder if your fist will land. You feel the movement before it happens. You trust it.”

  I inhaled sharply. Trust. That was the difference.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  The hourglass was draining. The slow trickle of sand had become something more ominous now, something heavier. Time was running out.

  Diana hadn’t mastered Crimson Reconstitution yet, and I was still fumbling with Phantom Arsenal. If we didn’t figure this out soon, neither of us would walk away with anything.

  I clenched my fist, trying to force myself to feel the weapons I had placed in the air. They were there—I knew they were there—but every instinct in my body screamed at me to confirm it with my senses. To see, to hear, to touch.

  That wasn’t how this worked.

  Diana watched me struggle, her expression unreadable. “Try again.”

  I exhaled, focusing on the space in front of me. I lifted the dagger in my hand and willed a copy into existence. I couldn't see it. I couldn't hear it. But I felt something—a shift in the air, a weight that shouldn’t be there.

  “There,” I muttered.

  Diana tilted her head. “You think it’s there. That’s not the same as knowing.”

  I scowled. “How am I supposed to know?”

  She didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she walked behind me, her presence a quiet pressure at my back.

  “You fight like a brute,” she said simply. “You use pain as fuel. Every instinct you have is tied to force, to impact, to endurance.” Her voice was calm, clinical. “That won’t help you here.”

  I gritted my teeth. “Then what will?”

  She reached past me, lifting my hand with a deliberate slowness. “Stop treating them like weapons.”

  I tensed at her touch. “They are weapons.”

  “No. They’re possibilities.” She guided my hand forward, into the empty air where I had placed one of the invisible copies. My fingers passed through nothing. My mind screamed at me that it wasn’t real. That it didn’t exist.

  But I had placed it there.

  Diana’s grip tightened slightly. “You have to know it’s there. Not just hope. Not just assume. You have to believe in it the same way you believe in your ability to move your own body.”

  I inhaled through my nose. She was right.

  I pulled my hand back and forced myself to let go of the need for confirmation. I willed another weapon into place. Then another. And another.

  Diana stepped away, watching. “Now activate it.” I hesitated.

  “Sylas.”

  I activated Phantom Arsenal.

  The shift was immediate. A dozen daggers appeared, forming in the air around us like sudden apparitions. The moment they materialized, I could feel them, like the pieces of a puzzle finally snapping into place. They were exactly where I had set them, positioned just as I had intended.

  I flicked my wrist, and they shot forward.

  Steel bit into the target dummy, embedding deep in precise, lethal points. I hadn’t aimed them in the moment—I had aimed them before I even knew they existed.

  Diana’s head tilted. “Better.”

  “We should work together,” I said, rolling my shoulders. “I’ll place daggers and send them at you. You’ll dodge them. When you’re struck, take a moment to heal.”

  Diana considered this, her eyes scanning me for a long moment. Then, slowly, she nodded. There was no hesitation, no reluctance—just understanding.

  She knew what I was saying. If we worked against each other, we might fail. If we worked together, we would succeed.

  And so, without another word, we moved.

  Soon, invisible daggers flickered into existence, one after another, and launched toward her in a calculated rhythm. At first, each strike landed cleanly, but she adjusted quickly. Diana’s movements sharpened, weaving through the unseen projectiles with practiced precision.

  Not every attack needed to be healed—some were glancing blows, shallow cuts that didn’t compromise her movement. But the real challenge wasn’t just dodging. It was recognizing which wounds to endure and which demanded Crimson Reconstitution.

  I watched as she took a hit to her shoulder but ignored it, stepping smoothly out of the next attack’s path. Then another dagger struck her thigh—a deeper wound. Her fingers twitched, and for a second, I thought she might hesitate. But then, almost on instinct, she activated the skill.

  The cut sealed itself, crimson energy knitting the flesh back together before the pain could hinder her movements.

  Good. She was learning.

  But so was I.

  I stepped back, adjusting the placement of my next Phantom Arsenal strikes. My awareness of the floating daggers was becoming clearer. I didn’t have to overthink their positions anymore—I could feel them, lingering in the air like threads of tension waiting to snap.

  Diana flicked her eyes toward me, her expression still neutral, but something about her stance told me she was expecting more.

  So I gave her more.

  I moved faster, setting up multiple daggers at once, pushing the limits of my placement speed. The strain built in my mind, the awareness of each blade pulling at my concentration, but I didn’t stop. I forced her to react.

  She twisted away from two, sidestepped another, but one cut through the air faster than she could manage. It buried itself into her ribs. Not deep, but enough.

  Her breath hitched. I saw it in her eyes—the moment her instincts clashed with the lesson. She wanted to ignore it, to push forward. But she knew.

  She pressed a hand to the wound. Her body absorbed the pain, turning suffering into power, and once again, Crimson Reconstitution restored what was lost.

  For the first time, I saw something flicker across her expression—satisfaction.

  We were getting there. But the sand in the hourglass was still falling, and we weren’t done yet.

  I steadied my breath. “Now we push it.” Diana gave a slow, deliberate nod. The real test was about to begin.

  I set another dagger. Not consciously. Not deliberately. It just happened.

  A flick of my wrist. A shift of weight. A movement so natural, so imperceptible, that even I barely noticed it. But I felt it. A ghostly weight hovering in the air, unseen but undeniably there.

  Diana had been right. I was still thinking too much.

  Her body didn’t fight like mine. It didn’t rely on brute force, on the endurance to suffer through an opponent’s onslaught. It was built for deception, for control, for precision. Every step, every motion was meant to guide—not overpower. Phantom Arsenal was not about simply attacking; it was about crafting inevitability.

  I moved. Fast. Fluid. Unstoppable. Not to dodge. Not to fight. To weave. Daggers flickered into being around me, unseen specters of my intent, hanging in the air like whispers of death. I knew where they were. Knew how they framed the battlefield like an executioner setting up a guillotine.

  And Diana?

  She was watching. Not me. Not my movements. She was watching the empty space I had carved into a death trap.

  Her gaze tracked the invisible markers in the air, calculating, predicting. She wasn’t bracing. She wasn’t panicking.

  She was waiting. Good. Because I was about to drown her in blades.

  I activated Phantom Arsenal.

  A silent command. A breath. A flicker of intent. And the sky came alive with daggers. They materialized in an instant—dozens, no, hundreds—an entire storm of steel crashing down from every direction.

  A lethal, inescapable web of death. And Diana moved. Not away. Through.

  Her first step was small, but crucial. A dagger passed a hair’s width from her ribs. A sharp pivot, a twist—two more flew past her throat and spine.

  Not dodging. Guiding. She let them miss. Let them pass harmlessly through the space she allowed. But not all of them.

  A dagger buried itself deep into her calf. Her movement faltered. A second cut across her waist. Too deep. Too sharp. Blood darkened her clothing, spilling across the white expanse like ink. Her body wavered. Another dagger plunged into her shoulder.

  A perfect hit. A wound that would cripple anyone. But she didn’t break. Her breathing hitched for half a second, but her expression didn’t change. She didn’t flinch, didn’t scream.

  She just moved her hand. Crimson Reconstitution activated.

  The moment she touched her calf, the wound sealed shut. Flesh knitted together in seconds. No delay. No hesitation.

  The cut across her waist? Gone.

  The dagger buried in her shoulder? She ripped it free, let the wound pour just enough pain, then sealed it.

  Her body was whole again. I could barely hear my own breathing over the ringing silence. She had it.

  She had mastered my skill.

  I grinned. Finally.

  Above us, the final grain of sand fell.