After Darkness’s departure and Mortis’s disintegration, a long, unprecedented calm settled over Earth. Humans, elves, and dwarves recovered slowly, with great losses. As for me, I threw myself into training.

  Zariil taught me the basics of swordsmanship with the Ice Blade, but I quickly realized that my archangel way of fighting—relying on brute force and pure Light—was useless in this world. The Ice Blade demanded precision, speed, and cunning.

  Two centuries passed. I trained from morning to night, every day. My movements became smooth as a dance. The blade in my hand became an extension of my will. I mastered every trick: how to cross ice and light to blind an opponent; how to use wind to change position in an instant.

  I was confident in my power. My eternal life gave me endless time to hone my craft.

  One day I fought a young man from a tribe whose harvest I had once saved. His name was Kai. He had trained for only twenty years. We crossed blades. I was sure I was playing with him.

  But his sword was lightning. He wasted no time on big windups, made no unnecessary movements. He moved like someone who knew he had no right to make a mistake.

  After a minute of sparring, I made an error—one I would have allowed myself to fix over eternity. But he couldn’t. Kai, using a maneuver I had perfected for fifty years, knocked my Ice Blade from my hands.

  I froze, stunned.

  “You’ve been training for more than two centuries, Lady Lucida,” Kai said, breathing hard as he lowered his sword. “But you lost to me—a wretched mortal. And I’ve trained for only twenty years.”

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  I stood there, unable to answer. My archangel pride had been struck. Zariil, who had been watching us, came up and set his icy hand on my shoulder.

  “You train differently, sister,” he said. “For us Archangels, time is endless. We can postpone a lesson until tomorrow, a year from now, a century from now. We have no need to hurry.”

  He nodded toward Kai.

  “Humans don’t have that luxury. They don’t have time to put something off until tomorrow. They have to learn now. If a human drops the sword and goes straight into magic, they’re unlikely to become truly good at both in time. So they are forced to specialize—and drive mastery to the absolute in a matter of years. That is their strength, born of their weakness.”

  I looked at Kai with bitterness. I was eternal—but he was faster.

  Another century passed.

  I rebuilt my entire training system, using the principle of “now and forever.” I was sure I would not lose again. I was the best swordsman in the North.

  And then a new human appeared. Elias.

  Elias was not just a swordsman. He was also a mage. He used the element of wind to accelerate his strikes. He combined magic with his weapon, constantly distracting me.

  Following Zariil’s principle, I had trained so long because I could not master both the magic of Light and the blade in a short time. It demanded eternity.

  But Elias… he had trained for only thirty years. And in our sparring match, he won. Not through pure fencing, but through that frantic mortal tempo—combining everything he had managed to learn in his short life.

  I lowered my blade, completely exhausted.

  “How?” I asked, looking at Zariil.

  “Humans don’t have time to choose either, sister,” he said. “Before, when their lives were calm, they could specialize. But we—our brothers—showed them the world needs not only a swordsman, and not only a mage. It needs a Survivor. And for survival they are willing to compress into thirty years what would have taken us three hundred.”

  I watched Elias, who, panting, dropped to his knees. He was mortal, but such power burned in his short life that it was frightening. I was amazed at how they became so strong in so little time. They were a terrifying weapon, born from ash, ice, and hunger.

  I understood: my eternity was my weakness. And their short lives—the ultimate weapon.