The Legend Of Shadow Dragon God

Chapter 13: New guild

The forest clearing near Oak town looked as though a natural disaster had torn through it. Ancient oaks lay splintered and broken, their massive trunks snapped like twigs and scattered across the scorched earth. Craters of varying sizes pockmarked the landscape, some still smoking from the residual magic that had carved them into existence. The air itself seemed to vibrate with the lingering echoes of clashing magics, a faint metallic taste coating the tongue of anyone unfortunate enough to breathe it in.

In the center of this devastation stood two figures, mirrors of each other separated by time and experience.

The younger Rogue—though currently in his adult form, standing at his full height of six feet—was on his knees. His black hair, usually neat, was plastered to his sweat-soaked forehead. His crimson eyes, normally sharp and focused, were glazed with exhaustion. Each breath rattled in his chest as though his lungs were filled with broken glass. The shadow magic he'd been wielding flickered weakly around his hands, dark tendrils that once moved with purpose now wavering like candle flames in a dying breeze.

Before him stood his future self, looking as pristine as if he'd just stepped out for a morning stroll. Not a hair out of place on his own white mane, which fell in perfect sheets down his back. His crimson eyes held no warmth, no pity—only the cold, calculating assessment of a predator observing prey that had exhausted itself. He hadn't even broken a sweat. The twin magics that defined him—the Shadow Dragon Slayer and White Dragon Slayer powers—were completely suppressed, hidden beneath a veil of casual nonchalance. He'd barely used them during this entire session.

"Get up," Future Rogue said, his voice flat and devoid of emotion. It wasn't a command spoken in anger or frustration. It was simply a statement of fact, as though he were commenting on the weather. "You're not done yet."

Rogue's adult form flickered, the magic sustaining it finally giving out. With a sound like shattering glass, the transformation dissolved, leaving the twelve-year-old boy in its place. He was smaller now, his limbs thin and trembling, his body too young to handle the strain he'd just put it through. He tried to push himself up, his small hands digging into the churned earth, but his arms buckled beneath him. He collapsed face-first into the dirt, too tired to even break his fall.

Future Rogue watched this with the same expression one might watch a particularly uninteresting rock. Yet, for the briefest moment, something flickered in those crimson depths—a shadow of something that might have been recognition, or perhaps the ghost of a memory from his own distant past. It vanished so quickly that even Selene herself might have missed it, were she watching.

She wasn't, of course. Future Rogue had been careful to schedule these training sessions during times when the Moon Dragon God was otherwise occupied. He'd learned through painful experience that Selene's interest was a double-edged sword sharper than any dragon's claw. Her "playful" nature had nearly cost him his sanity on three separate occasions, and her sadistic streak meant that she found his discomfort genuinely entertaining. No, it was better to keep these moments of weakness hidden from her eyes.

"Pathetic," Future said, crouching down beside his younger self. He didn't offer a hand immediately. Instead, he studied the boy with clinical detachment, noting the trembling muscles, the shallow breathing, the way his magic circuits were overtaxed and sparking with instability. "You have all my memories. Every technique, every spell, every moment of combat experience from my life. And yet you still can't last more than one hour against me."

Rogue, the younger, turned his head to the side, coughing weakly. Dirt clung to his cheeks. "It's... not the same," he managed to gasp out. "Having memories... and using them... are different."

Future Rogue's lips curled into something that wasn't quite a smile. It was too cold, too sharp. "Finally, you're learning something." He reached down, his hand closing around the boy's small forearm with a grip that was firm but not cruel. He hauled Rogue to his feet effortlessly, as though the boy weighed nothing at all. "Knowledge without application is mere trivia. Power without control is self-destruction. You have the first and lack the second. That's why you're on the ground, and I'm standing."