It was early morning, and the two girls were still upstairs sleeping. Others in the village were also just about to wake up, as the dawn of sun was still yet to shine on the windows. Derb was currently in the middle of a lesson with the old man, who was teaching him about the benefits of the orb in his chest. “The orb isn’t anything too special, it probably just amplifies your darkness attribute and strength… still, to get a demon with a support skill in the earlier stages is quite the boon. Lesser and wisp demons are usually sent off as cannon fodder to distract opponents. However, with a support skill, it’d be better to let it grow into a small demon to see its potential.” Derb had absolutely no idea what that meant. “Don’t look at me with those stupid eyes, boy. A demon has infinite variances as a wisp or a lesser demon, it isn’t until they reach the power of a smaller demon when they decide their path.” Derb still didn’t know how to help his imp grow to that point, though. “There are seven ranks of demon, make sure to remember them.

They go from the weakest, a mere wisp, to the strongest ranked demons. Don’t worry about meeting a ranked demon in your lifetime boy, you’d be dead before you even acknowledged their existence.” The old man shuffled over to a shelf and took out a book, flipping through it. “The last four ranks each adds to the demon a different form of strength. After small is hunter rank, mainly giving the demon speed and better senses. They’re considered a moderate threat at this form, and large bounties are sent out to stop them. The next is brute rank, in which they become much more destructive, usually being able to tear down entire villages with ease. Add that to their speed and senses and they become a force even organized forces would have trouble apprehending.“ The old man paused, then squinted his eyes. “You don’t want to meet sapient rank, boy.”

Derb noticed this reaction and wondered if the old man had experience with any of them. “They… can speak, talk, even react like us. Just remember one thing...” His teacher closed the gap between him and Derb in a second. “They aren’t us. Burn that into your mind, recite it every day before you sleep if you have to. The only thing demons are fated to do is destroy. Treat them no better than as if they were a walking, breathing weapon that could turn on you at any second.” As the man turned back from his dramatic speech Derb couldn’t help but glance at his imp at the corner of his room, attempting to bite at his wings while they slowly flapped just out of reach. Was a sapient demon all that much smarter? “There was a tale of a human woman who fell in love with a demon, and after a while, convinced her peers that he was harmless. The demon trained her to be peerless, ’ to never let her go’ or so he said… It all went downhill when she was blessed with a child. On the day she gave birth the city succumbed to darkness, entire scores of demons scoured the area until nothing was left. At the end… when everything subsided, all you could find was a Fiery battleground with nothing remaining.” Gerald closed his eyes, he could never tell Derb the rest of the story. Summoners tended to get attached to their demons, and he could tell the boy was especially sensitive when it came to relationships.

“Enough lessons boy, I’ve taught you enough for today.” Derb was shocked. “Teacher! I have so many more questions! It’s your fault you left me alone for a whole day to hang out with Deitre, could have at least invited me...” This sent a guilty pang through the teacher’s heart, at the rejuvenation of his friend they celebrated by drinking the rest of that night and the day after. He could barely stand after and called upon his student to carry him home. “It’s not my choice boy, your lessons are being reduced permanently. you’ll be having a new teacher from now on. Not my fault you wanted to learn the sword.” Derb was confused, wasn’t his teacher against him getting a weapon at first? Why did he bring him a teacher? He just needed to swing the things and the baddies went “GuH!?” and died, simple. The man rubbed his temples at the dissatisfied look on Derb’s face.

"I can almost hear the stupidity forming in your head. come boy, I’m sure you’ll be glad to see who you’re working with.” Great, more indirect answers, Derb was already slow at normal conversations he didn’t want the trouble of complicati- “Deitre!” Derb shouted in surprise to the hulking beast of a man outside the house with a gigantic war hammer and a smile on his face. “Have you gotten used to the sword yet? I won’t have my greatest piece just sitting around, what do you say to a spar?” Derb was happy to see the old man loosen up, though he was a bit miffed “I thought you didn’t want to teach me? What, was all it took a word from my powerful teacher before you folded?” Derb said it half-jokingly, to which the Big blacksmith goodheartedly slapped him on the back, which sent him to the floor. “Don’t sweat the small stuff, boy. I was just a little lazy at the time, you and your master reminded me how fun it was to see the light.” The blacksmith reached down to help derb up. “Where’s your sword?”

“Uh… about that, I don’t think I can carry it right now...” Derb spent the entirety of yesterday figuring out how to swing the thing without snapping his wrists. Needless to say, he didn’t succeed. “Nonsense, you just haven’t been taught the proper way to handle it, you have the fire attribute and decent control over your mana, right boy? Gerald wouldn’t shut up about you yesterday.” Gerald’s eyebrows twitched. “Now, no need to say anything rash. I already agreed to share him, after all. Derb saw the two eyes clash for a second, and wondered if they really only celebrated yesterday. He prayed he would not find a giant crater in the center of town. “Yes, but it’s still too heavy, I could barely pick it up.” He remembered the entirety of yesterday, repeatedly raising the sword just to put it down again as if doing a workout. To his surprise, the man looked impressed. “That sword is denser than six of its size combined, it’s already an amazing thing to carry it without connecting to it.” Derb sighed in relief, he thought he just didn’t have enough strength in him compared to the others. He was glad it was the sword’s fault and not his. “I thought you were just a blacksmith, do you also know how to fight?”

Both the men smiled at the naive boy. “That was just a hobby of mine, child. Let me show you-” the Warrior raised his mighty Warhammer in the air, and the air around it started wavering “-why those who feared me called me ‘the last ember’.” He swung his hammer nonchalantly away from derb and the house, and what derb saw was awe-inducing. A giant arc of flame shot out of the hammer like a flame thrower, incinerating all the plant life 30 feet in front of him. Derb looked at the blacksmith with wonder-filled eyes. “Will I be able to do that!” and for the first time since he asked the question, he received a nod. “YES, MAGIC SWORDSMAN. Let me get my sword! Teach me how to do that!” as derb ran inside the old man looked warily at the blacksmith. “Did you have to do that in front of my house? You made it look like a warzone...”

Derb and the blacksmith were now a decent distance away from the village, above a hill that loomed over the forest. Deitre was telling him the basics. “First, send mana into the blade, get it circulating through it and back into you.” Derb complied, forcing his mana through the sword, only for it to force it back out. When he questioningly looked at Deitre he got a laugh. “Do you really think you can get through everything with brute force? Circulate, boy. Slowly set up a path around the sword, make it so that it becomes an extension of your arm.” Derb thought it was funny he was getting a lesson about control from a man with a hammer that was probably heavier than him. He started once more, slowly siphoning mana into the sword until it started making headway. “Good, outline the edge of the sword with the mana. later you’ll be able to cover the sword, but this will be good enough for now. Derb was panting and his hands were sweating. Just dragging the sword here was tiring enough, but the feeling of his mana quickly leaving him was also pretty bad. He finally reached the top of the sword, leaving his mana at about a third. “What kinda speed was that? I expect much more from you in the future. Also, stop dragging my creation boy, pick it up.” Derb was too tired to complain about the rudeness, only preparing to pick the sword up. He expected the sword to be lighter, but that wasn’t the case. He could feel the mana he pushed into it rushing back into him like an engine, slowly pumping into his heart like a drug. He felt the weight of it, but his body reacted like it was supposed to be there. The sword was making him stronger, and he could tell he was making the sword stronger as well. “Good, you can pick it up, boy. Try to swing it, I’ll take it from there.”

Derb was panting, not in exhaustion, but in the excitement of carrying something that almost weighed the same amount as him. He positioned himself and rose the sword over his head. The momentum of the swing was enough to bring the sword down with a mighty crash… behind him, leaving the boy lying on his ass with the sword pierced into the ground. “Boy, I knew you were an idiot but I didn’t think I’d have to explain this much.” The warrior thumped his hammer to the ground, causing derb to jump. “Believe it or not, that sword’s almost as heavy as my master’s creation here. It was supposed to be my heaviest weapon yet. But that also means you can’t use it as you would a regular sword.” Deitre gripped his hammer and started swinging it. “You aren’t the only center of balance any more kid.” Derb watched in awe as the man started moving. His swing never seemed to stop, only going through small patches of dirt as the Deitre seemed to spin like a ballerina. The hammer was moving around unpredictably but not randomly, the brunt of the attacks being directed into the front. As the warrior slowly progressed step by step, Derb couldn’t help but remember what the blacksmith called himself “the last ember...” Derb knew anything in front of that hammer would be reduced to smithereens, and he almost wanted to throw his imp in the crossfire to see what would happen.

“Each swing should only get faster from there boy, imagine it like being on a swing, relenting when it is against you, pushing when it is with you. At some point-” The warrior, still swinging, seemed to rise eight feet into the air, doing a frontflip before bringing the hammer directly into the earth with a mighty quake. “There’ll be no difference in speed between you and the fastest demons.” Derb was on the floor, his knees shaking from the experience of the semi earthquake that just happened. The Warrior wasn’t even using mana, all the strength in those swings came from him alone, and derb was supposed to just accept that? There had to be a limit on these types of people, he doubted the world would survive otherwise. “The last ember… why did they call you that?” The old man grinned in the way only pure confidence could ever be described. “There was never a time in a battlefield where I wasn’t sent alone boy.” His body suddenly combusted into flames, scorching derb who was only a few feet away. “All those among the walls saw in the darkness was a single flame among countless bodies, devastating everything in its path… in MY path.”