The following weeks were harsh.

Finde pushed himself beyond every limit, day after day,
trying to truly understand the sword that had chosen him.

Gladyo had been clear from the beginning.
“You no longer need the dagger.”

Finde nodded.

The black sword had a different shape.
Curved.
Single-edged.

For training, Gladyo made him use a white wooden replica, identical in weight and balance.
In three months, Finde made more progress than he had in an entire year.
Every evening after dinner, he withdrew to the small cloister reserved for the First Platoon.

Dim lanterns.
Cold stone.
Silence.

Only the sound of the blade cutting through the air.

That night, as his breath followed the rhythm of the sword,
a voice came from behind him.
“That looks new.”

Finde turned sharply.
“Spenser!”

The boy was sitting on a stone block, legs crossed, his usual ironic smile on his face.

“Come to spy on me?”
Finde joked.

“I had to see it with my own eyes.”
Spenser slowly approached the sword.
“It’s… beautiful.
A little unsettling, but beautiful.”

Finde lowered his gaze.
“Sometimes I wonder who the warrior was that wielded it before me.
I can’t tell whether it’s a good weapon… or an evil one.”

Spenser shook his head.
“Weapons are never good or evil.
They’re just tools.”

He placed a hand over Finde’s fingers.
“What matters is who uses them.”

Finde blushed faintly.
“If it hadn’t been for you, I would never have had the courage to go to Erevos.”

Spenser smiled.
“That’s what friends are for.”

They sat down.

Finde told him everything.
The elemental.
The circle of light.
The vision.

Spenser listened in silence.

“It could be a fragment of the past,” he said at last.
“Not a dream.
A spiritual projection.”

Finde’s eyes widened.
“A memory… of someone else?”

“Perhaps.
And if it was shown to you, it means it’s important.”

Finde hesitated.
“I also saw the Singularity of Gommhon.
It pulled me in.”

His voice faltered.

“Inside there was only darkness…
then two lights.
One green.
One red.”

Spenser grew serious.
“Two lights…”

“Yes... And red writing.
I’ve seen it before, but I can’t remember where.”

Spenser stood abruptly.
“Try to draw it.”

He handed him paper and pen.
Finde traced uncertain symbols.
“I’m not sure it’s accurate…”

Spenser stared at the page, eyes lit.
“This could be crucial.”

Finde smiled softly.
“Then at least I’m useful.
And I repay you.”

Spenser looked at him seriously.
“There are no debts between friends.”

His body began to dissolve like light.
“See you soon, Finde.”

He vanished.

Time passed.

The curved sword became an extension of his body.
Even Gladyo struggled to keep up with him during wooden-blade sparring.

One afternoon, after an exhausting duel, Gladyo sat beside him.
“What do you say to a real mission?”

Finde’s eyes widened.
“A cleansing?”

“Yes.
Small Singularity.
Low energy.”

Finde grew serious.
“Gladyo…
what is a Singularity, really?”

Gladyo sighed.
“Gateways.”
He traced an arc in the sand with a dry stick.
“They connect our universe to another.
Dark.
Corrupted.”

A name slipped between them like a blade.

“Morvian.”

Finde swallowed.
“Has anyone ever entered one?”

“If they did, they never came back.”
Gladyo drew two spheres at the edges of the arc.
“When a Singularity forms, these spheres of energy ignite and extinguish along the borders of the portal.
Destroying one of them closes the Singularity.”

Finde was speechless.
“And Gommhon's Singularity?”

Gladyo shook his head.
“The spheres of that Singularity do not ignite.”

Silence.

“No one knows how it was formed.”

Finde clenched his fists.
“Then let’s go.”

Gladyo smiled.
“Tomorrow morning.
After breakfast.”

He stood.

“It’s time you learn to close a Singularity with your own hands.”