Supreme Spouse System.

Chapter 652: The Heaviest Blade

The Heaviest Blade

Inside the palace...

Everything looked peaceful.

Almost deceptive.

Centuries back, workers raised the main compound beside a huge spring bubbling from the earth. Water moved without hurry through stonework shaped long ago, branching then meeting again while threading between open yards and green plots. Along shallow paths, streams murmured across slick stone. Stone arches, old and hushed in form, arched over currents below - each surface softened by years, touched by many passing soles.

Mist curled around the base of towering green giants, their trunks rising without sound. From above, thin whispers moved between leaves each time air slipped by. Vines heavy with bloom climbed cold stone columns, color draping sideways as if refusing stillness. Light pierced overlapping layers overhead, falling in uneven pools - shifting coins of gold-green on narrow trails below. High branches held the quiet while shadows stretched.

It looked like paradise.

Yet under the perfect surface, the ground remembered what came before.

Blood stained the edges of that recollection deeply.

Footsteps silent, Leon perched on cool rock by the water’s rim. The stones held no warmth beneath his feet. Close to where ripples began, he stayed still. A hush settled around him like mist.

Steam rose off his skin, pale under the dim light. Not quite wet, but close - beads clinging where heat built up along bone and sinew. Breathing shaped him: shoulders lifting like tide against shore, then settling again into stillness. Movement lived beneath the surface, quiet, paced. Air moved through him before it left.

Slow.

Measured.

Heavy.

Six days.

Floating through memory, six days now since he pulled the blade from under the palace floor. The air down there still clung to his clothes - damp, silent, heavy with old stone. Vault doors groaned when opened; they shut like breath held too long. He remembers fingers brushing rust near the hilt, a name scratched faintly on metal nobody reads anymore. Time moves slow beside such things. Each morning since feels thinner than before.

Failing every single day for a week - almost. One step back each morning, then nothing moves forward.

Each dawn brought him back, day after day, fixed in timing, rooted in denial. The spot saw him again, unchanged in routine, heavy with unspoken hope. Five mornings passed, then six, each one mirroring the last. Time stood still, yet moved forward without permission. He arrived as before, hands empty, heart full of what was lost. Refusal shaped his posture, silence filled his steps. Reality stayed distant, untouchable, ignored on purpose.

One day after another, six times, pushing past what the body begged to stop. Silence won each round.

Farther on, a blade lay stretched over dark rock. It waited there, still, set upon the slab.

Broad.

Thick.

Unadorned.

Dark metal covered it, flat and dull, pulling shadows into itself instead of bouncing them back. Not a single mark had been carved there. No stone broke the smooth expanse. Every extra detail stayed absent. Importance did not show up here.

That was never part of the plan.

Wrong was the way the air hung near it.

Denser.

Heavier.

Gravity seemed to tilt a little toward it, like a slow nod without words.

A stillness held Leon’s eyes, fixed upon the blade.

Not with awe.

Not with reverence.

Not with fear.

With something harder.

From deep within, a quiet rage refuses to fade.

Ten minutes.

He could go no further than that.

A sharp ache cut through his arms after ten minutes swinging the blade. Bones groaned under pressure soon after. The world started fading at the edges then. Breathing turned ragged just before everything dimmed.

After that, half an hour lying still - only way to stop his arms tearing loose on their own.

Some might say it felt like magic.

A blade said to tip the scales like a hillside. Heavy beyond reason, people whisper when they speak of it. Some claim just lifting it would break a man’s back. Others say only storms could carry its weight. Not many dare test the stories.

A heavy object that turned regular people into mush right when they grabbed it.

That Leon managed to lift it would later spread through knightly tales. A quiet shock ran through their ranks when word got out. Few believed such strength possible in one so unproven. Stories grew around the moment like vines on old stone. What he did stayed whispered long after battles ended.

Leon didn’t care.

That moment struck Leon as wrong - plain wrong.

Down he sank to the cold stone, legs folding slow beneath him.

Meditation.

Not for peace.

Not for enlightenment.

For control.

Faint shadows traced his lashes as the light dimmed in his gaze.

Breath in.

Fresh breath slipped into him, cool and quiet.

Breath out.

Slow release.

Again.

And again.

A heavy ache moved across him, slow and steady. Quiet pain - no shout needed, yet impossible to miss. It stayed there, always present, like thunder under skin. Tension lived deep in tissue, stretching tight through joints, ligaments, frame.

His shoulders ached.

Heavy pressure filled his arms below the elbows. The skin stretched tight without warning.

Pressure once squeezed his hands so hard it left a memory behind.

His fingers twitched.

Not a trace slipped out. He held it all back.

No grimace.

No clenching.

Pain carried a message. It spoke without words, yet told everything.

Information could be ignored.

His eyelids lifted, slow, after a few deep pulls of air.

Everything came sharp again.

The altar.

The sword.

Waiting.

Up he rose after stretching out his limbs.

His footing slipped, just for an instant.

A subtle sway.

Corrected instantly.

Shoulders easing under their own weight, Leon let them turn through a single careful circle. Each finger woke up on its own time, testing the air like it had forgotten how to belong.

Then he walked.

Footsteps touched rock without cover. Quiet pressure settled into the surface.

Step.

Step.

Step.

Footsteps sounded soft across the empty yard.

Just then, he came to a halt in front of the altar.

Close to, the blade seemed somehow sillier.

Too thick.

Too dense.

Too... present.

Leon reached out.

Fingers closed on the handle, his right palm pressing tight.

Cold.

Still air clings where shade should bite. Metal waits, warm and slow. Relief hides elsewhere.

This was deeper.

Heavier.

A chill dug deep, settling where warmth once lived.

A heavy pressure crashed into his arm, sudden as a roof giving way.

Footsteps halted when his shoulder gave way slightly.

Firm ridges rose across his spine as tension pulled each fiber tight.

Veins surfaced beneath his skin.

A breath slipped out of Leon’s nostrils, slow and quiet. The air moved without words.

Not a sigh.

Not a groan.

Just air.

"...Let’s go, buddy," he murmured.

Out came the blade when he tugged it free.