The Eclipsed Order

Chapter 4: Chapter 4: The Day I Discovered That Eclipse Could Give Strength to Those Who Had None

By the time I turned eight, I had already spent several years trying to understand the strange power that had appeared within me after reincarnation, and although I had learned quite a bit about the magic used by the people of this world, I still couldn’t find anything that properly explained what I possessed.

That was probably because Eclipse wasn’t ordinary magic.

I had already accepted that much.

My swordsmanship had also progressed considerably during those years. I had started practicing with wooden swords when I was young, eventually moving on to real weapons once my body became capable of handling them properly. At this point, I could already use a sword far better than anyone in the estate would have expected from a child my age.

In fact, if I fought seriously, there probably wasn’t a single knight stationed at the estate who could defeat me.

That included some of the older knights.

I wasn’t particularly proud of it, though. Most of my skill came from my previous life, and while my current body was still young, the experience inside my head hadn’t disappeared just because I had been reborn.

Still, I had no intention of showing anyone what I could really do.

My father occasionally trained with me, and whenever he did, I made sure to keep my movements within a reasonable level. I allowed myself to make mistakes, struggled with techniques I had already mastered, and sometimes deliberately lost exchanges that I could have easily won.

It wasn’t difficult.

After all, hiding one’s true ability was practically part of my nature.

The real training happened at night.

Whenever the estate became quiet and everyone had gone to sleep, I would leave my room and make my way toward the mountain. I had found a secluded area there where almost nobody ever went, and it had gradually become my personal training ground.

There, I could finally stop pretending.

I practiced my swordsmanship until my arms became tired, trained my physical strength with Eclipse, and spent hours trying to understand the strange energy that existed within me.

My swordsmanship was already approaching the level I had reached in my previous life, although I still had to account for the limitations of my younger body. As for Eclipse, I had become much better at controlling it, but I still felt as though I was only touching the surface of something much greater.

That night, while I was practicing alone between the trees, I suddenly heard something moving nearby.

I stopped swinging my sword and looked toward the sound.

The branches moved slightly.

A moment later, a large horned boar appeared between the trees.

It was considerably larger than an ordinary boar, with thick muscles covering its body and a pair of heavy horns extending from its head. I had seen creatures like it on the mountain before, and normally, I would have simply ignored it.

Instead, an idea suddenly occurred to me.

I had been wondering for a while whether Eclipse could be transferred to another living creature.

There was only one way to find out.

I extended my hand toward the boar and gathered a small amount of Eclipse into my palm. Rather than releasing it immediately, I concentrated the energy as much as I could, compressing it until the dark glow became smaller and denser.

The boar watched me for a moment.

Then I released it.

The concentrated Eclipse entered its body.

For a few seconds, nothing happened.

I almost thought the experiment had failed.

Then the boar screamed.

A violent wave of Eclipse suddenly burst from its body, shaking the surrounding trees as its muscles began to swell. Its body grew larger before my eyes, its legs became thicker, and the horns on its head expanded until they looked more like weapons than natural parts of an animal.

The ground beneath it cracked.

Several nearby trees were knocked aside by the sudden surge of power.

I stared at the creature.

"...That worked."

Unfortunately, it worked a little too well.

The boar charged at me.

I quickly moved out of the way as its enormous body crashed through several trees, scattering pieces of wood across the ground. It turned around almost immediately and charged again, apparently having gained far more strength than its original body was supposed to possess.

At that point, I had no choice.

I drew my sword and ended the fight before the creature could cause any more damage.

Afterward, I stood beside its body and remained silent for quite some time.

I had only wanted to see whether Eclipse could enter another living being.

Instead, I had turned a normal monster into something powerful enough to destroy trees with its movements.

That was when I began to seriously question what exactly my power was capable of.

I returned to the estate later that night, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened. The following days were spent reading even more books than usual, searching through everything I could find about magical beasts, monster evolution, strengthening magic, curses, blessings, and anything else that might explain what I had witnessed.

Nothing matched.

There were spells that could temporarily increase a person’s strength, magical artifacts that could enhance certain abilities, and rare monsters that could evolve after consuming special materials, but there was nothing that explained what Eclipse had done.

That only made me more interested.

So I experimented again.

This time, I was more careful.

I started with small animals living around the mountain, using only tiny amounts of Eclipse and observing the results before increasing the amount.

Some became faster.

Some became stronger.

Others developed strange abilities that had nothing to do with what they could naturally do.

Eventually, I even experimented on insects.

One of the most memorable results came from a small butterfly.

I had expected almost nothing to happen.

Instead, the moment Eclipse entered its body, the butterfly suddenly grew to an enormous size, its wings expanding until they were larger than I was. With every movement, a strange substance spread through the air, and I quickly realized that it was poisonous.

That wasn’t even the most troublesome part.

The air around the creature became strangely heavy.

Even I could feel the pressure whenever it flapped its wings.

I ended the experiment before it could escape the mountain.

Afterward, I sat beneath one of the trees and thought about everything I had discovered.

Eclipse wasn’t simply a type of magic that I could use to make myself stronger.

It could give other living beings power.

More importantly, it could push them beyond the limits they were naturally born with.

A weak creature could become powerful.

An ordinary animal could develop abilities it had never possessed.

And if I could eventually control the process properly, there was no reason to believe that the same principle wouldn’t work on something more intelligent.

Such as a human.

That thought was the first thing that truly surprised me.

I had spent my previous life believing that strength was something a person had to obtain through training, experience, talent, or countless years of struggle. Yet here I was, holding a power that could potentially give someone strength far beyond what they could achieve on their own.

It was an absurd ability.

And, if I learned to control it properly, it could change everything.

Of course, I wasn’t going to start experimenting on people.

Not yet, anyway.

I still had too many questions.

For now, I continued using the creatures of the mountain as my subjects, gradually learning how much Eclipse they could withstand, how their bodies reacted to it, and what kind of abilities could emerge depending on how I shaped the power.

As the months passed, controlling it became easier.

What had once required intense concentration could eventually be done almost naturally, and the more I practiced, the more I understood the basic principle behind Eclipse.

It didn’t simply lend power.

It awakened it.

The power I gave a creature would interact with its body, its instincts, and its natural potential, then reshape those qualities into something stronger.

That was why every experiment produced different results.

A horned boar became a monstrous beast.

A butterfly became a creature capable of spreading poison and creating a strange pressure with its wings.

Other creatures developed abilities that were completely different from either of them.

And the more I understood this power, the more one thought continued to return to my mind.

If I could eventually do this with people...

Then I could create warriors who possessed strength far beyond what the world considered normal.

People who could become stronger than their circumstances allowed them to be.

People who could be given a second chance.

At the time, I didn’t know where that thought would eventually lead me.

I certainly didn’t know that it would become the foundation of an organization that would one day operate from the shadows.

I was only eight years old.

For now, I was simply a boy standing alone on a mountain, experimenting with a power that shouldn’t have existed in this world.

But that was where everything began.

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