Reborn Financier-Chapter 34 - 33: Three Years of Fire and Steel

The moonlight leaked through the cracks in the ancient stone ceiling, casting silver patterns across the cavern walls. Deep within the mountain lair of the Ancient Black Dragon Kuro, a warmth brewed—not from lava or flame, but from something new. Something human.

Kaidën sat on a balcony carved from obsidian, the night wind brushing through his hair. He had just finished dinner—his own handmade seared steak and Kuro’s... entire roasted pig. The silence after the meal lingered like the last note of a solemn song.

Kuro, in his smaller, humanoid dragon form, walked up behind Kaidën, arms folded. "You’ve grown," the dragon rumbled, his voice ancient, yet amused. "And not just taller. Your soul burns differently now."

Kaidën didn’t respond. He stared into the darkness beyond the peaks, as if hoping to glimpse his mother’s face in the stars. The pain of her absence hadn’t dulled—but it had shaped him. Only the gods knew what was happening at her side and if the queen and kids where safe.

"Are we doing it today?" he asked softly. "The match?"

Kuro smirked, revealing a glint of fang. "Impatient little cub, I mean it more or less like a spare. But yes... today, we clash."

"Which marks the day your training begins, no outside word for you, if you aren’t able to control your strength" Kuro said, with a massive smirk on his face.

****

Three Years Later

Kaidën was twelve now, though he carried the presence of someone far older. His once soft features had sharpened—his body lean and muscular from brutal training, his eyes cold with focus, edged with a glint of sadness. His aura crackled with divine mana—a gift, or perhaps a curse, left by Kuro during his near-death transformation.

For three years, the dragon trained him in solitude. No luxuries. No mercy. Each day was a crucible: endless sparring, meditation under waterfalls, survival in monster-infested zones, and brutal lectures on life, death, and power.

And in those three years... the world outside burned.

The Everwood Kingdom bled daily. The Horsen Empire, with their abominable army and battle-mages, pushed harder every month. But they couldn’t break the border.

Why?

Because of the Iron Fist Empire’s hero—a man cloaked in ash and steel, appearing without name or banner, who annihilated Horsen’s warlords one by one.

A silent alliance had been formed. But even so, Everwood was running out of time.

There strong hold falling every other day. No one knows when the horsen empire might match onto the Everwood kingdom capital.

Only fear was present.

But amist every tears that fell, soldiers that died, child becoming fatherless and wife become widows. There was still hope

Hope that the Everwood kingdom would survive

Hope that the dark clouds upon them would disappear.

Hope!

All they could hold unto was hope.

Kaidën knew... one day, he would return. He knew one-day he would see is father, hopefully moving again welcoming him in open arms

And his mother, smiling with uncontrollable joy. And maybe that peaceful life’s would go back to how it started.

****

The dragon’s training ground was no ordinary arena. It was a sunken battlefield of crushed mountains, waterfall walls, and glowing mana crystals embedded in black stone. It thrummed with energy—ancient, wild, untamed.

Kuro stood shirtless in the center, his body adorned with golden dragon-scale patterns. He looked half-human, half-god. His arms were folded. His eyes were closed.

Kaidën entered without a word, his dual daggers strapped across his lower back. His black training robes fluttered in the wind. No jokes. No banter.

Today... he intended to win.

Kuro opened one eye and grinned. "Ready to lose again, boy?"

"I didn’t come to lose," Kaidën replied, his voice steady. "I came to surpass you."

The air cracked. Mana surged. Lightning danced between their feet.

Without warning, Kaidën vanished—appearing inches in front of Kuro with a dagger drawn, slicing upward.

CLANG!

Kuro blocked it with a single finger.

"Faster. But still predictable."

Kaidën spun midair, his other dagger slashing toward Kuro’s neck. The dragon ducked effortlessly, sweeping Kaidën’s legs mid-flip. Kaidën landed in a crouch, the stone beneath him cracking.

"Don’t hold back," Kaidën growled.

"You first," Kuro replied, lunging.

A sonic boom echoed as Kuro’s fist missed Kaidën by an inch, carving a crater behind him. Kaidën danced around the shockwave, daggers spinning, flickering like shadows. He struck at Kuro’s sides, neck, ribs—each blow aimed with surgical precision.

But the dragon was still faster.

Every move Kaidën made was parried, countered, predicted. It was like fighting the mountain itself—unmovable, unreadable, eternal.

Still... Kaidën didn’t give up.

He leapt backward, forming hand seals. "Azure Step: Phantom Echo!"

Suddenly, ten versions of Kaidën appeared, darting in unison from all angles. Their footsteps echoed like whispers.

Kuro raised an eyebrow. "Illusions?"

No.

Each copy was real.

Kaidën had split his mana into fragments, creating independent afterimages.

Each one struck. Dagger slashes. Kicks. Feints. From above. Below. Behind.

Kuro grunted, taking a cut to the cheek—his first wound in three years.

"Well done," he muttered. Then—

He vanished.

Kaidën’s eyes widened.

The next second, all ten Kaidëns were blown away by a single punch of compressed wind. The illusions shattered, and the real Kaidën slammed into the stone pillar with a gasp.

Blood trickled from his mouth.

"Still think you’re ready?" Kuro asked, appearing behind him.

Kaidën didn’t reply. He stood up.

His aura changed.

Golden.

Flaming.

Writhing with ancient divine power.

He entered his Grandmaster State.

The entire battlefield trembled. Waterfalls paused. Crystals dimmed.

Kaidën’s body flickered with blinding speed. He closed the distance between them in a blink, delivering a flurry of dagger strikes that cut through the very air.

This time, Kuro dodged. He didn’t block. He couldn’t block. Kaidën had reached something higher.

The battle became a storm.

Kaidën flowed like a hurricane, striking faster than the eye could follow. Craters exploded across the field. The sky darkened. Even Kuro’s smile faded—he was actually moving now. Using more than brute strength.

They clashed again and again—fist against blade, roar against silence, heaven against earth.

Then... Kaidën broke through.

He flipped over Kuro’s shoulder, locked his dagger against the dragon’s neck, and whispered, "Yield."

Kuro was still.

Then he laughed.

A booming, belly-deep laugh.

"Almost had me."

Suddenly, his aura surged tenfold.

Not even full power. Just... a bit more.

And Kaidën’s dagger shattered.

Kuro spun, grabbed Kaidën by the back of the collar, and slammed him into the ground so hard the entire training field split down the center.

The boy lay in a crater, coughing blood, his divine aura flickering like a dying flame.

Kuro stood over him, panting slightly. "You’ve grown strong, cub. Scary strong. But power is not control. Speed is not clarity. Rage is not purpose."

Kaidën’s eyes watered—not from pain, but from frustration. "I... almost had you."

Kuro knelt beside him, placing a hand on his chest. "And one day, you will. You are a Grandmaster, Kaidën. Even if your core is unstable, your soul burns brighter than anyone I’ve ever seen."

"But you didn’t even use all your power."

"No," Kuro admitted. "Because if I did... this mountain wouldn’t survive, probably this entire forest won’t survive and you, you would have been vaporized"

Silence.

Then Kaidën laughed—weak, broken, but sincere.

"You’re such a pain in the ass."

Kuro grinned. "Takes one to know one."

****

Later that night, as Kaidën sat soaking in the hot springs behind the lair, his muscles aching and his pride wounded, he looked up at the stars again.

"I’m coming back, Mom," he whispered. "I’ll end this war. I’ll make them pay. Just wait a little longer..."

Behind him, Kuro stood quietly, watching the boy he once found near death—now a storm in human form.

And in the far distance, across burning borders and bloodstained fields, a shadow whispered beyond the Iron Fist Empire, in the abyss where the demons rule, the land for the dead. The land where the sun never rises and the sky painted crimson red.

"The Demon god is awakening."

Immediately the once silent demons, where now excited again. The demon god, the strongest demon, rivalling the gods.

The only god that comes from a moral instead of a celestial being.

The news spread fast, from the abyss down to the human lands, rumors moving from kingdom to kingdom and from empires to empire. There was many reasons to worry.

With no confirmation on the rumors and fear present everywhere.

Everyone knew if the Demon god as truly awakening, then they have to stop him at all cost, because if he ever awakens finish, not even the mightiest empire can stop the demon.

But one thing for sure is that a new era as begone and the demon god was unknown.

To be continued...

The Abyss— a realm untouched by light, where time stands still and despair thrives. Jagged black mountains rise from oceans of boiling blood, and the sky is a churning void of crimson and shadow.

Twisted screams echo through endless caverns, home to the grotesque and powerful demons that rule this forsaken domain. It is a place of eternal torment, chaos incarnate — where only the cruel survive, and hope dares not exist.