CHAPTER 134

  DUSK TILL DAWN

  They had followed him into a slice of the city that smelled of iron and old bargains, the kind of place where men cut oaths into one another and forgot the words by morning.

  Hans waited in the shadow of the amphitheatre’s outer wall, skin drawn tight over cheekbones like a man who’d learned to sleep with one eye open. When he spoke, it was small, embarrassed—an apology that was also a threat.

  “Thank you for being patient. I didn’t want them to see me like this.” He mumbled. He was back. Back to being the Parvian Prince. The walking and living testament of someone who traded life as his regular Monday business.

  Haa! He breathed in, his eyes ruby red tracing everyone who had followed him in this secluded place.

  The night rained with blood, a massacre hidden beneath the watchful eyes of many warlords. Martys’s people had come for Theodred but found the Parvian Prince, ready to gut them and hang them dry.

  A public spectacle for the morning. A cruel statement.

  He had them shredded to the bones and pool of blood. Splattered everywhere.

  For all night, he had fought. Martys had sent many, but none returned.

  The sun graced early but made him late to the arena.

  “Will Martys win by default this time too?”

  “These pussies, every time, challenge Martys and never show up.”

  “Theodred is no pussy.”

  The Colosseum was packed much more than the previous duels. If these people didn’t get their money. There was sure to be a brawl in the stands.

  But the Herald announced the name all of them were waiting for. However, what they were expecting to see was totally different.

  Theodred walked the arena dripping with blood.

  He shouted toward Martys, yawning in the arena.

  “Hey, you jackass, did you know what time it was yesterday? Threatening doesn’t work on someone half asleep; it’s only scary when I am fully awake. Ah—my head’s killing me…”

  Then, without ceremony, without theatrics, he lifted his hand.

  Open palm. Fingers splayed.

  He pressed it to his forehead, just above the brow.

  And slowly—deliberately—he dragged it down the length of his face. Over his nose, his lips, to the point of his chin. A clean line of red followed in its wake, marking him. Not as a knight. As something else. A man filled with rage who was ready to kill.

  Then came the flick.

  He turned his wrist and flung the blood to the ground at his feet. The sound it made was soft. Barely a whisper. But the red streak it left on the pale sand looked like a sentence written in a language no one dared speak aloud.

  “You are getting fucked today—no one walks away after disturbing my good-ol sleep.” He raised his steel, levelling it at his face while the light summoned a sword hung on his other hand. “Make your move, bitch.”

  He…he… Martys couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He laughed; it was too loud to be sane. “Do I amuse you so? I was going to test you. Instead—” He smiled without mirth. “—I’ll kill you from the start. Show Amateran Tiger.”

  A nightmare of the spirit world. An existence whom Hans couldn’t defeat when he had unlimited aura and now together with a warlord. This was a dangerous combination for Theodred, but for Hans, it was an unwritten chapter.

  Hans didn’t reach for theatrics. He took a breath, and that breath became command. “Do you think only you have backup?—Come forth.”

  The sky cracked over the colosseum.

  The warlords, the rank-holder knights, were standing in their seats. Their sense had warned them of an unfathomable presence appearing. The crack ran wide, and what stepped through was wrong in the ways legends are wrong: too big, too old, and utterly unconcerned with the fragile plans of men.

  A wingspan broad enough to blot the morning sun—descended like a deadly predator looking down. The feathers of crystallised light, set ablaze by unearthly fire, cast stained-glass shadows over the crowd. The air around it seemed to swallow the sound from everyone’s throats. Even the warlords, who were akin to gods, turned their faces away.

  This was no spirit for bargaining.

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  Solunox. Those who knew recognised the guardian owl of the spirit world.

  An elf in the Clandorian box made the obvious, stumbling question: “That thing—can be tamed?”

  All had the same question for Reina, but the queen herself had no answer. “He lied. That—he fooled me.” It was a genuine shock for her, not something she was just saying to save face.

  In the arena, Martys’s face was contorted in unknown angles. His Amateran tiger reared as Solunox’s gaze moved—slow, like a thing that has never wanted but always takes. Where the owl looked, the tiger thinned, as if being unstitched in the presence of the god of the spirit world.

  It was known in the Clandor family that Solunox appearing in the spirit—contracting means. The spirit world had rejected them, but here it was, someone, not of their blood, had made it appear at his will.

  “How the fuck?” Martys shouted. “That is stuff of legends—”

  “So am I,” Hans, in a swift motion, pulled his hand down as if swatting a fly in front, and Solunox reacted. The fading Amateran tiger got sucked inside the arch of Solunox’s beak—a nightmare slid into a maw of black stone.

  “How does it feel, your spirit taking away from you—I’ve heard it hurts a lot.”

  He tightened his fist as if squeezing someone’s throat inside his hand. The owlish beak shut with a sound like an ending.

  Martys went from menace to something smaller: his vision bled red, tears of blood from places that made women drop their hands to their mouths.

  He keeled, falling into pain that was both physical and spiritual—the one who had always relied on his spirit to carry him now found it gone. The loss carved something clean out of the man.

  He cried, no, he wailed in agony.

  “Oh, you poor thing—you should have known whom you were messing with. I wanted your life true—but I never thought of torturing you to death. You should’ve let me have some sleep—I’m cranky, and having a splitting headache doesn’t help.”

  It was the moment people who doubted Theodred, thinking his victory was desperate and a fluke over Dijkstra and Rudolf, understood he was holding back.

  Even Rudolf madly laughed, “Oh boy, he made it in the big leagues.”

  Arat, on the other hand, fell on his chair. “Ha…it’s out of my hand now, prince…you have to make it on your own. This servant is useless now.” His mind instantly started preparing contingencies. If you can’t beat them, join them. But it was hard to do when you kept roadblocking someone with death in every corner.

  Hans on the other hand, unbeknownst of the mind of others, stepped forward, each footfall measured towards the agonising Martys.

  He reached him, almost a hand’s length. A swift moment aiming to behead, both of his swords pincering his neck like a scissor.

  For a moment, the world held its breath. Then Martys caught the steel with his bare hands—forcefully taking his spirit might have given him unbearable pain, but there was reason he was rank eighth and a warlord.

  “Yeah,” Hans said, the ghost of a smile at the corner of his mouth. “If this were easy, I’d have hated it.” He withdrew his sword, but he didn’t step back; still close, he looked at the spectators. His index finger covering his lips.

  Shhh! He gestured, and the view of the arena disappeared from everyone.

  A dimensional shift took the whole arena somewhere else. He jested. “Welcome to my little personal space—I don’t know if your stay here would be comfortable or not—it’s my first time inviting someone.”

  Martys, furious and wounded and suddenly very small, forced himself up, drawing what dignity his rank allowed. “Who the fuck are you?” he spat.

  “Me?” Hans laughed, and the human codex loaded. “Your DEATH.”

  Martys couldn’t believe his own eyes. An elf was turning human, bones shifting, stature shrinking, and when the transformation completed. He stuttered—Parvian.

  “Time for you to turn fertiliser.” As if his words were a command, the whole space turned over from his feet, the green stretched rolling over the soil, trees began to unearth as if living, covering the dead.

  Swoosh!

  A SeedBullet passed near Martys’s ears the second he deflected swiftly. He was adjusting to pain, and it wasn’t good for Hans. This was his first time summoning the spirit world, where he had absolute control and an infinite aura. But he threw that idea aside and turned into a human, the one more capable of putting his enemies to death swiftly.

  Reina once had told her that breaking spirit bond makes one vulnerable, locking the access to aura.

  He didn’t know how much time he could hold Martys inside or how much time this world could be his to command or disappear.

  They were still present in the arena but were inside an invisible barrier, unaffected by anything physical.

  Photonise

  Taking in the energy of the sun. He blazed.

  Longshot

  An armour-piercing and rune-break pallet shot with massive speed. Martys might have recovered some of his strength but not truly the elven speed.

  He deflected the shot, but it broke one of the runes in his sword. Giving him a numb hand.

  “Yeah. This bastard might be wearing an artefact as an underpants too.” Longshots strained him a lot, so it wasn’t what he could use indefinitely. But he had to know what worked on Martys and what not.

  So one after another, he launched his attacks.

  VeganBind got shredded in an instant, but as they were charged with photons, they exploded, stumbling Martys.

  Hans found another opportunity, another LongShot, and it hit his back. Breaking another rune.

  The whole place was a result of SilvaOrtus, a customised land made by Hans’s will. Whenever Martys stepped, it exploded, courtesy of landmines he had tried on Grimgar.

  They weren’t enough to damage a warlord but enough to annoy him to death.

  “Ugh— fuck this shit.” Martys started swinging his sword. He could feel his aura returning, the backlash of spirit dying fading but it was slow.

  The energy cracked inside, and his sword turned ablaze. And with a mighty swing, he burned the whole forest to crisp.

  “You are dead, Parvian—now I understand why Reina did that. She never meant to kill you—only stop me from killing you. I’d have protested; now look at you—grown into an annoyance. It’s clear you both are into this; otherwise, she hadn’t melted her lifeline, her sword.”

  Hans gave a quick look at the sword hanging around his waist. It never clicked him; if it was useful to him, it was also useful to Reina, so why did she hand it over to him?

  His head suddenly turned to Martys; he was connected to the spirit world, so he could feel Martys’ aura was breathing life back into him. The elf knight of blue fire was returning.

  He barked. “Now I’ll finish what my sister couldn’t— killing her son.”