As long as the blue fluid coursed through his veins, Kaelen was not a man. He was a clock, perfectly calibrated, fashioned from flesh and bone.
Sitting in the arena's waiting room, his heart beat exactly forty-five times per minute. Neither one more, nor one less. There was no fear. No excitement. Rico's anxious pacing, the roar of the crowd beyond the walls, the scent of sweat and rust... all of it felt distant. It was like a silent film watched through a pane of glass.
Giant... Rico's voice was trembling. The boy was gnawing on his fingernails. The opponent's list arrived. His name is Scrap-Breaker. The man has no arms. They've attached steam-powered press machines instead. In his last match, he crushed his opponent's head like a watermelon...
Kaelen looked at Rico.
His right eye—thanks to Verrick's medicine—no longer flickered uncontrollably. It was steady, like a pitch-black lens. He could see Rico's fear, that grey aura of anxiety fluttering in the boy's chest.
He will die, Kaelen said. His voice was so flat that Rico flinched.
The iron door groaned open.
A guard in yellow armor entered.
You're up, Freak. Lord Arthus and Madam Vex are waiting for a show.
Kaelen stood. GRIEF was slung across his back. The sword was restless; the chill of the metal burned his skin. The blade hated the blue poison in his veins because it stole Kaelen's rage—the very fuel the sword craved.
He traversed the corridor. He walked toward the light.
And he stepped into the arena.
Thousands of people... the stands were a sea of humanity. They screamed, they cursed, they hurled rotten vegetables and metal coins down at him. High above, in the glass box at the very top, sat Madam Vex, with Alchemist Verrick standing beside her in the shadows. Verrick watched Kaelen through binoculars. He was taking notes.
And at the other end of the arena stood that thing.
Scrap-Breaker.
A mountain of a man stripped of his humanity. His torso was clad in metal plates. He truly had no arms; from the shoulders down, massive, rusted iron sledgehammers powered by hydraulic pistons had been mounted. His face was hidden behind a gas mask.
FIGHT!
Before the announcer's voice had even finished echoing, Scrap-Breaker lunged.
He ran with steps that shook the earth. Steam engines hissed, pistons screeched.
Kaelen did not move.
Normally, he should have been afraid. He should have fled, planned, or drawn GRIEF to defend himself.
But Verrick's medicine whispered something else: Analyze. Dismantle. Finish.
Kaelen opened his right eye.
Time slowed.
He saw the pressure inside Scrap-Breaker's pistons, the rusted bolts in his kneecaps, the irregular breathing beneath the gas mask.
As the massive sledgehammer was about to descend upon Kaelen's head, the stands held their breath. Rico closed his eyes.
Whirr.
Kaelen took a single step to the side. The hammer missed him by an inch and buried itself into the stone floor. The stone shattered, and a cloud of dust rose.
While Scrap-Breaker struggled to wrench his hammer from the earth, Kaelen moved.
He did not draw GRIEF. He did not need to.
Kaelen drove the fingers of his right hand like a spearpoint into his opponent's exposed armpit—the soft spot where the armor was absent.
Black veins glowed. Void energy erupted from his fingertips.
Scrap-Breaker bellowed. The sound was not mechanical, but human. A muffled cry filled with agony.
When Kaelen withdrew his fingers, the hydraulic system in the man's arm exploded. Oil and steam sprayed out. The massive metal arm fell to the side like a lifeless piece of meat.
The stands fell silent. No one had ever seen such a thing. No sword, no magic—just pure, surgical brutality.
Kaelen did not stop. He circled his opponent like a shadow. A kick to the other kneecap. CRACK. Bone and metal shattered simultaneously.
Scrap-Breaker collapsed to his knees. His gas mask fell away.
The face revealed... was that of an old man. His eyes were filled with terror. Blood and motor oil leaked from his mouth.
Please... the man rasped. They... they forced me... My children...
Kaelen faltered.
A crack formed within the blue fog created by the medicine. Children... Father... Liora... Groth...
Deep in his mind, a memory tried to surface. A snowy hill. A grave.
Kaelen's hand trembled. He should not kill him. This man was not an enemy, but a victim.
But then, Verrick's voice echoed—not in his mind, but in his blood.
Do not hesitate, Specimen 0-1. Inefficiency is failure.
Kaelen's right eye went dark. That human sense of pity was drowned beneath the waves of the blue medicine.
Upon his back, GRIEF vibrated violently in its scabbard. The sword was rebelling against its master's emotionless state. Give it to me, the blade said. Give me his memory. Do not kill him as a statistic; kill him as a soul.
Kaelen reached for the hilt of GRIEF.
He drew the sword.
The metal wailed as it met the air. Violet runes glowed with fury, defying Kaelen's lack of emotion.
Kaelen raised the sword high. Scrap-Breaker was weeping.
And Kaelen brought it down.
Squelch.
The sound was like a butcher cutting meat. Clean. Swift.
Scrap-Breaker's head was severed from his torso. Blood splattered onto the arena sands.
And in that moment...
Kaelen felt nothing.
No regret, no victory, no sorrow. Only the signal of "task complete."
But GRIEF... GRIEF did not forgive.
The sword absorbed the dying man's final breath, his last memory, and pumped it forcefully into Kaelen's mind, tearing down those blue walls.
THE VISION:
A small, damp room. The man is hugging his two children. The door is broken down. Masked men enter. You will pay your debt with your body, they say. The man begs. The children cry. The man is dragged away, his arms are severed, and those metals are attached in their place...
Kaelen staggered in the center of the arena.
The blue medicine tried to suppress this intense emotional trauma but failed. Kaelen's stomach cramped. He fell to his knees and retched into the sand.
The stands were applauding wildly. Black Eye! Black Eye! they chanted.
But Kaelen did not hear them. The crying of that man's children echoed in his mind.
He raised his head. His vision was blurred.
And amidst the crowd, standing in the exit tunnel of the stands, he saw that silhouette.
Jarek.
The former soldier stood with his arms crossed over his chest, watching him. His face held no admiration. There was a deep disappointment and rage.
Jarek moved his hand to his throat and made a "cut" sign. But it did not mean "cut your opponent."
Cut the cord, he was saying. The bond with Verrick.
Kaelen understood. But he could not do it. Without that poison in his veins, he would die of pain.
Guards came to take Kaelen away. Rico ran to his side, his face beaming.
We won, Giant! We won! We're rich!
Kaelen did not hear Rico. He sheathed his sword. GRIEF resisted as it entered the scabbard. It grew hot, as if wanting to burn its master's hand.
As he entered the tunnel, Kaelen looked at his right hand. There was no blood. It was perfectly clean.
And that was the most terrifying part.
He had killed a father, and his pulse had not even quickened.
What am I turning into? he whispered into the darkness.
The answer came from within the shadows, from behind that blue fog. This time, it was not the Voice's whisper. It was a much darker, much more ancient voice. It was the voice of the Void.
...A perfect weapon...
Verrick smiled as he looked down from his box and wrote a single sentence in his notebook:
Conscience: 12%. Obedience: 98%. Dosage must be increased.
Would you like me to translate the next chapter as well?