Pain is a guest. It knocks, it enters, and after a time, it departs.
But for Kaelen, pain was the master of the house.
On that night when he rejected Verrick's blue poison, he lost all sense of time. As he writhed upon the stone floor of his cell, minutes stretched into hours, and hours into centuries. His right eye burned like a piece of live coal within his skull. The Void energy, as if seeking vengeance for its suppression, set every nerve ending ablaze.
Rico had cowered in the corner out of fear. Kaelen could hear the boy's shallow breathing, but he was too distant to respond. He was in the hell of his own mind.
And in the center of that hell was the pulse.
Thump... Thump...
Kaelen ground his teeth. Quiet... he groaned. Leave me be...
But the pulse did not fall silent. On the contrary, as the pain intensified, the rhythm became clearer. It was as if the agony were a frequency adjustment, clearing away the interference. The more Kaelen suffered, the more he connected to that unknown source.
For a moment, the ceiling of the cell vanished.
When Kaelen opened his eyes, he saw not stones, but a starless sky.
Yet this was not the grey, smoky firmament of the world outside. This was a pure, crystalline dome. And beneath that dome, there was something floating in an infinite whiteness.
A silhouette of a woman? No. A beam of light.
A being suspended in water, hair waving like seagrass, skin as smooth as if carved from marble. He could not discern her face, but her presence... he knew her presence better than his own breath.
That thing... that light was not suffering. It was waiting.
Kaelen reached out. His fingers grasped the void.
Who are you? he shouted from within his mind. Why do you call to me? Why do you not ease my pain?
The answer did not come in words. It arrived as a sensation.
...Because your pain is my path...
Kaelen started. This sentence was far more terrifying than Verrick's cold logic or Jarek's stern warnings. It was the acceptance of an ancient sacrifice. Kaelen had to suffer, for the path to that light could only be paved with agony.
THUD.
He returned to reality, to that damp cell.
Kaelen sat up, gasping. He was drenched in sweat. The black veins upon his body had bulged like living worms moving beneath his skin. But they no longer burned; they simply were.
Rico approached, trembling, holding a bowl of water.
Giant... I thought you died. Your eyes... they turned completely white.
Kaelen took the water and drained it in a single gulp. It seared his throat as it went down.
I am not dead, Kaelen said. His voice was no longer that mechanical, numbed tone. It was raspy, exhausted, but real. I simply... went somewhere.
Where?
Kaelen pointed upward. Beyond the ceiling. Beyond the city.
There.
The door groaned open. Vark—Madam Vex's right hand—appeared in the doorway. The false smile was gone from his face. He looked worried.
Prepare yourself, Vark said. Today is the semifinal. And Madam Vex is not pleased. She knows you did not take your medicine last night.
Kaelen stood up. He slung GRIEF across his back. The moment the sword touched his skin, it ceased its metallic whimpering. The metal recognized its master's pain and respected it.
She doesn't have to be pleased, Kaelen said.
The arena was different today.
The chaotic roar of the Crimson Market had been replaced by a tense anticipation. For today's opponent was neither a mutant nor a machine.
The thing standing in the center of the arena was a shadow.
It had no name. It had no face. There was only a black cloak waving like smoke and two curved daggers held in its hands.
The Shadow-Dancer! the announcer heralded. The phantom of the Eastern Marshes!
When Kaelen stepped onto the sand, his right eye throbbed.
He looked at his opponent. What he saw with the Eye of the Void surprised him.
This Shadow-Dancer had no aura. No life energy. It was as empty as if no one were there at all.
An illusion?
When the fight began, Kaelen received his answer.
The shadow lunged. Its speed was so great that even Kaelen's eye could not follow. Kaelen swung GRIEF, but the blade only cut through smoke.
A dagger grazed Kaelen's shoulder.
The pain was sharp. It was real.
Kaelen retreated. Blood trickled over his armor. His unmedicated body was vulnerable to pain. Every strike sent a shock through his nervous system.
The shadow attacked again. This time at his leg. Then his back.
Kaelen felt as though he were fighting an invisible swarm of bees. Everywhere he struck was empty space, yet every second he received a new wound.
The stands had fallen silent. Their favorite, that invincible giant, was being torn apart by a ghost.
Kaelen fell to his knees. His breath was ragged. His right eye was growing dark.
I am losing, he thought. I will die here, upon these sands. Without ever reaching that light.
At that moment, GRIEF vibrated.
It was not a tremor of hunger. It was a warning.
The sword was hearing what Kaelen could not see. The microscopic sound of the daggers slicing the air, the way the shadow crushed grains of sand as it stepped.
Kaelen closed his eyes.
Yes. He had to close them. For his eyes were deceiving him. Verrick's logic, Jarek's warnings... they were all noise.
He had to listen only to the pulse.
Thump... Thump...
And amidst the rhythm of that pulse, he heard another sound.
Hiss.
To his left. A very light sound of something brushing against the sand.
Kaelen did not think. He did not rely on his reflexes. He relied only on that sound, that sensation.
With his eyes closed, he swung GRIEF to his left, parallel to the ground.
CLANG.
Metal struck metal.
Kaelen opened his eyes.
The tip of GRIEF had stopped at a point that appeared empty. But there, at the end of the blade, was a sparking dagger.
And behind the dagger, a female figure appeared, frozen in shock, her camouflage broken.
The Shadow-Dancer had lost her veil.
How did you... the woman whispered.
Kaelen did not answer. For in that moment, his right eye—the Eye of the Void—saw the weak, terrified soul within the woman. She was no monster. She was merely another frightened slave trying to survive.
But Kaelen did not have the luxury of stopping. If he stopped, that light would be extinguished.
GRIEF flared with a violet flame. The sword swallowed Kaelen's hesitation and lunged forward of its own accord.
Kaelen could not stop the blade. The steel tore through the woman's defense.
A single strike.
The woman fell onto the sands. Her daggers slipped from her hands.
Kaelen stood over her. Breathless.
And it happened again.
That flood of memory. That inevitable toll.
THE VISION:
A marsh village. The woman is trying to bring medicine to her sick mother. Soldiers capture her. You are fast, they say. You will do well in the arena. Her mother is left behind to die in the mud. The woman wins every fight to save money for her mother's medicine. But that money is never enough...
Kaelen heard the woman's final thought: Mother... I am coming...
Kaelen withdrew the sword.
This time he did not retch. This time he did not faint.
He simply cried.
Silently. Tears mingled with the blood on his face and dripped from his chin.
This memory was not heavy like that of Scrap-Breaker. This memory was like a shard of sharp glass. It pierced Kaelen's heart and remained there.
The stands began to applaud, but Kaelen did not hear them.
In that moment, standing in the center of the arena with a bloodied sword in his hand, Kaelen understood something vital.
These people—the opponents he killed—were not enemies. They were victims at the other end of the same chain. The true enemy was the hand that held that chain.
He raised his head. He looked at the box.
Verrick was there. Madam Vex was there.
And behind them, in the shadows, was another figure he saw for the first time.
A giant in tall, silver armor and a helm. Lord Arthus.
Arthus was looking down at Kaelen. Like a god looking at an insect.
Kaelen did not sheath his sword. He pointed the bloodied blade at the box, at Lord Arthus.
It was not a challenge. it was a vow.
Your turn will come.
Upon seeing this movement, Arthus only inclined his head slightly. He had accepted the threat.
As Kaelen turned and walked into the tunnel, the pulse within him quickened. That light, the being in the water, was pleased with Kaelen's rage.
For this rage was the fuel that would tear down the tower.
In the darkness of the tunnel, GRIEF whispered:
...There is only one left... Just one more... Then the chains will break...
Kaelen did not know it, but that "one more" would be his greatest nightmare.
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