Kaerthlyn exhaled sharply, fists clenching at her sides as she watched the fight spiral. Vyrrak had dominated at the start, his raw power undeniable. Yet now, it was he who faltered—his movements sluggish, his strikes dull, his breath ragged.

  “He’s—” The realization struck her cold, sharp. “He’s going to lose if this keeps up.”

  Elysian’s smirk widened. “Why state the obvious?”

  She shot him a gre before turning back to the fight, her frustration mounting.

  Vyrrak’s exhaustion gnawed at him, dulling his reflexes. His opponent had suffered more blows, yet it was Vyrrak whose body bore the graver wounds—deep gashes, bruises blooming dark across his skin. And worse, frustration clouded his judgment. His strikes were no longer measured but desperate, his footwork losing precision. Little by little, the tide shifted. He wasn’t knocking the Gulthram warrior down anymore. He was being driven back.

  Kaerthlyn’s scowl deepened. Her voice rang out before she could stop herself. “Vyrrak! What the hell are you doing? Fight seriously! Why are you letting that b*stard win? You shame yourself—you shame our cn by holding back!”

  Vyrrak staggered mid-step. His breathing hitched, his pallor stark against the blood on his skin. For a fraction of a second, he hesitated, unable to meet her gaze. Then—

  Laughter erupted from the Gulthram side. Harsh, mocking, venom-ced. One of them sneered. “Listen to her! Even your own kin calls you a coward!”

  Another barked out, “She fights better than you do! Maybe let her take your pce?”

  The jeers swelled, cruel, merciless.

  Across the clearing, the Draekthar warriors bristled. A low, dangerous growl rippled through them, sharp eyes locking onto their rivals. A young thralgar, spat toward the Gulthram group. “Say that again, you tuskless mongrels.”

  The Gulthram warriors roared with ughter. One stepped forward, shoulders squared. “Or what? You’ll cry to your grandmother, little Draekthar?”

  Tension crackled in the air like a storm ready to break. Bodies tensed, hands hovered near weapons, waiting. Just waiting.

  Elysian sighed, leaning back, watching the brewing chaos unfold. At least, for once, he wasn’t the center of it. He could simply observe, detached.

  ‘For once, it’s not my problem.’

  Still, he couldn’t help but gnce at the cn leaders. Not a single one moved. Vrakdur and Throrak sat side by side, the tter chuckling as he murmured something in amusement. Vrakdur smirked, shaking his head in response. Drask, the officiator of the fight, barely gnced up, idly running a cw along his nails as if the shouting was nothing more than background noise.

  ‘So they won’t intervene. Because this—this is normal to them.’

  Kaerthlyn, however, was seething. “Vyrrak, answer me! Why are you—”

  “Enough.” Vyrrak’s voice cut through the rising noise like a bde, rough with exhaustion. This instantly silence everyone. His jaw clenched as he exhaled, steadying himself. And then, for the first time, his eyes lifted—locking onto Kaerthlyn’s. There was no anger there. Only something heavier. Something he wasn’t saying.

  Elysian narrowed his eyes slightly. Whatever was shackling Vyrrak’s strikes—it wasn’t fear. It wasn’t hesitation. It was something else entirely. And it was about to cost him the fight. Yet now, after his brief exchange with Kaerthlyn, something had changed. There was a flicker of resolve in Vyrrak’s stance that hadn’t been there before. As he stared at his sword, his grip tightening, it was as if he were wrestling with something unseen, forcing himself to push through.

  “Why don’t you give up already?” The Gulthram warrior sneered, blood trickling down his temple, a feral grin twisting his face. “If you don’t have the stomach to fight properly, you’ll never win this. Should just throw that sword away and go dig in the dirt and hide there.”

  Kaerthlyn shot Elysian a sharp look. “What’s he doing now?” she asked, voice taut. “Why is he just standing there, staring at his weapon?”

  “He’s making a choice,” Elysian murmured, eyes still locked on Vyrrak. He saw it now—the pain, the guilt, the weight dragging the young warrior down.

  ‘I don’t know what happened to him, but I can see it. He’s broken—just like me.’

  Kaerthlyn frowned. “A choice about what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Their conversation was abruptly cut short. The Gulthram warrior, tired of waiting, let out a guttural roar and charged.

  Vyrrak remained still.

  The crowd erupted—Draekthar voices shouting warnings, Gulthram warriors howling for blood. The combatants had moved beyond insults now; this was the fight’s climax, the moment that would decide everything.

  Vyrrak still didn’t move.

  Kaerthlyn’s frustration boiled over. “Vyrrak! Fight, damn you!”

  Nothing.

  The Gulthram warrior’s bde arced toward Vyrrak’s chest, aimed to cleave through flesh and bone. The Draekthar side roared in arm—too te. And then, just as steel should have met flesh, Vyrrak ducked. The attack whistled past his head, missing by a hair’s breadth.

  The Gulthram warrior staggered, thrown off by the sudden shift. He recovered fast, shing out with a brutal kick meant to send Vyrrak sprawling.

  Vyrrak sidestepped. Smooth and precise. A ghost moving through the fray. His opponent, still overcommitted to the strike, barely had time to register the mistake before Vyrrak’s foot hooked behind his knee. The world tilted as the warrior crashed onto his back. Unlike before, Vyrrak didn’t hesitate. He flowed forward, stepping behind the fallen warrior in one seamless motion. The Gulthram fighter scrambled to rise, pushing himself up on an elbow, but Vyrrak was already there. The bde slid across his throat before the breath in his lungs could fully escape.

  Silence.

  For a moment, the world seemed to freeze, as though the entire arena held its breath.

  The Gulthram warrior’s hands flew to his neck, blood spilling through his fingers. He gurgled, drowning in crimson.

  Vyrrak’s expression was unreadable. His shoulders rose and fell with slow, measured breaths. Then, as if something had finally snapped inside him, he raised his bde again.

  Kaerthlyn tensed. “Vyrrak—”

  The sword plunged downward, aiming for the fallen warrior’s skull. A hand caught his wrist mid-strike.

  Drask stood beside him, grip like iron. The officiator’s eyes were impassive, but his grip spoke volumes. “Enough.” The command cut through the stunned silence like a bde.

  Vyrrak’s chest heaved, his breath jagged and uneven. His fingers twitched around the hilt of his sword, stained with fresh blood. For a moment, time stretched thin, pulled taut like a bowstring. Then, as if the weight of his own actions had finally reached him, his grip sckened. The sword slipped from his fingers, embedding itself into the wooden ptform with a dull thunk. Beneath him, his opponent gurgled, clutching the open gash across his throat, drowning in his own blood.

  A stunned silence gripped the area.

  The Gulthram warriors, who had been jeering moments before, now stood frozen, their taunts dying in their throats. Their shock was mirrored in the Draekthar ranks, their triumph momentarily stalled by the sheer brutality of what had just transpired. Then, like a dam breaking, the Draekthar warriors erupted into roars, fists pounding against their chests, stamping the ground in wild exhiration.

  But Vyrrak barely heard them. A tremor ran through his body, his arms shook as he stared down at his bloody hand. He would have killed him. His sword had been on its way down, a final stroke to end it all. If Drask hadn’t stopped him, he would have followed through. He wanted to follow through. That realization made his gut twisted.

  Elysian exhaled, shifting his gaze from the roaring crowd back to Vyrrak. The boy hadn’t moved. He stood there, shoulders locked, chest rising and falling in uneven gasps, staring at his own bloodstained hands as if seeing them for the first time. A shudder rippled through him. His breathing turned shallow, his body tensing, locking in pce.

  ‘He’s going to break.’

  Then, a hand—solid, firm—nded on Vyrrak’s shoulder. Drask.

  Elysian hadn’t expected the gesture, nor the expression on the officiator’s face. The indifference was gone. In its pce, something quieter. Something unexpected—concern.

  Drask spoke, his voice low, his words slipping into the old tongue of the troll. Elysian couldn’t understand them, but he didn’t need to. The meaning was clear in the way Vyrrak flinched, the way his fingers twitched as if recoiling from an unseen wound.

  Slowly, hesitantly, Vyrrak nodded. His body, still rigid, moved in stiff, mechanical motions as he turned away from the fallen opponent and took his first step back. Then another. He didn’t lift his head. He didn’t acknowledge the roars of triumph from his own kin. He just walked, eyes locked on the ground, shoulders hunched as if the weight of what he did had just crashed onto him at once.

  The Draekthar warriors roared their triumph, their voices a chorus of guttural pride, feet stomping in rhythm against the floor. Their victory was unquestionable. Yet across them, the Gulthram sat in weighted silence. Some bore tight expressions, others sneered in irritation. The loss stung them, but none voiced it.

  Elysian caught the change in the Gulthram cn leader’s demeanor. Throrak had been indifferent before, his interest in the fight fleeting. But now—now, he was watching. A slow grin carved across his scarred lips, not of anger, not of disappointment—amusement. He followed Vyrrak with an assessing stare as the boy staggered toward his seat.

  ‘He enjoyed that.’

  Elysian’s gut tightened. Throrak hadn’t just watched Vyrrak’s fight—he had studied and weighed every moment of it. Elysian recognized the look. It was the gaze of a predator deciding how deep to sink its teeth.

  Vyrrak didn’t return to his seat. Sybil had cimed it, so he dropped beside the young soldier instead, shoulders hunched, hands limp over his knees. His breathing was slow—controlled, but his silence spoke louder than any growl of defiance.

  Sybil shifted uneasily, uncertain whether to speak. In the end, he said nothing. Neither did Vyrrak.

  The battle had been won. Yet for some, it reeked of loss.

  Elysian wanted to remain unaffected. He needed to. But the scene gnawed at him. He understood the weight pressing down on Vyrrak, that hollow, gnashing thing that came not from a defeat, but from the realization that something inside had cracked.

  ‘Beyond repair? Perhaps. Or perhaps he’d find a way to weld it back together before it’s too te.’

  Kaerthlyn had noticed too. She sat still, eyes narrowed in thought as she observed Vyrrak’s withdrawn form. Not pity. Something else entirely. Before Elysian could untangle that look, Drask’s voice cut through the tension. “Alright!” His grin was all teeth, his tone dismissive. “That fight dragged. Had its moments, sure, but we lost time. Let’s move on—next contenders, up now!”

  Two figures rose from opposite ends of the arena, and the air changed. The animosity between them was immediate, palpable. No hesitation, no testing gnces—just raw, unfiltered hate. One Draekthar, broad-shouldered and already bracing for the fight, fists flexing at his sides. One Gulthram, nky but sharp, his lips pulled back in a snarl, teeth bared. They didn’t speak. They didn’t need to. The low growls between them filled the silence before the fight even began.

  Elysian frowned.

  ‘This isn’t random. These fights aren’t random. Were the matches chosen? Or did the warriors pick their enemies themselves? The tter seemed more likely. That made it dangerous. It meant these fights weren’t just about strength and skill—they were personal.’

  Elysian felt uneasy about that idea. But then again, it wasn’t really his business—it’s their competition, their rules. As he was lost in his thoughts, he felt it—a presence. Watching. Staring. His pulse stuttered, and he turned his head slightly—just enough to meet the gaze burning into him. Throrak.

  The Gulthram leader’s eyes gleamed, dark and razor-sharp, cutting through the space between them. He studied Elysian—measured him. Not with curiosity or even with contempt. But with interest.

  Elysian forced himself to hold the gaze. The moment stretched, thick and suffocating, the weight of it pressing down like unseen hands on his throat.

  ‘Why? Why is he looking at me like that?’

  NightHowler87