Lucien quickly got to his feet. Well, as quick as he could considering how exhausted his body was. By the time he got back to his feet, Adam had already steadied himself and was launching another attack.

  Lucien stumbled to the left just in time to prevent the sword from piercing his chest, but still felt it slice across his arm. He grunted, but still managed to keep a hold of his sword. Blood was now trickling down his arm from the wound, where the sword had just so happened to slip through the gap in his leather arm and hit the inside of his elbow.

  Just how unlucky can I be? He knew this would make it even harder for him as the fight went on, and that as the wounds piled up, he would eventually lose feeling in his arm altogether, but he knew that he had to keep fighting.

  He brought his sword back and fended off Adam’s continued onslaught. At this point, it was barely possible for him to get in an attack at all. He was purely on the defensive, and he was hardly doing a good job at that.

  More and more small wounds were etched into his body as if to taunt him. Adam was toying with him. At this rate, he would bleed out and die instead of getting killed instantly by a sword through his heart. A part of him honestly hoped that it would end quickly, even if he didn’t want to admit it.

  The battle continued on with him being constantly pushed back. He was sweating and sore, while Adam still had that arrogant smirk on his face.

  Lucien tried to lunge forward, only for his sword to be knocked out of his hand. Hearing it clatter against the ground, his head hung low as he panted heavily.

  “Oh, is this where things end?” Adam said.

  Blood was dripping onto the ground from the cuts scattered across his body. Bruises marked the areas that the sword wasn’t strong enough to pierce through. Aside from the leather armour on his chest, his clothes were in tatters. The under armour was thoroughly shredded under the constant onslaught of attacks.

  There’s nothing... I can do. He could barely move. His opponent had been toying with him the entire time. And there were bandits just waiting off at the side, watching the show. Even if he somehow managed to get away from Adam, which felt downright impossible, there was no way he’d be able to rescue Roddy and escape when he was surrounded by enemies.

  We’re so far in that nobody would be able to come and rescue him. The battle’s still probably going on out there. Is this really how it ends? Lucien was angry at himself. He’s going to escape me once again. He’s so confident, he must have a way to get out from this encirclement. Even after all that he’s done, why does he get to live a good life?

  “I was hoping you would last a bit longer, but it seems like you’ve disappointed me. What happened to the strong Lucien that always kicked my ass whenever he needed to let off steam?” Adam got closer, gripped Lucien by the still bleeding stump before moving his head in close to Lucien’s ear and whispered. “You always treated me like dirt, you know? Maybe if you had been a bit nicer to your brother-in-law, none of this would have happened. They all died because of you.”

  Fucker. Enraged, Lucien slammed his head hard against Adam’s nose, hearing a satisfying crunch sound as he fell down with the momentum.

  “Son of a bitch!” Adam staggered back, clutching at his nose, blood leaking through his fingers. “I was going to wait a bit before I used this, but I’ve changed my mind. Hold him down!” Adam continued to step back as two bandits jumped on Lucien and forced him to the ground.

  Pain thrummed through his body as his stump was slammed into the ground, but he was so focused on the headbutt that he ignored it along with everything else. Hehe, I got him this time.

  Adam walked over to the tree and picked up a strange box that Lucien hadn’t noticed before. The box was covered in runic carvings, but it was different from what Lucien had seen before. The runes were warped and erratic. Unnatural. Like they had been warped away from their initial path.

  There were hairline fissures running along the box that were entirely different from the wider carvings. And mana was even leaking out of it. Adam carried the box over and dropped it in front of Lucien so that he could see.

  “We went to a lot of trouble to make this box, you know? Had to find someone skilled enough who was also willing to sell his work to people like us. We also couldn’t just show him what it was for, otherwise we’d have to kill him. But, he did manage to make something for us in exchange for a lot of money. Shame it’s almost completely broken after such a short time.”

  As he was speaking, Adam crouched down and pressed a hidden button on the box. A click was heard as the top of the box popped open and clattered on the ground. “I’m sure you’re familiar with this.”

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  As he was speaking, he put on a pair of gloves with similar markings on them and reached into the box to pull out what was inside.

  Lucien’s eyes shot open the moment he saw what was in Adam’s hands.

  It was something he was familiar with. Something he had seen almost every day for decades. A weapons as dark as the night sky itself, damaged and cracked from the decades it spent wasting away in a dark and dingy cellar. It looked like a piece of junk that you would find in a scrap heap.

  Adam swung it around in his hands a few times, as if to get a feel for it. “He made these gloves too. Said they should last for about ten minutes at most, so I should get right to it.”

  CRUNCH.

  Adam swung it at him before Lucien could even register what had been said. He felt something heavy slam into his chest, and felt his ribs bending and breaking under the pressure. A sharp, stinging pain spread from his lungs as all the air was knocked out of him.

  A spike pierced through his armour and dug into his chest, soaking up his blood.

  Adam ripped it back, tearing out a chunk of flesh as he swung it back down, this time into Lucien’s stomach.

  CRACK.

  He brought it down on Lucien’s thigh, the bone shattering under the impact.

  Every time Lucien felt like he was going to black out, the morningstar swung down on him, bringing a new wave of pain that forced him to stay awake. He couldn’t even make out anything now. All he knew was that Adam was beating him with his family’s precious heirloom. That Roddy was forced to watch it happen. And that he was about to die.

  Even though he wasn’t hurt, Adam was also in a similar state. All he could think about was swinging the morningstar back and forth. He put all of his energy and attention into each swinging. Trying to make it hurt as much as possible.

  By this time, the bandits that were holding Lucien down had moved back out of fear, not wanting to get caught up in the constant barrage set forth by Adam.

  Because of this, no one noticed a few things that were happening.

  Adam’s gloves were already showing signs of degradation. The lines were warping, and the leather was starting to crack and break, looking like it could split open at any moment, even though only a couple of minutes had passed. It seemed impossible for the gloves to last for five minutes, much less ten.

  The second thing, was that despite all of the strikes Lucien was forced to endure, barely any of his blood had spilt. Some of the wounds on his arms and legs were still bleeding, but none of the new wounds seemed to be bleeding at all despite how severe they were. Entire chunks of flesh had been ripped out, and yet, not a drop of blood had touched the ground.

  Adam raised his hand, readying for another swing when he felt his arm get stuck in place. Followed by the sound of leather tearing. He looked up in a daze, confused at what he was looking at.

  The gloves he was wearing had completely fallen apart, like glass thrown against a rock. What was even stranger was that the small pieces of leather had started to wrap and coil around the morningstar, as if they were being sucked in.

  Adam grabbed onto it with both hands and tried his hardest to swing it down, but it wouldn’t budge an inch. His muscles were straining, but for some reason it stayed stuck there, as if nothing could move it.

  Cracks started to form on the outer shell of the morningstar, as the rough black metal peeled away and a blinding light took its place.

  The box on the floor was sucked up too, and disappeared into the morningstar.

  The surrounding space started to warp as Adam felt something tugging at his arm. The small hairs on his arms stood up and tugged at his skin. The feeling of being pinched hundreds of times over was soon replaced with an agonising pain as the hairs were ripped out, taking the skin with it.

  Adam was now frantically trying to pull his arms away from the morningstar, but he felt like he was glued to it. He looked around in a panic at the surrounding bandits, who were now standing even further away. “What are you idiots doing? Come help me!”

  He kept on shouting, but nobody came over to help. They kept moving further away, afraid that they would get caught up in whatever was happening.

  Adam screamed as he felt the flesh on his hands peel off the bone and get sucked into the morningstar. He watched in horror as the morningstar ate his flesh, only to spit it back out in apparent disgust.

  The morningstar began to shake as more and more of its outer shell fell away, sending a blinding radiance that would soon catch the attention of everyone in the forest.

  Suddenly, the morningstar shot out of Adam’s now skeletal hands and shot down towards Lucien like a meteor. Adam stumbled backwards in a hurry, trying to escape.

  The morningstar, now a blazing ball of white light, burned its way into Lucien’s chest. It sunk into his chest, the pain so dreadful that his mind finally broke and he sank into unconsciousness.

  In a daze, he found himself floating in pitch blackness. All the pain that he had endured disappeared, as did any other sensations. He couldn’t feel his body at all.

  His mind faltered, and for a moment, all of his memories disappeared, as he sunk deeper into the surrounding darkness.

  He couldn’t feel anything. He couldn’t hear anything. He couldn’t see anything. There was nothing around him, and he was nothing. His entire being had seemed to meld into the surrounding space.

  This must be what it was like... The last bits of his subconscious managed to eek out before it was snuffed out entirely.

  The space returned to stillness after the minor interruption, as if nothing had happened. Slowly a dull and quiet thrumming sound began to ring through the space. Slow and quiet at first, as if it wasn’t there.

  Minutes would pass without anything happening, then just as the space returned to normal, the sound thrummed again.

  It was slow at first, but it grew faster. First once every several minutes, then every minute, then every few seconds. As it grew faster, it also grew louder, until there was nothing else. It was erratic. At times fast, at times slow. Sometimes quiet, other times deafeningly loud.

  It was like a heart trying to find its beat.