The pit had fallen.

  Not in fire.

  Not in siege.

  Not in the way men told stories of great cities razed to ruin, where invaders stormed the walls, steel rang against steel, and blood flowed like water through the gutters. No armies had come. No foreign banners had been raised above the walls.

  It had rotted from the inside out.

  Fear had been the rot.

  It had started as something small—a whisper, a flicker of hesitation, a second’s pause before stepping onto the sand.The pit masters had seen it, but dismissed it as they always had, treating it as nothing more than the natural cowardice of men about to die.

  But the fighters were not cowards.

  They had fought for years, for gold, for survival, for reasons they barely remembered. They had killed more men than they could count, watched their own blood soak the dirt, and spat through broken teeth as they crawled back to their cells after each match.

  And yet, they had begun to hesitate.

  Not because they feared pain.

  Not because they feared death.

  They feared him.

  The Red Blade.

  The one the pit could not break.

  The one who had killed without hesitation, without flourish, without a trace of mercy.

  The one who had stood above the bodies of five men and watched the last one choose to die on his own sword rather than fight him.

  After that, the whisper of fear had become something worse.

  It had festered.

  And tonight, it had all come undone.

  The first guard died in the barracks, just before sundown.

  It had been quick. A simple thing. No grand betrayal, no shouted rallying cry.

  A knife in the ribs.

  A body left to twitch in the dirt.

  The next fell near the armory, a short sword hacked through the back of his neck before he even knew he was in danger.

  The fighters did not storm the gates.

  They did not cry out for freedom like starving dogs.

  They had learned how to kill in the pit. And now, they used that knowledge.

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  One by one, they spread out, taking weapons where they could, silencing the guards before the alarm could rise.

  By the time the pit masters realized what was happening, it was too late.

  The gates to the holding cells were thrown open, not by force, but from within.

  Men poured out like water through shattered stone, no longer slaves, no longer playthings for the wealthy, no longer fighters meant to die on the sand for the pleasure of others.

  They had spent too long waiting.

  Too long listening to the crowd bay for their blood.

  Too long fighting battles they never chose.

  Now, they were choosing.

  And they chose to kill.

  Marion watched it unfold from the high balcony.

  He had seen fights. He had seen riots. He had seen slaves attempt rebellion before, and he had seen them crushed beneath the heel of the pit masters, left hanging from the walls as a warning to others.

  But this—

  This was different.

  There was no wild, disorganized charge. No mad scramble for the gates, no frantic, desperate escape attempts.

  This was a collapse.

  Guards who had spent years keeping order found themselves hunted in the corridors they had once walked freely.Fighters who had spent a lifetime with chains around their wrists now swung those same chains like weapons, using them to crush skulls, to strangle their captors, to choke the life out of the men who had once held the keys to their cages.

  The pit masters were not fighting to restore control.

  They were dying.

  One by one, they were dragged from their chambers, from their opulent lounges, from the balconies where they had once watched with cruel amusement. Some tried to beg, some tried to bribe, but none of them were spared.

  The crowd had fled long ago, their fine silks and gold jewelry trampled underfoot, forgotten in the chaos. The seats were empty now, the banners that had once hung high now torn and burning in the torchlight.

  By dawn, the pit would be nothing but ash and ruin.

  And when the smoke cleared, when the bodies had been looted and left to rot, when the victors had fled into the streets, seeking a world that did not want them—

  Someone would have to rebuild.

  And that someone would be him.

  Korrak did not join the slaughter.

  He moved through it like a ghost.

  He did not stop to watch as the men he had fought beside tore their captors apart. He did not slow as the screams rang through the air, as fire crawled up the wooden beams, as the world that had shaped him collapsed into ruin behind him.

  He did not raise his sword.

  Because he had no need to.

  They were already dead.

  Their throats had been cut. Their skulls had been caved in. Their bodies lay scattered, some still twitching, others nothing but broken heaps in the sand.

  There was nothing left for him here.

  So he walked.

  Past the corridors where he had once been dragged in chains.

  Past the barracks where he had trained until his hands bled.

  Past the sand where his legend had been carved in bodies and ruin.

  Out through the main gate, where no one tried to stop him.

  Marion watched him go.

  He did not call out.

  He did not try to stop him.

  Korrak had never belonged here.

  And now, he was free to be whatever he chose.

  That suited Marion just fine.

  Because when Korrak left the pit behind, he left something else behind as well.

  The fear.

  The legend.

  The whispered name that would make men tremble before they ever saw his face.

  And Marion?

  He would take that name, that fear, that hunger for blood and spectacle, and he would use it.

  He had not led this rebellion.

  But he had set the pieces in motion.

  A whispered word here.

  A sharpened blade left unguarded there.

  A promise, placed in the right ear, on the right night, about the right man.

  And now, the pit masters were dead.

  The old way had died in the sand, choking on its own blood.

  And from it, a new way would rise.

  His way.

  Marion exhaled, rolling his shoulders, watching as the fires rose against the night.

  The Gilded Cage had fallen.

  But soon, a new one would rise.

  Korrak sees your admiration.

  And he hates it.

  He is not a hero. Not a legend. Not some specter that walks between myth and reality, meant to be whispered about in awe. He does not care for the songs, the stories, the drunken retellings of his deeds that twist and swell with each passing tongue.

  If you had stood before him, clutching your reverence like a fool clutching a dull blade, he would have only stared. And then he would have walked past you.

  Because to Korrak, it was never about glory.

  It was about the hunt.

  And if he still lives, it is only because there is always another chase.