[Draka Arena - Twilight of Death]
The sun was leaning toward the horizon, as if afraid to stay and witness what was about to unfold on these sands. The air in the arena had grown heavy, saturated with the metallic scent of copper—blood—and dust. The Asura Guard stood ready, having drawn his second dagger, the "Black Crow's Talon." There was no longer any room for tactics or caution; his eyes behind the mask overflowed with a bestial madness, his wounded pride screaming for vengeance.
Suddenly, and without warning, the guard exploded into motion.
He moved with a speed that wasn't human; he was like a torn shadow storming across the arena. He attacked with both blades in unison—the long blade and the short dagger—in a torrent of successive stabs that left no room for air to pass. He struck and struck, left and right, high and low, in a suicidal dance aimed at tearing me apart.
I was parrying. The sound of our heavy blades clashing generated sparks that illuminated the darkness of the hood covering me. I was retreating step by step, and my defense was not its usual perfection. His attacks were faster than my eyes could analyze in that moment; he was pouring his entire life into these minutes.
With every strike, the audience grew more hysterical. "Kill him! Tear him apart! Restore our prestige!"
In a moment of absolute madness, the guard lunged in a spiraling motion, and with his utmost savage strength, he succeeded in penetrating my defense. I felt the cold blade diving into my right flank.
"SHLICK!"
The blade pierced through flesh and skin, exiting from the other side. The stands exploded with screaming and hysterical laughter. "Finally! The Ghost has fallen!" "Look at him, he bleeds like any other slave!" The nobles shouted from their balconies, and Cyril stood, clapping with a triumphant smile.
The guard stopped, panting, the blade still embedded in my body. He was waiting for the scream; he was waiting for me to fall to my knees and beg for mercy.
But I didn't scream. And I didn't feel pain.
I looked at him with deadly coldness, my dark red eyes gleaming behind the hood with a terrifying calm. I gripped the blade embedded in my waist with my bare hand and began pulling it out slowly, as if I were removing a small thorn.
The guard was baffled. His heart rate faltered for a moment in sheer astonishment. He didn't realize that I was not a normal being.
[Activation: Raging Cellular Regeneration]
Under his terrified gaze, and instead of bleeding to death, the gaping wound began to shrink. The flesh began to weave itself together at a mythical speed, light steam rising from the injury site accompanied by the sound of tissues snapping and knitting back together. In mere seconds, my skin returned to what it was, as if the stab had been nothing but an illusion.
I am "immortal" in the combat sense; as long as my head is above my shoulders, every wound is merely fuel for my rage.
[Psychological Collapse - Pulses of Fear]
The guard took a step back, his blade beginning to tremble in his hand. Fear—that emotion he hadn't known since joining the Asura—began to creep into his veins.
[Eyes of Sin: Vital Status Analysis]
I saw everything. His heart was beating against his chest like a mad drum. 140... 150... 160 beats per minute. He was suffocating on his own fear. His nervous system was beginning to collapse under the weight of the impossible thing he was witnessing.
"W-What... are you?" his voice came out broken.
I didn't answer. I began the attack. I was no longer defending; I advanced like a mountain crawling toward the abyss. I attacked with my heavy blade, and the guard parried desperately, but every blow from me shattered his balance further. The audience, who had been laughing just moments ago, fell into a funeral silence. The fear was beginning to transfer from the guard to the stands.
With a speed that erased distances, and thanks to the glow of my red eyes revealing every opening, I lunged in a straight stab.
"BOOOOM!"
I drove my blade into the center of the guard's stomach. He fell to the ground, blood gushing from his mouth and his wound. No one intervened. No one dared to speak. The guard himself signaled with a trembling hand to the other guards not to interfere; his fatal pride wanted to end this conflict, even if the price was his life.
He lay beneath my feet, breathing with difficulty, the blade piercing his entrails. He was in pain, his muffled groans behind the mask sounding like the dying breaths of a wounded animal.
I looked at him, then tossed my blade away.
Everyone was astonished. Why did he drop his weapon? They didn't realize that my true specialty... was being unarmed. My hands are what crafted this body, and they are what will dismantle the bodies of my enemies.
[The Massacre - Dismantling the "Sacred"]
I bent over the guard. I grabbed his right arm—the arm that had held the blade and slaughtered Kyle.
"This... is for the dreams of a man who wanted a dress for his daughter."
And with raw power that obeyed no human laws, I pulled the arm.
"CRACK!"
A scream tore through the sky of Draka. I ripped the arm from the shoulder socket; blood, flesh, and tendons scattered everywhere. The audience began to look on in horror; some began to vomit, others covered their eyes.
I grabbed his left arm.
"And this... because you believed your blood was holier than his."
"SNAP!"
I tore off the other arm. The guard tried to scream, but his voice cut out; his vocal cords tore from the sheer intensity of the pain and pressure. The "Guardian of the Throne" had turned into a deformed human mass without limbs, swimming in a pool of his own "noble" blood.
"Stop! Stop, you monster!" the audience screamed in terror. "You'll kill him! Enough brutality!"
Suddenly, a powerful, sharp voice rang out from the upper balcony. It was Cyril. His perfect face had twisted into a mass of rage and panic.
"STOOOOOOP IMMEDIATELY!" Cyril screamed, the veins in his neck bulging. "I order you to submit! The fight is over! You will be executed if you don't leave him now!"
I looked toward the balcony slowly. Ray takes orders from no one. Not a king, not a prince, and not a ruler.
I turned my gaze back to the shattered guard. I placed my massive hand around his thin neck. I lifted him up with one hand as if he were a straw doll. The guard began to thrash his torso, the color of his face behind the mask turning purple.
I increased the pressure. I was smiling beneath the hood, my red eyes glowing with a demonic flash. The guard looked at me in his final moments, and he didn't see a fighter; he saw the Devil himself waiting for him. He saw his "sin" incarnate in the grip of my hand.
His resistance stopped. His neck went slack, and his body went completely still.
I threw the corpse onto the sands. A silence fell that the arena had never witnessed in its history. The corpse of the "noble" and Guardian of the Throne lay like garbage, his blood polluted by the dirt he so despised.
[Declaration of War]
I didn't cheer. I didn't celebrate. I raised my head slowly toward the Royal Box. My red eyes pierced the distance to settle on Cyril's eyes.
I saw something new in his eyes: Fear. He was trembling with rage, but he was afraid of this "Ghost" who had shattered his family's laws in a single hour. I smiled at him—a cold smile, a smile that promised many corpses to come.
I wiped the blood from my hands onto my hood and walked toward the arena exit, everyone clearing the path as if I were the plague. No one looked at me; no one dared to cheer.
I paused at the gate, looked back one last time toward the Royal Box, and whispered a single word that echoed through the deathly silence:
"Next..."
I left the arena, leaving behind a kingdom beginning to realize that its golden age had ended, and that the Ghost had come to harvest thrones.