Chapter 13:
The message crystal's light faded from Hexia's palm three days after the caravan incident.
"Rusty Blade tavern. Briarkeep. Come quickly."
Sirenia's voice. Strained. Worried.
Hexia stared at the crystal for a long moment, his crimson eyes empty. Then he stood, strapped his sword to his back, and started walking.
His parents watched him leave from the doorway.
"Hexia?" Marie called softly.
He didn't turn around. Didn't answer. Just kept walking.
Three days of non-stop travel. No sleep. No food. No rest. Just movement, driven by something he couldn't name and didn't want to examine.
The road to Briarkeep stretched before him like a knife's edge.
THE RUSTY BLADE TAVERN - BRIARKEEP
The tavern's interior was chaos frozen in time.
Tables overturned. Chairs scattered. Broken glass glittering on the floor like stars. And in the center of it all—Sirenia, backed against the bar, blood streaming from a cut above her eye. Her sword was drawn but trembling.
Facing her stood Fred.
Older now. Broader in the shoulders. His armor was quality adventurer's gear, his sword gleaming and expensive. But his face—his face held the same smugness Hexia remembered. The same entitled arrogance that had always grated.
And beside him, sobbing, broken—Lhoralaine.
Her blonde hair was disheveled, her eyes red and swollen. She clutched Fred's arm with desperate fingers, pleading.
"Please, Fred, just apologize! This doesn't have to—"
"Shut up." Fred's backhand caught her across the face.
Lhoralaine fell, hitting the floor hard. She didn't get up. Just lay there, crying quietly.
The tavern patrons watched in uncomfortable silence. No one intervened. No one helped. They just stared into their drinks and pretended not to see.
Sirenia's eyes widened. "You bastard—"
"Stay down, bitch." Fred pointed his sword at her. "This doesn't concern you. This is between me and my woman."
"Your woman? She's been trying to leave you for weeks!"
"And where would she go?" Fred laughed. "Back to her pathetic childhood friend? The empty shell who couldn't even keep her interested? Please. She's mine. She'll always be mine. Because without me, she's nothing."
"That's not true—"
"Isn't it? Who saved her from bandits? Who taught her real magic? Who made her into someone worth noticing?" Fred's smile was cruel. "Not Hexia. Never Hexia. He was too busy playing with his wooden sword and pretending to be special."
Sirenia's grip on her sword tightened. "You're wrong. Hexia is—"
"What? Going to save her?" Fred's laugh echoed. "Where is he then? Where's the famous Swordsman of Rolling Heads? Oh, that's right—hiding in his little village, too broken to face the real world."
The tavern door opened.
Everyone turned.
Hexia stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the afternoon sun. His black hair moved in the breeze. His crimson eyes swept the scene—Sirenia bleeding, Fred with sword drawn, Lhoralaine on the floor.
The temperature dropped.
Not metaphorically. Literally. Frost formed on the windows. Breath misted in the suddenly frigid air. The tavern's hearth fire dimmed, then died.
Hexia took one step inside.
The floorboards cracked under his foot.
"Hexia," Sirenia breathed.
He didn't acknowledge her. His eyes were locked on Fred.
Fred's smile faltered. "Well, well. Look who finally showed up. Come to watch me finish what I started years ago?"
Hexia said nothing. Just kept walking forward. Slow. Measured. Each step echoing like a death knell.
The pressure in the room built. A weight pressing down on everyone, making it hard to breathe. Several patrons fled for the exit. Others pressed themselves against the walls, trying to become invisible.
"What's wrong?" Fred's voice held false bravado. "Cat got your tongue? Or are you still too pathetic to—"
"Kneel."
The word was quiet. Almost gentle. But it carried weight that bent reality.
Fred laughed. "What did you just—"
The gravity around him multiplied. Twenty times normal. Fifty. A hundred.
Fred's knees buckled. He slammed into the floor with bone-shattering force, his kneecaps cracking audibly. His sword clattered from his grip. He tried to push himself up—couldn't. The pressure was too much. Too absolute.
"What—what the fu—"
Hexia stopped three feet away. Looked down at Fred like he was examining an insect.
"I said kneel. You will kneel before the one you've wronged."
Fred's face purpled with strain and rage. "I didn't do anything wrong! I just took what should have been mine—"
The pressure intensified. Fred's chest hit the floor. His arms spread wide, forced flat by invisible weight. Sweat poured from his face. Blood vessels burst in his eyes.
"I'll give you one chance," Hexia said, his voice still eerily calm. "Apologize to Sirenia. Release Lhoralaine from whatever manipulation you've trapped her in. Walk away. Live."
Fred's laugh was broken, wet. "Fuck... you..."
"Wrong answer."
Hexia raised his left hand. Black energy crackled between his fingers.
The gravity around Fred's right arm multiplied again. The bone snapped—radius and ulna breaking with sounds like gunshots. Fred screamed.
Hexia's expression didn't change. "I asked you to apologize."
"Never! I Won. I got my revenge, got the bitch you lov—"
Another gesture. Fred's left arm shattered.
The screaming intensified. Patrons covered their ears. Lhoralaine stared in horror, unable to move, unable to process what she was witnessing.
"Apologize."
"Never—you fucking—AAAAGH!"
Both legs broke. Femurs splintering like dry wood. Fred thrashed on the floor, his movements restricted by the crushing gravity, his screams filling the tavern.
Then Hexia spoke again. A word that would haunt Briarkeep's nightmares for years.
"HEAL!."
White light exploded around Fred. His bones snapped back together. His wounds closed. The pain vanished.
For exactly three seconds.
Then Hexia broke him again.
And healed him.
And broke him.
And healed him.
Six times.
Six complete cycles of destruction and restoration. Each one worse than the last. Each scream more agonized. Each healing more cruel because Fred knew what was coming next.
By the sixth cycle, Fred wasn't screaming anymore. He was sobbing. Begging. Pissing himself. Pathetic. The proud adventurer reduced to a broken thing that couldn't even form words
"Please!... please!... I—I'm s—sorry!.. I'm sorry!.."
Hexia crouched beside him. His face was still empty. Still cold. But his eyes—his eyes burned with something dark and ancient and utterly merciless.
"Now you apologize. Now, when you're broken. When you have no choice. When the pain makes you honest." He leaned closer. "But it's too late, Fred. You had your chance. You chose cruelty. You chose manipulation. You chose to hurt the people I care about."
He stood. Drew his sword. The blade sang as it left the scabbard—a sound like a funeral dirge.
"Your head. Will. Roll."
The gravity released. Fred collapsed, gasping, shaking. He tried to crawl away—couldn't. His body wouldn't obey. Wouldn't move. Paralyzed sobbing in pain and pissing in terror and the absolute certainty of death.
Hexia raised his sword. The blade caught the light streaming through the tavern windows.
"Wait!" Lhoralaine's voice, raw and desperate. She'd finally found the strength to move, to speak. "Hexia, please—don't—he's not worth it—"
Hexia's eyes shifted to her. For one moment, something flickered in their depths. Recognition. Pain. Bleeding memories of the past.
Then it was gone. Replaced by the emptiness.
"You're right. He's not worth it. But this isn't about worth. This is about consequence. About what happens when you hurt people who matter to me."
His sword descended.
Not a slash. Not a chop. A technique so precise, so perfectly executed, that it seemed to transcend physical movement entirely.
Guillotine.
The blade passed through Fred's neck like passing through mist. No resistance. No sound. Just separation.
Fred's head rolled across the tavern floor, his eyes still wide with terror and disbelief. His body remained upright for a heartbeat—two—then collapsed, blood spraying in arterial fountains.
Hexia wiped his blade on Fred's corpse. Sheathed it. Turned toward Sirenia.
The emptiness cracked. Just for a moment. Concern bleeding through.
"Are you hurt?"
Sirenia touched her bleeding forehead. "It's nothing. Just—"
He was already moving. His hand pressed against her wound, white light flowing. The cut sealed. The pain vanished. Her exhaustion lifted.
When he pulled away, his hand lingered for a heartbeat. His fingers brushed her cheek—gentle, tender, completely at odds with what he'd just done.
"I'm sorry I wasn't here sooner."
Sirenia's eyes filled with tears. Not from pain or fear, but from the raw emotion in those quiet words. The guilt. The care.
"You came. That's what matters."
Behind them, Lhoralaine made a sound—half sob, half gasp. She stared at Fred's corpse, at the head lying in a pool of blood, at the man she'd wasted years on reduced to a corpse, a cautionary tale.
And she realized something that broke her.
He'd never loved her. Not really. He'd loved controlling her. Owning her. Breaking her down until she believed she needed him.
And Hexia—the boy she'd abandoned, the friend she'd destroyed—he'd just killed a man for threatening someone he cared about. Without hesitation. Without mercy. Because that's what love actually looked like when pushed to its extreme.
Not possession. Protection.
Not manipulation. Devotion.
Not breaking someone down. Building them up, even if it meant breaking yourself.
"Hexia," she whispered. "I—"
He turned toward her. His eyes met hers—and there was nothing. No warmth. No recognition. Not even anger.
Just absence.
"No." One word final.
"Please, let me explain—let me tell you what happened—"
"Don't. Please." His voice was flat. Dead. "I don't want any apologies. I don't want anything from you, Lhoralaine. I'm here for Sirenia. Not for you. Never for you."
Each word was a knife. Each syllable a wound that would never heal.
"But—I made a mistake—Fred manipulated me—I didn't understand—"
"You've made you choice in the past, and I don't care anymore. Deal with it."
The finality in those words shattered something fundamental in Lhoralaine. She'd hoped—desperately, irrationally hoped—that maybe there was still a chance. That maybe he'd listen, understand, forgive.
But there was nothing. She'd killed whatever he'd felt for her so completely that not even ashes remained.
"Hexia, please—"
He walked past her. Toward Sirenia. Took her hand.
"Let's go."
Sirenia glanced at Lhoralaine—saw the devastation, the desperation, the complete destruction of hope—and felt a stab of something that might have been pity.
But she followed Hexia anyway. Because he'd asked. Because she mattered to him. Because in this moment, she was chosen.
They walked toward the door, stepping around Fred's corpse, leaving Lhoralaine kneeling in the spreading blood.
"Hexia!" Lhoralaine's scream echoed. "I'll follow you! I'll find you! I won't give up! I'll prove that I'm sorry—that I care—that I—"
Hexia paused at the doorway. Didn't turn around.
"I loved you once. You made your choice in the past. And I respected it Lhoralaine, because I wanted you to be happy, even if your happiness wasn't with me. Even if it killed me inside for years. And this"—he gestured vaguely at the carnage—"this was the consequence, i'm just making it official."
Then they were gone. Leaving Lhoralaine alone with a corpse and the ruins of everything she'd destroyed.
She knelt there, sobbing, as the reality crashed down. She'd lost him. Completely. Irrevocably. Not to death or distance, but to her own choices. Her own blindness. Her own cruel, stupid mistakes.
And there was nothing—nothing—she could do to fix it.
The tavern patrons slowly emerged from their hiding places. Stared at Fred's body. At Lhoralaine's breakdown. At the blood still pooling on the floor.
One of them, an old merchant, spoke quietly.
"That was the Swordsman of Rolling Heads. The real one."
"He broke every bone in that man's body," another whispered. "Healed him. Did it again. Six times. Six times."
"The sword technique—did you see it? Clean. Perfect. That's the Guillotine. The move they tell stories about."
"And that magic—the way he crushed him with just gravity—they're calling it something now. Tyrant's Plea. Because when he uses it, you kneel whether you want to or not."
"We need to spread the word. Every town. Every city. Every village. People need to know—don't cross the Swordsman of Rolling Heads. Don't threaten what he cares about. Because he won't just kill you. He'll make you suffer first."
They would tell those stories. In taverns and guild halls, in marketplaces and noble courts. The tale would spread like wildfire across the continent.
The man who killed with surgical precision. Who healed just to hurt again. Who commanded gravity itself to force submission. Who executed the guilty with a blade technique so perfect it defied physics.
The Swordsman of Rolling Heads. The legend. The nightmare.
Hexia.
And in that tavern, Lhoralaine knelt in blood and tears, realizing that she'd just watched the death of more than Fred.
She'd watched the death of any chance at redemption. Any hope for forgiveness. Any possibility of reclaiming what she'd thrown away.
All she had left was desperation.
And the terrible, crushing knowledge that desperation wouldn't be enough.
Outside, Hexia and Sirenia walked through Briarkeep's streets. The sun was setting, painting the sky in shades of crimson and gold.
"Are you okay?" Sirenia asked quietly.
Hexia didn't answer immediately. His hand still held hers, fingers intertwined, grip tight enough to hurt but neither of them caring.
"I don't know," he finally said. "I saw her face and felt... nothing. No anger. No pain. Just emptiness. Is that better or worse?"
"I don't know either."
They walked in silence for a while. Then Sirenia spoke again.
"You killed him. For me."
"Yes."
"You didn't hesitate."
"No."
"Why?"
Hexia stopped walking. Turned to face her. His crimson eyes held something raw and vulnerable.
"Because you matter. Because in six months, you've given me more reasons to live than I've had in years. Because when I got your message, the only thing I felt was fear—fear that I'd be too late, that something would happen to you, that I'd lose another person who actually saw me as human."
Sirenia's breath caught. "Hexia—"
"I'm not good at this. At feelings. At connection. At being anything other than empty or violent. But you make me want to try. You make me want to be more than just the Swordsman of Rolling Heads. And if that means killing everyone who threatens you, then heads will be rolling until the streets flood with heads and blood."
The raw honesty in his voice—the desperate need bleeding through the emptiness—broke something in Sirenia. She pulled him into a hug, feeling him stiffen, then slowly, hesitantly, return it.
"You don't have to be anything other than what you are," she whispered. "Empty or violent or broken. I don't care. I just want you to be here."
They stood like that as the sun set, two damaged people holding each other in the fading light.
And behind them, in the tavern, Lhoralaine's desperate screams echoed into the evening air.
Screams that would haunt Briarkeep's nightmares.
Screams that marked the moment everything changed.
Screams that signaled the true birth of a legend.
To be continued...
In the streets and taverns, the story spreads:
The Swordsman of Rolling Heads can break you with gravity magic—Tyrant's Plea, they call it. Can kill you with one perfect strike—the Guillotine. Can destroy you with magic that ends worlds—Chaos Meteor.
But most terrifying of all? He can heal you. Put you back together. And break you again.
Six times, they say. He broke that man six times.
And he didn't even look angry while doing it.
That's the part that scares them most.
Not the power. Not the skill. Not the brutality.
The emptiness.
The absolute, cold, merciless emptiness in those crimson eyes.
Your head will roll, he says.
And in Briarkeep, they learned exactly what that means.
To be continued..