Chương 122: What Was Owed to Him

The first exchange was not a fight. It was a correction. Drakhar struck. Zayn raised the scythe. The impact ran through the Forges of Vhur like a thunderclap trapped inside a mountain. The black blade jutting from the skull met one of the General's weapons, a red axe whose edge seemed to have been tempered in ancient wars. The stone beneath Zayn's feet burst apart. His arms buckled. His knees almost hit the ground. Then Drakhar struck with his second arm. Not with a weapon. With his fist.

Zayn took it full in the chest. He flew across the arena. The iron pillar behind him bent a second time, then gave way. His back slammed into the rock of the forge. His black wings spread on reflex, but the impact crushed them against the wall with a wet crack. Elyra cried out,"Zayn!" He dropped to one knee. His regeneration tried to close his shattered ribs. The flesh moved. Then stopped. The heat of Vhur entered his wounds like nails. Drakhar burst out laughing.

"So this is the one who killed Voragna." He slowly descended toward the center of the arena. Each step made the giant anvil on which Elvarin was bound vibrate.

"You took her endurance. A little of her flesh. A little of her regeneration." He raised his axe.

"But you still don't know what it means to survive someone who strikes to break the soul before the body." The system appeared before Zayn. [Demon General detected.] [Drakhar — Wrath.] [Estimated soul-force: 252.] Then, after a beat: [Zayn Veylor.] [Current soul-force: 217.] The gap was not just a number. It was a mountain. Zayn spat blood. He smiled anyway.

"You talk like you want to sound impressive." The black scythe reformed in his hand, its skull smoking like a wicked ember.

"He's succeeding a little," it murmured. Zayn rose. Drakhar smiled wider.

"Good." He stretched one of his four arms toward Elvarin. The elven researcher trembled on the anvil. His burned throat produced only broken breaths. An unfinished blade floated above him, held in place by red chains. Thin. Long. White in places. Black along the edges. And inside its steel, something moved. A trapped light. Elyra saw it. Her face fell apart.

"There's a spirit inside that blade..." Drakhar turned his head toward her.

"A fragment. A breath. A remainder. Call it what you like. The elf stabilized what the others only knew how to defile." He looked at Elvarin.

"I bought him because I knew the candidate would come for his throat." Zayn no longer moved. Drakhar went on:"Voragna tasted him. Cassiel moved him. I took him because wrath needs bait that still bleeds." He laughed.

"But the rat proved useful." Elvarin closed his eyes. Tears ran down his temples. Drakhar grabbed the spiritual blade suspended above the anvil. The light trapped inside it trembled.

"A weapon with a spirit inside it. Not a true pact. Not pretty elven magic. A wound that still cuts." Elyra stepped forward.

"Release him." Drakhar looked at her as if she had just said something very soft and very stupid.

"No." Zayn charged. No warning. No cry. His black wings beat and hurled him toward the anvil. Drakhar was waiting. The General raised the spiritual blade. It met the scythe. The world went white. The scythe screamed. Not in physical pain. In deep irritation. Something in the spiritual blade had touched the black skull the way dirty light touches an open wound. Zayn felt his left hand split to the bone. If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

Drakhar struck next with his axe. Zayn parried. Third arm. Hammer. He half dodged. The hammer tore open his right shoulder. Fourth arm. Fist. Zayn flew again. This time he caught himself with his wings, claws scraping the ground with his boots, then slid several meters. Drakhar remained at the center. Not winded. Not hurried.

"You're fast. Dirty. Inventive." He rested the spiritual blade on his shoulder.

"But you're still not strong enough." Zayn clenched his teeth. His right shoulder snapped back into place with a horrible crack. His regeneration sent dark flesh creeping back along the wound. Drakhar lifted his eyes.

"That healing is ugly. Voragna would have been offended."

"She's dead. Her opinion travels slowly." The scythe snickered. Drakhar laughed too. Then he vanished. Zayn did not see him coming. He felt the heat. The axe came down on him. He threw the scythe across his body. The impact pinned him to the ground. Drakhar struck again. Then again. Each blow came down like a verdict. The scythe blocked the first. The shaft cracked under the second. The third bent Zayn's left knee. The fourth split the floor beneath him. Elyra launched a blade of light into the General's back.

Drakhar did not even turn. One of his free arms caught the light with his bare hand and crushed it. Lumeï let out a choked cry.

"He crushed the light..." Drakhar finally looked at Elyra.

"Wait your turn, little elf. I don't kill the witnesses before they've seen something useful." Zayn used that half-second. He activated Time in Ruin on the axe. The red metal dimmed. A crack appeared in its edge. Drakhar looked down. His smile vanished.

"Ah." Zayn struck for his flank. The blade of the scythe touched the General's black, fissured skin. A cut. Small. Almost ridiculous. But real. Ember-blood ran. Across the entire arena, the warriors of Vhur stopped breathing. Drakhar looked at the wound. Then at Zayn.

"There." He smiled.

"That's better." His knee hit Zayn in the face. The half-mask split further. Zayn fell backward, his cheek torn open, blood filling his mouth. Drakhar seized him by the hair, lifted him, then smashed him against the anvil, only a few meters from Elvarin. The impact made the researcher's chains scream. Elvarin turned his head. His eyes met Zayn's. He tried to speak. His burned throat gave only a breath.

"P... please..." The word was almost inaudible. But Zayn heard it. His hand closed around the edge of the anvil. Drakhar burst out laughing.

"He still begs you. After everything he's done. After the bodies sold, the spirits bound, the king broken, the roads opened. He still begs." Zayn slowly lifted his eyes.

"He won't beg for long."

"No." Drakhar leaned closer.

"That's what you wanted, wasn't it? Not just to kill him. You wanted to have him. To hold him. To force him to answer. To decide for yourself when his throat stopped being useful." Zayn did not answer. Drakhar smiled.

"I know that smell." He placed one huge hand on Elvarin's head. Elyra froze.

"No..." Zayn jerked upright.

"Don't touch him." Drakhar turned a delighted gaze toward him.

"There." The General dug his fingers into Elvarin's shoulder. The researcher screamed at last. A torn, burned, half-muted scream, but real. Zayn leapt. Drakhar welcomed him with a hammer blow. Zayn went through the side of the anvil, rolled through the embers, got back up immediately, more animal than human. His black wings opened fully. More stable than before. Larger. The flesh inherited from Voragna tried to repair what Drakhar shattered, but every repair cost him dearly.

His body closed in pain, as if every cell protested the order to continue. Zayn charged again. Drakhar crushed him again. Once. Twice. Ten times. The fight became humiliating. Not because Zayn did not strike. Because Drakhar absorbed almost everything. Time in Ruin cracked his weapons, but he picked up others. The scythe opened his skin, but only on the surface. Zayn's Wrath burned, but Drakhar's was an entire domain. The regeneration put him back on his feet, but every recovery made him slower.

At last, Drakhar grabbed Zayn by the throat and lifted him before the whole arena.

"You killed Voragna because you understood where to cut." He tightened his grip. Zayn's bones creaked.

"But I am not a stomach. I am a forge. The more you strike, the more I learn what you are worth." Zayn drove his fingers into Drakhar's wrist. Time in Ruin. The General's skin cracked slightly. Drakhar smiled. Then squeezed harder. Zayn's vision went black. Elyra screamed his name. The scythe, on the ground, vibrated. Drakhar brought his face close.

"You are not disappointing." He threw Zayn to the ground.

"But you are still not enough." The General turned toward Elvarin.

"Then I'm going to give you a better rage." Zayn tried to rise. His arm trembled. His leg gave way.

"No..." The word came out before he wanted it to. Drakhar raised one of his fists. Elvarin understood. His eyes widened. He looked at Zayn with pure terror. No more lies. No more clauses. No more excuses. Only a man who wanted to live one second longer.

"Wai—" Drakhar drove his fist into Elvarin's body. The sound was short. Thick. Final. Elyra screamed. The researcher's body arched against the chains. His eyes emptied almost at once. The spiritual blade suspended above him began to shake violently, as if the spirit trapped inside it had just felt the last thread of its forger snap. For one second, Zayn did not move. He looked at the body. At the blood dripping from the anvil. At Drakhar's hand still buried inside him. Elvarin. His prey. His answer. His vengeance.

The throat he had followed across two continents. The thing that was supposed to speak before it died. Taken. Again. Not dead by his hand. Not at the chosen moment. Not with the words torn out. Taken. His breathing broke. Drakhar withdrew his fist. Elvarin's body sagged in the chains.

"There," said the General.

"Now show me something truer." Zayn brought one hand slowly to his face. His fingers trembled. Not with fear. Not with pain. With refusal.

"He..." His voice barely came out. The scythe fell silent. Even Drakhar waited. Zayn scraped at the broken edge of his half-mask. Then at the skin beneath. His nails dug into his own cheek. He pulled. Blood ran. Elyra, shaking, whispered,"Zayn..." He did not hear her.

"He was mine." The words dropped into the arena. Low. Broken. But the whole forge heard them. Drakhar smiled. Zayn pulled again at the skin of his face, tearing a red strip loose beneath the cracked mask.

"He was mine." His clavicle pulsed. His forearm burned. His tongue grew heavy. His spine went cold. But none of those Downfalls was enough. It was not only anger. It was not only envy. It was not hunger. It was not fatigue. It was something else. Something lower. Tighter. Uglier. The absolute refusal to let the world keep taking, taking, taking, then pretending the loss was normal because he had never had a right to anything. Zayn lifted his eyes. They were almost empty.

"You took..." His trembling hand pointed at Elvarin. Then at Drakhar. Then at the entire arena.

"You took what was mine by right." The system appeared. Not immediately. First, the air tightened around him. The rings torn from Lorran, kept in his pocket, began to vibrate. Cassiel's cracked ring burned. The spiritual blade above Elvarin shook harder and harder. The black scythe turned its skull toward Zayn, as if it sensed something coming that even it did not fully understand. Then the black letters opened. [Extreme existential condition detected.] [Prey pursued: taken away.] [Claimed vengeance: stolen.] [Personal right: denied.] Zayn began to laugh. A joyless laugh. The laugh of a man who had just had even the satisfaction of hating properly torn from him. [Downfall recognized.] [AVARICE.] The world around him seemed to close like a hand. The stolen rings flew from his pocket and hit the ground. One by one. The spiritual blade slipped free of its chains. Not released. Drawn. The black scythe flew back into Zayn's hand without being called. The skull opened its smoking eye sockets.

"What are you doing?" the weapon whispered. Zayn smiled through the blood on his face.

"I'm taking it back." The spiritual blade flew toward him. Elyra shouted,"No, the spirit is still inside it!" Zayn raised the scythe. The new mark of Avarice opened within him. Not visible yet. But present. Something in his soul extended fingers. The system displayed a new line. [Derived skill forming.] [Provisional name: Right of Taking.] [Effect: forced possession through fusion with an existing possession.] [Limit: one fusion per object. Result unpredictable. High resistance from living or spiritual objects.] Drakhar stopped smiling. At last. Zayn caught the spiritual blade. It burned his hand. The trapped spirit screamed. The scythe screamed too. Two wills collided in the same instant. Zayn forced them together.

"Mine." The spiritual blade entered the scythe. The black skull opened its mouth wide. A pale light crossed its smoking sockets. The shaft cracked, then strengthened. The blade projecting from the skull gained a second edge, spectral white and unstable, as if an imprisoned spirit was still trying to cut in another direction. The scythe laughed. Then stopped. Its voice changed. Two tones overlaid each other. One cruel. The other broken.

"Oh... that's new." Zayn raised the fused weapon. His face was bleeding. His body was trembling. But the air around him had changed. He was no longer just a wounded candidate before a General. He was a man who had just been given a reason never again to let the world decide what belonged to him. Drakhar smiled slowly.

"There." The mark of Wrath in the arena answered. The forges roared.

"Finally." Zayn looked one last time at Elvarin's body. Then at Drakhar. His voice dropped low.

"Now..." The fused scythe vibrated in his hand.

"I'm taking your death." And this time, when Zayn charged, Drakhar raised all four weapons with a true war-smile. Not because he was certain he would win. Because for the first time in the fight, the rage before him had stopped begging and become a claim.