Chương 123: Right of Claim

The mark appeared in Zayn's right palm. Not like a tattoo. Like a wound that had learned how to write. Black lines formed in the hollow of his hand, circling a broken ring. They looked like claws closing around an invisible coin. Every line pulsed with a hunger different from Gluttony. Gluttony wanted to swallow. Avarice wanted to keep. Zayn clenched his right hand. Blood ran between his fingers. The fused scythe vibrated in his left hand. The black skull had changed.

In its smoking sockets now shone a pale, unstable light, almost spiritual. The blade jutting from the skull carried a second edge, white and spectral, trembling like a voice trapped inside metal. The scythe spoke. Two voices overlapped.

"You put something in my throat." Then, weaker, almost an echo:"Cold... it's cold..." Elyra froze.

"The spirit is still conscious." Zayn did not look at her.

"It still cuts."

"That isn't an answer."

"It's the one I have." Drakhar burst out laughing. A real laugh. Huge. Happy. The mountain of Vhur seemed to laugh with him.

"Yes! Now that is finally a Downfall worthy of a forge! Not the hunger of a beast. Not the rage of a child. A claim." He opened his four arms.

"So come and claim my death, candidate. Try to see whether it fits in your hand." Zayn lunged. His black wings cracked through the burning air. The filthy regeneration inherited from Voragna pulled at his wounds, half-closing his abdomen, stitching a piece of skin back onto his torn face. The pain remained. The flesh did not heal cleanly. It obeyed badly. But it obeyed. Drakhar struck with the axe. Zayn parried with the fused scythe. This time, the impact did not throw him back immediately.

The black blade held the axe. The spectral white edge slid through the red metal and bit into something else. Not matter. Intent. Drakhar felt his axe lose a fraction of its momentum, as if the weapon had forgotten why it was striking. His grin widened.

"Ah. You don't only cut things anymore." Zayn raised his right hand. The mark in his palm burned.

"Right of Claim." The words came out even though he had never learned them. He grabbed Drakhar's axe haft. The black lines in his palm crept over the metal. For a second, the axe resisted. It was a weapon of Vhur. A weapon forged in Wrath. A weapon that carried wars, duels, massacres. Zayn could not possess it. Not entirely. But he could take something from it. A black crack ran along the handle. Drakhar yanked the weapon back. Too late. A fragment of the axe's weight remained in Zayn's palm. Not visible.

Not physical. A sensation. The fused scythe became heavier for a beat. Zayn struck. Drakhar raised his hammer. The clash made the arena tremble. But this time, the General stepped back half a pace. Only one. The warriors of Vhur roared. Elyra held her breath. Zayn smiled through the blood.

"I took a step from you." Drakhar looked down at the foot that had shifted. Then he laughed even louder.

"Good!" He struck Zayn with his third arm. The mass of steel hit his shoulder. The bone shattered. Zayn was thrown to the ground. Drakhar raised his fourth weapon, a long serrated blade, and brought it down toward his head. Zayn rolled. Too slow. The blade opened his back, slicing through part of his left wing. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. The black membrane fell to the ground in tatters. Zayn screamed. The regeneration tried to reform the wing.

It failed at first. Then it tried again. Black fibers burst from the wound, twisted, searched for a shape, glued themselves onto the broken bones. Drakhar watched with interest.

"You rebuild yourself through suffering. Good. Pain keeps a form honest." Zayn rose with difficulty. The mark of Avarice burned in his right palm. The fused scythe trembled. The spiritual voice inside it whimpered:"Don't... cut..." The skull snickered over it:"We always cut. You'll get used to it." Elyra shouted,"Zayn, the spirit is fighting you!"

"Then let it fight in the right direction." He pointed the scythe at Drakhar. The white glow of the second edge stretched outward. Drakhar charged. This time, Zayn did not try to block. He beat his mutilated wings, threw himself aside, then pressed his right palm to the ground.

"Right of Claim." The mark opened. The black lines sank into the stone of the arena. Not to possess all of Vhur. Impossible. But to take a fragment of what already belonged to him by contact: the stolen rings, the fused blade, the blood he had spilled, the broken weapons, the traces of the fight. The objects around him answered. A ring torn from Lorran rolled into his hand. A shard of cracked axe vibrated. A piece of abandoned red chain lifted itself. Even Zayn's own blood on the anvil seemed to pull toward him.

Drakhar narrowed his eyes.

"You're building a pile of trash?" Zayn smiled.

"No." The fragments fused to his split half-mask. The mark in his palm pulsed. The mask absorbed the metal pieces, the ring, the broken chain, the shards of Vhur. A single fusion. Not as deep as the blade merging with the scythe. Cruder. More unstable. The half-mask changed. Its upper half reinforced itself with lines of black gold and red metal. The crack across the cheek remained open, but the edges became sharp, as if the mask had been patched by a forge that hated beauty.

Elyra murmured,"He can fuse with his mask too..." Lumeï answered, trembling,"One fusion per object. But nobody knows what that means afterward. Not even him." Zayn inhaled. The mask heated. Then his vision changed. The arena became sharper. Not the shapes. The possessions. He saw Drakhar's weapons as extensions of his will. He saw Elvarin's chains as things without a master now that the researcher was dead. He saw the spiritual blade as divided between the scythe and the trapped echo.

He saw the entire arena as Drakhar's territory. And himself as an intruder refusing to remain outside it. Drakhar smiled slowly.

"There. You're starting to see what a domain is." He raised all four weapons.

"Then let's see whether you can take something from a General in his own forge." The fight resumed. More violent. Faster. Zayn was still not winning. But he was no longer taking the same kind of beating. Every exchange tore something from him. A strip of skin. A rib. A wing. A breath. But sometimes, his right hand touched a weapon, a chain, a piece of armor, and the mark stole an infinitesimal fragment. Not enough to possess Drakhar. Not enough to turn Vhur against him. But enough to disrupt.

An axe became slightly heavier. A blade lost a beat. A chain refused a tension. A hammer struck a fraction too early. Drakhar noticed. And it made him happy.

"Yes! Steal better! Take harder! Wrath does not hate Avarice when it has courage!" Zayn, his face bloodied under the reinforced mask, replied,"I'm not stealing." He parried a blade. His fused scythe slid along the red edge.

"I'm taking back." He placed his right hand on Drakhar's chest. The mark burned. For one second, everything stopped. Zayn tried to take. Not the armor. Not the weapon. The promised death. The death Drakhar had placed on the line by stepping into the arena. A thing impossible to hold. A thing too large. The system flickered violently. [Right of Claim: target excessive.] [Major domain resistance.] [Partial failure.] The backlash was brutal. Zayn's palm burst open. His fingers twisted.

He staggered back, coughing blood. Drakhar punched him in the face. The reinforced mask absorbed part of it. Not all. Zayn dropped to his knees. Drakhar planted a foot on his chest and crushed him against the stone.

"Too soon." The General leaned down, his eyes full of embers.

"You want to claim a General's death? Then start by bearing the weight of your own right without your hand breaking." He raised his hammer. Elyra moved. Not toward Zayn. Toward the anvil. Drakhar did not look at her. Mistake. She cast her light not at the General, but at the chains still holding Elvarin's corpse. Lumeï understood and helped. The chains loosened just enough for the body to slump sideways. The spiritual blade fused into the scythe reacted. The echo inside screamed. Not in pain. In recognition.

Zayn felt the cry travel through the weapon. The spiritual fragment contained in the blade still had a link to what Elvarin had forged, to what he had stabilized, to what remained of his final work. Drakhar finally turned his head.

"Little elf..." Zayn grabbed his ankle with his broken right hand. The mark in his palm opened despite the twisted bones.

"Right of Claim." This time, he did not target Drakhar. He targeted the freed chains. The chains that had held Elvarin. The chains that had served Drakhar. The chains that no one held anymore. They answered. They shot from the anvil, red, burning, still full of the researcher's suffering. They coiled around Drakhar's right arm. The General shattered them almost instantly. But almost was not enough. Zayn slipped out from under his foot. The fused scythe struck. The white edge passed through Drakhar's defense.

The black edge cut his flesh. A real wound opened across the General's side. Ember-blood burst out. The system appeared. [Demon General wounded.] [Drakhar — Estimated soul-force: 252 → 247.] Not a huge drop. But a drop. In the stands, the warriors of Vhur rose to their feet. No one was laughing anymore. Drakhar put a hand over his wound. Then looked at the blood. His grin returned.

"Finally." Zayn swayed. His regeneration tried to close his right palm, but the mark of Avarice prevented a clean recovery. The black lines stayed open in the flesh, as if the hand refused to become simple again. Elyra stepped beside him, breathing hard.

"You won't last long."

"I know."

"Then we need a real strategy." The fused scythe spoke in its two voices:"We could cut the other side too. Or die with style. Both options have charm." Elyra ignored the weapon.

"The chains answered your Avarice because they no longer had a master. Drakhar's weapons resist because they're still bound to him." Zayn slowly turned his gaze toward her. She went on:"You have to make him let go of something. Not just wound him. Make him lose possession of a weapon. Then you'll be able to take it." Drakhar heard. He laughed.

"Yes! Advise him! I want to see whether his Avarice can learn in the middle of humiliation." Zayn straightened up. His reinforced mask smoked. His right palm bled. The fused scythe vibrated, divided between two voices. He looked at Drakhar's four weapons. The cracked axe. The heavy hammer. The serrated blade. The black war-mace.

"Fine." He beat his wings. Not to attack Drakhar. To rise. The crowd of Vhur looked up. Zayn passed over the General, then dove not at his body, but at the axe already fissured by Time in Ruin. Drakhar understood and raised his hammer. Elyra sent all her light at the ground beneath the General. Not to injure him. To blind him for a fraction. Lumeï bit the shadow of the arm holding the axe. A fraction. Zayn struck. The fused scythe cut Drakhar's hand off at the wrist. The hand and the axe fell. The General roared.

Not only in pain. In excitement. The hand hit the stone. Zayn pressed his right palm onto it. The mark of Avarice opened like a mouth.

"Mine." Drakhar's axe resisted. But it was no longer fully in its master's hand. Not entirely. Zayn could not fuse it with the scythe. The scythe had already taken in a blade. One fusion per object. So he did something else. He pressed the axe against his reinforced mask. Elyra's eyes widened.

"No, you already—" Too late. The mask had already fused once. It refused. The mark of Avarice burned harder, searching for another possession. The axe trembled. Then the rings stolen from Lorran, still embedded in the mask, partially broke free. They fell into Zayn's palm. The rings had not yet received their true fusion. Zayn smiled.

"Then you." He crushed the rings against the severed axe. Right of Claim closed. The rings melted into the handle. The axe shrank, twisted, condensed into a kind of fang made of red metal and black gold, hanging from Zayn's right hand by a short chain. A trophy. A claim. Not a primary weapon. An object of right. The system displayed: [Possession fusion completed.] [Object: Fang of Vhur.] [Unknown effect: fragment of martial weight acquired.] Zayn clenched the Fang of Vhur. His right hand trembled.

Then he slammed it into the ground. The stolen weight of the axe crashed through the fang. A red shockwave broke the stone in front of him. Drakhar looked at his severed wrist. The flesh regrew slowly, but not the entire hand. Not yet. A General's regeneration was not Voragna's. He was bleeding. And he had lost a weapon.

"Yes," Drakhar murmured. His voice was low. Almost happy.

"You took." Zayn raised the fused scythe in his left hand. The Fang of Vhur hung from his marked right hand. His black wings opened behind him. His reforged mask covered his bloodied face. He looked less human than at the start of the fight. But more like a candidate than ever. Drakhar raised his three remaining weapons. The wrath around him grew denser. [Drakhar — Estimated soul-force: 247.] [Zayn Veylor — Current soul-force: 217.] The gap remained immense.

But Drakhar no longer looked at Zayn like a distraction. He looked at him like a war that had finally begun.

"Now," the General growled, "you can try to kill me." Zayn smiled.

"No." He raised his right hand. The mark of Avarice burned in his palm.

"Now, I can try to take enough from you that your death comes on its own." Drakhar burst out laughing. Then he charged. And this time, when their weapons met, the Forges of Vhur were no longer watching a General correct a candidate. They were watching a candidate learn how to steal weight from mountains.