Chương 143: The Circle Without Witnesses

The mark of Pride burned around Zayn's neck. Space curved. Elias understood he was the target before the system even confirmed it. A black line passed beneath his feet and drew a circle around him. The atrium tiles split into perfectly round cracks. The air grew heavier, then suddenly compressed as if the world were trying to close a hand. Mira thrust out her scepter.

"Elias, get out of the circle!" He tried. His foot struck a boundary that had not existed a second earlier. Jonah threw himself forward and reached out a hand.

"Grab me!" Their fingers brushed. Then darkness fell between them. Lena screamed Elias's name. Ivara burned a page without even reading the incantation. Garron hurled his chain through the distortion. Soren, his face drained by the loss of his arm, drove his last dagger into the edge of the circle. Narek tried to rise despite his shaking legs. Too late. The world folded. Elias and Zayn disappeared. The silence that followed was brutal. There was no portal. No sphere. No trace of either fighter.

Only a black circle engraved into the tiles, as smooth as a hole painted onto the floor. Lena dropped to her knees in front of it.

"Elias!" No answer. Mira immediately placed both hands over the circle. Her analysis rings appeared, turned, then were thrown back in a shower of sparks.

"I can't read them." Jonah slammed his fist into the black mark.

"Then open it!"

"It's not a normal door!" He struck it again. His already broken hand split open once more.

"Find a way anyway!" Ivara knelt beside Mira. She laid her forbidden book on the ground and flipped through the pages she had left.

"Territory Extension is not a prison built around an existing space. The skill temporarily replaces the relationship between two targets and the outside world." Garron looked at her.

"In useful language?"

"They are somewhere we no longer exist for." Lena turned pale. Soren leaned against a column to avoid collapsing.

"So what do we do?" Ivara stared at the circle.

"We wait until one of them comes back." Jonah turned toward her.

"That's your plan?"

"No. That's the limit of what I know." Narek dragged himself toward the circle. His residual claws scraped against the stone.

"He didn't choose at random." Mira looked up at him. Narek was staring at the black center.

"Zayn wanted one of the heroes." Jonah clenched his fists.

"Elias is the strongest among us."

"That's not why." Narek lifted his gray eye.

"It's because he is the one the world placed opposite him." No one answered. In the ruined capital, beneath Maelor's last barrier, the group waited before a circle none of them could cross. Elias felt the cold first. Then the light. When he opened his eyes again, the atrium was gone. So was the capital. He stood in a vast circular chamber with glass walls. Rings were engraved into the floor. Seven concentric lines, luminous and perfect, surrounded a central platform.

Above them, a transparent dome showed a white sky without clouds or sun. Elias recognized the place. Not exactly as it had been. But enough. The summoning hall. The first place in this world he had ever seen. The first place where he had been told he was a hero. He looked around. No priests. No guards. No nobles. No comrades. The observation tiers were empty. The glass walls behind which the authorities had examined them reflected no one. At the center of the circle, Zayn stood bent over his scythe.

His ruined wings hung behind him. A trail of blood ran from his right hand and crossed one of the luminous rings. His breathing was slow and uneven. And yet his presence filled everything. The system appeared between them. [Territory Extension active.] [Restricted environment selected.] [Target: Elias Rhowan.] [External interference impossible.] [Exit condition: victory, user rupture, or voluntary release.] Elias raised his cracked sword.

"Why here?" Zayn looked around the chamber. A strange expression passed behind his broken mask.

"I didn't choose it."

"Your skill did."

"Apparently." Zayn straightened with difficulty. His gaze slid over the rings.

"Even my Pride thinks everything started here." Elias looked at the central platform. He saw himself appearing in the light, surrounded by terrified faces. He remembered the priests bowing before his status. The weapons brought to him. The restrained applause. The immediate certainty that his presence meant something. Then Zayn. Alone. A black window. Guards. A door. Elias tightened his grip on his sword.

"When we arrived, they gave me this blade." Zayn looked at the cracked weapon.

"And they gave me a room without windows."

"I know."

"Now you do." The fused scythe straightened. Its black skull opened its smoking sockets.

"That's a lot of talking for a duel." Elias heard the doubled voice. He did not look away.

"You want to kill me because they chose me?" Zayn tilted his head slightly.

"You still think everything revolves around you?" Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

"You isolated me out of everyone else."

"Because you're the only one whose death would immediately turn the others into a symbol." Elias felt cold pass through his stomach. Zayn continued:"Jonah would become an angry man. Mira, an analyst who failed. Lena, a healer who could not save. The others would be dead or broken fighters." He rested the scythe's blade against the floor.

"You, though, would become the Hero who fell before the Demon King. A clean image. An easy legend."

"So you want to prevent that legend?"

"No." Zayn smiled.

"I want to see what remains of you when there is no one left to watch the hero." Elias set his right foot back.

"You may be disappointed."

"I'm used to that." They moved at the same time. Elias struck first. His blade came down toward Zayn's left shoulder, the place Narek had pointed out. Heroic light ran along the cracked steel and concentrated near the tip. Zayn blocked with the shaft of the scythe. The impact made the summoning rings tremble. Elias did not try to overpower him. He pivoted immediately and aimed for the leg. Zayn pulled away from his stance, turned, and swept the black blade just above the ground. Elias bent low.

The scythe cut several strands of his hair. He entered the guard. An elbow to the chest. A backhand slash. Zayn took the first and deflected the second with his right palm. The crack in Elias's sword met the mark of Greed. The two powers collided. Elias felt his weapon being pulled toward Zayn. Right of Seizure. He let go with one hand, grabbed his own wrist, and drove his soul strength directly into the hilt.

"This blade does not belong to you!" Zayn pulled harder.

"Nothing belonged to me until I took it." The steel groaned. Heroic light pushed back against the black lines. Then Elias drove his forehead into the broken mask. The impact shoved Zayn backward. Right of Seizure broke. Elias retreated with his sword still in hand. Zayn touched the new crack in his mask with two fingers.

"Did Jonah give you the idea?"

"No."

"Too bad. He might finally have been useful for something." Elias charged again. This time, Zayn waited for him. The corrupted aura spread over the scythe. The pressure hit Elias before the blade did. His muscles told him to retreat. His body recognized a predator. He kept going. The scythe came down. Elias blocked. The impact forced him to one knee. His arms began shaking instantly. It was not only the weapon's weight.

The filthy aura was digging into his reflexes, repeating that he was weaker, slower, already dead. Zayn pressed down on the shaft.

"So this is the hero when no one is left to support him?" Elias pushed against his blade.

"No." He rose inch by inch.

"This is just me." White light burst from his body. Not the light of a prepared spell. The light of his soul strength compressed until it became physical. The scythe was forced back. Elias slashed horizontally. The blade opened Zayn's chest. A luminous wound crossed his torso. The Demon King stepped back. Blood spilled. Then the flesh began pulling itself together. Slowly. Too slowly. Elias saw it.

"Your regeneration is stopping." Zayn looked at his own wound.

"It's getting tired."

"So are you."

"And yet you're breathing harder than I am." The scythe disappeared from his hand. Elias's eyes widened. Too late. The black skull reappeared behind him. The spectral blade entered his back. Not deeply. Enough to pierce the armor and steal his breath. Elias threw himself forward before the scythe could open him completely. He rolled, turned, and took the shaft full in the face. The floor hit him hard. Zayn planted a foot on his sword wrist.

"You learned how to fight." Elias spat blood.

"Thank you."

"That wasn't a compliment."

"I take what I'm given." Zayn raised the scythe. Elias released a wave of light from his free palm. Zayn crossed his right wing in front of himself. The explosion tore through the already burned membrane. Elias yanked free his wrist and stood again. He attacked once more. They crossed the hall. Heroic blade against conscious scythe. Structured light against corrupted aura. Elias fought cleanly. Too cleanly at first.

Every movement came from the swordmasters of the capital, the instructors of the College, the ancient techniques meant to pit a hero against great demonic creatures. Zayn recognized the angles. He broke them. A rotation of the scythe forced Elias to open his guard. A wingbeat destroyed his distance. Time in Ruin wore down the reinforcements on his armor. Forge-blood turned a simple shoulder check into a red explosion. Elias was hurled against a wall of glass. The pane did not break.

It absorbed his body, then threw him back to the floor. He stood again. Zayn was already there. Elias parried three attacks. The fourth opened his thigh. The fifth hammered his guard and widened the crack in his sword. The sixth was only a feint. Zayn's knee buried itself in his stomach. Elias folded. The shaft of the scythe struck the back of his neck. He fell. Zayn placed the blade against his back.

"You can stay on the ground." Elias drove his sword into the summoning circle.

"No." He used it to pull himself back up. Zayn watched him.

"Why?"

"Because you are still standing in front of me."

"That's a hero's answer."

"It's the answer of a man who doesn't want to die lying down." Zayn smiled faintly.

"Better." He struck. Elias deflected by a hair's breadth. The black blade passed in front of his throat. He answered with a vertical strike. Zayn raised the scythe. The spectral edge and heroic light crashed together. The sound was immense. The summoning hall wavered. The glass walls suddenly filled with reflections. Not of the current duel. Others. A Demon King with immense horns facing a woman carrying a golden spear. Another, covered in scales, standing against three young heroes in ancient armor.

A black queen kneeling before a boy summoned from another world. A hollow-eyed man pierced by a sword whose shape looked disturbingly similar to Elias's. The cycles. The Throne was answering from afar. The hero and the Demon King had just reproduced the exact stance of thousands of older battles. Elias saw the figures.

"What is this?" Zayn froze for a fraction of a second. He knew those images. He had seen them on the Throne. Always the same ending. A hero. A king. A weapon. A corpse. Then a thousand years of silence. The reflections changed. All the heroes now wore Elias's face. All the Demon Kings wore Zayn's. The scythe trembled.

"Kill him." Zayn tightened his grip on the shaft.

"Shut up."

"They will kill you like the others." Elias heard it. He looked at the glass walls.

"Like the others?" Zayn attacked. More violently. The scythe struck the sword.

"You wanted to know why you?" Another blow. Elias stepped back.

"Because your role has existed longer than your name." Zayn turned the blade. It entered Elias's shoulder.

"The humans summon a hero." He ripped the scythe free.

"The hero finds the Demon King." Elias struck despite the blood. Zayn deflected it.

"And the hero kills him." The last sentence echoed through the whole chamber. Elias almost froze.

"That's what the Throne showed you?"

"Every time." Zayn kicked him in the chest. Elias rolled several meters away. The glass walls kept showing the old deaths. Heroes weeping after the final blow. Others smiling. Some collapsing with their enemy. Others acclaimed by armies not even visible. Always the Demon King dead. Always the world saved. Always the Throne empty. Elias got up.

"So you think I'm going to do the same."

"I know you'll try."

"I'm here to stop you."

"There." Zayn opened his wings. One of them dropped a piece of black flesh.

"You don't even need to understand. The role speaks through you." Elias looked at his sword. The blade given to him on the first day. The light that had convinced everyone he was on the right side before he had done anything at all. Then he raised his eyes.

"You're right about one thing." Zayn waited.

"They gave me a role." Elias lifted his blade before his face.

"But if I simply obey that role, then I'm not a hero. I'm a weapon with a name." Zayn's smile vanished. Elias stepped forward.

"I will not fight you because they chose me." His soul strength gathered around him.

"I will fight you because I saw what you did in that chamber. Because I saw the bodies. Because Maelor died to hold you back. Because Narek almost got consumed by a hatred meant for you." The light of his sword thickened.

"And because understanding what was done to you does not force me to let you do the same to others." Zayn raised the scythe.

"A longer justification does not make your blade any different." Elias charged.

"Then watch what I do with it." The duel changed. Elias stopped fighting the way he had been taught. He used the cracks. The ones in his sword. The ones in the floor. The ones in Zayn's rhythm. He had watched the group fight Lyséa. He had seen Garron turn weakness into a trap, Soren turn a fall into an angle, Mira accept false data in order to discover what produced it, Ivara burn through her own certainties, Jonah hold a line he could not win, Lena bind together bodies that should have fallen separately.

Even isolated, Elias did not fight alone. He carried what they had taught him. Zayn struck his sword with Time in Ruin. The crack widened. Elias did not reinforce it. He let it spread. The metal split near the guard. Zayn smiled.

"It's over." Elias twisted his wrist. The broken part of the blade remained suspended on a thread of light. It pivoted around the scythe and cut into Zayn's left hand. Not all the way through. Enough to open his fingers. The scythe fell. Elias drove his fist forward. Zayn took it to the face. The half-mask finally shattered. The black fragments fell onto the luminous rings. For the first time, Elias saw his whole face. The scars. The black circles beneath his eyes. The skin marked by assimilations.

And beneath all that, the features of the boy who had appeared with them in the circle. Zayn caught Elias's wrist.

"You wanted to see?" He yanked him closer. Their foreheads collided.

"Look carefully." The mark of Lust opened. Center of the World tried to seize Elias. The hero's gaze was pulled toward Zayn. He did not resist.

"I'm looking." Zayn hesitated. The skill had taken hold. But it gave him no advantage. Elias was not trying to look away. He was already looking at him willingly. Not like a monster. Not like a victim. Like the man he had to stop. That absence of avoidance disturbed Lust. Elias used that fraction of a second. His knee struck Zayn in the stomach. He tore free his wrist, kicked the scythe away along the floor. The weapon's voice screamed.

"Don't let him touch me!" Elias did not take it. He came back at Zayn with his half-broken sword. Zayn opened his right palm. The Locks of Ghelkar burst around Elias's arm. They snapped shut. The hero's shoulder locked. Right of Seizure ripped away the thread of light linking the two pieces of his blade. The broken tip fell. Zayn seized Elias by the throat. Lifted him.

"So you learned to use others even when they aren't here." Elias struggled for breath.

"That's called... needing them." Zayn hurled him against the central platform. All the summoning rings lit up at once. Elias bounced off the stone. His sword slid from his hand. Zayn recalled the scythe. It cut through the air and returned to his palm. The corrupted aura covered the blade. Forge-blood ignited under his skin. His wings spread one last time. Elias rose without a weapon. He raised his fists. Zayn stared at him.

"Seriously?"

"I'm still standing."

"That's not a strategy."

"It's what I have left." Zayn vanished. Elias tried to dodge. Too slow. The shaft hit his ribs. Something broke. The blade opened his arm. A wing hurled him into the air. Zayn appeared above him and smashed him back into the central circle. The floor split open. Elias did not get back up immediately. His vision shook. His breathing no longer found rhythm. Zayn landed in front of him. He limped. His left hand bled. His chest was barely closing anymore. But he was still standing. Still above him.

Elias reached toward his sword. Zayn put his foot on it.

"No." The hero raised his eyes. Zayn laid the scythe's blade against his throat. The reflections of past cycles filled every pane of glass. Every Demon King stood over a hero. Then, in each memory, something changed. An ally intervened. A blessing activated. The hero found a final reserve of strength. The king hesitated. The heroic blade always ended in his heart. The system appeared between them. The letters were different. Older. [Historical configuration recognized.] [Demon King victorious.] [Summoned hero disarmed.] [Execution available.] Elias read the lines. So did Zayn. The scythe began trembling with pleasure.

"There." Its doubled voice whispered:"This time, kill the hero before he rises again." The Throne beat from afar. The whole chamber answered. The reflections drew closer. Many of dead Demon Kings looked at Zayn from the glass. Many of heroes waited behind Elias's face. The entire cycle seemed to hold its breath. The black blade touched skin. A drop of blood slid down Elias's neck. He did not beg. Zayn looked at him.

"You know what's funny?" Elias breathed with difficulty.

"No."

"Even now, the world is waiting for me to do exactly what it wrote for me." The blade pressed a little harder.

"The Demon King kills the hero. The others enter. They hate me more. They find the strength to bring me down." Zayn looked at the reflections.

"Or I spare you, you recover your weapon, and you kill me like all the others before you." Elias did not move.

"Maybe." The answer surprised Zayn. No promise. No perfect morality. No heroic lie. Elias continued:"But I know what you can choose right now." Zayn gave a humorless laugh.

"Still telling me I have a choice."

"Because you do."

"I had a choice in the council chamber too."

"Yes."

"And I chose to kill them."

"Yes." Elias did not look away.

"Then don't pretend the world controls everything you do. Otherwise even your vengeance doesn't belong to you." Silence fell. The sentence reached somewhere neither light nor weapons had touched. Zayn looked at his scythe. Then at Elias. Then at the thousands of endings reflected around them. Always the same role. Always the same strike. Always an ancient hatred disguised as necessity. He had refused to stay below Vaelthor. He had refused to let the world define his height.

And yet here, he was about to fulfill exactly what the cycle expected from a victorious Demon King. The mark of Pride burned around his neck. Not to strike. Like a question. Zayn slowly withdrew the blade from Elias's throat. The scythe protested.

"What are you doing?" He ignored it. The system shuddered. [Execution available.] Zayn lowered the weapon. [Execution available.] He stepped back. The reflections of the old Demon Kings warped. [Decision anomaly.] Elias remained on the ground, unable to understand.

"Why?" Zayn looked at the glass.

"Because I refuse to let even my hatred belong to this cycle." The Throne beat violently. The summoning hall cracked. Elias reached for his broken sword. Zayn saw him. He did not stop him.

"Pick it up." Elias closed his fingers around the hilt. Zayn opened his torn wings. The territory began collapsing around them.

"The next choice will be yours."