Somewhere in the black of the dungeon, metal whispered against metal. A slow, deliberate schhhnk, again and again—the language of blades, twin daggers kissing each other's edge like serpents twining in prayer.
Hask sat in the dark, hunched against the stone, sharpening the edges of his livelihood. The clangs from outside echoed, steel against flesh, steel against bone, steel against screams. That sound had become something like lullaby here. Comforting, in its own monstrous way.
And beneath that lullaby, another rhythm beat faintly—thump… thump… thump.
At the far end of the cell corridor, behind rusted bars, the Beast moved. Not like a man training. More like something sculpting itself out of meat and will.
Pushups. The faint thump of fists hitting the stone. Pull-ups on rusted bars. A rhythm pulsing through the cell block. Not far. Just at the end of the corridor, a place one no longer approached unless blood was required.
The Beast was awake.
It had been three months. A long, vicious, silent month since the boy had first been hurled into that pit like a sack of rotten meat, all bones and teeth and eyes too dark to belong to the living.
And yet, day by day, fight by fight, the Beast grew. Grew in strength, speed, precision. The strikes that were once sloppy and born of desperation now sang with control. He moved like a man who had studied pain—and taught it lessons in return.
Sixty dead. All by that sword—the Seren Blade, they called it now. A cursed thing. A weapon of rumor and awe. They said the sword whispered its own name in the dark. They said it drank blood before the first strike even fell.
Hask didn't know about any of that. He didn't care, either.
But one thing was true: the Beast was no longer a boy.
And still… no food, no cushions, no feast of meat like others got. No armor, no clean wraps. Just that stone cell. That stinking, echoing, godless hole.
And still… he grew.
Was it sorcery? A god's cruel joke? Or worse, a god's favorite plaything? Hask didn't have answers—he wasn't the asking kind. But he watched, and in this place, watching was worth more than praying.
He had seen warriors break down after ten fights, some after five. The good ones lasted twenty. The monsters, thirty.
But the Beast had reached sixty, and still they pushed him out like a dog, fight after fight, bleeding and grinning, his limbs learning, memorizing, adapting like something that wasn't quite human.
And reputation—that snake of smoke—had begun curling through the corridors.
Two men may be matched in blade and muscle, but the one with tales clinging to his name… that one always has a second weapon in the heart of the other.
Fear.
And fear was the true killer.
Hask felt it—not in his hands, which were steady, or in his feet, which were light as ever—but somewhere deeper. Somewhere behind his ribs, where logic doesn't reach.
He spat to the side. Tch. Get a grip, old fox.
Still, his thumb twitched against the handle of his dagger.
And behind it all, the strange silence from Brusk's side. The big brute hadn't said much, but his eyes—red and simmering—followed the Beast now, as if weighing something heavy.
Garrik, the other monster, had begun to growl in Brusk's presence. A rising tension. Verbal spats. A chain being pulled from both ends.
Hask knew better than to take sides. He bowed his head when Brusk passed, offered his blade when Garrik barked. He bowed when it kept him breathing. That was the true weapon. Not daggers. Not speed. Not strength.
No. The moment was the blade. Knowing when to move. When to strike.
Life never hands you a second chance. You either see the second... or die in the first.
The gate slammed.
The light spilled in. The time had come.
The dust of the arena, golden, crimson and cruel. The shouts from the stands already hungry.
"AND NOW, BROTHERS OF BLOOD, SISTERS OF SAND!" the announcer's voice roared like a lion made of thunder, "The crowd favorite! The Killer from the Shadows, the Dual Dagger Demon, the man with seventy kills to his name! HASK, THE DUAL KILLER!"
Hask stepped onto the field. The arena floor cracked beneath his soles. His boots kicked up a breeze of blood-stained sand. The twin daggers gleamed—one straight as betrayal, the other curved like regret.
"And facing him—oh-ho-ho, by the gods' unholy breath—our fastest rising warrior. Our newest darkfire. The beast unleashed. The one who chews bones and swallows screams! The one who brought death to sixty, SIXTY! of our finest!"
"THE CANNIBAL BEAST!"
The crowd screamed.
But the announcer chuckled, "Though, seems we need a new name, aye? No feasts of flesh lately, huh? What's the point of calling a wolf by its old habits when it starts dressing like a man?"
The gate groaned open.
The Beast stepped out.
He did not roar. Did not blink. Did not rush.
Just walked. With that blade in his hand. The Seren Sword. As if the world belonged to him.
Once, Hask had watched this boy crawl on all fours, sniffing for scraps, chewing bones like a dog. Back then, Hask had more muscle, more mass, more everything.
Now? The Beast's body was carved like a statue of war. Veins like ropes. Shoulders like gates. Not show muscles—warrior's muscle. The kind only earned in deathmatches and survival.
Hask could feel it—not just see it—but feel the weight of what stood across from him.
Even if the mind is sharp enough to slash truth from rumor… the heart is a dumb beast.
And sometimes, it still believes in monsters.
The Beast was fifty feet away.
Hask twirled his daggers. No smile. No rage.
Just breath.
He let the wind move across his shoulders. He listened to the sounds—his steps, the pulse in his ears, the thousands above.
Then, a whisper in the back of his mind.
Don't think. Don't blink. Find the moment. Own it.
His fingers tightened. The edge of his lip curled slightly.
Let the others have their rage. Let the brutes swing and bleed.