Chapter 32 - By Ash, By Blood, By Bone
One of the songs I play alot while writing is Claim Our Kill by Colm R. McGuinness. So I decided to make a version of the song sung by the Kansani.
A few days had passed since the longhouse. We were traveling to a dueling site further northwest. Not the same one, months ago near Wicitha. Sula mentioned in passing that the Kansani rotate their dueling sites. Never the same place twice in a season. Keeps the enemy guessing. Prevents ambushes.
Smart. Makes sense.
Now I was riding with five thousand Kansani warriors—and calling it "riding" felt generous. They didn't march in neat rows or chant in tight cadence like the Legion. The Kansani moved like a thunderstorm given legs. They whooped and hollered, voices carrying like war drums over the hills. Hymns of blood, bone, and burning machines echoed in the wind. Every third shout was a brag—how many Ravagers they'd cracked open, how loud their victory roar had been, how many scars counted as flirting.
This wasn't discipline.
It was pride made loud.
I stayed near the center of the horde. Not by choice. Jorta had put me there—said I needed to conserve my strength, not waste it on skirmishes or posturing. I had a real fight ahead. Lanius. No distractions. No injuries. No excuses.
He was proven right when we heard a roar
A high shriek layered beneath a bass-heavy roar—the telltale call of something big and pissed off.
A Thunderjaw.
It stomped out from behind a collapsed overpass, red optics already flaring. Thing was a walking arsenal with legs shaped like disaster. And it was pissed.
A group of Kansani spotted it—and immediately sprinted toward the damn thing like it owed them money.
I expected tactics. Strategy. Instead, they roared.
The Thunderjaw turned its guns. Targeting flickered.
Its optics blinked.
And then it missed.
Again.
Again.
The black and white paint on their bodies twisted with their movement, warping as they surged. And in that blur, they weren't individuals anymore—they were one thing. One shifting, untrackable nightmare. The Thunderjaw's sensors glitched trying to lock them down.
It thrashed. Fired. Missed.
And then they hit it.
Like ants on a carcass.
Sixty seconds later, it was wreckage.
They cheered. Stripped it for parts. One guy danced with a disc launcher held over his head like it was a holy relic. Another rode a chunk of leg armor down a hill like a sled.
I stared at the smoking wreck.
"Holy fuck," I breathed.
That was cool.
And terrifying.
Then the chanting started.
They started chanting just past the ridge. Low at first—like someone clearing their throat, then another joining in, then fifty voices. By the time we crested the next rise, it was a fucking choir of killers.
I knew the tune.
Oh, I knew the tune.
It was, Claim Our Kill by Colm R. McGuinness. I'd played one of his old vids back at the Spike Paw a few nights ago—dug it out of my archive while sorting through corrupted tags. Warhammer-styled stuff. Gritty, loud, enough bass to rattle the bones out of a corpse. I was playing it way too loud, too—didn't even realize.
One of the older patrons had told me to kill the noise.
Then half the room snapped at him—"Shut the fuck up!"—and the other half asked me to start it over.
They didn't just like it. They felt it.
And apparently they rewrote it.
No more "Russ." Now it was Jun.
No "ice" in their veins. Now it was ash.
And Chaos? That became Legion.
Sung by five thousand warriors, stomping across the broken plains like the war had already been won.
Ash in our veins, war in our soul
We march through fire to make the world whole
We do not kneel, we do not pray
We bring the storm and take the day
Some of them hit their weapons together in rhythm—blades against gauntlets, hafts slamming shoulders. I could feel it in my chest. War drums made of bone and defiance.
By Jun's hand, by scars we've earned
Let the red sky watch what we've burned
Their walls will crack, their shields will fail
Their gods are gone, their kings are pale
I stayed at the center, like Jorta said. No skirmishing. No posturing. Just watching.
Listening.
Holding onto every beat.
No mind-sick scum shall chain our kin
No slaving filth shall breathe again
Their legions come with flags held high
We'll break their bones and watch them die
We passed under a broken rail line, rusted steel hanging like dead vines. A hill rose ahead. Beyond it—flat land. I didn't need a map.
I knew this place.
Tall stone walls. Razorwire curling along the tops like thorn crowns. A flat, open field at the center. Only one way in.
It wasn't subtle.
No tribe built that.
Ash to ash, scream to scream
We do not die—we live the dream
Let Legion fall beneath our will
We fight, we rise, we claim our kill
Someone howled. Dozens answered. I found myself gripping my gear tighter.
It was a prison.
I didn't say anything. Just kept walking with the rest of them, boots crunching gravel, the song still humming low behind us. But there was no mistaking it. The layout. The walls. The one-way entry. Some places just leave a shape in your memory, even if you don't look straight at them.
I'd driven past this town a few times before. Never stopped. Just caught the edge of it through the trees—those massive stone walls poking out of the earth like someone tried to cage the horizon. Razorwire still clung to the top, sagging in places but intact in others. The kind of wire that didn't rust right. The kind that cut you twice—once when it tore your skin, and again when the infection set in.
The Kansani believed it was a military training ground. An Old Ones proving site. That's what they called it. Sacred. Ritualistic. A field where soldiers were forged.
I kept quiet.
Most of the central structure was gone—collapsed in chunks, chewed open from the inside. Holes punched straight through the block. But not randomly. The spacing was too clean. Too surgical.
Each breach was just wide enough for a Faro Scarab to crawl through.
I winced.
The people who were locked in here when the world ended... they didn't die in battle. They didn't get a warning. They sat in their cells, unarmed, waiting for something to come. And then the Scarabs tore through the walls like they were peeling cans. Cell by cell. Room by room.
They wouldn't have even had time to scream.
The Kansani had turned it into something else entirely. Not just a battlefield. A shrine.
The center yard had been cleared and flattened. You could see the marks—old foundations pulled apart, debris repurposed. In the middle stood a Lonaki totem, tall and worn, surrounded by piles of stone. Thousand-year-old rocks arranged in tight spirals, stacked towers, and ash-lined circles.
Sula walked beside me and caught me staring.
"That's where the First Ones spoke to their gods," she said, voice soft. "They say the stone sings when the blood is right."
I nodded.
Didn't tell her what it probably was.
Back before the end, prisons had to allow space for different religious practices—especially for inmates who weren't Christian. This was likely where they gathered. Wiccan rites, ancestral prayers, maybe just people trying to remember their name in a place built to erase it.
The Kansani didn't know what this place used to be. Not really.
But maybe that was the best part.
They'd taken a place built to cage people—to lock them away, break them down, keep them small—and they turned it into a place where warriors came to stand. To fight. To choose.
It used to be where freedom ended. Now it was where people fought for it.
I wasn't big on symbolism, but even I could feel it. Something in the way the wind moved through the yard. The way the stones sat heavy in the ground, not by accident, but on purpose. The way the Kansani carried themselves here—louder, prouder, more alive than ever.
This was no longer a place of chains.
This was a place of fire.
And I was about to bleed in it.
Hours later, they arrived.
The New Romans. Legion. Their procession came in slow, precise, and cold—like a snake deciding which part of the fire to kill first. Their formation cut through the open yard with eerie discipline. No wasted movement. No noise. Just boots, dust, and power.
At the center of it all, they brought out the man Jorta was supposed to face before everything changed. The one they called Lanius.
He didn't walk.
He rode.
A wagon dragged him forward, the reins bound to a pair of bison so scarred and brutalized they looked carved from meat and hate. Every few steps, the driver lashed them again. Not to speed them up—just because.
And Lanius?
He sat there like a god made of war crimes and steel.
Not bound by a game engine, not flattened by old pixels or scripted animations—this was the real Lanius. And he was huge.
Even seated, he looked monstrous. When he finally stood, the scale hit me. Easy six-and-a-half feet tall, maybe more. Broad as a slab, with arms like scaffold beams wrapped in corded, functional muscle. No wasted mass. This wasn't a showpiece bodybuilder. This was something built to break people and then keep moving.
He was all weight and wrath—encased in dark gold armor that didn't shine so much as threaten. The horned helmet curled out from his skull like a war crown, flanking a mask carved into a twisted, angular scowl. The metal beard, the pronounced brow, the sharp jawlines—they made him look less like a man and more like some ancient war god given flesh and iron.
His shoulders were layered in spiked plates, his cloak ragged and dark red, fluttering just enough to feel like it had soaked in centuries of blood. You could see it in the stance—this wasn't theatrical. There was no posing.
This was just how he existed.
And in his hand—held like a natural extension of that hulking body—was the sword.
Not salvaged scrap. Not some cosplay prop made from a car bumper and rust.
It was a weapon. Fully forged. Brutal. Balanced. Broad as a slab and longer than most men's torsos. The core was thick enough to split armor with mass alone, but the edges were honed to a dangerous gleam. The hilt was reinforced by a crowned pommel and layered grips, wrapped tight for full-force impact control.
If you weren't Lanius, you probably couldn't lift it without throwing your spine out of alignment.
But in his hand?
It looked effortless.
He didn't carry that blade.
He commanded it.
No words. No roar. No declaration.
He just stood there, sword in hand, waiting.
Like death itself was trying to be polite—offering us one last chance to walk away.
As the last of the Legion formations settled into position, the air thickened—not with dust, but with anticipation. Silent, tense, ritualistic.
Then Lanius stepped forward.
The crowd hushed. Even the Kansani quieted—not from fear, but instinct. Like their blood knew the sound of a predator's presence. He walked with that slow, deliberate weight of a man who'd never once questioned whether the earth would hold beneath his boots. Sword in hand. Mask fixed on Jorta.
His voice broke the silence like iron dragged over stone. Deep. Cold. Regal, in a way only warlords ever truly are.
"I had waited long for this, Jorta."
The words didn't ring with anger. They rang with disappointment.
"Our blades have danced in rumor and memory, in shattered scouts and broken champions. No other fight stirred my blood. No other clash was worth remembering."
His helmet tilted slightly—just enough to suggest a grim kind of honesty.
"I did not know the outcome of our destined battle. Only that one of us would fall—and the world would speak of it for generations."
He exhaled. Not a sigh. A release. Like the wind leaving a funeral pyre.
"But now... I am told the Great Jorta limps. That the beast who broke Centurions has been felled not by my blade, but by time... and injury."
Then, slowly, Lanius turned.
His gaze found me.
"And in his place, they send you."
He looked me up and down—like a blacksmith inspecting a cracked blade.
"A stranger. A whelp. Not even of their blood."
He raised that colossal sword, letting its weight rest on one shoulder, almost casual.
"You will not give me what Jorta could."
He said it like a fact. Not cruel. Not even dismissive.
Just… tired.
"But I will kill you regardless."
Then he turned, back straight, the tip of his blade digging a shallow line in the earth as he walked to the center.
The match hadn't started.
But the judgment already had.
The dueling yard—once a prison courtyard, once a cage—was now a battlefield. Not for armies. For symbols.
The New Romans took their side in silence. Rows of grim faces, shields grounded, eyes fixed forward. Near the center, a priest in blood-red robes began burning sage over an iron bowl, letting the smoke drift skyward as he recited something in Latin. The words were sharp and clipped, their rhythm like war drumbeats turned to prayer.
"Pro Marte. Pro Victoriam. Pro Legatum."
To Mars. To Victory. To the Legate.
I didn't need a translation. I could feel the hunger in it.
On the Kansani side, things were different. Not louder—deeper.
The chanting came low and steady. Elder Heka stood among the priests, robes layered with ash-dyed patterns, bones clicking softly at his side. They burned their own herbs—not sage, but thornroot, sunbark, and crowleaf. Smoke that smelled like scorched pine and memory.
Elder Heka stepped forward and held out a brush carved from Watcher bone.
"Hold still, Rion," he said, dipping it into a bowl of white pigment mixed from chalk, oil, and ash.
He began drawing long lines down the plates of my armor—one over the left pauldron, two across the chest, one down the center of the helmet.
"Born not to us," he murmured as he worked, "but forged beside us."
Another line, slower this time. Curved, following the edge of my ribplate.
"You spoke the First Name. You gave us Jun—not as a god, but as memory. You reminded us why we paint, why we fight, why we stand."
A final mark across the brow of the helmet. A split line, shaped like a horned eye.
"You helped drive back the mockery of Hell's Angel. Drove back his steel shadows when we thought no strength remained. Bled beside the Ashmarked. Laughed at fear. And made fear laugh back."
He stepped back and nodded to the others. More chants followed. Hands raised. Fingers brushing bone charms and carved tokens hanging from their necks.
"You are Kansani, Rion. Not by blood. But by how you burn."
He placed a final hand on my shoulder—firm, grounding.
"Let Jun see you. Let the War God watch. And if you fall today, fall roaring."
The last of the paint dried under the wind, and the smoke drifted across the battlefield.
The two sides held the yard like opposing truths.
On the far end, the New Romans stood frozen in that sculpted silence of doctrine. Their priest had finished his rites, arms raised to Mars, the sage still burning in a metal bowl by the foot of Lanius' wagon. The smoke curled upward like it didn't dare touch him. He hadn't moved since his speech. Just stood there, sword in hand, like judgment made manifest.
Our side?
We didn't need silence.
The Kansani prayed with movement. With breath. With the way they held their ground like the dirt belonged to their ancestors. Elder Heka stepped back into the line of priests, his hands now blackened from ash and oil. The smoke from their herbs mixed with the wind and crossed the yard in tendrils—just enough to sting the eyes. Just enough to remind everyone that fire had touched this place before.
And me?
I stood alone in the center now. Painted. Armed. Remembered.
Not born Kansani.
But standing like one.
Across from me, Lanius gave the faintest tilt of his head—helmet unmoving, but presence undeniable.
He wasn't impressed.
He didn't need to be.
I wasn't here to impress him.
I was here to make sure he remembered me.
Even if I died doing it.
….
We stepped into the ring.
Not fast. Not loud.
Just two men—one painted in ash, the other armored in empire—moving in deliberate arcs across the courtyard dirt. The same ground where prisoners once waited for judgment. Where Scarabs tore cell blocks like peeling fruit. Now it was something else. A circle of memory and momentum.
We started to circle.
And then, the noise came.
Not from us.
From them.
The Kansani let out a thunderclap of whoops and chants, bone charms rattling, blades struck against shields. Across the yard, the Legion answered—not with screams, but with a pounding rhythm. Shields to the ground, then lifted. Boots stomped in ritual cadence. Cold. Measured. Unflinching.
War chants from both sides collided like stormfronts.
It wasn't a war yet.
But it wanted to be.
I glanced at Lanius. Just once. Quick. No eye contact—just posture. He didn't flinch. Didn't look at the crowd. But I saw it, in the way he shifted his weight, the way his stance adjusted—just slightly—toward the noise.
He heard it. He liked it.
And I caught myself smiling, just barely.
Maybe that was the only thing we had in common.
Not our philosophy. Not our blood. Not our purpose.
But the fight?
We both lived for that.
The crowd noise dimmed in my head.
I could still hear them—Kansani chants like wild drumfire, Legion stomps like rolling thunder—but it was all behind glass now. My focus tunneled in, and all I saw was Lanius.
He moved first.
Not a feint. Not a test.
A real swing.
That colossal slab of metal he called a sword came down in a diagonal arc, carving a trench into the earth like the world had offended him. Dirt exploded. Pebbles shot past my face like shrapnel.
I wasn't there.
Dove sideways, shoulder-first, knees bending with the roll. The impact of his blade hit so hard it felt like the ground shuddered.
I didn't counter.
Didn't rush.
He was still upright. That meant he wasn't finished swinging.
He turned with the follow-through—quick, faster than someone that size should move. The sword came again in a brutal backhand, low and wide. I jumped over it, landing on my feet and stumbling back three steps.
Not clean.
Not graceful.
But alive.
Lanius didn't press. He didn't need to. He stepped forward like a collapsing wall, each footfall heavy, deliberate. His sword dragged low for a moment, then whipped up into another overhead.
I ducked.
It screamed over my head—air splitting, a pressure wave rolling off the arc.
The moment he overcommitted, I stepped in, raising my arm to drive the hilt of my machete into his ribs.
Clang.
Bad idea.
It was like hitting a wall of armored meat. He barely reacted—just grunted, twisted his shoulder, and slammed into me like a battering ram. I flew back five feet, skid-landing on my side.
Armor took most of it.
Still hurt.
I rolled onto one knee, breathing shallow, keeping my stance neutral. No signature moves yet. No tells. He was watching. Measuring.
He wasn't just big. He wasn't just strong.
He was smart.
And worse?
He'd fought Kansani before.
If I telegraphed anything—Bear Form, Wolf rhythm, even the start of a Puma pivot—he'd recognize it. Counter it. Crush it.
He rotated his sword once, slowly, like resetting a pendulum.
"Cowardice?" he asked, voice like a gravelled god.
"No," I said, standing again. "Curiosity."
He gave a slow nod. Then came again.
He came again.
A rising cleave—full-body torque behind it, sword arcing up from waist to temple. No feint this time. No disguise. Just power.
I caught it.
Steel screamed against steel as my machete met the blow, edge-on.
For half a second, I held.
Then the blade groaned.
Bent.
Cracked.
A hair-thin split raced down the spine of my weapon—and I felt it give. The machete didn't snap, but it was close. Another second, and it would've folded like scrap. The edge sparked, trembling in my grip.
I couldn't trade hits with him. Not with that blade. Not with this machete.
So I triggered it.
My thumb flicked the switch near the guard, and a blue pulse rippled down the weapon's frame. Energy bled from the embedded shock-cell, running edge to edge—until it jumped.
The arc snapped into Lanius' blade, then into him.
He roared as the jolt hit—deep, guttural, loud enough to shake dust from the walls. His back arched, arms spasming for a fraction of a second as the charge raced through his armor and into the flesh beneath. The crowd surged with noise—Legion silence breaking into confused shouts, Kansani cheers splitting the air.
I didn't wait.
I turned, snapped my wrist, and threw the blade.
It spun once—clean, end-over-end—and Sula, without hesitation, stepped forward and caught it mid-air.
Good girl.
I reached behind my hip.
Gripped something heavier.
World Cleaver.
The axe slid free from its back-lock with a hiss of vented pressure. Its weight settled into my palm like it belonged there—forward-weighted, brutal, raw. It wasn't subtle. It wasn't balanced. It was meant for one thing.
Breaking legends.
Lanius saw it. His head tilted.
The tremors in his arms faded. He rolled one shoulder, easing the tension out. Then he looked straight at the axe, and I swore I heard a smile behind that war mask.
"About time," he growled, voice rasped but steady.
"The Ironbone have tried for years to turn their precious Suncrusher into something worthy of a true duel."
He took one step forward, boots crunching earth.
"Now let us see if they succeeded."
We closed the distance.
No more circling. No more testing.
Just steel and momentum.
Lanius swung first—an overhand diagonal, the Blade of the East cutting through the air like it wanted to split the sky.
I met it head-on.
CRACK.
World Cleaver's haft shuddered in my grip as the two blades collided—metal on metal, but not like iron on iron. These weren't salvaged street swords or rebar machetes. These were crafted weapons. Dense. Forged. Engineered by tribes who had learned to kill machines, not just men.
The air rippled from the impact.
The sound alone felt like it punched through my ears, a high-pressure boom that echoed off the stone walls and slammed through my chest.
The crowd flinched.
I didn't.
But I did blink hard.
I could already feel the pressure building in my skull—like my eardrums were flexing under threat.
"Great," I muttered under my breath as I pivoted off to the side, dragging the axe in a looping guard. "Tinnitus. Again. Just like last time. Perfect."
Lanius was already moving.
Another swing—this time a low sweep.
I chopped down to intercept.
KRANG.
Another shockwave.
I felt it in my teeth. Like the world had turned into a tuning fork.
We didn't speak. Didn't posture.
We hit.
Strike after strike, trading angles and arcs—his blade fast for its size, mine heavier than it looked. World Cleaver bit deep into his gauntlet on the third clash, but his riposte almost took my knee with it. We were circling within the circle now, hammering the air, blades singing in tones that weren't meant for human ears.
On the fourth impact, a shard of stone split off the ground and whistled past my cheek.
I didn't dodge it.
I was too focused on the fifth swing.
Because that one?
That one was going to kill something if it connected.
Then it changed.
All at once, Lanius compressed.
I saw it in the shift of his stance—the subtle drop of his weight, the coiling of muscle beneath that gold-trimmed armor. Every inch of him drew inward, like a spring winding tight, every breath pulled back into the furnace of his chest.
His arms didn't just tense—they locked, thick with corded mass, his shoulders bulking like he was made of scaffolding and wrath.
It wasn't a strike.
It was a sentence.
And I had maybe half a heartbeat to register it before he unleashed.
The Blade of the East came down with all of that condensed momentum behind it—no flourish, no feint, just raw, obliterating weight.
I raised World Cleaver in both hands, bracing high, legs grounded, intent to catch it.
I did catch it.
For a second.
Then I was airborne.
The impact was apocalyptic—my axe caught the blow dead-center, and the shock didn't just rattle through my arms, it detonated through my whole frame. My boots left the earth. My lungs forgot how to work.
The entire field blurred as I flew backwards—past the inner ring, over cracked stone, into the dirt hard enough to bounce.
I hit shoulder-first, rolled, skipped once off my side like a tossed doll, and skidded to a stop face-up, blinking at the sky.
For a second, I thought the stars were still out.
Then I realized it was just the birds.
"Okay," I groaned, blinking as the taste of copper pooled in my mouth. "That's... that's fair."
Somewhere, distantly, the crowd erupted.
Kansani roars.
Legion cheers.
And Lanius?
He stood where he'd struck, sword lowered slightly now, exhaling slow. He hadn't chased me. Hadn't rushed in to finish it.
He didn't need to.
That wasn't a finisher.
That was a reset.
I stared at him—really looked—and the pieces clicked.
I should've figured it out when Jorta first mentioned the nickname. The Silver Lion. New Rome had called Lanius' daughter that, almost reverently. But I hadn't connected it then. Not fully. I thought it was just a title. A metaphor. Now, watching Lanius coil and strike like he was sculpted out of battlefield myth, it made sense.
He wasn't just strong. He was unnaturally strong.
Superman syndrome. Same as Wakatsuki Takeshi from the old Kengan series—except in Lanius' case, it wasn't televised spectacle. It was war. Same type of condition: hyperdense musculature, absurd fiber integrity, raw torque that ignored limits. Wakatsuki had been called the Tiger of Japan. Lanius? Different big cat. Same apex.
Terra did say other bloodlines were out here—legacy bodies shaped by ancient design, warped genetics, or fluke evolution. This one? This was a confirmed carrier. Lanius wasn't just disciplined. He wasn't just experienced. He was engineered by survival. His muscles had the density of reinforced cordwood, his frame forged not in gym halls or martial academies, but in kill zones and dueling pits. He had the strength of ten men—and none of the hesitation.
That last blow? It wasn't just a brute-force swing.
It was a battlefield-formed Blast Core—a variation on Wakatsuki's internal compression move, where all power condensed into a single, devastating strike. Lanius had probably figured it out without ever hearing the name. Just instinct. Trial. Blood.
It's what made him so dangerous.
He wasn't just a warrior. He was a biological siege weapon.
Jorta only survived because he was that good. Skill to match force. The precision of a thousand fights against the weight of a thousand kills.
I pushed myself up on one arm, coughed once, and felt my ribs argue.
"This is gonna hurt," I muttered.
Then I smiled.
Because I was still standing.
And he hadn't seen everything yet.
I felt the shift before I even finished standing.
The click in my chest. The surge behind my eyes. That pressure in the back of the skull that always came just before the drop.
I triggered it.
Release.
The Kure technique wasn't magic. It wasn't divine. It was violence made efficient. A biological override—muscle limiters shut off, adrenaline spiked, blood thickened and surged with every beat like a war drum trying to break out of my chest. My pulse quickened. My vision sharpened. My veins felt like cables under my skin.
I moved.
No warning. No wind-up. Just gone—blasted off like I'd been fired out of a cannon, dirt exploding behind me in a burst of raw torque.
Lanius didn't have time to adjust.
My knee slammed into the underside of his helmet—direct, crushing into that sculpted metal beard with a crack that echoed across the yard. You could hear it dent. Not just ring. Cave.
He staggered.
First time I'd seen it. The Legion's war god stumbled back a step, hands reflexively grabbing at his face. Blood traced down the gaps in the helmet's lower guard as the contorted metal dug into the skin beneath.
He snarled.
Then reached up and ripped the thing off.
The helm went flying—bounced once, twice, and rolled to a stop like a slain beast's head.
His face was a map of old violence. Scarred, weathered, brutal. No illusions left now. Just raw humanity carved into legend.
He grinned at me, lips peeling back over broken teeth and stitched lips that hadn't healed right.
"Now that's more like it, whelp," he growled, voice no longer regal—just real.
And for the first time…
He looked happy.
He wanted more?
Good.
Because I wasn't holding back anymore.
The limiter was off, and I could feel it—each pulse slamming through my body like a war drum trying to shake my ribs apart. The ground didn't feel solid anymore. It felt slow. Like the world had forgotten how to keep up.
I surged forward.
No plan. Just momentum.
Lanius raised his sword again, but I was already inside it—ducking under the arc, twisting left, then pivoting hard into a shoulder-check that sent a shock through his ribcage. He braced better this time, grunting as his boots carved a trench in the dust, but I didn't stop.
One step became three.
Three became a blur.
I twisted into a wide haymaker, fist clenched like a wrecking ball, slamming into the side of his jaw. Scar tissue split. He grinned wider.
Then his elbow came back—short, brutal, meant to shatter teeth.
I dropped just in time and countered with a rising elbow of my own, cracking into his chin. His head snapped back.
He didn't fall.
Of course he didn't.
But he rocked.
And I was already moving again—feinting a low kick, then pivoting into a hammer-fist swing with World Cleaver that aimed straight for his knee. It connected. Not clean, not deep—but hard enough to make the giant wince.
He retaliated instantly, his sword crashing down in a massive vertical cleave.
I barely spun out of the way—metal tearing past my side close enough to shear the edge of my coat.
The follow-up would've crushed me, but I got low and drove a punch straight into his gut. It was like hitting a slab of muscle-wrapped stone. But the force was there. It pushed him.
That's when I knew he could bleed.
Not just drip.
Bleed.
We were past form now. Past discipline. This wasn't martial arts.
It was instinct. Carnage. Whiplash fury.
I landed another blow—knee to the thigh, elbow to the throat, a wide hook with the flat of World Cleaver to the ribs.
Every strike was faster than the last.
Not because I was thinking better.
Because I wasn't thinking.
The Kure release burned thought out of me and left only will. Will to move. Will to hit. Will to break the man who'd launched me like a toy ten minutes ago.
Lanius staggered again, breathing harder now, blood slicking his lips. One eye swelling. The cuts across his face painted him like a second war mask.
He exhaled—and laughed.
Not a chuckle. A full laugh, like we were sharing drinks after the slaughter.
"This is what I wanted," he rasped. "A real damn fight."
He charged.
And I met him head-on.
Lanius wasn't done.
He adjusted. Adapted. Like the battlefield taught him every time someone lived long enough to matter.
His next swing wasn't wild—it was targeted. A calculated feint to bait my dodge, followed by a punishing shoulder-check that caught me mid-pivot. The breath ripped out of me as I stumbled back, ribs screaming.
Then his hand was on me.
He didn't strike with the blade—he grabbed under the edge of my helmet, fingers locking into the seam just beneath the jawline, and ripped.
The clasps snapped. The reinforced neck guard peeled like tin.
And suddenly, my world was light and air and shrapnel—my helmet flew skyward, spinning once before arcing toward the Kansani side of the yard.
One of the younger warriors leapt up and caught it with both hands—stared at it like it was a relic—then immediately turned and handed it off to Sula, who gripped it with a quiet kind of reverence. Her jaw clenched, but she didn't call out.
Didn't need to.
Because the yard had gone quiet.
They could see me now.
No more war paint. No ceremonial shell. Just me.
Skin flushed with a violet cast, like the blood beneath had stopped pretending to be human. Veins pulsing thick along my neck and jaw, like dark cords. And my eyes—jet black, glossy, reflecting the firelight and nothing else.
Not tribal.
Not natural.
Not normal.
Lanius stared for a moment. Then nodded slowly, the edges of his split lip tugging into a small, grim smile.
"Ah," he said, voice dark with something like realization. "So you carry demon blood. That explains why they chose you."
He looked past me, toward the Kansani, toward the shamans and the priests and the fire-bearers lining the ridge.
"I faced one like you before," he continued, his tone drifting half into memory. "Further east. Clan living in the mountains. Deep range. Remote. Isolated. Strong like beasts. Eyes like yours. Veins like black rope."
He rolled his shoulder, cracking the joint. "I killed their elder in a duel. They scattered like dust in wind."
His eyes met mine again.
"I wonder… are you one of their lost children?"
I shook my head, blood sliding down my cheek.
"No," I said. "I'm not one of theirs."
I flexed my fingers around World Cleaver's grip. "My situation's… unique."
Then I let the words hang for a beat longer—before adding, almost casually:
"But thanks for the intel."
I grinned.
"Good to know they're still out there."
Lanius didn't hesitate.
Neither did I.
The air between us was still thick with the echo of his question—his speculation about my blood, my past—but none of that mattered now. Not to him. Not to me. Not when the space between us collapsed in a blur of motion and intent.
We clashed again.
Steel met steel. Again. Again. Again.
But this time, it was different.
Now he knew what I was. Or at least, what I looked like. Whatever myth he'd filed me under—demon blood, mountain clan remnant, chosen blade of the Kansani—he wasn't pulling punches anymore. The weight behind each swing doubled. Each strike became a declaration.
I will break you, no matter what monster they send.
I answered with speed.
Not finesse. Not precision.
Speed.
The Kure release still burned through me like overclocked fire. Every tendon felt like coiled wire, every step came a beat faster than it should've. I ducked under a horizontal swing meant to cut me in half, slid in low, and hammered a backfist into Lanius' kidney.
He grunted—but didn't fall.
Instead, he twisted with that monstrous torque of his and caught me across the side with a forearm the size of a support beam.
Crack.
I flew—short, shallow this time. Landed on my feet, skidded sideways, and sprang forward before he could reset.
I aimed for the throat.
He brought his gauntlet up to block, and my knee crunched into metal plating. It dented, but didn't give. I followed with a left elbow, a right hook, a low kick to the side of his knee.
He caught my ankle.
And threw me.
I flipped mid-air—barely—and landed in a crouch, sliding back across the gravel, breath ragged.
We stared at each other.
He was bleeding now. Cuts on his arms. A split near his eye. Bruising deep along his jaw.
So was I.
But neither of us moved back.
Not an inch.
Then, without a word, we charged.
And the next round began.
We collided like titans—no words, no chants, no ceremony.
Just pain.
Lanius led with a diagonal slash, that monstrous blade of his howling through the air like it wanted to split the horizon. I moved to parry—but I was a half-beat too late. His edge caught the inside of my right arm just below the shoulder.
Steel kissed flesh.
Ripped.
The pain was white-hot, immediate. I felt the cut go deep—too deep. Blood sprayed from the edge of my bicep, arcing in the air like a war banner unraveling. My fingers clenched on instinct, nerves flaring, grip faltering.
But I didn't stop.
I used the momentum—spun into it—let the torque of my stagger carry the axe in a wide arc as I twisted low, dragging World Cleaver in a brutal half-circle and driving it up into Lanius' thigh.
Thunk.
The head of the axe buried into muscle and armor with a sickening crunch—deep, brutal, a clean, solid hit. I felt resistance, then give. The vibration traveled up the haft into my bones. He barked—a sharp sound, more frustration than agony—but his leg buckled.
He stumbled back, dragging my axe with him, leaving a gash in the meat of his thigh and a streak of dark blood across the dirt.
I staggered too, clutching my right arm, blood hot and fast down my elbow. My pulse slammed against my ribs. Vision swam. Couldn't tell if it was adrenaline or blood loss.
Lanius reached down and yanked the axe out of his leg—tossed it aside with a grimace, blood pouring down his armor like warpaint.
We stood there, panting, painted in red.
My arm was half-useless.
His leg was compromised.
The balance had shifted.
And neither of us gave a damn.
Lanius stared at the blood leaking down his thigh, pooling in his boot, soaking into the earth like tribute.
Then, without a word, he threw his sword.
Not at me.
Away.
The Blade of the East clattered across the dueling yard, biting into the dirt with a finality that said exactly what he couldn't: he couldn't swing it anymore. Not properly. His stance was off. The damage to his leg too deep, too raw. That weapon—his myth—was now dead weight.
So he stood there. Empty hands. Bent knee. Still dangerous.
I understood what that meant.
It was time.
I stepped forward slowly and rolled my right shoulder—hissing through my teeth as the cut throbbed—then lowered into stance. Weight centered. Feet light. Arms raised just below the chin, one slightly forward, open-palm baiting. Breath steady.
Jorta's stance.
Low center of gravity. Subtle shifts. Forward pressure disguised behind relaxed posture.
Lanius saw it immediately.
His bloodied lip curled into something almost like a smile. "So that's why," he muttered.
He didn't clarify.
He didn't need to.
I saw it in his eyes. Saw the way he looked at me—really looked now. Not like an intruder. Not like an insult. But like a warrior carrying something sacred.
He glanced toward the Kansani line, toward Sula—still standing tall, her hand tight around the helmet I no longer wore.
"I see now," he said, voice low but resonant. "You let the girl hold your steel. Not because she commands you. But because you trust her. Jorta's blood… and his choice."
He stepped into stance as best he could, the weight of his damaged leg making it awkward, but not weak.
"You're his heir."
The words weren't meant to praise.
They were meant to clarify.
To make this fight make sense.
He straightened a little more, blood still dripping, teeth bared in something that sat between a grin and a war cry.
"Then maybe…" he exhaled, slow and steady, hands rising, body squared.
"You are the fight I've been waiting for."
I didn't answer.
I just moved.
And the final round began.
We collided like two war gods abandoned by their pantheons.
No blades.
No armor.
Just fists, fury, and whatever bones we hadn't broken yet.
My first strike was a right hook—short, tight, straight to the temple. Lanius ate it, grunted, and slammed his forehead into my nose. I felt cartilage bend, blood flood down my lip. Didn't matter. I grabbed the back of his head and drove a knee into his gut.
Thud.
He let out a ragged breath—but then he caught my leg mid-knee and hurled me backward with a scream that shook the yard. I hit the dirt hard, skidding across gravel and grit. My skin tore in strips across my shoulder.
He limped forward, fast as his ruined leg could manage, and I met him halfway. No pause.
I swung low. He blocked.
I pivoted and threw an elbow under his chin. Crack.
He staggered.
I wrapped his torso and drove us both into the ground—grappled on top, fists raining down. My knuckles broke on his jaw. I felt something snap in my hand, but I kept swinging.
He roared and bit me.
Fucker bit me.
His teeth tore into my shoulder like an animal—flesh ripping, blood spurting.
I screamed, headbutted him twice—first to break the grip, second to pay him back.
He threw me off with a savage twist, scrambled to his feet, and lunged. I barely ducked under a wild haymaker and countered with a rib-breaking body shot.
I felt it crack. Bone splintered under the force.
But he kept coming.
A left cross from him caught my jaw—BOOM—the world spun sideways and I hit the dirt again.
Vision blurred. Taste of blood in my mouth. Copper and grit.
Then he was on me. Big as a house. Hands like anvils.
He slammed a forearm into my throat—once, twice—trying to crush the breath out of me.
I raked his eyes. Thumbed his face. Gouged until I felt skin tear.
He reeled back just enough.
I twisted under him and drove an elbow into the side of his knee.
Crunch.
He collapsed.
I mounted again, this time more brutal—no technique now, just rage. I punched until my hand didn't feel like a hand anymore. Until bone met bone, and skin peeled, and the impact splashed blood into my face with every hit.
His face was a ruin.
So was mine.
We were tearing each other apart by inches, by heartbeats, by will alone.
No more crowd.
No more chants.
Just the sound of two monsters breaking each other.
And neither one willing to fall.
I don't know when I stopped thinking and just became the violence.
My fists rose and fell like pistons, hammering into Lanius' face over and over, each strike duller than the last—not because I slowed down, but because my hands were breaking. Knuckles split. Metacarpals shattered. I felt the bones in my right hand fold inward on impact, grinding like crushed glass inside my flesh.
Didn't stop.
Left hand went next—three more hits before it gave out. I felt it snap, felt tendons scream and cartilage rupture. Blood sprayed from Lanius' mouth, from his nose, from cuts splitting open across his skull. His face was pulp and scar tissue and defiance.
He didn't move.
But he wasn't dead.
So I kept going.
The pain became background noise. Irrelevant.
I gritted my teeth, reared back, and slammed what was left of my wrist—not as a punch, but as a spike—straight down into his throat.
And that's when I felt it.
The jagged tip of my shattered radius pierced through skin, muscle, and then—
Flesh gave.
There was a horrible, wet crunch as the bone buried deep into the side of his neck, just under the angle of the jaw. Blood erupted like a fountain—hot, arterial, violent.
Lanius' body jerked—a final, instinctual convulsion, legs kicking once, arms twitching like they still had orders to follow.
Then stillness.
Real stillness.
My hands were ruined. Mangled slabs of meat hanging off shattered wrists, caked in blood that wasn't all his.
I sat back slowly, chest heaving, heart thundering in my ears.
He was dead.
The Beast of the East.
The Blade of New Rome.
Felled not by style.
Not by form.
But by the refusal to stop.
I looked down at what was left of him—his ruined face, his throat slicked with the blood of a hundred victories that weren't enough.
Then I looked at my own hands.
And laughed.
Just once.
Because of course it ended like this.
I stumbled back from the body, breathing hard, hands dangling like shattered tools at the end of twitching wrists. Every pulse was a flare of agony, every nerve a siren. Blood dripped freely, trailing down my forearms in thick, red ropes.
"Sula," I rasped, turning slightly toward the Kansani line. "My pack. Right side. Two stimpaks. Top pocket."
She was already rushing toward me, helmet in one hand, concern written all over her face.
"Wait—wait, let me get Curie," she said, dropping to her knees beside me. "She needs to look at this. Your hands—Rion, they're mangled. You could—"
"Sula," I interrupted, voice low but steady. "If we wait, I might lose them. Tendons are already pulling apart. Bones are close to necrotic pressure. Just…" I winced, swallowed down the pain. "Just stab the damn things in. I'll have Curie fix whatever's left later."
She hesitated, eyes scanning my ruined fingers. Then she grit her teeth, pulled the stimpaks out, and positioned them—one above each wrist joint.
"You're insane," she muttered.
"Accurate."
"This is going to hurt."
"I already punched a warlord to death with two broken hands. I think I'm past my pain threshold."
She didn't smile.
Then, without ceremony, she jabbed the first stimpak into my left wrist.
Click-hiss.
The compound entered fast—a chemical rush flooding the joint. I screamed through clenched teeth as my hand jerked, bones snapping back into place with a series of sickening pops and crunches. Muscle reknitted itself in real time, heat blooming under the skin like fire.
Before I could finish screaming, the second one hit.
Same process. Same awful noises. My right hand convulsed, knuckles cracking like firewood in a furnace. Flesh twitched and pulled itself together like it had a deadline.
And then… stillness.
My hands were whole again.
Shaky. Swollen.
But mine.
Sula stared at me, exasperated. "You absolute idiot."
"Hey, I lived."
"You punched through your own skeleton."
I shrugged, still panting. "It worked."
She crossed her arms. "When we get back, you and I are going to have a very long talk."
I leaned back, gave her the most pathetic grin I could manage.
"Yes, dear."
She rolled her eyes so hard I swore I heard it.
But she stayed right next to me.
And didn't let go of my hand.
….
In the crumbling remains of a guard tower—half-collapsed and hollowed by time—a man stood beneath the rusted beams, high above the dueling yard. He hadn't moved during the fight. Hadn't flinched when Lanius fell. He simply watched, arms folded, cloak stirring faintly in the dry wind.
He simply observed.
He was of mixed African and Asian heritage, he stood draped in layered cloth—dust-worn, sun-bleached, and heavy with silence. The stars of a forgotten flag faded across his shoulder like a memory that refused to die. His expression was unreadable—neither cold nor kind. Just patient.
He was known only as Ulysses a name whispered between warbands and scattered travelers. A name that drifted from tribe to tribe like smoke—untethered to any banner, loyal to none.
Some said he was a ghost.
Others said he was a historian.
A few called him a mistake the Old World forgot to bury.
He said nothing to confirm or deny any of it.
His gaze remained on the bloodied yard where Rion knelt, stimpaks hissing into his shattered wrists, surrounded by ash-marked warriors and a roaring tide of legacy. The air was thick with chants, pain, and the kind of silence that only follows myth.
Ulysses watched it all in stillness.
Then, finally, he spoke to no one—voice quiet, graveled, and soaked in long memory.
"Every empire falls to a child they never expected."
He stepped away from the edge.
"Legion. Kansani. Doesn't matter. All things burn in time. What matters is who remembers the fire."
He made his way down the cracked stairs of the tower, boots crunching on old steel, coat brushing the walls like faded flags.
At the base, waiting in the shadow of twisted rebar and sun-baked stone, stood a lone Strider—its chassis dusted with desert grit, optics dim and obedient. It didn't bray or fidget like the wild ones. Its posture was still, controlled, precise.
The moment Ulysses reached the ground, it stepped forward and lowered itself instinctively.
He placed a calm hand on the side of its head.
"Easy now," he murmured. "We've seen enough blood for one day."
He mounted with the ease of a man who had done it a thousand times.
Before riding off, he cast one last look toward the yard—toward the boy with demon-blooded veins and shattered hands mended by fire and fury.
A quiet smile ghosted across his lips.
"So the Witness walks forward. Good."
He pulled his hood up. The Strider turned.
And they vanished into the broken horizon.