The moment the Shadrith slammed into the stone wall, a low crack echoed through the pit. Then another. Fractures spiderwebbed across its glistening, malformed spine as if the earth itself rejected its presence. Bones buckled inward. Limbs twisted at unnatural angles. No scream, no dying howl. It simply crumbled, like wood left to rot in silence, falling piece by piece into a broken heap, whispering across the dirt like dry leaves in winter.
The torches around the arena flickered, shadows dancing against the blood-smeared walls. For a second, no one moved. A hush heavier than death itself descended, drawn out like the held breath before a burial.
Joselyn stood frozen in the epicenter of it all. His chest rose and fell in ragged pulls, but it wasn't exhaustion that made his limbs tremble. It was something deeper. Older. Something alive in his blood that no longer obeyed the rhythm of his heart. It pulsed with a foreign cadence, like a heartbeat he'd never known he had. As though the stars themselves had spilled into his veins and now raged to be unshackled.
A voice broke the stillness. One cheer. Fragile, as if afraid to be alone. Then another, louder. Then dozens. The silence shattered under the weight of human awe.
"Alveretta!"
"The Flower Prince!"
The crowd roared his name, an outpouring of reverence that felt far too heavy for his shoulders. Applause thundered through the pit like a second heartbeat. One that didn't belong to him.
He stumbled back, unable to meet their eyes. Their celebration was suffocating. He hadn't slain a beast; he had crushed something that didn't belong in this world's order and yet they praised him for it. For violence. For destruction.
It pleased him in an unatural manner. Like deep within him, he wanted this. To be praised for destruction.
He couldn't stop thinking about the man who had shoved him in. The panic in Lucia's gasp still echoed in his skull. Her arms had been outstretched. Her face twisted in helplessness. She had tried to reach him before the fall.
His fists curled.
The crowd blurred into meaningless color and sound as he forced his way out. Hands clung to him, grasping, celebrating, worshipping. But his vision tunneled, narrowing to one pale, shrinking figure at the edge of the crowd.
The drunk.
He backed away the moment their eyes met, the color draining from his cheeks. "I—I didn't mean nothing by it," he stammered, tripping over himself. "It was a joke. A joke, that's all."
Joselyn stalked forward, each step loud enough to shake the pitmaster's platform. The man fell backward into the dirt, arms up in surrender, eyes wide with horror.
"You smiled when I fell," Joselyn muttered, his voice low and feral, barely his own.
"I was drunk. I didn't think. You're palace-born. I'm just—no one. I—I didn't mean—"
"I could've died… Lucia could've died… does seeing the death of children, even if they are royalty, please you?!" I shouted. Grabbing the man's collar and gripping it tight. Even tighter if possible.
Joselyn raised his arm. He didn't know what he meant to do. Slap him? Beat him? Tear him apart? The Blessing inside him surged with anticipation. It wasn't content to lie dormant anymore. It begged for justice. Retribution. Pain.
But then… a hand. Light, but firm. Lucia's.
"Joselyn," she whispered.
He didn't look at her.
"He could've killed me and you!"
"And if you strike him now," she said, calm but unyielding, "you'll kill him. And you'll live to regret it."
His breath stilled. He let his arm fall. The man scampered away like a rat being released from the paws of a cat.
Lucia stayed beside him, saying nothing more. She didn't need to. Her presence did what no crowd could: it anchored him.
But the silence was not allowed to last.
"Let the boy fight again!" someone bellowed.
"Look at him! That's no prince—that's a god!"
The pitmaster rose, face flushed with joy and greed. "Who challenges the prince next?"
Lucia turned to Joselyn, her face lined with worry. "Your hands… they're—Joselyn, they're glowing." She blinked, as if realizing the words as she spoke them. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought you here."
He looked down. Emberlight shimmered across his knuckles, red veins glowing beneath skin like magma under stone. The warmth didn't burn, but it vibrated with hunger.
Like the hunger of a desperately starved animal waiting to pounce on eager prey.
"I need to understand this," Joselyn said, voice steady now. "It's my blessing. Thanks to the Savior, I must understand it more, Lucia. It's exactly what we wanted!"
She hesitated. Then nodded. "One more."
The crowd parted as his next opponent emerged. A brute of a man, muscles stacked like fortress walls, each scar a story of conquest. Twin iron claymores rattled on his back as he cracked his neck, eyes locked on Joselyn like prey.
"They want me to kill a prince?" he laughed, stepping into the pit. "Fine. Let's see if it's true that the royals bleed gold."
The brute took out his Twin iron claymores and smirked. This was all just a game to him. So was it to Joselyn. That's where the excitement comes in.
The pure ecstasy of a battle that Joselyn all so adored and wish he could experience constantly.
They circled.
He lunged. Joselyn moved. Fluid, precise. Sparks stirred in his legs, each movement feeding the emberstorm in his body. The second strike was wider. Joselyn slipped beneath it, the energy compounding, rippling beneath his skin like a drumroll before a storm.
He waited.
Then struck.
One fist. One release. The man flew back as if yanked by a god's hand. He didn't rise.
"I get it now… it's like a piston…" Joselyn muttered as he shook off his arm.
The next challenger was quicker. A woman cloaked in dark silks, her steel-link whip hissing through the air like a serpent. She didn't smile. Her eyes read Joselyn with surgical precision.
He's building energy, she thought. He's not reckless. He's storing it. It functions like a spring.
The second the ball rang that signaled the start of the battle, the woman had already sliced Joselyn's shoulder. A deep wound that would need stitches without a doubt.
Again, his thigh.
The third strike nearly snagged his wrist, but he twisted his waist just in time, and that twist fed the fire.
Then he spun. A burning leg sliced through the air without precision, striking with the force of something otherworldly. The whip-wielding woman collapsed before the pain even reached her mind. She raised her trembling hand in surrender.
Then the last opponent stepped into the arena.
No name. No weapons. Silver armor dulled with ash. A scarf masked his face.
He walked like a phantom, silent and measured. His thoughts were not violent, but analytical. The boy isn't fighting. He's surviving. Reacting. The Blessing… it's symbiotic.
"Hm. You have a Luminary Blessing don't you?" Joselyn questioned before the bell rang. The way the opponent just examined him. It felt like he was examining his body to an absolute point.
They clashed.
Fast. Brutal. The man's strikes were deliberate, never wasted. Joselyn's lip split. His ribs screamed. But he kept moving, absorbing pain like breath. The Blessing fed off every blow like a starving beast, refining its edge.
Joselyn dropped low, slid past a feint. Storing the movement from before and drove his elbow into the man's back. Fire burst from the impact. The man staggered and stopped. He raised his hand.
Yield.
But it felt like the opponent still had the will to fight in him. Joselyn wondered why he just gave up after he only hit him once. But the though didn't stay.
By then, the first rays of sunlight breached the horizon.
The crowd surged like a tide. Coins rained down. Trinkets. Flowers. A hundred voices chanting his name but they sounded distant, warped.
Then Lucia was beside him again.
Her hands gripped his shoulders. Her eyes were wet.
"You're shaking," she said, trembling herself. "You need to stop."
Joselyn looked at her, at his fists. Still faintly glowing. The warmth ebbed. The trembling didn't.
They left the pit together, riding the horse Lucia had bribed for with that Saphire.
They rode together in silence, the sky painting gold across their skin. Finally, Lucia turned.
"You were amazing," she said, softly.
Joselyn didn't look at her. His voice was even.
"Was I scary?"
She didn't answer right away.
"No," she whispered. "But you didn't feel like you."
He nodded.
Because she was right.
This Blessing that Joselyn had been given by the Savior… it was like it had taken his ambition to fight and multiplied it by 1000%. Joselyn felt it in his bones and knew well.
This fire to fight wouldn't cool down. Not now or anytime soon.