Later, beneath the rain, Rita parried yet another strike from a formidable warrior of the Clan of the Earth. Unfortunately for him, his opponent was not in the mood to hold back. Even though the fight was close, Rita managed to deflect his blade, throwing him off balance. In a fraction of a second, his head was severed by a strike too fast for him to react to. Just like that, a great man lost his life.
The rain fell violently, as if it wanted to reveal the massacre that had taken place that day. Rita had killed the entire wave of warriors. None remained in the area. For hours she had cut, struck, drowned them in the few puddles that had formed, crushed them under debris, stabbed them through the heart and more. Now, under the rain, there was only blood running across the ground, mixing with the falling water.
Reno struck his last opponent with his club. Although he did not automatically kill his enemies, he had to admit with sadness that Rita did.
The bodies of warriors now filled the area like a graveyard without graves. A dumping ground of corpses, catacombs on the surface.
Rita lifted her head and then looked at Reno with a faint smile.
"It had to come out."
Reno saw that small smile. She was not as radiant as the first day he had met her. Her blond hair no longer shone like the sun as it usually did. But her face was joyful. With a heavy price, she had finally accepted her painful destiny.
Reno watched her smile for a long minute, captivated by her sudden joy in the middle of all that blood. She no longer shone, yet she still smiled. Reno was satisfied.
"Good, princess. Let's go take back your throne."
"Yes…"
Together, they left, heading toward the center of the arena.
Behind them, the footsteps of Armes echoed beneath the rain. The Valon clan had to clean the place.
At Armes's side, a woman appeared and bowed slightly.
"Do you think they'll succeed?"
Armes watched the couple walking away in the distance, his gaze empty, before answering:
"I don't know. But one thing is certain—"
"They will enter history."
After a long month of fighting and killing, Rita and Reno finally reached the throne.
The capital was overflowing with warriors. It was horrifying. At every corner, at every step, there was a fight. It had become more a battle of endurance than a physical one. No one even knew where they could rest. Weapons littered the ground everywhere there was solid footing.
There were knives, chains, metal balls the size of a man, shields, spears, swords—long ones, heavy ones, curved ones—daggers, and many others that Reno sometimes picked up on a whim just to test every kind of weapon.
The arena truly lived up to its name. In a single month, Reno had seen more warriors than he had ever encountered in his entire life. There were even entire clans that attacked them. But fortunately, the aces of their generation always managed to survive.
There were even times when the Ogre of Nozras and the last of the Obu had to withdraw from certain battles, too exhausted to keep up the pace in the middle of the chaos. It hurt Reno deeply—he never ran from a fight. But even staying just five small meters away from the battle to recover for thirty seconds displeased him greatly.
Rita, on the other hand, had no problem making tactical retreats, sometimes taking advantage of confusion and disorder to eliminate as many warriors as possible.
In truth, they could have gone straight to the throne, avoiding most battles and fights. But strangely, the most direct path was also the most crowded with warriors more ruthless than the last. No one was allowed to pass.
At one point, during a fight where Rita was battling a warrior from the north, her opponent never took her eyes off her, carefully observing every detail of her body.
Then, when the two separated after crossing blades for what felt like the thousandth time, she addressed Rita, her cold gaze and dry voice barely heard beneath the rain.
"I know you. You are the last of the Obu. Your reputation precedes you. They say your husband has the strength of Nozras, and that you hold his intelligence and his killer instinct. I can confirm it now. Your eyes are like mine. You didn't have an easy life, did you?"
The warrior looked at Rita, her long black hair dancing under the wind and rain. She had lost one eye, a terrible scar marking the side of her face. Her armor was not made of metal but of light copper plates covering her shoulders, legs, and torso. She wore black trousers that looked strangely like an old model, torn and soaked through. Her dark blue tunic blended into the evening atmosphere while the clouds hid the moonlight.
But what Rita noticed most was her gaze.
She had seen many different looks in her life. Admiration, compassion, disgust, sadness, hatred, joy...
But that day, she saw something else for the first time:
Identification.
It was the same.
The same look she herself had worn at the beginning of her journey, before meeting Reno. This warrior had reached this place without ever knowing anything different.
Rita felt compassion.
"That's true. But I found someone who was able to change that."
The warrior's dark and empty expression did not change. In a flash, she disappeared from her position and reappeared before Rita, blade in hand.
"I know."
Later, Rita left her for dead on the ground of the capital—along with another facet of life she had thought she would never witness.
It was the Dan clan that stood against them last. And the leader of that clan was none other than Zvrag.
Zvrag sat there, motionless upon his throne. He had been seated there for three days now. No one had reached the self-proclaimed new king for seventy-two hours. Zvrag had taken the throne with his powerful clan, known for its wisdom and its deadly strategies. But a couple had broken through their last defense.
Zvrag's short reign was now threatened.
Reno arrived with his usual wide smile, his face gradually appearing, that bright grin shining beneath the gray sky.
"Are you Zvrag? I suppose you are. You're sitting in my seat."
"That's my seat, darling. You can sit next to me if you want, but not there."
"Oh, come on, don't make things complicated. Worst case, we'll both sit on it."
"Temporary solution. I accept."
Rita stepped forward first toward the new king, determined to make him step down from his throne. Reno had no intention of letting her take the lead alone and followed right behind her.
Zvrag slowly lifted his head and watched the couple approaching.
"I see. I will have to stand up once again to show you who the new king is."
"Dan has already fallen, idiot. You won't last either."
Zvrag grabbed the long staff beside him and spun it rapidly in his hands.
"We'll see about that...."
Zvrag had fallen onto his own throne.
Blood slowly flowed from his mouth. The blows from Rita and Reno had simply been absurd. He had heard about them when he had climbed onto the throne: a devastating young couple who had slain the beast of Ouhkor, massacred the three clans of the Lost Shore, and who were literally invincible in the capital. Such domination made no sense. Zvrag and his clan had been the last to accomplish such a feat.
Now, Zvrag had been removed from the throne by Reno.
Reno was the one handling the task of taking him down.
"Damn… he's heavy."
Rita, beside him, encouraged her husband.
"He's just a man, you know. You've carried heavier than that."
"It's probably the fatigue."
Reno gently and respectfully moved Zvrag's body aside and leaned against the throne to recover. Then he looked at the view that the king's seat offered him.
Rita watched him for a moment and sighed.
"You can sit, you know."
Reno looked at her with surprise, then sighed as well before jumping onto the throne.
Immediately, a strange sensation ran through his body.
He felt light. So light. As if the entire weight of his body had been lifted away. As if all his battles were passing before his eyes before fading away. As if the world itself had stopped turning.
It was a strange sensation. A new one.
He didn't know if it was joy, relief, ecstasy, regret…
Everything felt too new, and his heart refused to stop beating.
An expression appeared on his face that remained an absolute mystery to Rita. Without even looking at her, while watching the sun rise in front of him, he said in a trembling voice:
"Did I really do it, Rita?"
Rita didn't know what to say. Reno's face looked both sad and happy at the same time. A strange mixture she had never seen on him before.
And above all, it was the first time she had ever seen him trembling.
"Yes… you won."
At her words, tears fell from Reno's eyes.
It was strange to see him cry. But he wasn't sad. Quite the opposite—he was extremely happy. By sitting on that throne, he had confirmed to the world that he was the strongest man alive.
The great Ogre of Nozras cried like a child, bent over himself.
"Do you want to try it, Rita? It's amazing."
"No need. You look happy sitting there."
Reno remained there for a long time, tears falling from his eyes without him being able to stop them.
When he finally calmed down, he offered the seat to Rita. But she looked at the throne for a long minute before refusing to sit on it.
"What? But why?"
"I don't want to be associated with Nozras and fulfill the twisted will of my mother. If she had at least loved me and raised me properly, I could have carried out her dream without a problem. But now I can't. It would mean she was right."
Reno stared at her with great confusion… then smiled.
"Yeah, you're right. Makes sense."
"Besides, I never really wanted to sit on that cursed throne."
"Hey… watch how you talk about my chair."
"Yes, yes. Sorry."
It was the end of the quest.
It was the end of the battle.
They had won.
They had reached the end.
Before them stood the ruined city, the countless battles, the rising sun, the clashing weapons, the cries of warriors, and finally the ultimate sensation of having reached the summit of the world.
The throne of Nozras—the ultimate reward for any warrior.
They were the strongest.
But it was more than that.
They were the rulers...