In the darkness before dawn, Angron stood before the great gate.
Not every duel was a fight to the death. Although the High Knights were merciless, they needed a steady number of gladiators to keep the bloodthirsty crowds entertained.
Thus, most matches ended with one side's surrender.
Angron was the sole exception. Every one of his battles ended only in death. The High Knights wove their matches carefully to ensure it, yet somehow, he always defied death itself.
"You…" a gladiator stammered, raising both hands, "We're not enemies. Not this time."
"I am Angron."
"Lain." The man's shoulders loosened at the name. "I've heard of you. You saved many people. Thank you."
Angron watched the man's awkward lips move, then said, "I had a brother once, his name was also Lain."
"Really? What did he look like?"
"Taller. Stronger. Better than you."
"That so?" Lain chuckled weakly, running his fingers over the scar on his face. "Hope he wasn't a slave."
The tension slowly faded. Lain hefted his spear. "Do you know who we're fighting this time?"
"Maybe beastmen," another gladiator said.
"Last time it was two beastmen against a dozen of us. Only a third made it out alive."
"Could be worse this time. We all know the High Knights want him dead."
The group fell silent again. They didn't know whether being placed in Angron's match was fortune or doom.
On one hand, there was something instinctively likable about him; he wasn't a slave, yet he fought again and again as a free man, and he'd saved many others.
He fought rarely, but never once had he lost. Every match he entered was a death match.
To fight beside him was like glimpsing an oasis amid a storm of sand… yet what awaited beyond was a blood-soaked maelstrom that terrified even the most seasoned fighters.
"How many will die this time?" murmured a girl.
"No one will die. Trust me." Angron laid his hand gently on her trembling shoulder. His voice was steel tempered in fire, ringing through the blood-scented air.
"No matter who we face," said Lain, "we follow your command."
The others nodded. To survive, they had no choice but to trust Angron.
The gate creaked open, the first sliver of light bleeding through the gap.
Angron stepped once more onto the blood-soaked red sand, joining a dozen others for another deadly match.
But this time, their opponent was neither beastman nor monster; it was a frail, half-naked woman.
Even the youngest gladiator could have bested her, yet the High Knights never arranged mismatched duels; imbalance made poor entertainment.
Angron's gaze fell to her throat, where a humming metal collar clung to her neck.
It was one of the High Knights' devices for restraining and torturing psykers, technology from the Dark Age.
She was a psyker.
That single word was enough to damn her, a being who could slaughter every gladiator there if her powers broke free.
"Back off!" Angron barked.
The others obeyed without hesitation, spreading out to the edges of the arena.
Only Angron remained in the center, his boots dragging long lines in the sand as he advanced on the trembling woman.
"Calm yourself. I'm here to help."
Her face twisted with agony. She was like every other soul thrown into this pit, captured, tormented, forced to perform for the amusement of monsters in the stands.
She didn't want to kill. But the collar lashed her with pain every moment she resisted. Killing was the only way to stop it.
"Don't be afraid. I'm here."
Angron reached into her mind, absorbing the torment meant for her. His face contorted with shared pain.
"Control it. Control your power. Don't hurt anyone."
Each step he took burned deeper into the sand. The collar's vibration grew wilder until, with a flash of sparks, Angron grasped it with one hand, and crushed it.
The shrieking metal twisted and warped in his palm, molten fragments spattering the ground. For the first time, she drew a breath of free air.
"Sleep now."
He closed her eyes, forcing her into peaceful unconsciousness. She was too exhausted to even dream.
"You must kill her! This is a death match! You profane the sacred duel!"
Angron lifted his head. The floating Eye of the Maggot stared back at him. The announcer's voice screamed from within, but Angron ignored it.
This time, the crowd did not cheer.
Once again, Angron had saved everyone, but among the saved was a witch.
For millennia, witches had been synonymous with plague, famine, and nightmare. So why had he saved her? Was he one of them?
Suspicion, once planted, grew like a seed.
Angron read the silence and did not regret it.
"We are all human, of the same blood. Why must humans be divided into high and low?" His voice was steady as the calm before a storm. "Who decided the rules? Who told you to hate witches and enslave others?"
The silence in the arena was heavy as lead. Every averted gaze screamed the truth:
It was the High Knights who made the rules, who carved hierarchy into bone, who turned the screams of slaves and psykers into entertainment.
"You see a cruel witch," Angron said, voice ringing like a blade through the still air, "but tell me, where does her cruelty lie? In her tortured body? In the collar that bound her? Or in this arena itself?"
"Whom has she killed? The children starving in the slums? The miners buried without graves? Or the gladiators slaughtered here for sport?"
"Tell me, where are the victims?"
"Silence! You've won! Shut up!"
The announcer's roar echoed across the arena.
The Eye of the Maggot screeched and dove, but before it could strike, Angron caught it midair and slammed it into the ground.
"Angron!" Lain hurled his spear. Angron caught it in a flash, then drove it down like lightning, impaling the drone to the sand, its sparks sputtering like a dying star.
"I see no cruel witch!" Angron thundered. "I see a frail, broken woman! Whose wife was she? Whose mother? Whose daughter has been tortured into this?"
The people froze. Even breathing felt like a sin.
The silence was suffocating. The sunlight pinned every shadow to the walls, twisted like the souls of the condemned.
More Eyes of the Maggot swooped in, but one interposed itself, shielding Angron. Claudia's voice rang out:
"The game's over, Angron. That's enough. Time to come home."
Angron stepped back. The spark of rebellion was lit in the hearts of the people. All that remained was to wait for the right moment to let it burn.
"Claudia, you must control your pet!"
The Eyes shrieked within the Octavia family's palace.
Claudia smiled faintly. "He's just a child. Are you truly afraid of a child?"
"Octavia, you know what he's doing!" growled Talc.
"A foolish boy chasing childish dreams," she murmured, idly spinning a gold coin between her fingers, its shimmer dancing in the candlelight.
"He's threatening our rule!" spat the announcer.
"For thousands of years, this world has knelt beneath our power." Claudia tapped the armrest of her throne. "If our rule can be shaken by a boy's words, perhaps it deserves to be."
Talc leaned forward. "He may not threaten us yet, but the rabble he inspires could. Are you sure you want to continue?"
"Don't you find it thrilling?" she purred, tracing her lips. "The arena bores me. Only war, watching ants dream of toppling trees, can amuse me now."
"Many will die for this!"
"Since when do you care for the lives of commoners?"
"I don't care about them, but we'll be in danger too!"
Claudia laughed softly, her mechanical wings unfolding with a metallic sigh. "Ah, so it's fear that drives you. I almost believed you'd grown a conscience."
"You have no right to accuse me! This was your game to begin with!"
"Indeed," another Eye whispered, "but this new game is far more interesting. The arena's crude violence entertains only the rabble. Our tastes deserve better."
Others agreed: "The commoners grow restless. Let this uprising prune the weak branches. The great tree of dominion must be trimmed."
Claudia smiled. "Seems I'm not alone then. Talc, what say you?"
He warned coldly, "Claudia, don't ruin this. If it spirals out of control, you'll bear all the blame."
Claudia lowered her eyes to the spinning coin, her smile unreadable. "Then I'll gamble with roses and ashes. I'll win glory, or die on the table."
"How high they sit," Angron murmured.
"The High Knights have always been that way," Claudia said lazily, reclining. "They've ruled too long. Their claws have dulled. They've forgotten what war truly is."
"And you?" asked Caelan.
"My dear, we're in the same boat. You wouldn't throw me overboard, would you?" she hummed.
"You're wrong, Claudia," said Angron, lifting his gaze. "This isn't war. It's revolution."
"Only if you win," she replied with a smirk. "Lose, and it's rebellion."
"We'll win," said Angron simply.
He believed it because Caelan was with him.
Even without Claudia's help, Nuceria would rise. But she had hastened the day of its liberation.
She was no liberator, but her deeds, however selfish, served the cause.
Revolutions from below must break chains; those from above must break walls.
Only together could they overturn the heavens.
"Sister Enor," little Mira tugged her maid's sleeve. "Every time you see Sister Claudia, your fingers tremble. Are you afraid of her?"
"Was it that obvious?" The maid's porcelain face cracked into a fragile smile.
Mira's innocent curiosity was answer enough. Her mistress saw everything.
Claudia had never whipped or struck her, yet her suffering grew with each day since the day she died.
Her body was flawless, but her soul was in shreds.
The cruelest torture in existence is to remain lucid while madness reigns around you, to watch people cheer as they fall, to see civilization crumble under joy, and to stand alone in the dark, watching them all descend toward you.
Her past glory had long turned to dust. Even in a new body, her soul was crucified upon memory itself.
If only she could learn to revel in cruelty, to taste sweetness in pain, to find ecstasy in suffocation, to see imprisonment as sanctuary, then perhaps she wouldn't fear her mistress, but adore her.
But if she did… her mistress would never have granted her life again.
Her kin were far worse off; at least she could keep her dignity of spirit.
"If she's never hurt you," Mira asked, "why are you afraid?"
"Thank you for caring, Mira." The maid's slender fingers combed gently through the girl's hair like tending a delicate dream.
Mira would never understand. Blessing can be more terrifying than cruelty.
Her mistress frightened her, but never broke her word.
Her mistress had given her to Mira. Now, Mira was her master.
She no longer hoped for the favor of gods or knights. This was her peace.
The two of them, Angron and Caelan, were humanity's liberators.
But only Mira could free her.
"My lord, when do we rise?"
Little Clest swooped down on her grav-spear, landing beside Angron. She twisted her wrist, driving the spear upright into the ground like a banner.
"In the next match," Angron said. "Ten days from now. No matter who we face, we rise then."
The old warrior Oenomaus gripped the hilt of his sword. "Will they help us?"
"They won't help us, or the High Knights."
"Then who will they help?" asked Clest, puzzled.
"Whoever wins," said Angron.
"Just us? We can't win alone," said Lain, clutching his weapon.
Claudia had armed every gladiator with weapons once reserved for elite guards. Now they had the means to fight, but toppling the High Knights was still a dream.
"We don't need to win," said Angron. "We just need them to believe we can."
Clest frowned. "But you've already won so many times. Isn't that enough?"
"I've only ever won inside their cage," Angron said softly. "In their rules. For their amusement. Outside those rules, we only need to win once."
Oenomaus asked, "And how will you do that?"
Angron's gaze cut across every face like a blade. "Not me," he said. "You."
He paused, his words heavy as iron.
"Only when you win, will my victory have meaning."
.....
If you enjoy the story, my p@treon is 30 chapters ahead.
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