Adolph Li stood encircled by enemy blades, their steel glinting crimson under the dying light. His chest rose and fell heavily, every breath tasting like iron and ash.
The roar of battle behind him had dulled into a distant hum, like a storm fading beyond the horizon. In front of him, the sight he dreaded most seared into his soul—the headless body of Darke Dean, sprawled lifeless across the blood-soaked ground. His saber, the one that had cleaved through countless foes, lay inches away, slick with gore but unreachable now.
And then there were those eyes. The piercing, almost lazy eyes of General Vance Hermit. They weren't the eyes of a man drunk on bloodlust—they were worse. They were calm. Cold. Detached. The gaze of someone who had killed so often that the act had lost all meaning.
"Do you want to do this the easy way, or the hard way?" Vance's voice rolled out like the whisper of a blade leaving its sheath—smooth and dangerous. He tilted his head slightly, lips curling in something that wasn't quite a smile. "Honestly, I don't want to kill you. But…" His eyes flicked toward Dean's mutilated corpse, then back to Adolph. "I don't mind adding another headless opponent to my list of conquests."
He said it like a man discussing the weather. Casual. Unhurried. Bored, even.
Adolph's heart hammered in his chest. Rage and despair tangled like vipers in his veins. His instincts screamed for him to lunge, to take one last defiant swing and carve his name into history in blood. But then, through the chaos of his thoughts, a memory surfaced—Darke Dean's final words before charging into death:
"Don't die the death of fools…"
The words rang louder than the clash of steel, louder than the screams that once filled the colosseum. Don't die the death of fools. Not here. Not like this.
Adolph's grip on his weapon faltered. Slowly, painfully, he loosened his fingers until the blade clattered to the ground with a sound that felt like betrayal. He dropped to his knees, every motion heavy with defeat, and raised his hands above his head. His pride howled in protest, but his body obeyed.
A soldier stepped forward, his gauntlet cold as iron as it struck Adolph across the temple. Darkness crashed over him like a tidal wave. The last thing he felt was the bite of shackles closing around his wrists before the world bled into nothingness.
---
Across the sprawling colosseum war zones, carnage reigned supreme. Fires raged unchecked, licking the edges of shattered battlements. The scent of blood and burning flesh choked the air, thick as a plague. The Nazare Blade Empire's banners lay trampled in mud and gore, their crimson sigils barely visible beneath the sludge. What once was a roaring army had become smoldering embers in a storm.
Among those embers burned the fiercest flame of all—Prince Balek Aratat. His armor was cracked and stained black, his breath a furnace of fury. Around his feet, corpses lay piled like offerings to a god of war. He had carved through one hundred and eighty men single-handedly, each kill a hymn to his undying resolve. And still, it was not enough.
Now, battered and bloodied, he faced the third wave. From beyond the smoke, four hundred soldiers and mages surged like a tidal flood, their chants of death shaking the ground. Behind Balek, what remained of his fifty elite stood with hollow eyes and trembling limbs. Once, they had been giants. Now, they were twenty-six broken men, swaying on the edge of exhaustion, their swords nicked and dulled.
The numbers were a cruel joke. The Nazare Blade Empire had once boasted ten thousand strong who were available within these walls of the colosseum . Now, fewer than a thousand drew breath—and every breath came with pain. If they had known they would have brought more, but like life, uncertainty is a constant.
On the other side of the battlefield, Emperor Cailan Gravis's acted like a scary war machine and he rolled on like an unstoppable tempest. He had brought four hundred thousand soldiers to this slaughter. Eighty thousand had fallen—an acceptable loss for a man who ruled through fire and shadow.
Three hundred and twenty thousand remained, iron-clad and thirsting for more blood. His generals stood untouched, their banners high, their eyes fixed on the slow death of an empire.
The Nazare forces beyond region 1 were blind to this carnage, scattered and leaderless. Even if they learned of the war, even if they marched day and night, it would not matter. By the time they came, the fires would have burned to ash, and they would have to face the aftermath of the fall of the capital of the Nazare Blade Empire, and this in turn would affect other regions, hence resulting in a dismal situation which would lead to songs of mourning.
Prince Balek raised his blade, its edge slightly blunt but defiant. He had managed to kill 280 people single handedly and that is not taking into account the blood spilled by his aides. After surviving 3 different waves of opposition, the 4th wave was already on its way with even more numbers. This time, they were to face 400 soldiers of the scorpion empie.
They endured—first a hundred soldiers, then two, then three, and now four hundred. Prince Balek felt his blood surge with every kill, believing the enemy's persistence was born of fear, a desperate attempt to halt his advance. Fools, he thought, throwing lives away because they cannot face me head-on.
But that was the emperor's design. Emperor Cailan Gravis watched from the distance, his expression carved from stone. This was no act of desperation—it was strategy, pure and merciless. He meant to grind Balek down, drown him in a relentless tide until exhaustion claimed the prince's strength and spirit.
And Balek… Balek did not see it. He swung his blade with the confidence of a man who thought victory was near, never realizing that every wave of soldiers brought him closer to the trap Cailan had patiently set.
He was now down to 26 men behind him, but he would rather die fighting. His voice cut through the storm like thunder. "Stand with me!" he roared to the remnants at his back. "If this is our grave, then let it be a grave the gods will never forget!"
The soldiers answered with hoarse cries, their spirits fraying yet burning bright. And as the enemy tide crashed forward, the ground itself seemed to tremble beneath the weight of fate.
Prince Balek tightened his grip on the hilt until his knuckles blanched, surging forward like a storm to meet the oncoming tide of four hundred men.