The Dreadvex Ape raised its fist.
It was much bigger than the fists of the Primate apes—so massive that it looked less like a hand and more like a wrecking ball attached to a mountain of muscle and fur. The shadow of it swallowed Yuuta whole, casting the boy in darkness. The fist hung in the air for a single, terrible moment—suspended, waiting, inevitable—and then it fell.
The punch hit Yuuta's head, angled down toward the ground.
The impact was catastrophic. The sound alone was enough to make elves cover their ears—a thunderous CRACK that echoed through the Colosseum like a mountain splitting in half. The force of the blow drove the boy's small body into the earth, and the ground beneath him did not simply crack. It exploded.
Dirt and stone and dust shot upward in a geyser of debris, and when it cleared, a crater had been carved into the arena floor—deep enough to stand in, wide enough to swallow a carriage. The Dreadvex Ape's fist had created a wound in the very earth itself.
The dust rose above the arena like a funeral shroud, thick and choking and gray.
The whole Colosseum was shocked. Elves who had been cheering moments before now sat in stunned silence, their hands frozen mid-clap, their mouths hanging open. They had expected the boy to die. They had expected blood. But this—this was not execution. This was obliteration.
The queen watched in amusement. Her smile had returned, wider than before, curling across her face like a knife wound. This was what she had wanted. This was the satisfaction she had been craving.
But the rest of the Colosseum was not cheering.
Not a single elf raised their voice.
The silence was deafening—a living thing that pressed against eardrums and made hearts beat faster. Elder Theilon sat in the royal box, his ancient hands clasped around his staff, his head bowed. He could not watch. He could not bring himself to look at what he had helped create. Guilt gnawed at his chest like a rat tearing through flesh. He shook his head slowly, back and forth, back and forth, as if the motion could undo what had been done.
The dust began to settle.
And the elves saw.
Yuuta was half-crushed. His small body lay at the bottom of the crater, twisted and broken in ways that should not have been possible. Blood pooled beneath him—dark and thick, spreading across the dirt like spilled wine. His black hair was matted with crimson, clinging to his pale face. His arm bent at an angle that had no name. His leg pointed in the wrong direction. His face was hidden beneath a mask of blood, but his mouth was open, and his chest was still—so terribly still.
The sight was horrifying.
Erza's knees buckled.
She did not fall—Isvarn caught her, his arms wrapping around her shoulders, holding her upright—but her body sagged as if the bones had turned to water. Her violet eyes stared at the memory, at the broken child in the crater, and something inside her cracked.
"No," she whispered. "No, no, no—"
Even the elves, who had come to see blood, who had chanted for death, who had mocked the humans as they died—even they looked uncomfortable. Some turned away. Some covered their mouths. A few of the younger elves, those who had never seen an execution before, looked as if they might be sick.
This was not justice.
This was not entertainment.
This was something else entirely.
And then the esper spell activated.
The healing light descended from the barriers above—a soft, golden glow that fell over the crater like morning sunlight. It touched Yuuta's broken body, and the impossible happened.
Bones realigned with a series of wet cracks. Flesh knitted together, wounds closing as if they had never existed. Blood reversed its flow, retreating back into veins and arteries. The boy's arm straightened. His leg straightened. His face—bruised and swollen and unrecognizable—smoothed back into the face of a four-year-old child with black hair and red eyes.
The healing took less than three seconds.
The Dreadvex Ape tilted its head.
Its golden eyes narrowed. Its massive brow furrowed. It had killed thousands of creatures over the centuries—elves, humans, beasts of every shape and size. It had never seen prey get back up. It let out a low, confused growl, shaking its head as if trying to dislodge an annoying fly.
Yuuta woke up.
All the pain rushed toward him at once.
It was true—the spell had healed his body. His bones were whole. His skin was unbroken. His organs functioned as they should. But the memory of the pain remained. The feeling of being crushed—of bone splintering, of organs rupturing, of blood filling his lungs—flooded his mind like a tidal wave. He gasped. He choked. His red eyes, which had been gray and empty for so long, finally snapped into focus.
He saw the Dreadvex Ape.
The beast loomed over him, blocking out the sky. Its height was twenty-five, maybe twenty-six feet—a building made of muscle and fur and hatred. Its weight was seven, maybe eight tons—more than ten cars stacked on top of each other. Its golden eyes stared down at him with cruel intelligence, and its mouth—filled with rows of teeth the length of swords—curved into something that might have been a smile.
Yuuta got up.
His little legs pushed against the bottom of the crater, which was deep enough to make a child's swimming pool. His hands scraped against the dirt, his fingernails breaking as he clawed for purchase. He crawled on all fours like an animal, scrambling up the side of the crater, his breath coming in short, desperate gasps.
And then he ran.
His small legs carried him across the arena floor—not fast, not nearly fast enough, but he ran. He ran the way only a terrified child can run, with his whole body, with tears streaming down his face, with his arms pumping and his mouth open and his voice finally finding words.
"Sophia! Sophia! SOOPHIIAAAA!"
He was calling for her. The only person who had ever protected him. The only person who had ever loved him. He did not know that she was unconscious in the medical wing. He did not know that she had lost her mind saving him. He only knew that she was the one who made the monsters go away—and the monsters were here, and she was not, and he was alone.
The Dreadvex Ape leaped.
It landed in front of him, cutting off his escape. The impact shook the arena, sending tremors through the stands. The beast opened its jaws and roared—a sound so loud and so deep that Yuuta's entire body vibrated with it. His legs gave out. He fell to the ground, trembling, crying, his small hands raised as if to ward off a blow that would not be stopped.
"No! It's Hurt! SOPHIA! SOPHIA!"
The Dreadvex Ape raised its fist again.
This time, the punch was straight—not angled down toward the ground, but aimed directly at the boy's body. The fist connected with Yuuta's chest and sent him flying across the arena like a ragdoll. He slammed into the magical barrier that separated the arena floor from the audience—the shield that prevented attacks from harming the elves watching above.
The impact made the barrier ripple like water.
The elf sitting on the other side—a young man with copper hair and terrified eyes—flinched backward. He had been close enough to see Yuuta's face press against the barrier, close enough to see the blood smear across the invisible wall, close enough to hear the crack of bones that should not have been audible through the magic.
He felt uncomfortable.
They all felt uncomfortable.
The more Yuuta got hit, the more the elves began to shift in their seats. The excitement had drained away, replaced by something heavier—something that pressed against their chests and made it hard to breathe.
Yuuta got up again.
The healing spell had already done its work. His body was whole. His chest was unbroken. But the pain—the memory of pain—was still there, screaming in his nerves, making his hands shake and his legs wobble.
"Sophiya," he whimpered. "Sophiya, where are you? Yuuta is scared. Yuuta is so scared."
He rubbed his leg—the one that had been broken, the one that was now whole but still ached with phantom pain. His leg was so small. His hands were so small. Everything about him was small and soft and utterly defenseless.
He ran again.
But he was so slow. His little legs pumped, but they could not carry him fast enough. He stumbled. He fell. He got up. He ran. The Dreadvex Ape did not even need to chase him—it simply stepped in front of him again, blocked his path again, and raised its fist again.
The punch fell.
Yuuta screamed.
The healing spell activated.
Yuuta woke up.
He ran again.
"Sophia!" He Cried "SOPHIA!"
His crying echoed through the whole Colosseum. It bounced off the living walls, rose to the highest tiers, fell to the lowest benches. There was nowhere in that vast arena that could not hear the sound of a four-year-old boy with black hair and red eyes screaming for his sister while a monster broke his body over and over again.
The elves' heartbeats quickened.
The sound—that small, desperate voice—was so similar to the voices of their own children. Elven children cried the same way when they fell. They called for their mothers the same way. They ran with the same awkward, stumbling gait when they were frightened.
Elder Theilon felt his ancient heart clench.
He had heard elf children cry like that. He had comforted them, held them, told them that everything would be all right. But there was no comfort here. There was no one to tell Yuuta that everything would be all right. There was only the Dreadvex Ape and the queen and an eternity of suffering.
In the stands, young elf mothers clutched their children tighter. Elf fathers placed protective hands on their sons' and daughters' shoulders. They looked at the small, broken boy running across the arena floor, and they saw their own children. They saw what could happen if fate was cruel. They saw what could happen if grief consumed a mother's heart.
"Mama," whispered a young elf girl, no older than five, tugging at her mother's sleeve. "That human boy looks like our younger brother. It hurts him, right? Because our brother cries when he falls down."
The mother could not answer.
She could not bring herself to watch anymore. She turned her daughter's face away from the arena, pressing the child's cheek against her shoulder, covering her ear with her hand.
"Don't look," she whispered. "Don't listen. Close your eyes, my love."
Across the Colosseum, other mothers did the same. Other fathers turned their children away. The excitement, the bloodlust, the hunger for death—it had all curdled into something else. Something uglier. Something that made even the oldest, coldest elves feel the stirrings of shame.
The live telecast of the execution was being broadcast to all twelve cities of the Sylvan Kingdom. In every square, every tavern, every home, elves gathered around crystal orbs to watch their queen dispense justice.
But as the minutes passed and the boy screamed and the Dreadvex Ape broke him again and again, the telecast fell silent.
Not because the magic failed.
Because the elves watching had stopped speaking.
They watched in tormented silence—thousands upon thousands of them, across twelve cities, across the entire Sylvan Kingdom—as a child with black hair and red eyes was brutalized. They watched his bones break and heal and break again. They watched him run and fall and crawl and cry. They watched him call for a sister who would not come.
The brutality of the execution was so horrific that now the people began to wonder—was their queen truly this evil?
The thought spread through the Colosseum like a plague, infecting every tier, every bench, every heart that had come to watch blood and found something far worse. Elves who had cheered for death now sat in stunned silence, their hands limp in their laps, their eyes wide with dawning horror.
The sound of bone crushing—wet and splintering and endless—echoed through the arena like a drumbeat of damnation. The sound of a child screaming for a sister who would not come echoed right beside it, weaving together into a symphony of suffering that no elf had ever expected to hear, and that no elf would ever forget.
The whole kingdom was worried now. Not just the Colosseum, but the twelve cities watching through the crystal orbs. Merchants had stopped their selling. Children had stopped their playing. Soldiers had stopped their training.
Every elf in Sylvaris—from the highest noble to the lowest laborer—sat frozen before their screens, watching a four-year-old boy with black hair and red eyes being broken again and again by a monster that should never have been unleashed.
Yuuta did not know the concept of a mother. He did not know the concept of a father. He barely knew anything about love or safety or the warmth of a gentle touch. The laboratory had taught him only pain—the sting of needles, the burn of experiments, the cold of the metal table where they strapped him down.
The Death Well had taught him only darkness—the endless night of the pit, the bones of dead children beneath his feet, the howl of hydra dogs in the tunnels. The only light he had ever known was Sophia. The elf princess who had found him in the pit of bones. Who had cleaned his wounds with gentle hands. Who had given him a name when he had nothing. Who had stood between him and the Froven wolf's death roar and paid for it with her mind.
So he kept calling her.
Even as his bones broke. Even as the Dreadvex Ape crushed him again and again. Even as the healing spell pulled him back from the brink only to throw him back into the fire. He called her name until his throat was raw, until his voice cracked, until the sound became barely a whisper that still somehow carried across the entire arena.
"Sophiya... Sophiya... please... please come... Yuuta is scared..."
He knew, somewhere in the deepest part of his shattered heart, that she would not come. She was broken. She was lost. She had given her mind to save him, and now he was alone in a world that wanted him dead. But he called anyway.
Because she was the only word he had. The only name that meant anything. The only proof that he had ever been loved. Without her name on his lips, he was nothing again—just Zero Karma, the failed experiment, the weapon that never worked.
The whole Colosseum began to pity him.
Elves who had chanted "Kill the human" now sat with tears glistening in their ancient eyes. Elves who had mocked the prisoners now found themselves unable to look away—not from bloodlust, but from a dawning horror at what they were witnessing. Mothers clutched their children tighter. Fathers placed protective hands on their sons' shoulders. Young elves who had come for entertainment now looked at the arena floor and saw something that would haunt their dreams for centuries.
Only the queen remained unchanged.
Her smile had not faded. Her green eyes still blazed with satisfaction, with hunger, with the dark joy of watching her enemy suffer. But beneath the satisfaction, there was something else—something uglier. Anger. Pure, burning, irrational anger at the boy's defiance. How dare he call her daughter's name? How dare he speak Sophia's name with his filthy human lips? Again and again and again, the name fell from his mouth, and each time it did, the queen's rage burned hotter.
She wanted him to suffer.
She wanted him to suffer forever.
Then, like a miracle, Sophia's eyes opened.
She was in the medical grand hall, a vast chamber carved from the living wood of the World Tree itself. The walls were smooth and golden, pulsing with the slow rhythm of the tree's heartbeat. Rows of healing cocoons lined the chamber—glass chambers filled with golden esper mist, designed to mend the most severe injuries. Sophia lay inside one of them, her Pink hair floating in the mist like seaweed in a golden sea, her green eyes closed, her body still.
Then her eyes opened.
Not slowly, not groggily. They snapped open—wide and wild and filled with something that had not been there since the Froven wolf's death roar. Awareness. Not sanity—not yet—but awareness. She had heard something. Not with her ears. The glass was too thick, the hall too far from the Colosseum, the mist too dense for sound to penetrate. She had heard it with something deeper—something primal, something ancient, something that connected her to the small boy she had found in the Death Well.
He was crying.
He was calling her name.
And he was in danger.
"Aaaa... aahaa..." Sophia growled, her voice low and animalistic, barely human. Her hands pressed against the inside of the glass, leaving fingerprints in the golden mist. Her teeth bared. Her eyes narrowed.
The elf healer tending to her—a young woman with copper hair and wide, terrified eyes—stepped back in shock. "Princess? Princess, you need to rest. Your mind is still healing. You cannot—"
Sophia's fist slammed against the glass.
A crack spread across the surface like lightning.
The healer screamed. "Healer! Pharmist! Someone! The princess is awake! The princess is—"
Sophia leaped.
The glass shattered outward in a shower of golden shards, each piece catching the light like falling stars. Sophia's body—still weak, still healing, still wrapped in white bandages—flew through the air like an arrow released from a bow. She crashed through the window of the medical hall, tumbling into the open sky of Sylvaris, glass cutting her arms and legs, bandages unraveling in the wind.
Below her, a Wingroar guard was patrolling the area, his massive beast gliding lazily between the branches of the World Tree. The guard's name was Theron. He was young, barely a century old, and he had been daydreaming about his fiancée when the princess fell from the sky.
Sophia landed on the Wingroar's back with a heavy thud that knocked the breath from Theron's lungs. He tumbled from the saddle, his hands grabbing at empty air, his eyes wide with shock. He fell toward the city below, screaming, his body disappearing into the branches of the lower districts.
The Wingroar roared in alarm.
Sophia's legs tangled in the reins. Her bandaged hands gripped the beast's fur so tightly that her knuckles went white. She did not know how to control it. She did not even know where she was. All she knew was that Yuuta was calling her, and she had to go to him, and nothing—nothing—would stop her.
The Wingroar shot forward at full speed.
It crashed through market stalls, sending fruits and fabrics and wooden carts flying in all directions. Merchants dove for cover. Children screamed. The beast's massive wings beat the air, creating gusts that knocked elves off their feet. It clipped the edge of a residential branch, shattering windows and terrifying families who had been eating their evening meal. It banked hard around a palace tower, its wingtip scraping against ancient stone, sending sparks cascading down to the streets below.
The whole palace was alerted.
"Princess Sophia has escaped!"
"The princess is gone!"
"After her! Send the Wingroar army! Do not let her hurt herself!"
Dozens of Wingroar riders took to the sky, their beasts beating their wings in frantic pursuit. The sky above Sylvaris filled with the thunder of leathery wings and the shouts of elves trying to catch their runaway princess.
But Sophia's Wingroar was faster—driven mad by the strange creature on its back, the biting grip on its fur, the incoherent growls in its ear. It flew like a beast possessed, weaving between branches, diving through gaps that should have been too small, climbing toward the upper canopy where the air grew thin.
They crashed through twelve districts.
They scattered merchants and soldiers and children and elders.
They left a trail of destruction that would take weeks to repair.
And then, as if fate itself had guided her, Sophia's Wingroar soared over the Colosseum.
The beast was exhausted. Its wings faltered. Its breath came in ragged gasps. It crashed into a stall near the outer wall of the arena, sending splinters of wood and clouds of dust into the air. The stall had been selling honey cakes. Now it was splinters.
Elves rushed to help, assuming the Wingroar had been piloted by a wounded soldier, assuming this was just another accident in a day full of horrors. They reached for the rider, ready to offer aid.
But when the dust cleared, they saw her.
Sophia.
The princess of Sylvaris.
Her pink hair was wild, tangled with glass shards and bandages and bits of honey cake. Her green eyes were unfocused, darting back and forth like a trapped animal's, seeing everything and nothing. Her bare feet—cut and bleeding, covered in dust and splinters—touched the ground, and she stumbled. Her legs were unsteady. Her body was weak. She looked like a corpse that had refused to stay dead.
But she did not stop.
She heard him. Even through the chaos. Even through the madness. Even through the shattered remains of her mind. She heard him calling her name, and she began to walk toward the sound.
"Yu... Yuuta..." she said, her voice broken and slurred, the words barely intelligible. "Yuuta... where... Yuuutaaa..."
She began to run.
Her bare feet slapped against the stone. Her bandages unraveled behind her like ribbons. Her green eyes—those clouded, mad, beautiful eyes—fixed on the entrance to the Colosseum.
Inside the arena, Yuuta lay on the floor, unable to move.
The pain was too much. The healing spell had mended his body again and again, but the exhaustion—the endless cycle of breaking and healing and breaking again—had drained every ounce of strength from his small frame. His black hair was matted with dried blood, clinging to his forehead in thick clumps. His red eyes stared up at the golden sky of Sylvaris, unfocused, seeing nothing.
He cried.
Not the desperate screams of before. Not the terrified shrieks. These were softer—the quiet whimpers of a child who had given up, who had accepted that no one was coming, who had nothing left but tears and a name that no longer brought comfort.
"Sophiya," he whispered. "Sophiya."
He had always ended up crying. In the laboratory, when the needles went in and the scientists laughed at his screams. In the Death Well, when the darkness swallowed him and the hydra dogs howled in the tunnels. In the arena, when the monster broke him and the queen smiled.
The world of Nova was cruel.
The weak were treated like dirt.
Without lineage, without family, without power, you were nothing. You were less than nothing. You were dust beneath the feet of the powerful, and no one—no one—would ever bend down to wipe you clean.
Yuuta was dust.
The Dreadvex Ape loomed above him.
The beast's shadow covered the boy completely, blocking out the golden light of Sylvaris. Both of the ape's massive arms were raised high, fists clenched, muscles bulging. It was going to bring both fists down at once—a final, crushing blow that would turn Yuuta into paste.
But the healing spell would bring him back.
And then the ape would do it again.
And again.
And again.
Forever.
The ape's arms began to lower. Slowly. Deliberately. The beast wanted to savor this. It wanted to watch the boy's face as death approached. It wanted to see the fear in those red eyes, the trembling of those small lips, the pathetic little whimpers that the boy made when he thought no one was listening.
In the stands, elf children began to cry.
"Mama," sobbed a little girl with flowers braided into her silver hair. She was no older than five, small and fragile, her tiny hands clutching her mother's sleeve. "Mama, that child is innocent. He didn't do anything wrong Right. Why is the monster hurting him? Mama."
The mother could not answer. She could only turn her daughter's face away from the arena, pressing the child's cheek against her shoulder, covering her small ear with her hand.
"Papa, please," begged a young boy, no older than seven, tugging at his father's sleeve with desperate fingers. "Please make it stop. Please make the monster stop. It's not fair. It's not fair, Papa, He is Crying."
The father pulled his son close, wrapping his arms around the boy's trembling shoulders, but he could not answer either. He could only hold on and pray that the nightmare would end.
Other children joined them. Their voices rose from every tier, small and scared and full of a justice that the adults had forgotten.
"Stop it!"
"Leave him alone!"
"He didn't do anything wrong!"
The queen heard them.
She did not care.
Her rage had consumed her completely. Her green eyes were no longer the eyes of a ruler—they were the eyes of a mother who had lost her child, who had watched her daughter's mind shatter, who had been powerless to stop it. But that grief had curdled into something else. Something dark. Something that could not be satisfied by justice or reason or mercy.
She wanted Yuuta to suffer.
She wanted to watch.
The Dreadvex Ape's fists began to fall.
To be continued...