A fresh layer of sand was spread across the arena floor. The stench of blood still lingered beneath it, soaked into the earth. Smoke from the earlier battle hung like a veil in the air.
The jester returned to the high wall, now hooded in black, his voice quieter but still cutting through the silence.
"And now, for the final event!"
From the western gate, the high elves entered.
He raised his arms, voice carrying through the arena.
"Here are the high elves. Dazhum allies. When they learned the Dazhum marched north through Virak'tai and Skarnulf lands, they marched beside them. To destroy the Virak'tai."
He paused, voice tightening.
"But now, people of the Eastern Realm, the Virak'tai are our allies. Brothers in blood against the common enemy, the Dazhum Empire of the West. So what shall be our verdict?"
The crowd roared.
"Kill!"
Their armor and weapons had been returned, gleaming silver mail, emerald-lined cloaks, and blades etched with runes of old. They walked as a disciplined unit, but fury radiated from them. Their faces were sculpted masks of wrath. Ancient blood stirred with every step.
The arena doors groaned open again.
Out stepped the executioners.
Ten warriors of shadow and silence.
The Virak'tai.
Their formation mirrored the Stormguard's, three-man units, tight and precise. Except for one. Yezari Val'Kyren walked beside a lone Virak'tai warrior, forming a quiet two-person cell.
And at their front was Nyzekh.
He wore no ornament. His eyes were void-dark. His steps left no sound.
Where others shone, he dimmed. His presence did not echo. It erased.
Whispers rose from the stands.
The high elves bristled.
One stepped forward, his voice sharp. "We are armed. We are not prisoners. If we defeat them, will we be set free?"
The crowd hushed.
The jester looked toward the VIP box. Commander Altan leaned forward, expression unreadable.
He gave a single nod.
The high elf sneered, blade lifted.
"Then we shall carve our path to freedom."
Ancient hatred crackled between the two lines of warriors.
The air thinned.
And the final judgment began to stir.
The clash came in a breath.
Steel on steel. Flesh on stone. Cries torn from throats, cut short.
The high elves surged forward with wrath and pride, swords raised high, but they struck against a wall of black steel and silence.
The Virak'tai wore armor akin to the Stormguard, light breastplates over tight leather wraps at the limbs. Their helms bore narrow slits, hiding their expressions. Half-moon shields met incoming blows, and sabers curved like crescent fangs responded with lethal arcs.
The sand turned red.
One high elf tried to sweep low. His legs were hacked from under him, blood spraying in a twin arc as he screamed. Another blocked a saber, only for a second blade to punch through his ribs from behind. Shields cracked skulls. Sabers tore through tendon. One elf cried for mercy. His jaw was split by a backhanded slash.
The Virak'tai did not roar. They did not cheer. They executed.
Each movement honed by Altan's doctrine, shaped in the Crucible, tested in the Chasm.
There was no pause. No hesitation. Only the rhythm of kill, shift, strike again.
Yezari moved like still frost. Every step calculated. Every slash bled serenity. Her blade cut not just bodies, but the momentum of her enemies. One elf froze mid-lunge, eyes wide as the Whiteshear slid across his throat.
One high elf locked blades with a Virak'tai but was blindsided by a partner in the trio formation, driven to the ground and stabbed through the eye slit of his helm.
Another group of elves attempted a flank maneuver. One Virak'tai slammed a shield into the leader's chest, and his companion followed up with a leg sweep. As the elf fell, a saber opened his throat, and blood fanned across the sand.
Screams echoed. Bone snapped beneath armored elbows. One dark elf rolled beneath a spear thrust and came up behind his attacker, driving both sabers through the kidneys before pulling outward, cleaving flesh.
A high elf lieutenant tried to rally, shouting commands. A void shimmer passed over him. Nyzekh appeared from nothingness. He raised a hand, and the elf's words died in his mouth. A silent tremor rolled out, and the lieutenant dropped, lifeless, blood leaking from his ears.
Nyzekh advanced through the chaos like a shadow through mist. The Void walked with him. A high elf swung and forgot what he was swinging at. Another lunged and missed entirely, stabbed by a blade he never saw.
At the center of the arena, the high elf leader stood defiant. His silver helm was cracked, and his pauldrons smeared with blood. He slashed at Nyzekh with a roar of ancestral fury.
Nyzekh raised his hand.
Void pulsed.
The strike never landed.
The high elf froze.
Then, piece by piece, his chest vanished. Armor. Flesh. Bone. All erased in an instant.
The body collapsed without weight.
By the time the dust settled, only silence remained.
The Virak'tai stood over broken bodies.
Blood soaked the arena.
The circle was complete.
The crowd roared, fevered from the bloodbath and spectacle of execution. Then Commander Altan stood. Not a word escaped his lips, yet the effect rippled outward. One by one, voices quieted. Cheers gave way to murmurs, murmurs to silence. Even the wind seemed to still. All eyes turned to the man in black and bronze. He did not shout. He did not need to. His presence spoke in volumes carved by war and victory.
Then he spoke.
"Today, we remember the victory in the North. The Dazhum Empire, the Zhong loyalists, the high elves, those who sought to break the Eastern Realm, all fell beneath our blades."
He paused, letting the memory hang.
"But do not be fooled. They will come again. Even now, they conspire. Today, they sent agents disguised as contestants. They infiltrated our walls. They sought to turn celebration into slaughter. And what did we show them?"
The crowd answered in a thunder of voices.
Altan raised his hand, voice surging with fury.
"We showed them our unity. Our fury. Our answer. The Dazhum Empire does not rest. Even if we sit idle, they will come. This peace is only a pause. A breath between wars."
He turned westward, arm outstretched.
"So I ask you now. Who will march with me? Who will carry the banners of the East into the West? Who among you will strike before they strike again?"
The arena shook with voices.
"We will!"
"To the West!"
"We march!"
Torches flared. Fists raised.
The Eastern Realm had made its choice.
The war had never truly ended. Now, it would begin again.
Author's Note: On Epode (Ἐπῳδός)
In ancient Greek drama, the epode (Ἐπῳδός) is the final stanza of the choral triad. Where the strophe introduces and the antistrophe responds, the epode delivers resolution. It does not reflect. It concludes.
This chapter serves that function.
Altan was not simply hosting a contest. From the beginning, he was building a stage. The Seaborne Crown was never just an arena. It was a constructed theatre, designed to draw out enemies, expose their methods, and offer the Eastern Realm a story they could not ignore. Each duel, each decision, each death followed a deliberate structure.
The Dazhum believed they were infiltrating. In reality, they had entered a script already in motion. One of their own was replaced. Others were observed and led. The tournament they thought they understood was built to contain them.
Altan's design, set into motion chapters ago, reaches its final act here. What began as a spectacle of strength became a theatre of deception. He allowed the Dazhum to move freely, placed his own agent among them, fed them false leads, and shaped trials that seemed fair but were set to end in execution.
The judgment of the high elves, once Dazhum allies who had marched to annihilate the Virak'tai, was more than a sentence. It was irony delivered with purpose. Armed and restored, they now faced the very warriors they once sought to destroy. Their deaths, witnessed by a captivated crowd, transformed retribution into consensus.
What followed was not just spectacle but statecraft. The people demanded war. And Altan, already prepared, gave them a cause.