Chapter 281
STUPID (5)
A few minutes earlier
After smashing IAM straight into the mirrors on the wall, Blaze felt the surge of victory rise through his chest. He had the advantage—he was sure of it. IAM had hit the wall hard enough to shatter the glass, and Blaze was ready to press forward and finish what he started.
But just as he stepped in, just as he drew breath to follow through, he caught IAM's eyes.
And in that single instant, he froze.
He didn't even understand it—his body simply stopped. An instinctive feeling, raw and ancient, gripped him. Before he could figure out why, before he could force his limbs to move, to deny that feeling—
"Wh—"
His half-formed word was cut off as a palm slammed across his face.
The world seemed to change, and the next thing he knew he was being hurled backward, his skull crashing into the mirror with a brutal crack. The glass burst around him, and the little broken pieces tore across his cheek and temple as they scattered. A sting spread across his skin immediately— like dozens of tiny bugs sinking their teeth into that side of his face.
The pain blinded him, numbing everything else. He didn't even get the chance to think.
IAM didn't stop there. His fingers tightened around Blaze's face like a vice and then he began to drag Blaze's head along the broken mirror. The mirrored surface, already fractured, scraped and sliced at Blaze's skin, painting a thick smear of red in the trail they carved. Tiny shards embedded themselves into his cheek and brow, each one slicing deeper as IAM forced him across the glass.
Blaze's body reacted on instinct alone. His hands shot up, grabbing at IAM's wrist, trying to pry it away, but it didn't move—not even a little. The grip was immovable as if it belonged to something that wasn't entirely human. His mind struggled to keep up, overwhelmed by the burning pain crawling across his skin and the slow pressure of IAM dragging him further along the shattered surface.
Through the haze, Blaze managed to stretch his arm out. His fingers brushed against a piece of broken glass on the floor. He clenched it, the jagged edge cutting into his palm, and with his breath catching in his throat he stabbed downward, driving the shard into IAM's wrist.
IAM let out a sharp grunt as the shard tore into his wrist, and for the first time his grip loosened—not much, but enough. Blaze seized the opening. With a desperate surge he pushed his upper body sideways, reached up, and clamped his own hand around IAM's head. Using every ounce of strength he had left, he slammed IAM's skull into the broken mirror. The glass shattered further, slicing into IAM's skin as tiny fragments scattered across the floor.
Before Blaze could follow up or even breathe, IAM's foot drove hard into his stomach. The impact forced a choked gasp from Blaze as his body folded. IAM didn't hesitate—his hand shot out, snatching up a large shard of mirror. He raised it high and aimed it straight for Blaze's eyes.
Blaze, flat on his back, threw his hand up just in time. The shard sliced clean through his palm, splitting skin and drawing a spray of blood, but it stopped the strike from reaching his face. Gritting his teeth, Blaze tightened his grip on the shard he still held and stabbed it into IAM's side.
IAM barely reacted. His body jerked slightly at the impact—but his expression didn't change. Instead, he suddenly breathed out a single word:
[PIERCE].
A faint ripple of strength pulsed through him. His arm pressed forward with renewed force, and the shard in his hand pushed straight through Blaze's palm entirely—sliding out the other side and falling uselessly onto Blaze's face, bouncing off with no handle left to hold.
IAM's shard had fallen, but it had done its job—inflicting a fresh, burning patch of agony that stole Blaze's focus for just a heartbeat. And that was all IAM needed. His fist whipped across Blaze's face with a brutal crack, snapping Blaze's head to the side.
Blaze's vision swam, the world tilting for a moment—but he refused to let IAM dominate him like this. He activated a path method.
A fierce heat ignited from somewhere deep within him, a raw burst of power that pushed back the fog in his head. With a roar, he surged upward, grabbing IAM and lifting him clean off the ground before slamming him down with crushing force. The air thumped out of IAM's lungs as Blaze collapsed on top, straddling him.
There was no pause.
Blaze's fists came down like hammers—one, two, three—each blow cracking against IAM's face with wild, frantic intensity. The previously pristine white of the training room was long gone; streaks and splatters of red now painted the tiles like violent brushstrokes.
Two battered, blood-slick figures rolled and fought across that canvas, neither willing to yield, each strike echoing through the room like the tearing of paper.
At some point, IAM's arms fell slack against the floor, his hands splayed open, and his body stopped resisting. Blaze didn't trust it—not yet—so he kept hitting, each strike growing weaker as his strength drained, until finally his fists hovered uselessly in the air. His breath tore in and out of his lungs,sweat and blood mixing on his face.
For a few cold, hollow seconds, he stared down at the still body beneath him… and a dangerous thought flickered through his mind.
Did I… kill him?
But what he saw next froze him from the inside out.
IAM's eyes were wide open.
Those two dark pools—the ones that pulled the world in like a black hole—were staring straight into him. There was no pain in them, no fear nor confusion. Just that same empty depth that made Blaze's spine twitch and his heartbeat stutter.
And during Blaze's stunned silence, IAM's right hand calmy slipped into his waistband.
Blaze didn't even register what he was reaching for until he saw the familiar matte black shape.
KASSARA.
Blaze's eyes constricted into pinpoints.
He's going to shoot—!
But he didn't.
Instead of firing, IAM pushed the barrel forward and forced it directly into the small, half-healed hole of Blaze's bullet wound.
The metal slipped in with a sickening ease.
Then IAM jerked his hand.
A flash of pain— the kind that could snap a mind in half—ripped through Blaze's entire body.His vision burst into stars. A strangled sound tore out of his throat as he instinctively fell backward, everything in him recoiling in pure agony.
But IAM didn't give him even a heartbeat of space.
He followed like a shadow glued to him.
The barrel twisted again—shoving deeper, angling, grinding against raw flesh in a way that made Blaze's thoughts shatter into static. And as Blaze writhed beneath him, IAM's other hand shot out and clamped around his throat.
Just a calm, mechanical grip, squeezing the life out of him while the barrel dug deeper and deeper into the wound, jerking and twisting to maximise the pain.
IAM's fingers weren't simply gripping Blaze's neck—they were locked around his throat, digging in with unyielding pressure that cut through every desperate gasp Blaze tried to take.
Blaze thrashed beneath him, his hands clawing at IAM's wrists, his nails scraping IAMs skin, but nothing moved. IAM's arms might as well have been stone. Every second the pressure tightened, stealing more and more air, turning Blaze's lungs into a collapsing cage.
Above him, tiny shards of glass kept falling.
They slid off IAM's cheeks, shaken loose each time Blaze struggled. Some pieces sliced little lines across Blaze's forehead and temple. Others stuck to the sweat on his face. A few drops of blood from IAMs face fell straight into his wide-open right eye. Fire tore through the socket as the blood mixed with eyeball, staining the white red.
Blaze barely felt half of it. His mind was too busy screaming.
I'm going to die...
The thought pulsed in his skull like a drumbeat he couldn't silence. It drowned out everything else—the pain, the choking, the frantic fight of his body. And in that panic his mind flashed back, unbidden, to the first moment he'd ever seen those eyes.
Those lifeless, bottomless eyes.
Those eyes…
Why do they look at me like that…
Like I'm worthless… like I'm nothing… just a speck.
His vision trembled as IAM's face hovered over him— those black pools staring down like they weren't even focused on him, only through him.
And in that gaze…
A raw, animal terror crawled up Blaze's spine.
I'm so scared…
No… no… this couldn't be happening.
No… no… I can't be…
The words barely formed in Blaze's mind—slurred, slipping, drowning under the pressure crushing his throat.
I can't be scared.
I'm Blaze.
But his vision was dimming, the room shrinking into a dark tunnel. Air was running out, each second tightening around him like a noose. His limbs were getting heavier and colder. The edges of his sight trembled.
I'm Blaze!
His mind screamed it even as his body betrayed him, shaking uncontrollably beneath IAM's unmoving grip. Panic pounded through his skull in frantic beats.
I'm not supposed to tremble.
Not supposed to fear.
No matter what.
No matter who.
IAM's expression didn't change. Those dead, endless eyes watched him without a flicker. As if Blaze wasn't a person clawing for life… but just something in the way.
Blaze felt something inside him start to break.
Blaze is…
Blaze is not scared of anything!!!
The words echoed, fraying at the edges, battling the rising terror threatening to swallow him. His mind split between two crashing tides—one screaming to escape, the other refusing to bow.
Heat surged.
Suddenly waves of burning energy pulsed off Blaze's body, rolling out like ripples from something about to rupture. His skin glowed faintly, the air distorting with the heat. His core thrashed violently between collapse and eruption, each heartbeat louder than the last.
Fear.
Defiance.
Fear.
Defiance.
The two forces slammed into one another, tearing him apart from the inside. Just as the heat peaked—ready to burst, ready to explode—
BRRRRRT! BRRRRRT! BRRRRRT!
Alarms blared through the training room, a deafening, violent shriek that cut through the suffocating chaos.
Red lights flashed.
And for a second everything froze.
A mechanical voice crackled through the fractured room:
"Death methods are not permitted during sparring sessions... Death methods are not permitted…"
It repeated in an endless monotone, echoing off the cracked walls.
Tiny circular vents clicked open across the ceiling and along the edges of the floor. A low hum followed—soft at first, then growing stronger as invisible currents stirred the air. Within seconds, the atmosphere shifted.
Mana was being drained.
You could almost feel it being pulled away, stripped from the room like smoke sucked through narrow pipes. The pressure in the air dropped sharply. The heat radiating from Blaze sputtered, flickered, then weakened.
To activate a death method, both mana and lifeforce were required.
And now…
Blaze had only one of the two.
Lifeforce was the wood. Mana was the spark. Without the spark… the wood could never ignite.
His body trembled, heat guttering out like a dying flame.
As the alarms blared overhead, IAM's grip finally loosened. His hand slipped from Blaze's throat, falling limply to the floor with a dull thud. He slumped backwards, collapsing onto his back beside Blaze.
For a long second, neither of them moved.
Two blood-soaked figures lying side by side, barley breathing but alive.