The city of Laoria did not cheer.
When Fiedras's severed head hit the arena floor, silence swallowed everything. The four horsemen stared at it in disbelief, their weapons dripping, their breaths ragged. And Mikael—the so-called savior, blood on his knuckles, sweat in his eyes—stood there swaying, looking less like a hero and more like a man who had stumbled into the wrong tavern brawl.
But outside the arena, the city was still burning. The stench of rot and smoke rolled in with the wind, carrying screams, crackling fire, and the distant clash of looters fighting over scraps.
The gates opened. Survivors poured into the arena, hollow-eyed and trembling. Some fell to their knees before the horsemen. Others spat in the dirt, muttering curses. No one looked at Mikael.
"Is it done?" a woman whispered. Her voice cracked like brittle glass. "Is the Bloodlord truly gone?"
The tallest of the horsemen, armored in ash-black steel, answered without turning his head. "He is gone. His reign ends here."
The crowd did not cheer. They only stared at the corpse, half-afraid it would rise again.
Mikael wiped blood from his lip with the back of his hand, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Guess that makes me famous, huh?"
None of the horsemen replied. Their eyes were hard—measuring, weighing. To them, Mikael wasn't a comrade. He was an accident. A filthy stroke of luck.
The second horseman, scarred and silent, stepped closer and muttered, "Unworthy."
The word stung more than Mikael expected.
Still, outside the arena, Laoria crumbled. Ash rained down like black snow. Fires lit the night brighter than any moon. And in the shadows, whispers spread: If the Lord of Blood could fall, then the world was no longer bound to his fear.
But for every whisper of hope, another voice hissed of vengeance. Not all of Fiedras's followers had fallen. Some had fled. Some were waiting.
And in the ruins of Laoria, blood always called to blood.
The horsemen gathered in the torchlit chamber beneath the arena later that night. Their voices were low, heavy with the weight of too many battles.
"He should not have lived," growled the first. His armor clinked as he leaned forward. "One strike and Fiedras would have broken him like kindling. Yet somehow, he stands."
"Luck," said the scarred one. "Nothing more."
"Luck that ended an era," muttered the third, a woman with eyes like ice. She was not smiling. "The bards will remember him. Not us."
They all turned at once to the fourth horseman, who remained silent, sharpening his blade. Finally, he said: "Names do not matter. Laoria is ash. And ash breeds vultures."
Meanwhile, Mikael was three cups into the worst ale he had ever tasted.
He sat in a half-burned tavern, boots kicked onto a broken table, laughing to himself while the barkeep eyed him with a mix of fear and contempt. His knuckles were swollen, his ribs bruised, but his grin hadn't faded.
He raised his cup. "To destiny!" he slurred. "Or whatever the hell that was."
No one drank with him.
Truth was, he hadn't meant to fight Fiedras at all. He had wandered into the arena looking for a lost pouch of coin and maybe a smoke. But then his spear had flown true, and his fist had landed low, and somehow—somehow—he had helped kill the Lord of Blood.
"Fucking ridiculous," he muttered into his cup. "World's greatest hero. Can't even pay his tab."
A group of survivors nearby whispered his name—half in awe, half in scorn. Mikael ignored them. He didn't want followers. He wanted another drink.
Yet in the pit of his gut, he knew the horsemen were right. He was not worthy. But sometimes, unworthy men lived while better ones fell.
Outside, the city groaned under its own ruins. And beyond the walls, in the deep dark fields where ash smothered the grass, a torch flickered.
A band of Fiedras's cultists knelt in the dirt, chanting, their knives raised over a bleeding prisoner.
"Laoria thinks the Bloodlord is dead," their leader hissed. "But blood never dies. It only waits."
The flames of their torches turned red.