He bent down and wrapped his fingers around the hilt.
The moment his skin touched the metal, the gemstone pulsed. He felt it trying to latch onto him, trying to drink, but his Immortal blood resisted. The stone flickered, confused, unable to feed on something that regenerated faster than it could consume.
Don straightened, the black blade heavy in his hands.
[Knife Mastery (Adept) partially applicable to sword combat]
[Efficiency: 60%]
[Combat capability increased]
Movement in his peripheral vision—his yellow peripheral vision.
Don spun.
A man charged at him, screaming incoherently, hands outstretched like claws. Don sidestepped, bringing the sword around in a clumsy but effective arc.
The blade bit into the man's side.
Blood sprayed.
The gemstone flared.
And Don felt it—the pull, trying to drain the man's life through the wound. The man gasped, his skin paling, but he didn't shrivel immediately. The drain was slower, as if the sword was somehow satisfied by the blood it had already tasted from Don's regenerating wound.
The man collapsed, still alive but bleeding.
Don stared at the blade, his hands shaking.
I just… I just hurt someone. I—
[Warning: Host experiencing severe psychological stress]
[Emotional Suppression strongly recommended]
[Mental stability declining]
Three more people converged on him—two men and a woman, all desperate, all determined to survive at any cost.
Don's yellow eye tracked them all, feeding him information faster than his conscious mind could process.
Attack vectors. Weak points. Probabilities.
But his normal eye—his brown eye—saw something else.
Their faces. Their terror. Their humanity.
He hesitated.
The woman's fist caught him in the jaw. Pain exploded across his face. One of the men tackled him, driving him to the ground. The sword flew from his grip, clattering across the blood-slicked stones.
Hands wrapped around his throat. Squeezed.
Don couldn't breathe. His vision blurred.
Through his yellow eye, he could see the exact pressure points, the angles he'd need to break free. Through his brown eye, he saw a man's face twisted with desperate fear, eyes filled with tears.
"I'm sorry," the man was sobbing. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I have to, I have to—"
[HP: 10/- (Regenerating)]
[Warning: Asphyxiation damage negated by Immortality]
[But consciousness will fade in 47 seconds]
Don's hands scrabbled at the man's wrists, trying to pry them away. But he was exhausted, drained, and the man was heavier, stronger.
[Emotional Suppression available]
[URGENT: Host requires enhanced combat capability]
[Activate now? Y/N]
No, Don thought desperately. I won't. I won't become—
Another person grabbed his sword. Raised it high. Aimed for his chest.
I won't—
The blade came down.
It pierced his ribs with a wet crunch, sliding between bones, puncturing his lung.
Don's scream was silent, his throat still crushed.
Blood filled his mouth.
The gemstone flared, trying to drink, but his Immortal body fought back, regenerating even as it was drained.
The pain was indescribable.
Not physical—his Immortality skill dulled that to a manageable throb. But emotional. The terror of feeling metal inside his chest. The horror of tasting his own blood.
The overwhelming, crushing knowledge that he was going to die here, in this pit, surrounded by desperate strangers killing each other for sport.
[HP: 10/- (Regenerating)]
[Critical damage detected]
[Immortality: ACTIVE - Healing major trauma]
[Estimated recovery: 12 seconds]
[But without defensive action, Host will sustain repeated fatal injuries]
[Madness: Rising to 12%]
[ENOUGH,]
Madness roared in his mind, its voice no longer whispering but commanding.
[You want to be human? You want to feel everything? FINE. Feel THIS.]
Images flooded Don's mind.
Uncle John's teeth tearing into his flesh.
Martha's screams.
The demoness's cold smile.
Kael's tortured body.
The woman who'd shriveled and died.
The knight who apologized before attacking.
Twenty bodies littering the pit.
Blood.
Pain.
Death.
Over and over and over.
Everyone dies. Everyone suffers. Everyone loses.
You are WEAK because you feel.
You are DYING because you care.
You are NOTHING because you refuse to become what you must.
"NO!" Don's mental scream echoed through his own skull. "I WON'T—"
The sword twisted in his chest.
His vision went white with agony.
And something inside him broke.
Not his body—that was already healing, ribs knitting back together, lung reinflating.
But something deeper.
Something that had been holding on so desperately to the idea of who he wanted to be that it had ignored who he needed to be to survive.
[Emotional Suppression - ACTIVATING]
Don hadn't chosen it.
His body—or his mind, or Madness itself—had made the choice for him.
[Cost: 50 Mana deducted]
[Current Mana: 60/650]
[Duration: 5 minutes]
[Effect: All emotions suppressed. Combat efficiency maximized. Pain reception minimized. Moral inhibitions suspended.]
The world changed.
The terror vanished.
The guilt evaporated.
The horror dissolved like mist under sunlight.
All that remained was clarity.
Don's brown eye went cold and flat.
His yellow eye blazed brighter, sharper, hungrier.
The hands around his throat were no longer a source of panic.
They were simply an obstacle.
Don's right hand shot up with mechanical precision. His fingers found the pressure point behind the man's ear and pressed.
The man's grip loosened instantly, his eyes rolling back. Don shoved him aside like discarded garbage.
The woman with the sword tried to pull it free from his chest. Don caught her wrist mid-motion, twisted it with exact force calculated to dislocate the joint without breaking bone, and yanked the sword free himself.
She screamed.
He didn't care.
The wound in his chest sealed almost immediately. The blood stopped flowing.
Don stood, sword in hand, and looked around the pit with new eyes.
Twenty-seven people still fighting. Fourteen with weapons. Thirteen without. Blood everywhere. Chaos everywhere.
Variables. Threats. Resources.
No fear. No guilt. Just math.
[YES,]
Madness purred, its tone almost proud.
[NOW you understand. NOW you see what we can be together. Beautiful, isn't it? The clarity. The freedom. No messy emotions clouding your judgment. Just pure, perfect survival instinct.]
Don didn't respond.
He simply moved.
A man charged from his left.
Don sidestepped without conscious thought, his blade sweeping out in a perfect arc that opened the man's thigh. Not a killing blow—just enough to cripple, to remove the threat.
The gemstone drank. The man collapsed.
Threat eliminated.
Next.
Two women fighting over a sword to his right. One would kill the other soon, creating one armed opponent instead of two unarmed ones.
Leave them.
Not an immediate threat.
A knight with one of the cursed blades approaching from behind. Don's yellow eye had already calculated the attack angle, the timing, the probability of success.
95% chance of killing blow if uninterrupted. Response required.
Don spun, bringing his sword up in a defensive parry that deflected the knight's strike. Then he stepped inside the man's guard and drove his elbow into the knight's solar plexus with precisely calculated force.
The knight doubled over. Don's blade took him across the back of the neck.
Not a decapitation—the angle was wrong, and he wasn't strong enough. But deep enough. Fatal enough.
The man fell.
Threat eliminated. Next.
Minutes blurred together.
Don moved through the carnage like a machine built for one purpose: survival. His yellow eye fed him information.
His sword struck with cold efficiency. His Immortal body healed every wound almost instantly, making him nearly impossible to put down.
He wasn't angry. Wasn't scared. Wasn't guilty.
He was nothing.
And in that nothingness, he was perfect.
[Combat experience gained]
[Madness: 12% (stable during Emotional Suppression)]
[Threat assessment: Eliminating targets with optimal efficiency]
[Magnificent,]
Madness whispered, its voice almost reverent.
[You're a natural. Look at you—no hesitation, no mercy, no weakness. Just pure, beautiful violence. This is what you were meant to be, little seed. Not human. Not demon. Something… better.]