The cheers followed him long after he left the Red Basin.
They echoed in his skull as he walked alone through the torchlit streets. Not cheers for Jullius Narva.
Cheers for blood.
He understood that now.
They didn't care that he had been the boy mocked in the gutters. They didn't care that he had clawed his way up from nothing. They cared that he had broken something bigger than himself.
The city respected only power.
Good.
That was something he could give it.
By morning, his name had spread beyond Iron Alley.
Fighters began watching him differently—not with ridicule, but calculation. Bookkeepers adjusted odds when his name appeared. Even the arena guards no longer shoved him aside.
But reputation was a fragile thing.
Three nights after Hark's fall, they tested him again.
This time, it wasn't an exhibition match.
It was an execution.
His opponent was a mercenary called Kael Durn, known as the Chain Wolf. Unlike Hark, Kael wasn't enormous. He was lean, scarred, precise. A length of hooked chain wrapped around his forearm like a living thing.
The crowd sensed the difference immediately.
Hark had been spectacle.
Kael was danger.
The bell rang.
Kael moved first.
Not a charge—no wasted motion. The chain uncoiled with a hiss and snapped forward. Jullius barely twisted in time. The hook tore across his side, opening flesh to the bone.
Pain flared.
Real pain.
Kael didn't pause. He stepped in, driving a knee into Jullius's stomach, then wrapped the chain around his throat and pulled.
Jullius slammed backward into the sand.
The chain tightened.
He clawed at it, muscles straining—but Kael had leverage, technique. This wasn't brute force. This was trained killing.
The crowd leaned forward.
Jullius felt the metal bite deeper.
Air vanished.
His vision narrowed.
He had grown stronger.
But not skilled.
Not enough.
Kael leaned close, voice low.
"You don't belong here."
The chain tightened.
Darkness crept in.
And for the first time since discovering his curse—
Jullius felt fear.
Not of dying.
But of never surpassing men like this.
The hook twisted sharply.
Everything went black.
—
He woke before the body was removed.
This time, there was no confusion.
No shock.
Only heat.
Power surged through him like wildfire. His muscles felt denser than ever before. His heartbeat thundered—not frantic, but controlled. His senses sharpened to a blade's edge.
He could hear the chain links settling in the sand ten paces away.
He could hear Kael's breathing.
Slow. Confident.
Jullius rose.
The arena fell silent.
Kael's eyes narrowed—not in disbelief, but interest.
"So that's your trick," he murmured.
The bell had not rung.
No one had called the match.
But something unspoken passed through the arena.
They wanted to see this.
Kael flicked the chain.
It shot toward Jullius's face.
This time—
Jullius caught it.
The metal snapped tight between them.
Kael pulled, expecting resistance.
Instead, Jullius stepped forward.
Fast.
Faster than before.
He wrapped the chain around his own forearm and yanked Kael off balance. The mercenary recovered quickly—blade flashing from his belt—but Jullius moved inside the arc.
The knife scraped across his ribs.
He ignored it.
His fist drove into Kael's sternum with a sound like splintering wood.
Kael staggered—but did not fall.
Good, Jullius thought.
The Chain Wolf adjusted instantly, sweeping low with the chain to take Jullius's legs.
Jullius jumped.
The movement surprised even him.
He had never jumped that high before.
He came down with a hammering elbow that cracked against Kael's shoulder, dislocating it.
The mercenary hissed but pivoted, headbutting Jullius hard enough to blur his vision.
They separated.
Blood ran down both of them.
For the first time in the fight, Kael smiled.
"Now you're learning."
He lunged again—clean, precise, lethal.
But Jullius saw it.
Not just the attack—the intention behind it.
Every death had sharpened more than muscle. His instincts were evolving. His body adapting not only to force, but to threat.
Kael's blade thrust toward his heart.
Jullius twisted a fraction of a second earlier than he would have before.
The blade missed.
His hand closed around Kael's wrist.
And crushed.
Bone snapped.
The knife fell.
The chain followed.
Kael swung wildly with his good arm.
Jullius stepped inside and drove his palm into Kael's throat—not to kill, but to end it.
The mercenary collapsed, gasping.
Silence.
Then the arena exploded.
Not with laughter.
Not with mockery.
But awe.
Jullius stood in the center of the Red Basin, chest rising steadily.
He had not merely overpowered Kael.
He had surpassed him.
Later, as healers dragged the defeated mercenary away, Kael grabbed Jullius's wrist weakly.
"You're not normal," he rasped.
Jullius met his eyes.
"No."
Kael coughed a laugh. "Then aim higher than this pit. The real monsters don't fight for coin."
He released him.
And those words lingered longer than the cheers.
That night, Jullius stood once more overlooking Virel City.
He could feel it now.
The ceiling pressing down on him.
The arena no longer felt impossible.
Which meant it was no longer enough.
Each death had strengthened him.
But growth was slowing.
He needed greater force.
Greater risk.
Stronger killers.
His gaze drifted to the distant towers of the High Houses—where masked nobles watched men die for sport.
Where power was inherited, not earned.
Where boys like him had been turned away from academy gates.
A memory surfaced again—polished shoes stepping over his mother's body in the street.
His fists clenched.
"If death is my forge," he murmured to the night, "then I need hotter flames."
Behind him, Virel continued its restless breathing.
Ahead of him waited warriors trained from childhood.
Knights who wielded techniques beyond simple fists.
Assassins who struck from shadow.
Perhaps even beings whispered about in taverns—fighters who could channel force beyond flesh.
He would have to die again.
Many times.
But now he understood something else.
Each return wasn't random.
It was proportional.
The greater the force that killed him…
The greater the evolution that followed.
A slow, dangerous smile formed.
Then he turned from the city and began walking toward the noble district.
The guards at its gates would likely kill him.
Good.
Chapter 2 closed not with applause—
But with footsteps heading toward something far more deadly than an arena.
And Jullius Narva welcomed the thought of dying at their hands.