Morder stood his ground, his eyes fixed on the knights circling him. Their thirst for his blood was palpable—a bitter envy born from the fact that he possessed the Grace of Light, while they remained hollow, without a single thread of it to call their own.
One knight lunged with sudden, blinding speed, his blade whistling toward Morder's throat. Morder tracked the steel, parrying the strike just inches from his skin.
With a guttural grunt, he delivered a crushing kick to the knight's chest, sending him hurtling backward until he smashed into the wall of a decaying house.
Morder raised both hands, a jagged, mocking laugh escaping his lips.
"Knights of the Sun Kingdom? You're nothing more than children—"
The taunt died in his throat.
Another knight took advantage of the opening, driving a blade toward his abdomen. Morder managed to catch the edge with his own sword, but not before the cold steel bit deep into his side.
Before he could counter, a heavy blow swept his legs from under him.
As he dropped to one knee, a sharp hiss cut through the air, followed by the sickening thud of an arrow burying itself deep into his back.
"Argh!"
He shoved the knight's blade away with a roar of defiance, spinning around to cleave the archer in two.
But the marksman was a phantom, leaping back with supernatural grace.
Suddenly, a heavy lethargy washed over Morder. His strength didn't just fade; it evaporated.
'What is happening? My throat… I can't breathe. I need to sleep.'
His eyes widened in realization.
He reached back, wrenching the arrow from near his shoulder blade. He stared at the arrowhead, his blood mixing with a viscous, purple sludge.
"Son of a bitch… poison."
The archer had been surgical. The strike was near the heart, allowing the toxin to hitch a ride on his pulse, racing through his veins to accelerate his collapse.
"Even if I fall, I'm taking every last one of you to Hell with me," Morder spat, grinding his teeth through the pain.
He lunged like a wounded bull, swinging his sword in wild, desperate arcs.
He tried to break through the line, but the knights moved as a single, suffocating unit.
New wounds began to map his body, yet he fought on until he managed to grab a knight by the helm, tearing his head clean from his shoulders.
The victory was short-lived.
A blade erupted through his chest from behind, the tip glistening with his own blood.
Morder let out a harrowing scream.
Another knight saw the opening and swung for his neck.
In a final burst of adrenaline, Morder parried the execution blow and sliced the attacker in half.
His sword slipped from his numb fingers.
He spun around, grabbed the face of the man who had stabbed him in the back, and slammed his head into the cobblestones with such force that the skull shattered.
Morder stared at the sword still protruding from his stomach.
It, too, was coated in that amethyst venom.
His vision began to fray at the edges, the world turning into a blurred smear of gray and purple.
He reached for the hilt to pull it out, but a shadow flickered beside him.
He lurched back, narrowly avoiding an arrow that would have pinned his throat to a wall.
The archer was now sitting calmly on a pile of corpses.
He pulled a glowing purple arrow from his quiver and drove it into the dirt at his feet.
"You aren't from the Brooken Lands, are you… Mongrel?" the archer asked, his voice chillingly steady.
"What's it… to you…"
A violent coughing fit racked Morder's chest, spraying dark blood across the ground.
On his neck, the ancient mark began to pulse with a dying, faint light.
"Everyone comes for the same thing: the ring of the Arcane people. The thing that stopped the war between dragons and men, only to seal our strength away," the archer mused.
"Are you going to tell me… stories now? You remind me of my grandmother," Morder croaked, a bloody smirk flickering on his face.
"I am no storyteller. But I must remind you lot of your place."
The archer reached down, grabbing Morder by the hair and wrenching his head back.
"You want to gather the shards and heal your curse, leaving ruins that will destroy the Brooken Lands. You are all just selfish children."
Morder spat on the ground, staring directly into the crimson eyes peering out from beneath the archer's black hood.
"The world never showed my family mercy. Why should I show it to the world?"
The archer hoisted Morder up by his collar, his voice dropping to a sharp, icy edge.
"The kingdoms outside the Brooken Lands are nothing but slaves to the DemiGods."
He shoved Morder back.
"Watch your tongue, Mongrel."
Morder tried to grab the archer's wrists, but his arms fell limp.
The mark on his neck went dark.
'I need blood. My body… it's starving for it.'
The archer stepped on Morder's chest, pinning him down while twirling the purple arrow between his fingers.
"Do you know where we put the slaves, Mongrel?"
"Ask yourself," Morder hissed.
The archer's boot connected with Morder's face, a sickening crack echoing through the alley.
Morder choked on his own blood, the world spinning into darkness.
"The Slave Pen. That is where you will learn your place."
With a swift strike to the side of the neck, the archer silenced him.
Morder's body went limp.
The archer hoisted the unconscious man over his shoulder, looking around at the carnage of fallen knights.
"Useless," he muttered. "Death is all you were good for."
The archer's form began to shimmer like a heat haze, his body dissolving into the air like soot blown by the wind.
The alley fell into an oppressive silence, broken only by the sight of the crucified corpse and the faint, ghostly echoes of laughter from the tavern.
———
Raindrops slid from the ceiling, splashing onto the damp, filthy floor with a rhythmic, hollow sound. The stench clinging to the air was so foul it made you wish you lacked a sense of smell entirely.
Morder was in a wretched state, dragged along by two knights. They moved through a long, dark corridor lined with rows of cramped iron cages.
The prisoners were a cacophony of filth; their voices rose in a jagged wall of sound, shouting obscenities despite the presence of the guards.
"Look, looks like they brought in a fresh piece."
"He's a pretty one… is it a girl?"
"Hey, knights! Toss him into my cell!"
The knights marched on with cold indifference.
Morder, however, could barely keep his eyes open. His breathing was shallow and labored because of his shattered nose and battered chest.
'The poison is gnawing at my bones… there isn't a single inch of me that doesn't scream.'
He coughed violently, spraying crimson onto the stone.
This place was less a dungeon and more a tomb, where the only light came from a single, flickering candle in each cell.
He saw mangled corpses, some so decayed they had fused with the grime on the floor.
'This place has a signature scent… the unmistakable smell of death.'
The knights reached a cell, threw the door open, and tossed Morder inside.
He tumbled across the floor, his body slamming hard against the far stone wall.
"Try to get some rest. You have a long day of work ahead of you," the knight barked, slamming the iron door shut.
Morder let out a cynical laugh that devolved into a bloody cough.
"Rest? I expect I'll be enjoying that permanently soon enough."
He looked at his trembling hands.
The walls were decaying, reinforced by rusted iron and decorated with skeletal remains.
"I never lived a life of luxury… I think I've had enough torment."
Just then, a brilliant white glow erupted, confined strictly within his cell.
Morder stared in confusion as a weathered, brownish parchment appeared, inscribed with flickering words:
[Name: Morder]
[Title: crimson Slave]
[Rank: Rankless]
[Aspect: Abyssal]
[Blood Status: Near Death]
[Fragmented Memories: None]
Morder rubbed his eyes, convinced he was hallucinating.
"Am I dreaming?"
The words shifted, melting away to reveal a new message:
[Blood is the medium. Men were born of blood; civilizations were built on blood. Gideon is the scion of blood.]
[Strive to be the wolf that drinks every drop, even from the innocent… There is no cure without cost. Everything has a price, and the price is your life.]
The parchment vanished into a strange, wormhole-like void.
"I'm trying to wrap my head around this," he whispered, touching his broken nose.
"But I understand one thing: every time I bleed, I'm trading away my time… What a beautiful day to be alive."
Suddenly, a searing sensation like a thousand stings rippled across his skin.
He stood up, clutching his body in agony.
But within seconds, the pain vanished.
His wounds were gone, his body fully mended.
"What happened to me? My body… was it because of that magic paper?!"
In the midst of his confusion, guards appeared out of the gloom.
"Move it, Mongrel. Time to work."