The boy had changed.

  It was not in any single movement, not in any single fight, but in the slow accumulation of survival. The pit had worn him down, had pressed him against the stone and ground away the excess until what remained was only what was necessary.

  His movements were no longer wild, no longer desperate lunges and reckless swings. He no longer charged without thought, no longer allowed pain to dictate his actions.

  He had learned.

  Not from the trainers. Not from Marion.

  He had learned from the blade.

  And the blade had never lied to him.

  The seventh fight was a different kind of test.

  By then, he was no longer a rising curiosity, no longer just another pit slave with too much blood on his hands. He was something that gamblers could trust, something that patrons could build their wagers around.

  And that meant they needed to see him last.

  The fight was against a man built for endurance.

  Harsk the Unbroken had fought in the pit for nearly a decade, his record a collection of long, grueling matches that left his opponents too tired to stand before he finished them off.

  He was not a brute, not a butcher, not a showman. He was a man who knew how to fight like a waiting storm.

  And the crowd wanted to see if the boy could endure it.

  The fight was slow.

  Harsk did not chase, did not strike without purpose. He let the boy attack first, deflected, dodged, let time and fatigue start their work.

  The boy did not let it happen.

  He knew what was coming.

  He did not waste his movement, did not swing too hard, did not let his rage carry him forward.

  He let Harsk wait.

  And when the moment came—when Harsk finally moved in, finally thought the boy had slowed enough—he made his mistake.

  The boy took his knee.

  Then his arm.

  Then his throat.

  The fight ended without a grand show, without a roar of the crowd.

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  It ended in silence.

  Not because it had been a bad fight.

  But because it had been too fast.

  Too controlled.

  Too cold.

  The next two fights were different.

  They did not test his endurance.

  They tested his patience.

  The pit was waiting to see if he had learned how to control his anger, his instincts, his hunger.

  So they sent men who could not fight him directly.

  First came the trickster, a wiry man with a penchant for misdirection, for showy feints and clever footwork. He was all movement, all energy, never standing still long enough to be caught.

  The boy did not chase him.

  He did not waste his strength.

  He waited.

  And when the trickster **moved too close—when he finally believed the boy was tiring—**the fight ended in one stroke.

  A blade through the gut.

  The second fight was worse.

  Not because it was harder.

  But because the man they sent against him was already broken.

  A pit slave who had once been a champion, now half-blind, his body a ruin of scars and old wounds.

  The fight was not meant to be a test of skill.

  It was meant to see if the boy could kill without challenge.

  The crowd did not chant, did not roar.

  They only watched.

  And the boy?

  He did not hesitate.

  He did not mock the man, did not pity him, did not offer him a chance to fight for his life.

  He simply did what he had come to do.

  The fight lasted less than a minute.

  Marion watched it all.

  He had seen fighters become killers before. He had seen them learn how to survive, how to adapt, how to make their legend.

  But the boy had taken a different path.

  He was not a brute.

  He was not a monster.

  He was something harder, sharper.

  And the gamblers were beginning to see it too.

  The wagers were changing.

  People no longer bet against him.

  They bet on how he would win.

  Would it be quick?

  Would it be a brutal slog?

  Would he toy with his opponent?

  He never did.

  That was what made him dangerous.

  The others—**the showmen, the killers, the war-beasts—**they had all cared for the spectacle of it.

  They had played to the crowd.

  The boy had never fought for them.

  And that was why they had started to fear him.

  He was older now.

  Not by much.

  But enough that his body had changed.

  The last traces of his youth had burned away in the sand, in the steel, in the sweat-soaked nights between fights where his wounds healed just enough for him to stand again.

  He was taller. Stronger. His stance more measured.

  And Marion could see it—the thing he had always been waiting for.

  The thing that all fighters either found or lost before the end.

  The boy had stopped fighting as though his life depended on it.

  Now, he fought because he knew he would win.

  Loric leaned against the stone railing, arms crossed as he watched the boy finish yet another fight, his opponent gasping in the sand, his own sword buried in his stomach.

  It had not been a hard fight.

  It had not even been interesting.

  But the gamblers had still cheered, still placed their bets, still watched as the Red Blade left the pit without acknowledging them.

  Loric exhaled through his nose.

  “He’s not going to stop, is he?”

  Marion smiled.

  “Why would he?”

  Loric turned his gaze back to the pit, watching as the crowd moved, shifting, whispering, already preparing for the next match.

  They had not noticed it yet.

  Not fully.

  But they would soon.

  He had seen it before.

  The moment when a fighter became something else.

  The moment when the pit no longer looked at them as just another man covered in blood.

  The boy was getting close to that moment.

  And when it came, there would be no stopping it.

  Not for Marion.

  Not for the gamblers.

  Not even for the pit itself.

  Korrak sees your admiration.

  And he hates it.

  He is not a hero. Not a legend. Not some specter that walks between myth and reality, meant to be whispered about in awe. He does not care for the songs, the stories, the drunken retellings of his deeds that twist and swell with each passing tongue.

  If you had stood before him, clutching your reverence like a fool clutching a dull blade, he would have only stared. And then he would have walked past you.

  Because to Korrak, it was never about glory.

  It was about the hunt.

  And if he still lives, it is only because there is always another chase.