The crowd hadn't decided whether to cheer or stay silent.
They stared.
At the man in the sand, not Borzak, but Arven. Standing where no one expected him to, breathing hard, his clawed gauntlets twitching at his sides. Blood dripped from his chin. His throat was raw, bruised by his own hands.
He shook his head, fast and rough, trying to clear it. The image of that apartment, the cracked window, the screaming voice, still flickered in his mind. Phantom tears clung to his lashes, but his face was stone.
Borzak remained still at the far end of the Arena, staff in hand, cloak stirring faintly in the breeze that threaded through the open coliseum. His posture hadn't changed. He stood tall, unshaken, yet Arven could feel the eyes behind that blank expression watching him too closely. Judging. Waiting.
Arven's fingers curled inward, gauntlets tightening with a soft scrape of metal.
Then he moved.
He launched forward in a flash of pure instinct, not running but hunting. The world tilted as his body blurred across the sand, feet barely touching the ground. Every movement was sharpened to a razor edge. His breath came ragged but steady, murder pulsing through his limbs like a rhythm. The crowd barely had time to gasp. Borzak's eyes widened a fraction, just enough to register that he understood what was coming, and that he might be too slow.
The mage raised a single hand, fingers twitching with practiced precision. Three projectiles burst forth, simple but deadly. Magic missiles. Clean arcs of power, glowing faintly as they streaked through the air.
One hit Arven square in the shoulder, sending a jolt of pain through muscle and bone. The second skimmed across his thigh, tearing through fabric and skin. The third crashed into his ribs with brutal force, stealing his breath for a heartbeat.
He grunted, but he did not fall.
He didn't even slow down.
A moment later, Arven collided with Borzak. The impact was not clean. It was violent, messy, and unforgiving. Borzak flew back like a rag doll. His staff slipped from his grip, skittering across the stone edge of the Arena with a hollow clatter. He slammed into the sand with a heavy thud, the force driving up a thick cloud of dust around him.
Arven was on him before the man could fully hit the ground.
He didn't shout. Didn't gloat. No threats. No triumph.
He raised one clawed hand and brought it down in a heavy arc, punching straight into Borzak's chest. Ribs cracked beneath the blow. The mage let out a stifled cry before the next hit landed across his side, then another across the jaw, snapping his head to the side.
Each strike was measured. Controlled.
Not wild.
But targeted.
He hit where it would hurt, where it would fracture something inside the man, but not end him. Not yet.
Borzak's body jerked beneath him, writhing, breath hitching. Blood bubbled at the corners of his mouth. His limbs twitched with instinct, reaching to protect, to flee. But Arven didn't stop. Not until that same quiet, curious voice in the back of his mind stirred again. Not until it whispered, let him rise. See what he does next.
Arven pulled back slowly. He stood, claws dripping fresh blood. His chest lifted with each breath, muscles tense, but not from fatigue. From restraint. The heat of combat burned inside him, but it was coiled now, not spent. It was waiting.
"Go on," he said, his voice low, nearly calm. "Try again."
Borzak wheezed beneath him, his body curling slightly, a cough shaking his ribs. Blood spilled from his mouth in thick spurts as he tried to roll. One arm reached out, trembling, searching blindly for the staff that had betrayed him.
Arven watched, head tilted slightly. His lips pressed together. Something like pity, mocking, maybe, tightened in his throat, but he said nothing else.
Not yet.
Arven shook his head again, sharp and violent, as though trying to knock loose whatever ghost still clung to the inside of his skull. The apartment flashed behind his eyes. That cracked window. That slanted fan. Her voice, shrill, full of venom, heavy with finality.
"You always let people down."
The words echoed like a curse. Not an accusation. A truth.
He growled low in his throat and moved. One step. Then another.
Then he drove his boot hard into Borzak's ribs.
The mage screamed, wet and raw, the sound bubbling through the blood in his lungs. His body folded inward with the impact, curling like paper set to fire.
Arven dropped low, ignoring the noise. He seized Borzak's arm and without a shred of hesitation sank his teeth into the soft flesh of the wrist. Not gently. Not like the ritual feeding Celyne had once offered. No. This was need.
This was a feeding born from instinct. From dominance.
Blood gushed fast and hot into his mouth. It filled him immediately, spilling down his tongue and throat, coating his teeth in iron and warmth. Mana surged with it, like licking live wire. It seared through his nerves and up his spine, lighting his brain with sharp white pressure.
Borzak shrieked. His back arched violently.
Arven didn't stop. He pulled back, twisted the man's wrist with a single practiced wrench. A loud pop echoed through the Arena, sharp and sick. The joint broke clean. The hand dropped, fingers twitching once, then going limp.
That hand would never hold a staff again.
Arven rose slowly, blood smeared across his jaw, his tongue darting briefly along his lip. He turned away, not far, just a few steps. He gave Borzak room to breathe.
Why?
He didn't know.
Maybe it was cruelty. Maybe it was curiosity. Maybe it was that same dark urge that had stirred when he looked at his reflection and screamed into his own soul.
He wanted Borzak to believe there was still a chance.
Behind him, the man choked and coughed, tried to roll onto his side. Arven didn't look back. He just listened to the broken sounds, each one thinner than the last.
Borzak reached for the air like it could save him. Blood poured from his wrist in slow pulses. He made it halfway to his knees. Shaking. Trembling. His lips parted, and a single word nearly formed, not a spell, not a cry, but surrender.
That was when Arven struck again.
He turned in a blink, his body exploding forward, claws rising once more, not to kill. To silence.
One clean slash ripped through Borzak's mouth. His tongue came free in a thick spray of red. Blood gushed from his open jaw, pattering onto the Arena floor like rain.
Borzak fell back with a gurgling shriek, arms flailing. His scream pitched upward into broken wet gasps as he clawed at the air and then at nothing.
Gasps echoed from the stands. Some voices rose. Others fell silent.
Arven crouched beside him.
His voice came out low. Without a hint of mercy.
"Can't quit now," he murmured. "I've got a reputation to maintain."
Borzak couldn't respond. Couldn't even form a proper noise anymore. The only sound he made was a wet wheeze, air bubbling through blood.
So Arven grabbed him again.
This time by the collar.
He dragged the mage upright like a discarded animal. Forced the man's neck to tilt back, skin stretching over the exposed vein. There was no ritual. No reverence. This wasn't about hunger anymore.
He bit.
His teeth tore through skin, through muscle, through thick layers of sinew. Blood erupted in a geyser across his chest and throat, painting his armor, streaking his jaw. It tasted rich, too rich, almost intoxicating. Like swallowing lightning through a wineglass.
Arven groaned low in his throat, guttural and half-mad. His eyes fluttered half-shut. His entire body swayed slightly, the blood flooding his senses, overwhelming him.
The world bent inward. Time folded.
His knees nearly buckled.
But he didn't stop.
He shook his head again, hard, trying to dislodge the dream still burning behind his eyes, but it wasn't a dream. It was a memory. Her eyes, cold and unmoved, watching him fall apart without lifting a hand. That broken apartment. The crooked fan spinning overhead. Her voice, sharp, final, slicing deeper than any blade.
He growled low and slammed the heel of his palm against the side of his own head.
Once. Twice.
Not hard enough to wound, but enough to jolt something back into place.
Focus.
You weren't enough.
The words echoed through him one last time.
Then he bit again.
Flesh gave way beneath his teeth. Muscles split open like fruit. Vein and sinew peeled back, blood pouring hot and fast across his chest. The heat of it soaked into his collarbones, dripping past his stomach in slow, winding trails.
Borzak twitched beneath him, limbs flailing weakly like a puppet with the strings half-cut. He made a sound, not a word. A gurgle. A wet shudder from the depths of his collapsing throat.
Arven pulled back slowly.
His lips were slick. His chin coated. He dragged his tongue across his teeth, not in satisfaction, but in something colder.
"You should've stayed in my head," he whispered.
There was no response.
Borzak's body convulsed once.
Then again.
Then went still.
No last curse. No final spell. Just a corpse with a ruined throat and a face caught mid-scream.
Arven stood.
Blood dripped from his arms, soaking his wrists and pooling at his feet. His breath came slow now. Deep. Every inhale steady, every exhale sharp. His chest rose and fell with something close to rhythm, but not peace. His heart pounded, but the pressure in his head had finally gone still.
The world was quiet.
No screaming crowd.
No shouting announcers.
Just wind and sand and the taste of power on his tongue.
He looked down at the broken thing beneath him. The husk that had dared crawl into his mind. Dared to reach into what little he still held sacred. And paid the price for it.
Then he looked up.
The stands. The sky. The gate.
And waited.
For a long breath, the world stayed frozen.
Then, like a ripple breaking through still water, the silence cracked.
Someone clapped.
Just once.
Then again.
A second joined.
Then a third.
And then it spread.
All at once, the Arena erupted.
The applause didn't sound like celebration. It didn't sound like praise either. It was raw and uncertain, awe tinged with fear. The crowd screamed his name, not out of love but because they had seen something they didn't know how to process.
"Ghoul! Ghoul! Ghoul!"