The pit had changed.
It was not in the sand, nor in the walls, nor in the torches that burned high above the bloodstained arena. Those things had always been there, and they always would be.
But the men had changed.
The warriors who stepped onto the sand did not laugh as easily as before. The old champions who had once mocked the nameless boy now watched him from the safety of the barracks, their hands tightening around their weapons.
Some still fought.
But not all of them.
Some had already made their choice.
It was better to die elsewhere than to face Korrak.
The crowd was different, too.
They did not chant for him as they had for showmen, for heroes, for gladiators who played for the spectacle of it all.
They did not chant for him as they had for warlords who savored the roar of the masses, for fighters who basked in the glory of their names.
They whispered.
They spoke of the boy who had been thrown into the pits and had never stopped killing.
They spoke of the Red Blade—a name that had once been given to him by gamblers who had seen only blood, but now meant something else entirely.
They did not chant because they did not need to.
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They already knew what would happen.
And so did his opponents.
The first fight of the day had been an insult.
A young, untested fighter, barely sixteen, dressed in armor that had seen more use than he had.
He had entered the pit with bravado, with energy, with something like hope in his eyes.
And when he saw who he would face, the hope had died.
He had fought anyway.
The crowd had watched in silence.
The match had lasted thirty seconds.
That was mercy.
The next opponent had been a veteran.
A man twice Korrak’s age, a man who had fought in legions, in wars, in battles beyond the pit.
A man who had once laughed at the idea of losing to a northern mongrel.
The laughter was gone now.
He had tried. Truly.
He had moved well, fought well, struck where he should have struck.
And it had not mattered.
Korrak had ended it without speaking a single word.
The crowd had not cheered.
They had only watched.
They had already known how it would end.
Now, at the peak of the day's events, the final fight awaited.
Three men stood across from him in the sand.
All warriors.
All killers.
But none of them moved.
They stood there, watching him, hands tight on their weapons, waiting for something—anything—that might save them.
One of them—the largest—swallowed hard, his throat clicking.
Another glanced toward the edge of the pit, toward the closed gates, as if looking for another way out.
There was none.
Korrak stood still.
Waiting.
Daring them to come.
Marion sat in the high balcony, legs crossed, watching.
This was what he had wanted.
This was what he had always seen coming.
He had seen fighters rise before. He had seen men become monsters, become champions, become something greater than themselves.
But he had never seen this.
Never seen the moment where men stopped fighting to win, and started fighting just to escape.
He could see it in their faces.
The men below weren’t thinking of victory.
They were thinking of how long they could last before the inevitable.
And when the bell rang—
They did not attack.
They hesitated.
Because they knew.
Because they had already lost.
And Korrak?
He had already won.
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.
