Chapter 64: Easy Win
Chapter 64: Easy Win
The roar of a hundred thousand voices pressed down on the arena like a physical weight.
The semifinals had begun, and the crowd had come for blood. They had been waiting two weeks for this moment—two weeks of duels, of lesser champions killing each other in the narrow gap between survival and death—and now the main event was about to begin.
Alex stepped onto the platform.
It had been reduced to a narrow bridge of wood and stone, barely wide enough for three men to walk abreast. The sides were open, a sheer drop into the dark water below.
The crocodiles were already circling. They had been fed well over the past two weeks—bodies from the earlier bouts—but they were still hungry. They were always hungry. Their scaled backs broke the surface in slow, patient arcs, their eyes catching the grey light like scattered coins.
The Gaul was already on the platform, his braided beard freshly oiled. He had been talking since they left the holding area—a steady stream of threats and taunts, the same words he’d been throwing at Alex for weeks. "I told you I’d break you, little ghost. Now, brace yourself for impending doom."
Alex said nothing. He hadn’t said anything in two weeks. The Gaul’s threats had become background noise, as meaningless as the distant roar of the crowd.
The third fighter was a man Alex didn’t recognize—lean, dark-eyed, a curved sword hanging from his grip. He stood on the opposite side of the platform, his stance loose, his eyes flicking between Alex and the Gaul. He had already made his choice. Alex could see it in the way he positioned himself, in the way he and the Gaul exchanged a single, wordless glance. They were going to come at him together.
The announcer’s voice boomed across the arena, explaining the rules, the stakes, the glory that awaited the victor. Alex didn’t listen. He was watching the water. The crocodiles were still circling. They knew what was coming, and they were ready.
"And now, citizens of Rome—let the bout begin!"
The Gaul grinned. It was the same grin he’d worn since the holding cell. "You hear that, little ghost? It’s just us now. Not even plees of your whore mother can save you." He raised his sword. "I’m going to enjoy this."
Alex looked at both of them—the Gaul with his braided beard and his promises of violence, the curved-sword man with his dark eyes and his silent alliance. Two opponents. One narrow bridge. Death on both sides.
"Ignatius was right," he said quietly. "It was a triple threat."
The Gaul laughed. "Scared now, are we. The horror hasn’t even started, yet." His voice dropped.
Alex’s expression didn’t change. His voice, when he spoke again, was cold and flat. "I won’t even need to use Temporal Dilatation for you guys."
The Gaul’s grin flickered. Just for a moment. Just enough to show that something had shifted. "What did you say?"
Alex moved.
He activated Blade Work, Level 2, the skill he had chosen over the system’s power. The skill that was purely his own—no glitches, no interference, no cosmic force that could take it away.
His body flowed across the narrow platform with a speed and precision that felt like instinct now, the gladius coming up in a tight, vicious arc.
The curved-sword man didn’t even have time to raise his blade. The gladius caught him under the jaw, slicing upward through the soft palate, and through the thin bone of the skull. The top of his head came off in a single, clean stroke—a diagonal cut that opened the cranium like a cracked egg. Brain matter and bone fragments sprayed across the platform in a pink-grey mist. The body stood for a heartbeat, and then collapsed sideways into the water.
The crocodiles surged.
Alex turned to the Gaul. The man’s face had gone pale beneath the grime and the war paint. His sword was still raised, but his hand was trembling. The grin was gone, and in its place was something Alex had never seen on the Gaul’s face before. Horror. Real, genuine horror.
Alex raised his free hand. Slowly, deliberately, and he drew his thumb across his throat. The same gesture the Gaul had been making since the holding cell.
The Gaul’s face twisted. The horror vanished, replaced by fury—the desperate, cornered fury of a man who had just realized he was not the predator he thought he was. "You son of a bitch!" He rushed forward, his sword swinging in a wild, two-handed arc.
Alex sidestepped. The blade whistled past his ear, close enough to feel the wind. He parried the return stroke—a clash of steel that jarred up his arm—and drove his gladius upward into the Gaul’s throat.
The blade punched through the soft tissue below the jaw, through the windpipe, through the artery. Alex twisted the sword and slashed sideways. The Gaul’s head separated from his body with a wet, tearing sound, held on only by a thin string of artery and the stretched skin of the neck. It lolled backward, dangling between his shoulder blades like a hood that had been thrown back too far.
The body stood there. The chest still heaved. The hands still gripped the sword. And then, slowly, the knees buckled, and the Gaul collapsed onto the narrow bridge, his head still attached by that single, fragile thread.
Alex stood over him. The gladius dripped red onto the wood. The water below churned with the thrashing of crocodiles, fighting over the curved-sword man’s body. The crowd was a wall of sound—a hundred thousand voices screaming, chanting, losing their minds.
Women in the front rows tore at their stolas, baring their breasts to the champion of Rome. Others lifted their skirts, exposing themselves with the wild, ecstatic frenzy of people who had just witnessed something they would tell their grandchildren about. Flowers rained down onto the platform. The chant started somewhere in the upper tiers and spread like fire through dry grass.
"ALBIUS! ALBIUS! ALBIUS!"
Alex didn’t hear it. He was staring at the Gaul’s body, at the head held by its final thread, at the blood spreading across the wood and dripping into the dark water below.
Two weeks of threats. Two weeks of taunts. Two weeks of that red grin and the promise of being broken. And now the Gaul was just another body. Just another stain on the platform.
The guards came to escort him back. They moved slowly, their hands resting on their swords but never drawing them. They had seen what happened on the narrow bridge. They had watched the Ghost kill two men in the time it took to draw three breaths. They didn’t know what he was. They only knew they didn’t want to be the ones to touch him.
Alex dropped the gladius. It clattered onto the blood-slicked wood. The guards eased, just slightly, and led him off the platform.
Behind him, the crocodiles were still feeding. The crowd was still chanting. The women were still screaming his name. But Alex walked through it all with empty eyes, his face unreadable, his hands still dripping red.
Something had changed within him, in the weeks leading to this bout, and he knew it.