Chapter 897. I Offered A Deal And Also A Dead Man’s Voice, Same Breath
The training hall had ceased to be a room of instruction; it had become a colosseum. The air was thick with the metallic tang of blood and the suffocating heat of two bodies pushed beyond human limits.
Rex and Aurelia collided again in the center of the ring, their bodies slamming together with the wet, heavy sound of meat hitting meat.
THUD.
Rex drove a punishing left hook into Aurelia’s ribs, but she didn’t recoil; she leaned into the pain, using the momentum to wrap her legs around his waist in a lightning-fast grappling maneuver.
SHHH WHIP.
Aurelia twisted her hips with terrifying torque, using her entire body weight to slam Rex backward against one of the reinforced training pillars.
CRACK BOOM.
The impact reverberated through the floorboards. Rex’s spine hit the stone with a sound like breaking timber, but even as the breath fled his lungs, he snarled.
His hands shot up like striking cobras, grasping Aurelia’s shoulders to prevent her from breaking his neck with a guillotine choke.
From the sidelines, Diana watched, her fingers pressed against her lips. Her pupils were blown wide, her breathing shallow.
She wasn’t horrified by the gore, the blood streaming down Rex’s face, or the way his muscles corded like steel cables under his sweat-slicked skin; she was mesmerized. There was something terrifyingly beautiful about the way he moved through chaos, a raw, unyielding dominance that she had never seen in any noble she had ever met.
Her heart hammered against her ribs, not from fear, but from a sudden, overwhelming surge of desire.
’How can someone be so... primal?’ she thought, her gaze locked on the way Rex’s blood spattered across Aurelia’s pale skin.
"Disgusting," a voice hissed beside her.
Diana flinched. Theo was standing there, his knuckles white as he gripped the railing. His face was twisted in a mask of pure, venomous rage.
His eyes darted between his mother’s bloodied face and Rex’s savage grin. "Look at him, Diana. He’s a butcher..."
"A common thug playing at being a warrior." But beneath the insult, Theo’s voice trembled with something else: inadequacy.
How could this outsider, this man who had walked into their home an hour ago, stand on equal footing with the Nightwing matriarch?
How could he match her speed, her ferocity, her legacy?
"It’s an insult to our bloodline," Theo muttered, though his eyes betrayed his true fear: that Rex was the new standard.
Back in the fray, Aurelia unleashed a combo that left the spectators breathless. She broke free from the grapple and immediately launched a three-stage assault.
WHACK THUD CRUNCH.
First, a stinging snap kick to Rex’s thigh to deaden his nerve.
Second, as he winced, she stepped inside his guard with a devastating double palm strike to his chest that lifted him off his feet.
Finally, as he began to fall, she spun in midair, bringing her heel down in a descending axe kick aimed directly at his collarbone.
Rex twisted midfall, the heel catching him across the shoulder instead of the bone.
CRACK.
The sound of the impact was sickening. He rolled across the blood-slicked floor, leaving a crimson streak behind him.
"You’re slowing down, Rex!" Aurelia screamed, her voice cracking with exertion.
Blood ran from her nose into her mouth, but her eyes were twin flames of ecstasy and rage.
Rex pushed himself up, his shoulder screaming in agony, blood dripping steadily from his shattered nose. He spat a glob of gore onto the floor and let out a laugh that sounded like grinding stones.
"Slowing down? I’m just getting warmed up."
He exploded forward. This time, he didn’t use technique; he used pure, unadulterated violence.
He ignored Aurelia’s defensive jabs, taking two punches to the face just to close the distance (THWACK, THWACK), and then he grabbed her throat with one massive hand while driving his knee into her stomach.
OOF.
The air left Aurelia in a strangled gasp. Rex didn’t let go.
He pulled her closer, their faces inches apart, both drenched in each other’s blood.
"This is what I told you, Aurelia," he growled, his voice vibrating against her skin. "The old ways die today."
Aurelia’s response was a brutal headbutt that connected with his forehead.
CRUNCH.
Blood sprayed between them like crimson rain. Both recoiled, staggering back, their vision blurring, their bodies shaking with exhaustion.
But as they steadied themselves, the hatred and respect in their eyes only grew more intense. They weren’t just fighting for dominance anymore; they were fighting to prove they deserved to exist in each other’s presence.
...
The training hall felt as though it were shrinking, the oxygen being consumed by the sheer friction of the two combatants. The metallic stench of blood was overwhelming now, mixing with the sharp tang of sweat.
Rex and Aurelia charged once more, but this time, their movements had transcended mere combat; they were performing a deadly ballet of destruction. Rex threw a low, sweeping kick aimed at Aurelia’s ankles, but she leaped over it with supernatural agility; in midair, she twisted her body like a coiled spring and unleashed a descending hammer fist aimed at Rex’s skull.
WHAM.
Rex caught her fist in his palm, the impact sending a shockwave up both their arms that made their bones creak.
"Not today, Aurelia!" he roared, his voice cracking with raw adrenaline.
He immediately drove his forehead into hers again.
CRUNCH!
And as she staggered, he unleashed a flurry of punches that sounded like rapid gunfire.
BAM BAM BAM BAM!
Each blow landed with bone-deep conviction, but Aurelia was a master of pain tolerance. She absorbed the damage, her head snapping back with each hit, only to use the recoil to spin into a devastating combo.
She channeled every ounce of her Nightwing heritage into a three-part execution: a lightning-fast elbow to Rex’s temple, followed by a spinning roundhouse kick that caught him in the ribs, ending with a brutal palm strike to his chin that forced his head upward.
WHACK! THUD! CLACK!
Rex staggered backward, blood spraying from his split lip as he fought to keep his balance. His vision was swimming in crimson, but the primal part of his brain, the part that refused to be broken, was screaming for more.
On the sidelines, the tension was breaking in different ways. Theo was pacing like a caged animal, his face flushed with a toxic mixture of jealousy and shame.
"Look at this farce!" he hissed loudly enough for several guards to hear. "The great Nightwing matriarch, reduced to rolling in the dirt with a mercenary!"
"He’s a disgrace, Diana... He’s nothing but a brute who got lucky once in Aethelgard."
"He doesn’t belong here; he’s contaminating our legacy with his filth!"
Diana’s head snapped toward Theo. Her eyes, which had been soft and entranced while watching Rex, suddenly turned as cold as glacial ice.
The admiration she felt for Rex’s ferocity curdled into pure disgust when she looked at Theo.
"Shut up, Theo! Just shut your pathetic mouth," Diana snapped, her voice cutting through his rant like a blade.
Theo froze, blinking in shock. "What...? Diana... I’m defending our honor."
"Defending our honor?" Diana stepped closer to him, her voice dropping to a venomous whisper that carried across the silent hall. "You’re defending your own fragile ego."
"You’re terrified... You’re terrified because for the first time in your life, you’re standing next to someone who actually knows what it means to bleed for something."
She gestured toward the center of the hall where Rex was currently wiping blood from his eyes, his muscles quivering with exertion. "Rex saved Aethelgard while you were busy polishing your family crest."
"He faced death while you were playing at politics. And right now?"
"Right now he is doing something you could never dream of: he is challenging the strongest person in this room and making her fight for her life."
"That isn’t ’filth,’ Theo. That’s greatness, which was something you clearly lack."
Theo flinched as if she had struck him physically, his face turning a humiliated shade of purple. "You can’t--"
"I can, and I am," Diana cut him off, turning her back on him completely. "Now stay silent or leave."
"Your insecurity is more nauseating than the blood on that floor."
The silence that followed was broken only by the wet, guttural sounds of the fight.
Rex had recovered, and he was moving with a new, terrifying economy of motion. He ignored Aurelia’s next jab, letting it graze his cheek to close the distance.
He grabbed her waist with both arms, lifting her off the ground, and drove her into the wall with enough force to crack the plaster.
BOOM.
Aurelia gasped, but as Rex prepared to deliver a finishing blow, she drove both her feet into his stomach, pushing off the wall to create space.
THUMP.
She spun in midair, her legs becoming a whirlwind of strikes. She landed a series of rapid-fire kicks to Rex’s thighs and hips TAP TAP TAP TAP before finishing with a devastating spinning back kick that caught Rex square in the solar plexus.
KRA THOOM.
Rex flew backward, sliding across the blood-slicked floor until his back hit the opposite wall. He slumped for a second, his chest heaving, blood dripping from his fingertips.
Aurelia stood in the center of the room, panting heavily, her hair matted with sweat and gore, her regal bearing replaced by something wild and untamed.
"Again," Rex rasped, pushing himself off the wall, his eyes glowing with a murderous hunger. "Again, Aurelia!"
"As you wish, Rex Rexilion," she replied, a bloody smile splitting her face.
They charged each other one last time for this round, two titans crashing together in a spray of crimson and thunder.