The voice echoed once more, as if from within Lucian's own blood.
"A hidden condition—[First Blood]—has been met. The Blood Curse: [Undying Hunger] has been activated."
"Heritage of Slumber acknowledged. Curse-laden bloodline recognized. Understanding… unlocked."
Again Lucian immediately understood the curse.
[Undying Hunger]: Upon activation, this curse renders all food consumed for the next 24 hours into tasteless ash the moment it touches the cursed one's tongue. No nourishment shall pass their lips, no comfort shall ease their gut.
And yet—for a fleeting five minutes—they are liberated. Hunger ceases its gnawing. Exhaustion lifts like fog in sunlight. In those brief moments, they cannot die from hunger, no matter how starved they may be.
A smirk flickered across Lucian's blood-spattered lips.
'Not a bad trade-off for a curse.'
Still crouched in the gore of the dead man, Lucian reached and grabbed the hilt of a short sword—steel blade, bone handle, leather-wrapped grip that was in the hand of the dead tribesman. As he rose, long strands of black hair draped across his face, masking his murderous intent. The silence around him was louder than any war drum.
The second Drax tribesman, still quivering, stumbled backward into his brethren. Their jeers had died, replaced with terror. Even the giant, a monster of blood and brawn, paused.
"He's… still alive," Anne whispered, eyes wild with a twisted mix of fear and awe. A manic grin played at her lips. The ginger beside her stood paralyzed, disbelief carved into his face.
Lucian began to walk—slowly, deliberately—toward the line of Drax warriors. Mid-stride, he stooped and claimed another short sword dropped from the trembling man. Now twin-bladed, his stride never faltered. The wall of Drax parted like mist before a storm, clearing a path straight to the titan.
The giant roared, axe raised pointed at Lucian as if saying he doesn't fear him.
----
This time, he didn't wait.
The monster charged, feet pounding like drumbeats of death. Anne's breath caught, her heart stilled. The ginger turned his face away, unable to watch what they were sure would be Lucian's end.
But Lucian didn't charge.
He waited.
And as the axe came down—a slash wide enough to split a man in two—Lucian sidestepped.
The sheer force of the swing sliced air itself, sending a shockwave that flared Lucian's cloak and blew back his veil of hair.
Now the giant saw his eyes.
Menacing. Fearless. Endless.
The brute howled and swung again—the same blow that shattered Lucian's ribs before.
'The same move won't work again.'
Lucian's blades flashed. One met the descending axe and parried. The second angled under and redirected the arc.
The colossal weapon twisted—and kept going—straight into the crowd behind the giant.
Dozens of tribesmen fell before they could scream, heads and torsos severed in a crimson wave. Blood sprayed skyward and fell like rain, spattering Lucian's pale skin and black garb in droplets of murder.
He inhaled, slow and steady.
The giant snarled, rage boiling. His knuckles whitened on the haft of his axe. Then—
Silence shattered.
Lucian vanished.
To Anne and the spectators, it was as if both warriors blinked out of existence. Sparks flared in erratic bursts across the battlefield, metal kissing metal in a violent waltz. Only the ringing of blades and the glint of steel marked their movements.
The giant, banking on brute strength, brought his full weight down on Lucian, lifting him from the ground in a clash of steel.
But Lucian didn't panic.
Suspended in the air, the cursed warrior twisted his torso mid-clash, momentum coiling through his body like a spring—then unleashed a devastating spinning kick between the giant's shoulder and neck.
Crack.
The impact rang like a gong, bending the mountain of a man at the waist, knees nearly buckling.
Lucian landed lightly, blades gleaming for a reckoning.
The onlookers stood—or fell, some even frozen in disbelief. What they had just seen defied everything they understood of strength and yet Lucian didn't take his eyes off the giant for this wasn't victory.
This was the prelude.
The giant's body, hunched from Lucian's devastating kick, began to twitch. The sound of sinew stretching, of tendons snapping and reknitting, filled the air like the cracking of ancient trees. Bones popped. Joints realigned. He twitched, spasmed—and then stillness.
He rose. Slowly. Silently. Eyes closed, And with him came a presence.
The arena's air thickened into tar. The sky dimmed as if the sun itself dared not witness what was to come. A bloodlust surged out from the giant like a tidal wave—demonic, absolute. It wasn't rage. It was hunger and insanity. The very weight of his presence crushed down on all present like gravity.
Anne collapsed, her scream shattered, fingers clawing at the ground as if to escape an unseen weight. Her body trembled violently. The ginger dropped beside her, shaking, sweat pouring from his temples, muttering incoherently.
Even the Drax tribesmen—all hardened warriors, buckled like grass before a storm, forced to their knees in instinctive submission. Their war chants died, replaced by the raw, primal silence of fear. Everyone bowed. All but one.
Lucian stood in the giant's presence, unmoved. The bloodlust didn't just oppress him. It called to him.
In that instant, he understood.
This giant—this beast, Somewhere in his veins ran the blood of Lucian's own kin. Cursed blood. Slumbering blood calling to be set free.
The giant opened his eyes.
They were pure white. Void of reason. Void of soul. He grinned. A blood-soaked smile, stretching far too wide.
Suddenly he lunged.
In a blur of muscle and murder, the behemoth shot forward like a cannon of flesh. Lucian darted aside—barely. The axe cut air, and behind him, a dozen tribesmen exploded into bloody gue, cleaved like stalks beneath a scythe.
But the giant didn't stop.
His frenzied swings painted the air red, each miss a massacre. Lucian danced between strikes, his body flowing like ink through water, blades flashing—cutting shallow wounds, targeting tendons, joints, and arteries. Every pass bled the monster. Every step stained the earth.
Still, he came.
The giant had gone insane by blood lust and wasn't trying to kill Lucian alone anymore. His tribe had now become a part of the sacrifice and yet not a single swing found its mark.
Unable to predict Lucian's weaving assaults, the giant slammed his axe into the ground with inhuman fury. The earth screamed beneath the blow—cracking, splitting, sending a concussive shockwave through the arena and creating a blanket of crimson dust. The crowd was thrown like rag dolls, rocks flying through the air, tearing flesh from bone, ripping through Drax warriors that were unable to see them coming as if launched from siege weapons.
Lucian staggered—his rhythm broken.
That was all the giant needed.
In a blink, the axe was in the air—a mountain in motion. It carved through the dust cloud and debris, through the sky, through sound itself.
Lucian's eyes widened.
No escape.
With all the force he could muster, he crossed both blades in front of his chest forming an X as his last hope of defence.
The impact came like the wrath of gods.
Steel screamed. Then snapped.
The axe tore through both swords like paper.
The crunch of bone splintering and the wet rip of flesh tearing echoed like a thunderclap throughout what remained of the circle. All who still clung to life turned their heads toward the rising cloud of dust—but none could see the strike that caused it.
Then, like a shockwave from the gods themselves, a violent gust of wind burst outward from the haze, scattering dust and debris in every direction. Anne's eyes widened, her heart skipped a beat. But then there—emerging from the chaos like a demon reborn—was Lucian, still breathing, still moving, still deadly.
His somehow now moved even faster, streaking low to the blood-soaked earth like a shadow born of vengeance. The giant turned, its milky white eyes locking onto Lucian's approaching form. With a guttural roar, he opened its arms wide, muscles bulging, then clapped its titanic hands together with earth-shaking force—trying to squash Lucian like an insect.
But the cursed warrior was already gone.
He dropped into a slide, his body twisting just in time to slip between the giant's legs. The air screamed around him as he passed, and in that blink of an eye, he brought his shattered blades—jagged and soaked with dark ichor—up in a deadly cross-slash. Steel met sinew. Metal met bone. The sound that followed was like wet wood being shredded in a storm.
Both of the giant's ankles were split clean through.
The beast let out a scream that tore through the sky, a monstrous, primal cry of agony and confusion. It crumpled, falling hard to its knees, shaking the ground with the weight of its fall. Blood sprayed from the stumps where its feet had once been, adding to the crimson pools of tribesmen he had created. Its severed ankles remained upright, grotesque pillars of meat and bone, disconnected from the rest of its now-collapsing form.
The giant gasped, panicked, chest heaving. He blinked through the pain, trying to locate his enemy. But Lucian was gone again. Silence fell for a heartbeat. Then instinct—pure, animal instinct—forced the giant's head to tilt upward.
There, descending from above like the wrath of god itself, was Lucian. His body twisted midair, spinning faster than the eye could follow, a human storm of steel and fury(Bayblade). His broken blades screamed as they cut through the air, the blood caked on them gleaming in the light like war paint.
And then—impact.
Lucian crashed down on the giant's skull with explosive force. His blades split the monster's head from crown to collarbone, carving deep through brain, spine, and ribcage. His chest tore open in a grotesque blossom of gore, ribs snapping and flesh peeling back in a visceral, brutal explosion of crimson.
The giant didn't even scream this time. It simply collapsed, a titanic corpse spilling its innards into the earth as Lucian landed atop the ruin, bathed in blood, eyes burning like wildfire.