Reality shattered.
The wooden floorboards beneath Luka's knees evaporated into filthy black dust. The real world's gravitational pull vanished. His body floated in a vacuum. One agonizing second. Then, an unseen force yanked him down. He plummeted through the dense void. Oesteria's freezing air disappeared. Replaced by a thick fluid strangling his skin. He drowned. Sucked deep into a bottomless dark well.
His body slammed, striking a wet surface.
A foul splash rang loud. His tailbone collided hard with the bottom of the puddle, and agony crawled fast up his spine. His back nerves tensed rigidly.
It was not a puddle of water. A warm fluid bearing the temperature of human blood submerged his boots, swallowing the hems of his trousers. The texture was sticky.
Luka forced his eyelids open. The aggressive stench of rotting carcasses assaulted him. The metallic tang of blood stung his nasal cavity, mixing with the rot of stale pus. His gut contracted hard, rejecting the hellish aroma as he vomited the remaining oxygen from his lungs.
This dimension was wrong. His brain refused to process the surrounding sight.
He looked up. There was no rusted dusk sky, no dark sapphire moon. A giant ceiling of old iron buried the entire overhead view. Its surface peeled roughly, crusted with rust as thick as tree trunks. Hundreds of thick iron meat hooks swung in a dead rhythm, pushed by an unseen wind carrying the scent of rot.
A giant pigpen.
Luka propped his body up with both palms. His fingers sank into the thick puddle. Pitch-black blood mixed with yellow-green bile. Sharp glass shards, rusted nails, and metal splinters pierced his palms without mercy. A sting spread. He snatched his hands back.
His footing was not the palace's white marble floor he always saw in his memory fragments. This was a filthy slaughter facility. Piles of human bones scattered, overlapping in random formations. Cracked skulls and shattered pelvis bones crushed beneath the weight of his soaked boots.
All around him, towering bars fenced this bloody arena. Not the forged iron bars typical of royal dungeons. The bars were an arrangement of hundreds of human femurs, sternums, and skulls. All bound tight by thick barbed wire wrappings. The wires squeezed the remaining flesh, dripping black bile into the blood mud puddle below.
This was not the inner realm of a prince. This was a Slaughterhouse. An execution arena where pigs were butchered and mocked by spectators.
The air died. Lacking the roaring cheers of knight battalions welcoming their king. Devoid of church bell chimes or angel choir hymns supporting the Eisenhart throne heir.
Only the sound of dripping blood. Drip. Drip. Drip.
Then, a new sound frequency tore the void.
Clink! Clink!
Luka's neck muscles locked. His spine tensed hard as stone.
Small metal chimed loud against the slimy mud bottom. Copper coins. The lowest value loose change in the entire continent. The coins scattered, striking the filthy puddle two inches from his boot tips.
Clink. Clink.
His ears caught another sound vibration. Laughter. Demeaning laughter descended from the darkness outside the arena bars. The laughter of fat-necked men wrapped in expensive silk robes. Aristocrat laughter looking in disgust at the filth beneath their shoe soles.
Luka's brain boiled.
That must be Ulric's laughter. The laughter of his uncle and the traitorous noble dogs who robbed his throne, decapitated his father, and threw him into this final dump.
Yet, a flaw plagued his physical form. Instead of standing tall responding to the insult, his body shivered cold. His gut twisted and thrashed. His stomach muscles squeezed in pain, responding to the sound of falling copper coins with a feral hunger. He felt minuscule. Vile. His instincts commanded him to crawl, kiss the dirt, and pick up the filthy change to survive.
Luka ground his teeth. Bastard. Ulric's law of erosion had ruined his body's dignity to the most vile degree. Forcing a prince's flesh to react trembling like a starving beggar on the street side.
The laughter echoed without end. Bouncing multiple times from the iron ceiling. Piercing his scalp without pause. Shattering the remnants of his patience.
The Sin of Wrath responded.
A stinging heat. The fine veins on Luka's temples bulged thick, piercing his bandage wraps. Throbbing wild, enduring the blood flow pressure spiking drastic toward his skull. The skin of his arms turned burning red. His body temperature spiked. The blood inside his vessels boiled, burning every sane cell trying to maintain logic.
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His jaw locked. His molars ground. His breaths hunted. Dense white vapor spewed from his mouth, colliding with the carcass-scented air.
"Silence." Luka growled. His voice broke, slit. The stitched wound on his neck heated up. "Silence!"
He clenched his fist and punched the blood puddle with his right hand. Thick pus splashes flew into the air, dirtying his gauzed face.
The demeaning laughter died.
The blood puddle surface ten paces ahead churned wild. Giant bubbles emerged, ruining the fluid's calm. Bursting, spewing bile gas and hot steam. The prison arena's temperature spiked sharp, burning the remaining oxygen. The black blood spun fast. Rolling upward against gravity. Forming a deep red vortex pillar three meters high.
From inside the thick fluid pillar, a body rose.
Luka stepped back. His boots stepped on a barbed wire mine. Blood from his soles dripped, blending with the mud puddle.
Pitch-black metal. Thick plate armor lacking a single holy carving. The armor radiated a dense stench of death. A knight towered, piercing the red blood steam. Atop his iron helm, a sharp jagged crown sat firm. From the base of that black crown, flames burned feral. The fire did not illuminate the room, but absorbed the entire light spectrum around it. Creating a dense shadow swallowing hope.
Not a single slit for eyes existed on that iron helm. Its surface was flat, dull black. The form symbolized a total identity void. A reflection of the memory emptiness thrashing blind inside Luka's skull.
Luka's eyes dropped, staring at the creature's neck.
Chain.
A thick black iron dog chain wrapped the knight's neck. The chain locked tight, merging with the armor. Its iron end dangled long downward, dragging heavy into the slimy blood puddle. Shackled. This creature was no liberating knight. This was a feral hunting dog locked by force in hell. A monster born from the womb of his own wrath and trauma.
The creature's two massive hands moved down. Plunging through the filthy mud.
He wrenched out two serrated longswords from the puddle's bottom. The metal surface churned. A roasting temperature radiated, cleaving the watery air. No red fire burned the blades, yet the surrounding oxygen distorted under a crushing heatwave. A dense heat from despair sediments crystallized into naked killing intent.
The Black Knight lowered his faceless helm. Locking onto the target's position.
The air solidified. A massive killing intent struck Luka's chest. His lungs felt pierced by dozens of rusted nails in unison. This creature's spiritual pressure crushed his ribs from the outside. Forcing his breathing to halt in flesh panic.
Luka possessed no weapon. His right hand was empty.
He had to survive. If he died chopped in this mud arena, Ulric would keep laughing on his throne. His body refused to surrender.
The Black Knight took the first step.
The blood puddle's surface exploded. The creature shot forward, piercing the distance with a single explosive leg muscle thrust. His speed broke reason for such heavy armor, lacking the clank of footsteps. There was only a sharp, hissing hot wind tearing at the ears.
Two serrated swords swung from crossing directions, aiming for Luka's neck with executioner speed.
Luka dropped to the bottom of the filthy puddle, evading the lethal slash.
Hot metal passed one centimeter above his head. The heat scorched his protruding blonde hair strands, the stench of burning hair stinging his nose. Luka wasted no time. His hands dived, scooping the blood mud. His fingers groped roughly, tearing through bone piles and sharp glass shards. He needed a metal shield.
His fingers gripped a hard, rough object—a giant bone pipe. It was the remaining femur of an unknown creature, its end wrapped in rusted wire coils.
He wrenched the raw weapon out, standing in a hunched, guarded posture. His shoulders curved inward, ducking. It was the filthy stance of a street dog used to fighting over food scraps in a dark alley—a repulsive sight when contrasted with the enemy before his eyes.
The Black Knight pivoted his heavy armored heel.
The creature's posture locked perfectly straight. Rigid. Flawless. His shoulders did not drop a single centimeter. He raised the glowing sword in his left hand, then slashed vertically downward. His movement was far too clean—a stiff, lethal slash, slicing the air without wasting useless distance. It was a judgment fencing technique from the aristocrat class. Cold, graceful, and deadly.
Luka raised the giant bone lever with both hands, blocking the strike.
Clang!
A ringing clash shattered his eardrums. The sound of glowing metal meeting bone. Vibrations crawled wildly from Luka's palms, tearing his arm nerve tissues. His triceps screamed in agony, enduring the monster's physical weight.
The supporting bone pipe in his hands cracked long. Barbed wire fragments snapped from the heat. Sharp metal scattered, hitting his cheek skin. Blood dripped from the scratches on his face.
His strength lagged.
The serrated sword pushed Luka's blocking bone. Devoid of a blind feral rampage. The Black Knight locked his wrist angle. Calm. Systematic. He cornered his prey with the grace of a royal knight demeaning a commoner. Every millimeter of his sword thrust pressed with constant force, crushing the target steady without wasting useless energy.
Luka lost his footing. His right knee bent trembling, unable to hold the weight, touching the bloody mud bottom.
A second later, without altering his rigid upper posture, the Black Knight raised his steel-plated leg high. Kicking dead center into Luka's gut. The steel boot struck his solar plexus with the destructive force of a cannon.
Crash.
Luka's ribs shifted rough from their axis. Bile mixed with fresh blood spewed from his mouth, soaking the rust-scented air. His body launched backward lacking control. Flying fast through the air above the filthy puddle. Slamming hard into the arena's prison bars.
Luka's back struck the giant ribcage arrangement. The sequential cracking of his own ribs rang clear, ruining his hearing. His body slumped down devoid of support, falling to drown again in the black pus puddle in the dark corner.
Thick blood flooded his esophagus. His vision faded, enduring extreme agony.
At the edge of the arena, the Black Knight began walking closer with a measured, oppressive step rhythm. His hot sword burned the blood on the floor, leaving a trail of red steam. The thick dog chain on the creature's neck clinked, dragging through the mud. Bringing a measured, flawless, and certain execution.