Rise of the Faceless Demon

His ribs scraped inside his flesh. Broken.

Bile flooded the base of his throat. Luka coughed hard. Thick blood spewed from his mouth, staining the filthy mud puddle beneath his face. He tried to support his body weight with both elbows. His arm muscles trembled. His joints rejected commands. Agony crawled from his solar plexus, spreading feral, ruining the nerve tissues across his body. The Black Knight's steel boot had just crushed his ribcage in a single jolt.

Stinging fluid pooled at the corners of his eyelids, forced out by physical pain tearing his sanity. The air inside this prison arena was suffocating. The stench of human carcasses and rusted iron clogged his airways. Every breath felt like swallowing sharp glass shards.

From behind the bloody steam, the clink of iron chains echoed. The drag of heavy metal struck bone piles and thick mud.

The Black Knight stepped. Unhurried. Lacking a feral rampage. The creature's posture locked flawless upright. Its obsidian armor plates cleaved the fog. The faceless helm looked down, staring at Luka's body curling at the puddle's bottom. Two swords in both hands evaporated the fluid beneath his feet, creating a sharp hiss slitting the ears. The fire on his crown did not illuminate the room, but swallowed every light refraction around it.

The instinct in Luka's head screamed. His noble ego demanded this filthy body to stand. A throne heir of Royal Eisenhart must not kneel at his killer's feet. He had to rise. Set his stance. Hold the honor of the Reinhardt bloodline until his final breath.

His body rebelled.

Both his legs went paralyzed. His knees refused to lock a knight's posture. Instead of standing firm challenging death, Luka's shoulders curved inward. His back hunched. A low position. The filthy stance of a hunted beast cornered in a narrow alley. A disgraceful instinct for a crown bearer.

The Black Knight rotated his wrist. Rigid. Measured. The glowing sword in his right hand swung, slicing the air in a horizontal slash aimed for the neck.

Evading the slash's speed with a backward step was impossible.

Luka did not attempt to parry. He used no elegant footwork evasion taught to palace princes. He ducked, dropping his entire upper posture until his chin almost touched the filthy puddle's bottom.

The hot blade passed one centimeter above his hair. A burning heat ruined his scalp, and the stench of scorched hair strands stung his nose. The roasting temperature blistered the tips of his ears.

In that exact second, Luka's hands dived to the bottom of the blood puddle. His fingers scooped thick mud, wet pus, and shattered bone fragments. He wrenched the filthy lump from the arena floor and, without pause, threw the bloody mud chunk straight at the Black Knight's iron helm.

Filthy. Cunning. Repulsive.

The mud lump struck the eyeless black helm, sticky fluid covering most of the iron visor plate. The Black Knight halted his left sword swing for half a second. His attack momentum broke, his visor blinded by thick mud.

An expensive half-second. Luka lunged forward. His posture remained low. Crawling. He did not aim for the thick steel-plated chest. He did not aim for the neck gap protected by hard plates. He aimed for the support point forgotten by arrogant knights.

His left hand grabbed a sharp rib bone fragment from the puddle's bottom. He stabbed hard toward the back of the Black Knight's knee joint. A small gap between the thigh guard and the steel calf. The supporting joint gap.

Crack.

The sharp bone embedded, tearing the tissue behind the armor. Its tip lodged in unseen flesh.

The Black Knight faltered. His right leg bent downward by force. His flawless posture ruined for a moment. The chain on his neck clinked loud, striking his chest guard.

Luka forced a push. He slammed his shoulder with all his might into the creature's steel gut. Hoping to collapse this giant monster's balance into the mud. He wanted this creature to kiss the same filth as him.

The impact hit. Luka's collarbone screamed in agony. It felt like ramming an asphalt-coated fortress wall.

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The Black Knight shifted one step backward. The armor plates were too heavy. The creature did not fall. His iron helm lowered, staring at Luka clinging to his gut like a street flea.

The creature rotated his waist. The steel-plated left arm swung a short hook from the side, the back of his steel hand striking the side of Luka's face with the destructive force of a cliff boulder.

A cracking sound crunched loud.

Luka's jawbone shifted, his facial muscles tearing on the inside. The impact sent him flying, tearing through the rust-scented air and striking the blood puddle five meters from the starting point. Filthy water splashed high, soaking the surrounding bone bars.

Luka choked. Fresh blood flooded, spilling from between his lips. Two of his molars shattered. He spat the bone fragments to the mud bottom along with thick red clots. A wild spin overtook his head; his vision shook, refusing to focus on the surrounding objects.

A boiling rampage pierced his chest cavity.

Why? Why did a throne heir's body fight like a sewer rat? He had just thrown mud. Stabbed an enemy's knee fold from below. Fought dirty. He possessed not a single knight's instinct inside his veins. Where was the elegant sword technique he was supposed to have? Where was a prince's grace?

Devoid of any remaining Royal Eisenhart honor. He fought with the despair of a street beggar fighting over food scraps from a stray dog's mouth. Vile. Disgraceful.

All this humiliation... this was Ulric's doing.

His uncle shattered his soul. The slash on the coup night robbed his foundation. The Law of Erosion drained his nobility until his body became defective, leaving only a hunted beast's instinct to survive. This was his uncle's fault. His uncle forced him to become an animal. Forced him to crawl in this filthy mud, swallowing defeat over and over. Ulric demeaned him to the most pathetic degree.

The clink of copper coins echoed again in his head. Aristocrat laughter reverberated from behind the prison's iron ceiling. Mocking his efforts. Mocking his dirty techniques. Mocking his naked failure.

His Sin of Wrath ignited feral. Burning his logic to ash.

Not just hatred for Ulric. This was hatred for powerlessness. Hatred for the pain in his jaw. Hatred for his trembling body. The blood in his vessels no longer flowed, but sprinted, crashing against his vein walls. His eyes turned deep crimson, absorbing the color of the blood puddle beneath him.

Across the arena, the Black Knight kicked rough the broken bone clogging his knee gap. The bone shattered into dust fragments. The creature walked again. His iron chain dragged heavy. The serrated swords in both hands radiated a heatwave, burning the bile gas in the air into a boiling fog.

Luka forced his knees to bear weight on the wet mud.

He would not rot here. He refused to die surrounded by pus and the laughter of his enemies. If noble honor could not save him, he would use the filthiest savagery to tear this creature's neck. He would devour this monster's heart if necessary.

The creature arrived in three massive strides. The right sword slashed diagonal. Fast. Lethal.

Luka twisted his body. His leg kicked the blood puddle with aggression, splashing the filthy fluid toward the glowing sword. A hissing steam explosion blinded the vision for a moment. Luka ducked sideways.

The Black Knight's left sword swung a follow-up. Piercing the steam without hesitation. Striking the side of Luka's chest.

Flesh tore. Blood sprayed.

Luka's body launched rough again. His back struck a bone bar pillar at the arena's edge. The bones composing the bars crunched, enduring his physical impact. His body slumped, leaving a long red stain along the calcium pillar. He coughed. Air mixed with thick red fluid spewed from his throat. His vision narrowed. Darkness began gnawing at the edges of his eyes. His internal organs suffered severe damage. His lungs leaked. Every breath produced an agony piercing his crown.

The Black Knight walked over, his steps locking Luka's remaining movement space.

The creature stood towering before him. Devoid of emotion. Lacking hesitation. His fire crown blazed, burning the remaining oxygen above Luka's head. Both steel-clad arms raised the swords high, preparing to swing them in unison—a death execution, decapitating the sinner of wrath inside his own arena.

Luka stared at the glowing blades, the shadow of death crawling in his pupils.

Then, the corner of his eye caught a dull metal shape.

On his right side, half-buried beneath a pile of human pelvises and barbed wire coils, a piece of iron protruded from the pus mud bottom. A black hilt with a blade eaten by severe rust. Its surface was rough, worn serrated, and smelled of old blood. No luxurious carvings. No royal gold-plated handguard. Only a piece of killer iron scrap. A street slaughter tool.

Luka's breath creaked. His lungs refused to supply air. His hands trembled violently, pain tearing his arm muscles as he forced his shoulder to rotate.

Luka gripped the rusted hilt.

The surrounding barbed wire scratched his palm, tearing his skin. Fresh blood dripped, soaking the iron hilt, but he did not let go. He wrenched the hilt out from the mud bottom, snapping the wire wrapping its blade by force.

Luka raised his head, his eyes glaring sharply at the Black Knight. The stare of a feral predator refusing to bow.

Rusted iron raised.

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