Thirstfall - Memory of a Returnee

The gladius enters my abdomen.

For an instant, the arena loses sound.

Not because the world went quiet. The world never does me that favor. I still feel the sand under my boots, the weight of Eventide in my hand, the pressure of Undertow too close, Veric’s breath behind the shield. But the pain arrives before anything else and compresses it all into a narrow, hot line driven through the side of my body.

Veric got me.

And it wasn’t luck, much less brute force. He read my answer, prepared Azure Dividends, used my impact to open my center, and crossed the gap with Azure Trust before I recovered the line.

That wasn’t just good.

It was real growth.

The kind of evolution that turns a follower from someone merely protected by the future into someone who can change that future with their own hands.

Under the pain, I feel pride... Damn pride.

[OXI: 1,619 / 2,500]

[Mild Bleeding Active]

The number confirms what the body already knew. The blow was serious, but not final. At the last instant, I moved my torso enough to deny the worst path.

Nothing pretty about it, nothing clean. Instinct and training together, like Rhayne before the arrow.

A few inches had decided whether the blade would find something that ended the fight or just a passage bad enough to hurt and bleed.

The gladius probably slipped between the things that could have truly finished me. Too close to organs I’d rather not picture, but without tearing the essential. If Veric had adjusted half a finger better, Freya wouldn’t need to raise her hand. The fight would already be over.

I see the motion from the corner of my eye.

Freya starts to lift her arm.

The rule is clear. Fatal blow, incapacity, real threat of permanent damage. As judge, she can’t ignore a blade in the abdomen and blood reaching my mouth.

So I do the one thing no one expects.

I step forward.

The gladius goes deeper, enough to lock.

Veric’s eyes go wide.

The pain bares teeth inside my body, but I close my left hand on the weapon’s guard and pin his wrist before he can pull, twist for more damage, or recover the blade.

Eventide stays in my right.

His sword is inside me, but it’s also trapped. If he tries to move, he has to move with me. If he tries to withdraw, he has to beat my hand, my weight, and the shock of realizing the blow didn’t make me retreat.

Freya’s hand comes down.

I don’t know if from curiosity, shock, or technical judgment. Maybe all three. Maybe she just saw what Veric hadn’t understood yet.

I was still fighting.

I use Eventide. The side I can attack lines up with the side opposite Undertow, the side of the gladius. The cut would land where no defense existed before Veric reorganized his body.

He retreats in a short burst, abandoning the gladius in my abdomen to escape the line of the black blade.

A correct decision. Staying meant taking a punishment for his own hit.

Veric lands a few meters back without the sword in his hand.

For the first time since the fight began, he looks truly afraid of me.

"Have you lost your mind?"

The question comes loud, without elegance. That pleases me more than any pretty line of his. Real fear strips the decoration from a voice.

I breathe through my nose, and it doesn’t go well.

"That’s the difference..." My voice comes low, cut by the pressure in my abdomen. "Between wagering ten percent... and wagering your life."

His face changes.

I keep one hand on the gladius guard, stopping the blade from swaying inside me.

Each breath has to be short. Each word, chosen.

"Seems like none of you ever understood... the point of the training."

Outside the arena, no one speaks.

They fight for wagered experience, for pride, for growth, for friendship, for anger, for correction. All of it matters. But out there, in the real Thirstfall, there’s no leather burning to decide a percentage. No Freya ready to raise her hand. No Zhang Xi waiting for the order to stitch a body back together.

There’s loot after the kill. There’s an Echo Fragment for whoever dies wrong. There’s cold ground, monsters, desperate Divers, and the kind of mistake that doesn’t come back to teach you the next morning.

Veric clenches his empty hand. "Stop the fight."

"No."

"Dryden."

I take an LDP from my inventory, careful. I don’t pull the gladius out. Pulling would be stupid. The bleeding would worsen, Veric would have his weapon back, and I’d lose the one cork keeping the blood where it belongs. I bite the cap, spit it aside, and drink the whole thing.

The liquid goes down fast.

The effect follows, cold and dense, filling part of the hole the fight opened in my OXI.

It doesn’t heal the wound. It doesn’t erase the blade.

But it gives the body enough energy to keep obeying.

"Do I look unable to fight you?" I ask.

Veric doesn’t answer.

"It doesn’t look like you gave me a fatal blow. Or that you’re threatening one now."

He looks at Freya, but Freya doesn’t raise her hand.

Anger crosses his face, mixed with something heavier.

Maybe guilt. Maybe frustration. Maybe the discomfort of learning that hitting someone he respected could be worse than missing.

"You piece of shit bastard..." His voice comes low. "Just accept it."

I close my fingers on Eventide, still dormant.

"Memory of Lightwaves."

The aura explodes.

Dust rises from the arena in a wide circle, and arms lift outside to shield faces from the pressure and the light. My eyes burn like embers, and a golden mist begins to escape them, fine as gold dust blown over dry ice. The world gains too many contours. The air seems to fold into lines, distances, routes, echoes of movement waiting to be born.

[OXI: 2,287 / 2,500]

The number rises, but I feel the drop start almost the same instant.

Mild Bleeding is still there. Memory of Lightwaves drinks OXI by the second. When Eventide truly answers, the cost gets worse.

I have minutes, maybe less. Maybe just a few good movements before the body charges everything back with interest.

Veric raises Undertow again.

No gladius.

With far more serious eyes.

Eventide’s black blade is born again and hums in my hand, and the golden smoke keeps pouring from my eyes.

"You said you wanted me to fight with everything, Veric..."

I breathe short, feeling the gladius trapped in my abdomen and the whole arena waiting.

"Here I come."

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!