Chapter 256
Chapter 256
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 14
Chapter Title: One Empire, Three Legends (15)
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‘Combat is breathing.’
Long ago, in response to Borca’s desperate plea to fight as a human gladiator rather than a beast, one of his fellow gladiators had said exactly that.
‘It’s not some grand, sentimental notion. It just means your body acts before you even think about it—like how your lungs expand before you realize you need air while gasping for breath. You shouldn’t have to think, “I need to parry that sword, feint for the throat, and slash the knee.” The blade should already be ahead of your thoughts. It’s the same as a werewolf instinctively recognizing the moment an enemy’s neck is exposed. Warriors are those who artificially forge the instinct to kill.’
‘...Then how do you create that instinct? Do you just let your body move on its own?’
He had been quite the popular guy back then. A sword instructor from some noble house, punished with this hellhole for the absurd crime of injuring a noble during training.
At Borca’s question, the man flashed a grin through a mouth missing half its teeth.
‘You watch. If combat is breathing, then you match your opponent’s breath. Your arm entwines with the twitch of theirs as they raise their blade. You lock eyes with the gaze scanning your every move, predicting the next strike, twisting in. That’s why some call combat a dance, or a conversation. When swords clash with lives on the line, at the very least in that moment, you become the person who thinks of your opponent more than anyone else in the world. You feel the sweat bead on their forehead, trembling on their brow, like the most precious thing imaginable. Ah, alright, this is getting sentimental. Guilty as charged.’
Kaaaaang!
Borca’s fleeting reverie shattered with the scream of a sword tangling against his shield. That comrade, Damnus Kurtel, who had taught others to prove the past Borca lived on within him. Even after his death, Borca had swung his blade for many long years without truly grasping its meaning.
Kak! Chaeang!
But in this moment, he understood perfectly what he’d meant by combat being a conversation.
The chill edge of the blade’s tip. That killing intent spoke of how many lives Tusan Dalun had taken without hesitation.
“Groooooh—aaaaah!”
The way he thrust in, willing to take a fatal blow himself, showed his resolve.
Seruk!
And even with the shield raised, the glaring weakness on one side meant he’d long fought alongside someone reliable to cover that flank.
He was aware of it himself, circling the arena horizontally to compensate, but small habits like swinging his arm too narrowly couldn’t be helped.
“Guh, guhuh...”
With the blade’s teeth chipped and the shield dented, the duel’s victor was decided as he threw everything—helmet, greaves, all of it—at his foe.
“Waaaaaaaaah!!!!”
Blood spraying, gladiator falling. The crowd roaring amid the flickering torchlight.
“...Cough! A legendary gladiator... indeed impressive...”
“Huff, huff. Surrender, Tusan Dalun. The audience... they crave your survival.”
Amid that feverish clamor, the one-eyed wolfkin with a blade at his throat peered up through his half-shattered helmet and spoke.
“The cheers, the anticipation... I know. It’s why my sister and I have survived this long—by imitating the tales we heard of you.”
Hope. Hope that, like someone beyond those mountains, they too could burn this hellish place and return to the forest.
“So... that’s why you aim for victory? To threaten them into breaking the contract like I did, to claim your freedom?”
“Heh, hehahaha... If only it were that simple. Sadly, we weren’t as lucky as you. The contracts here aren’t like those back home. Magic, fraud, imperial law—all tangled up. To cancel one, you need a formal petition witnessed by three high imperial nobles... Impossible for us from the start.”
Borca knew Tusan was stalling to catch his breath, but he couldn’t shut him up. After all those years, across that vast distance, this pup’s life had intertwined with his own legend. Knowing the hope it brought couldn’t apply to these siblings filled him with despair at their plight.
Sweat beading on Tusan’s panting face, Borca stood frozen like a prisoner handed his sentence.
Drip. Plop. Drip!
In that stolen time, the wolfkin’s body began to swell.
“My sister inherited our mother’s blood far more purely than I. I beg you once more—stand aside, Benard Fang! That child, Marca, who senses good and evil spirits directly—she can’t endure this place any longer. She’s dying! This is our last chance! Win the tournament, buy our freedom with the prize! That’s it! I’ll climb. I’ll stake everything! I’ll reach the top and seize our freedom!!”
Wooduduk!
Claws elongating to bat the blade aside, the wolfkin grew 1.5 times his size in an instant and leaped back.
A gladiator’s taboo. Returning to the form of a wolfkin who couldn’t survive victory. At the sight, a growl rumbled from Borca’s throat too.
“You think that’ll happen? That the arena masters will just unchain you because you won? Why can’t you see that glittering light up there is nothing but a mirage!”
“I’ve already stretched out my hand—too late to pull it back! Mirage or not, I have to cling to it!”
Hwaaak!
With that scream-like shout, Tusan lowered his stance. Vast blue spiritual energy rose from his back as he planted all four limbs on the ground. Borca, who knew what it meant, let out a crushed sob from his lips.
Slaves in the arena, fed only just enough tantalizing hope.
The moment Borca became the arena’s king, he’d learned the truth: slaves belonged to the arena, and so did any rights they earned—the masters wielded them.
It was inevitable, but Tusan could only hear jailers’ leaked whispers in dark cells or false tales from planted gladiators. He didn’t know that this spiritual energy burned a wolfkin’s near-200-year lifespan down to 60, the power fueled by their immense vitality.
Ting. Taang.
Grinding his molars to dust, the wolfkin tore off his helmet and raised his claws.
A gray-furred wolfkin emitting gray spiritual energy.
A one-eyed wolfkin with slightly longer silvery-blue fur, radiating an icy blue spiritual energy.
“Grrr... We... will return to the forest. No matter the cost!!!”
Chwaaaak!
The wounded wolfkin’s claws raked the ground as he charged.
“...Yes. I will too.”
Toward a son whose face he couldn’t even recognize. Borca swung his claws.
Jjeeooeong!
The colosseum shook as the two wolfkin, burning their remaining lives, clashed.
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“...Kek, keruk...!”
Thud!
The goblin’s throat pierced, its hand dropped the turquoise dagger as it exhaled its final breath.
“Grraaah... Hoo, grrooo...”
He couldn’t recall how many he’d killed. Forty-five? Forty-six?
Fever raging from the venom splashing his severed arm, thoughts swirled chaotically in his heated mind.
A grown son whose face he couldn’t recognize.
A daughter teetering on the brink of death.
His blood kin burning their lives to protect kin without parents by their side—and absurdly, the blue claws severing his arm felt gratifying.
“Kyaaak!—Guk!”
“Y-You mad beast bastard—ack!”
In place of his fainted son, Borca—who had carved a blood path to the arena’s pinnacle—sensed his end drawing near.
As the duel ended, the crowd was chased out, gladiators swarming him. Their murderous glares told him the arena’s verdict. Without hesitation, Borca began recreating a legend of old.
Bursting through guards of every race, he reached the arena’s peak—the lair of this slaughterfest’s master.
With dimming flames at his back, the wolfkin’s lone remaining hand flung open the door bearing the desperate hopes of countless slave gladiators. He faced dozens of arrows and guards aimed at him.
“At first, I thought you were just some fraud spicing up the games. But you’re living up to your name, eh? Blood-soaked Benard Fang.”
A middle-aged noble sipping wine from a glass at the long table’s end.
“Kehehehe. I get a dog biting its master—arena management’s more whip than meat. But biting us who aren’t even your owners? That makes you just a rabid mutt, doesn’t it? Eh? Benard Fang. So, you came to Haunuman for something?”
Chiiik!
Beside him, a gaunt goblin slowly grilled a blood-dripping steak with a branding iron.
“B-Bildrant... And the Open Ribcage...”
“Bildrant ‘Marquis,’ you manners-less beast.”
Puk!
“Grooh!”
“Bowing suits you better. What good is a beast looking down on men?”
An arrow slammed into weary Borca’s thigh, forcing him to his knees. A steel bolt powerful enough to shatter bone after piercing dense muscle. The archer who’d fired it too fast for wolfkin eyes was no ordinary mercenary.
“Well now, let’s hear your reason. You came to Haunuman for something. Word’s out you’re a dog that bites its master, always popping up in noble brats’ education under ‘slaves.’ You join our grand tournament so boldly, and thought we’d make no preparations? What gave you the gall for such brazen provocation?”
“Kehek! He must’ve seen the empire’s might and those eastern backwater states as equal. Listen, wolf. This is Haunuman. The blood festival, squeezing orcs, goblins, humans from vast plains, picking only the prime cuts! You thought my masterpiece equaled some podunk arena? Ha! Dream on! That’s why you beast races get hurt and lose every time! With heads that stupid!”
Before those who’d anticipated his arrival, Borca barely raised his torso and lifted his head.
“The victor’s right... I’ve come to claim it. The right to any one thing... in all of Haunuman...”
Blood gushing from his severed arm and knee, his labored words left the noble and goblin speechless for a moment—then they sneered endlessly at the man who’d conquered the arena twice.
“Kehehehehehek! Heh, kuhihik! Kehehehek! Oh my... To come this far, in this state! And say that here! Marquis Bildrant, I told you over and over! These aren’t men—they’re beasts standing upright!”
“...Truly born with claws instead of brains. You thought you could demand anything from us looking like that? After all this, that’s all you have to say...”
“Kehek, ahem! Marquis. What now? Leave him and he’ll die on his own—end it quick, or watch him squirm?”
“...No. That’d make us imperial nobles liars to this wretched beast. Tolkano Bite, as I always say, you lack dignity for your station. As the first goblin atop imperial nobility, show some care for decorum. Why should we soil our lips with lies to vermin that’d scatter in a breeze?”
At the unexpected reply, the delighted marquis gazed down at the dying wolfkin.
“Very well. What do you want? I don’t know if you’ll last till I finish this glass, but I’ll hear you out.”
“Grrruk... Fifteen years ago. Far east of here, there was a great forest. A wolfkin tribe of about thirty lived there. Do you know who killed them all, burned it, and took them?”
His flickering voice forced out each word with agony. Doubting the slaughterfest’s endgame was some old grudge, the marquis puzzled—but the goblin, long handler of异族 slave gladiators, caught on instantly.
“Marquis! This one looks same breed as our arena wolves! Fur, snout, build—all spitting images!”
“Ah. That whimpering wolfkin sibling pair? Debuted seven years ago, I thought...”
“Took time raising the whelps! Too wild for pets, so tossed ’em in—and they’re still alive, great earners! Kehehehe! Intake was fifteen years back, yes!”
“Fifteen years ago.异族 slaves from the east fifteen years back...”
Stroking his chin at the goblin’s words, the marquis rose with a soft smile.
“Then you and I go way back. I must’ve overheated in battle’s thrill—left a survivor.”
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Dragging his wide robes across the floor, the marquis approached the wall and hefted a halberd one-handed, swinging it experimentally.
“Apologies. For not killing you properly back then—making you suffer all this time.”
“Kek. Does the marquis need to apologize to filth like that?”
“Isn’t it proper to slaughter livestock swiftly, without pain?”
Borca knew every word was the answer to his question. The trained physique glimpsed beneath loose, soft robes.
From opening the door, from that first utterance—a nightmare scene resurfaced.
‘No need for adults! Kill them all, bring only the pups!’
Face unseen, but legs on stirrups and a long halberd swung etched in his eyes.
“...It was you.”
Grinding his teeth, the wolfkin faced the man’s cold gaze from above.
“Yes. It was me. Would’ve been nicer if you’d recognized me at once. Shame I treated you so gently you forgot.”
The marquis relished this vendetta come full circle.
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