When was the last time he sought violence? He couldn’t remember. Everything was so loud, the scream, the fire, the persistent ringing in his head, his heart. Despite all that, his focus reached its peak, right in front of him was the man who crushed his dreams, hurt his family, and brought the devil to his doorstep. This alone deserved punishment.

Containing the mark long enough to be reborn as a Vessel was but a pipe dream if his outcomes were rigged from the start. Where the old man was courting death, his golden flames taking over half of the room were completely corrupted by Kallen’s darker kind. As the child stepped forward, they danced around him like he was part of the brazier.

The entrance was sealed; it was just him and the disciple. One could burn, the other felt right at home. Cinders gently floated around as the tension rose up. Kal may now look like a beast, but at this instant, he was no mere prey. The look in his eyes said it all.

I can kill him.

With every step, the infected’s leg muscles twitched as he gathered strength. His target noticed right away. Half-crouching forward in an elegant sword stance, he rooted himself to the ground. It seemed he quickly accepted that words wouldn’t fool the kid twice. The very next moment Kallen charged. With his clawed right hand open for a grab, the unexpectedly explosive burst closed the distance too fast. Impaling itself first on the Swan’s slender arming sword, the half-beast’s palm shielded him from his opponent's cold counter.

Before inertia forced his chest to suffer the same fate, in a split second, Kal yanked his arm away as the momentum crashed his body against the warrior’s metal chest plate, sending both flying against the room's table. In a cloud of dust and wood splinters, he rose up to his feet only to see Aren standing, his free arm reaching upward as the fleeting particles polluting the air faintly spiraled around his hand.

With a level of strength he never experienced before, he was pulled forward by the sword he was shackled to. With the adversary's balance gone, the Vessel hammered down a vicious chop targeted at the boy’s wrist. Sensing danger even greater than the blade, the boy planted his right foot firmly as he launched his functioning arm to firmly intercept the traitor’s hit. The thundering remains of the impact reverberated throughout his forearm and the rest of his body. The sound and feel of his bones trembling to the blow’s weight made him wince silently in pain under the Swan’s deathly stare.

The sweet talk from earlier contrasted completely with what he could see in the disciple’s eyes. This was a mutual fight to the death. As he engaged in a power struggle with Aren pushing his hand downward over this shaken body, the boy’s efforts came short as he was brought to the ground once again by a broad leg sweep.

Rolling on his back to see the next attack coming, he could only be swift enough to grab and redirect the incoming piercing blow that ultimately landed in his shoulder instead of his chest.

“GRRAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!”

While he instinctively felt the pain would be less of a problem, the intense sting spreading throughout his body shattered the feeling of immortality overtaking him earlier. Aren was still in training, but a Swan nonetheless—Kallen, a beast in the making. The converging fingers spearing the warrior’s open palm were buried deep within the scaled skin. Putting his weight onto it, he was aiming to reach the bone.

As if it was second nature to him, the scale covering the back of his hand took a scarlet shade. Stygian flames erupted once again, scorching the young noble's defenseless arm used as a blade made of flesh.

“AAAARRRHHH YOU LITTLE—” Before Aren could even finish his sentence he was cut short by a violent kick to the stomach. The kid’s newfound monstrous strength was such, that it projected him against the wall, letting go of the weapon nested in the glowing red fist.

Slowly getting up, the occult fire within him grew in intensity. Akin to a volcano, it sprouted from his open wounds. The sword puncturing his hand gently bent before rupturing under the intense heat. As if burning away in reverse, his torned flesh was healing at an astonishing speed. Throwing his blazing gauntlet away, Aren could only watch in disbelief.

“Ô Mother…what became of you…”

Despite the pain, Kallen could only grin. He was drunk on power. For the first time in his life, he could wield the weapon grown-ups used and abused for so long to solve their problems, as petty as they could be: violence. He could feel his body and his mind feel lighter. His scales grew larger, life flowed fiercely in his veins, but the flames of his wits were withering. His siblings lying around in this room that was slowly turning into an oversized furnace was taking less and less space. To escape, he needed the Cloak dead.

Next to the wall, the white warrior's expression went right back to what it was earlier. His cold calculating gaze hinted he wasn't dealing with a human being anymore. It was a hunt. As he gave up his charred hand to gravity and lowered his stance, he shaped the hand that was holding his sword like it was the blade itself. When the palm faced skyward, once again, a subtle breeze came spiraling around his feet, bringing ashes and dust along. He was ready to open the dance, he was ready to waltz.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

In a blink, the wind warrior vanished from Kallen’s field of vision. Immediately, blood gushed out of a cut on the back of his right hand. When he lost sight of his target, he instinctively covered his neck with both hands and was right to do so. Stupefied, he looked behind him only to see the man in the exact same offensive stance as earlier. It was fast, too fast. It was smaller, but still there nonetheless, the gap between those who tamed the mark and those who didn’t.

Knee to the ground with his back rounded, Kal crouched, hiding his head under his crossed scaly arms, using his new physiognomy to shield himself from the incoming flurry of deadly cuts.

Back, arm, horn, leg, back again, wounds kept appearing at an infernal rhythm all over his body. He couldn’t catch him, he couldn’t stop him. With his now limited sight, he could only witness the instant when the Swan's feet paused before other splashes of his own blood tainted the ground or walls once again. He was getting hurt faster than he could heal, the cadence was ever-changing. Like a well-rehearsed choreography, the dancer made no mistake whatsoever. With every strike hitting the mark, it was only a matter of time.

…Just once…I need to catch you just once…

The pain became less and less of a concern as his mind shrank. The entirety of his attention was directed to the swordman’s footwork, the sound of it, to be precise. The time between a hit and his feet touching the ground was random, but between the step and the strike, it was more or less the same. He waited. Waited.

The rhythm of the dance seemed to have accelerated, the kid could only deduce the disciple must have caught on. He was looking for the right moment, the small opening where he could catch him within his short range. However, now the risk was his opponent pressuring him to open up—open up just enough to cut him down for good.

Leg, arm, the other one, back, leg once more, the assault continued, and the flames only grew weaker—but not the ones in his eyes. At the moment, he wasn’t afraid of death; he merely wished to extinguish his prey.

After a new particularly deep slash was drawn across his mutilated back, the next step made by the Swan was the one he was waiting for. Imitating the warrior, he planted his feet firmly within the pool of blood formed under him and projected his arm forward like a spear. At the exact same moment, a long vertical wound opened on the right side of his chest. It was deep enough to reawaken his dulled pain receptors in a frenzy. He let out a howl, unable to produce any kind of human-like cry.

However, as his serpentine eyes laid their gaze back on his arm, it was tainted as well, but the blood was not his. Behind him, a silent Aren held his side, one knee to the ground. The red liquid flowed out of a wide gash, punched by Kallen’s black claws. With no hesitation, the wounded beast lunged with all its remaining strength towards the cloaked warrior. His injuries were severe, but to him, this opportunity felt like pain relief. If it was suffering alone, today, he could endure it all.

The two bodies crashed inside the small bedroom, landing on the witch’s bed. He quickly noticed he lost mobility in his right arm, but the kid wasted no time and mounted the injured man like a predator pinning down his prey. It was now or never. The dark flames erupted once again from his remaining hand pushing the blade dancer further into the bed. They were not able to engulf him fully, but the small fire melting his chest plate down was enough to finish him off. With his lower body losing blood and strength, Aren could only struggle to avoid a hellish fate.

“NAAARRRGGHHHH!” As the heat reached the skin, the now weakened disciple cried in pain.

Suddenly, he threw his sword hand upward, grabbing Kallen’s neck. Tears in his eyes, this wasn’t the look of a dying man.

“I-I’m sorry Father… I'll be cleaning the mess I created…Don’t join me too soon.” As the young warrior pronounced these words, the same green hue emanating from his hand, used to subdue Alm and Kara was glowing around the only remaining sibling’s neck. He could feel it, he was losing strength—fast. But this wasn’t the worst. The sclera of the wounded man started to turn black as his eyes took a darker shade.

You…

Kal understood right away, he needed to get rid of him now. Pouring out everything he had left, the heat went up a notch, his opponent did the same. Each life the others hand, the first to be left behind would see his eyes closing for good. The smell of molten metal and blood permeated the room as they clenched their teeth so hard it could break. Both had death staring right at their soul, waiting for a moment of weakness to snuff out their remaining embers of vitality.

“Sacrificing yourself to the mark is a disgrace. In this case however, I can only praise your commitment to the cause, Aren Dumas.”

This voice. This deep aged voice he thought he could forget about came back to haunt him.

No..!

His respiration was cut, the most violent blow he ever received came striking his stomach. Sent upward at a dramatic speed by a kick from the resurrected Ascetic, he crashed against the ceiling so hard he could feel a lot of his hardened bones shatter. Embedded deep enough within the stones to defy gravity for a moment, his consciousness only hung by a thread as streams of blood came out of his mouth. His body on the other hand was out of commission.

Squashed like a mere bug, the only sounds he could produce were stuttering groans. The fire beast was no more.

“Master...what have you done?” The disciple didn’t look at his savior with the eyes of a grateful person. This was fear, shock, and disappointment.

The Black Swan in agony minutes ago ignored his student and gazed up at his victim for a moment, the cloak and veil were gone, revealing the face of a grizzled old man with wavy grey hair and a thick beard. However, half of his face was on fire, the golden inferno hadn’t died yet. His remaining eye had the same pure light.

“Now is not the time to discuss ethics. Get up. We are not done here.” The sage finally answered in a tone so calm that it felt disconnected from the situation.

“This is not about ethics…This kind of sin—”

“SILENCE!" He paused for a few seconds before continuing. "You know nothing, boy. Now answer me, the other two, where did they go?”

“T-The others...?” The young warrior finally got up from the bed. While Kallen couldn’t see clearly from where he was, the following silence indicated something was disturbingly wrong.

As the fell beast finally dropped down from his nest of blood and stone to end up lying on his mother’s bed, the burning old man unsheeted two long daggers hanging from each side of his hips. The blades shone brightly under the firelight.

“We got busted, captain.”

This unknown relaxed voice clashed completely with the tension built up in this house since moonrise. When the swordsmen took a defensive stance, Kal heard the elder utter this one word.

“...Bathory”

End of Chapter