Grand Olympia: Further Horizon - Chapter 41: Fiercely
Everyone fears death.
We may not speak it aloud, but it haunts us in our quiet moments. A shadow at the edge of our dreams. A whisper in the back of our minds. We build our lives pretending it's not there, crafting meaning, chasing glory, building legacies as if they will keep the inevitable at bay.
But death is not a punishment.
It is a conclusion.
Unfair, unavoidable, and universal.
No two lives are the same. Each breath, each step, each choice a thread in the tapestry of existence. And yet, no matter how different we are, death comes for us all in the end. Equal and absolute. A silent truth we can neither escape nor control.
And in this arena scarred, broken, soaked in ash and memory that truth hung heavier than ever.
The very air felt dense, thick with the gravity of fate. Not a single phantom cheer echoed now. The golden dust of vanished illusions hovered weightless in the dim light, drifting like the last breaths of forgotten. Even the ground beneath them seemed to hold its breath.
Protathlitis stood still.
His once mighty frame, battered beyond recognition. Right arm gone, jagged and bleeding. His body is a canvas of wounds, bruises, and cracks. His wings, symbols of triumph and dominance dragged behind him, limp and useless, feathers scorched and torn.
And yet, he did not fall.
He stood motionless.
Silent.
Regal.
A monument to defiance.
Before him, two figures moved Lapulapu and Musashi, warriors molded by pain, bonded through each of their own battles. Without a word, they split, dashing sideways in opposite directions. From Protathlitis's perspective, it was as if time slowed.
Lapulapu veered left, heavy and thunderous, his kampilan ready to strike. Musashi went right, swift and fluid, his twin blades shimmering in the fractured light despite made entirely of dark wood.
It was a tactical move to bait the beast, split his focus.
But the beast didn't bite.
Nor didn't move.
Not even a blink.
Not a twitch.
He stood there as though time itself had abandoned him.
Blood dripped from his fingertips like a slow metronome. His chest rose and fell with ragged breaths. His eyes burned not with fury, but with something deeper.
Older.
As if he were standing at the edge of eternity, staring down the end not just of a fight but of everything he ever was.
The silence was absolute.
Even Lapulapu and Musashi, circling him from both sides, felt it. The suffocating pressure. The weight of finality. They had fought monsters before. They had known danger, stared death in the face countless times.
But this was different.
This was the moment between worlds.
Where warriors became legends or were forgotten by history.
And the champion?
He did not scream.
He did not flinch.
He simply endured.
As if even now, he hadn't decided whether to fight one last time or let go.
And that uncertainty… was terrifying.
…
At the fractured rim of the arena, where the echoes of phantom cheers once soared like wind over canyon walls, a figure stirred.
Billy lay sprawled across the rubble strewn upper ledge, his coat torn, blood drying across his face in crooked rivers. One lens of his windbreaker glasses was cracked, spiderweb fractures catching the distant light like frozen lightning. The other lens was smeared red. But somehow, he was still breathing.
Groggy didn't begin to cover it.
His bones ached like they'd been trampled by a herd of stampeding mustangs. Every nerve screamed. Every muscle twitches.
His mechanical arm sparked faintly beside him, the fingers twitching uselessly in the dust. He coughed once wet, heavy and spat blood.
Then came the curses.
"Goddamn bird freak… son of a—" he winced, sitting up slowly, "…someone got his ass."
Billy blinked against the haze. His head throbbed.
But below he saw them.
Three figures in a standoff that looked like the end of the world.
Lapulapu, battered but unbroken, shield in one hand, his kampilan dragging fire from the air with each thrust. Musashi, fluid like a phantom, circling with ghost blades drawn, eyes sharp like steel. And then that monster, Protathlitis, standing tall despite the loss of a limb, blood trailing from him like a royal banner torn by war.
Around Billy was silent now. No crowd. No cheers. Just the hum of tension, the kind you feel in your gut before lightning strikes.
He chuckled dryly, pain laced in every breath.
"Guess y'all gotta finish the story without me…" he muttered.
But he didn't look away.
Because even broken, even sidelined, Billy the Kid knew.
Legends weren't made when you pulled the trigger.
They were made when you chose to keep watching to witness how far someone would go before they gave up.
And down below… the answer was still unfolding.
…
The Arena Trembled.
Cracked stone and glowing embers littered the battlefield as the wind howled through the hollow coliseum, carrying with it the ghost of a crowd that no longer roared. Dust hung thick in the air like smoke after a fire. The silence was not peaceful.
Protathlitis stood at the center, blood streaming down his broken form like warpaint.
One arm gone, feathers tattered, wings shredded to ribbons. Yet in his eyes, fury still burned a sun refusing to set. His talons curled, digging into the stone beneath him. The very ground seemed to pulse beneath his feet with the weight of his wrath.
And then he moved.
With a beast's snarl and the speed of a predator unleashed, Protathlitis lunged forward like a bolt of hatred given flesh. His clawed foot slammed into the ground and launched him forward, a crimson blur hurtling toward Musashi.
Musashi was already moving.
He had tried to flank, dancing swiftly and silently through the debris like a shadow beneath moonlight. His twin wooden katana gleamed briefly as he dipped low, pivoted behind Protathlitis's blind side, and aimed a precise, twin blade slash at the exposed ribs of the champion.
But Protathlitis was faster than that.
He twisted mid lunge, muscles howling in protest and his taloned hand intercepted Musashi's attack, claws scraping along the wooden blades in a shower of sparks. The impact sent shock up both their arms. Musashi's eyes widened and he had miscalculated the timing.
The champion roared and slammed his forehead into Musashi's, a brutal headbutt that sent the ronin staggering, stars dancing in his vision.
Protathlitis raised his arm, his fist like iron, and punched straight toward the dazed Musashi but Lapulapu intervened, blocking the attack just in time.
Shield chipped despite Lapulapu refusing to fall. His legs shook beneath him, but his stance never wavered. He charged with a howl that shook the dust from the heavens.
Protathlitis turned just in time to meet a blinding arc of steel Lapulapu's kampilan cleaving through the air toward his chest. The champion snarled, raising his arm to block but it was the wrong arm.
The arm that was no longer there.
The blade bit deep into his side, carving through sinew and scale. Protathlitis screamed not in pain, but in rage and retaliated by whipping his wing across like a bludgeon. Lapulapu took the hit full on, lifted off his feet, his face catching the worst of it but he was flung like a comet into the air, falling, cracking stone and slumping briefly.
The champion panted, swaying now, leaking blood from a dozen places. He looked around one enemy winded, the other crumpled.
And then—
Musashi rose again.
He didn't shout. He didn't rage. He walked.
The ronin, calm as ever, limped forward with his blades dragging through the stone like a whisper before a storm.
Protathlitis met him halfway, and the ground quaked beneath their weight. Claw met wood, steel met will. Sparks flew. Wind howled.
Lapulapu, breath ragged, climbed from the rubble again, dragging his body to its feet. His shield was gone, somewhere in the debris, but his eyes still gleamed with the fire of a warrior.
He screamed and joined the fray once more.
The three collided at the center. A maelstrom of motion. Each strike was a testament to endurance, every dodge a whisper of death narrowly avoided. Protathlitis, even wounded, fought like a god cornered, powerful, wild, relentless. His wing flapped like a blade. His talons moved like scythes.
Musashi, ever the dancer, weaved between blows, redirecting power, slashing low. And Lapulapu, grounded in fury, swung with bone cracking strength, his kampilan carving arcs of fury through the dying light.
For a brief moment they were not warriors.
They were storms.
And only one would be left standing.
BANG!
A sudden gunshot rang out, slicing through the eerie silence of the ruined arena.
Protathlitis staggered just slightly.
A thin trail of blood trickled down his avian brow, cutting across his face like a crimson crack in stone. His wings twitched. His eyes, wide with shock, searched the shadows as if the very air had betrayed him.
The silence returned, heavier than before.
[You have obtained a Golden Medallion for being the first to kill a Rank 8 Monster.]