Part A – The Master's Table
The chamber beneath the Arena was colder than the killing fields above it.
Stone walls curved inward, lit by torches that spat more smoke than flame. The air was heavy with damp and the faint stench of old blood, seeping through from the killing floors above. In the center stood a table carved from black oak, its surface scarred by blades, dice, and spilled wine.
At its head sat the Master of the Slaughter Arena.
He was not a tall man. His frame seemed almost wiry, his shoulders narrow, his face hidden beneath a mask of lacquered bone. But his presence filled the chamber. His fingers, long and pale, tapped softly against the wood, each strike echoing faintly like the drip of water in a cavern.
Around him sat his lieutenants — killers, gamblers, and enforcers who held sway over the city's daily rot. Each bore scars of their trade: a man with half his jaw replaced by metal, a woman whose eyes had been gouged and replaced with milky glass spheres, another whose hands were tattooed black to the fingertips.
None spoke until the Master allowed it.
The silence dragged until he finally leaned forward.
"Gu Kuangren."
The name landed like a hammer.
A murmur passed around the table.
The man with the metal jaw clicked it once, his voice rasping. "The Crimson Madman. That's what they're calling him."
The blind woman tilted her head. "Madman? No. I saw his fight through whispers. He is not madness. He is… order. Too clean."
"Too bloody," another spat. "Did you see the way he carved Kael open? That wasn't order, that was art."
The Master lifted his hand. The voices died instantly.
"Mad or not," he said, his tone smooth, deliberate, "he is ours now. And the city stirs because of him."
One of the younger lieutenants, his hair cropped close and his arms wrapped in chain, leaned forward. "The gamblers adore him. Wagers doubled the moment his second fight began. They call his victories inevitable. They bet not on whether he wins — but how he kills."
"That kind of reputation," the blind woman murmured, "burns bright, and burns fast."
The Master's fingers tapped the table again, rhythmic. "Which is why we must choose how to use his flame. To warm our coffers… or to burn our rivals."
The metal-jawed man grunted. "You want to unleash him."
"I want to test him."
The Master's gaze swept the table. None met his eyes directly. His mask gleamed faintly in the torchlight, the bone pale as ivory.
"Already," he continued, "he has disrupted the balance of the square. Kael's allies whisper vengeance. The gamblers sing his name. Even the guards hesitate to cross him. One man has begun to tilt the Arena's scales. That is power. And power unused is power wasted."
He leaned back, folding his hands.
"But."
The single word cut sharp.
"We must know his limits. We must know what chains he wears. Or whether he wears any at all."
Silence followed, thick as tar.
Then the woman with the glass eyes spoke again. "There is one who watches him."
The others turned to her.
The Master tilted his head. "Speak."
"Zhu Zhuqing. The cat. She follows him. Not openly. But her shadow clings to his steps. She is disciplined — precise — yet her gaze wavers when it meets his. I have felt it."
The chained man laughed low. "A girl? That one? She's dangerous, yes, but why would she follow him?"
"Because storms draw lightning," the blind woman answered.
The Master tapped the table again, slower this time. "Interesting."
He rose from his seat. The lieutenants stiffened as his presence expanded, as though his thin frame were merely a vessel for something larger.
"Gu Kuangren kills like a man possessed, yet cleanses like a priest. He prays to his blade. He meditates upon blood. And now, a cat with claws sharp enough to cut the dark has chosen to watch him."
His head turned, mask catching the dim torchlight.
"I smell inevitability."
The metal-jawed man shifted uneasily. "And if inevitability turns against us?"
The Master's hand fell flat against the table with a sound like a blade striking wood.
"Then we break it before it breaks us."
But no one at that table — not even the Master — spoke the quiet truth threading through the chamber:
That perhaps Gu Kuangren was not the kind of man one could break at all.
***
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