Here are the corpses… hanging around me as if the entire city had decided to wear its eternal mourning.
My arms are stretched out upon what resembles a thick wooden cross, erected in the heart of the square the very place where celebrations were once held. Now, nothing remains of celebration except the stench of rot, the smoke of torches, and the sounds of distorted laughter.
They surrounded me in a wide circle; men and women with blurred faces, eyes swollen from sleeplessness or madness, holding torches whose flames danced to the rhythm of their hysterical movements.
The shadows overlapped upon the ruined walls of the city, making them appear like creatures without limbs, without necks… mere black masses moving to the rhythm of a myth.
Then the sound came.
The sound of the hammer.
The first strike was not the loudest… but it was the deepest.
The nail drove into my palm, slowly, deliberately, as if the one hammering it savored every tremor that escaped me.
The sound of flesh tearing beneath iron was clearer than their screams.
I screamed… or perhaps I didn't. I don't remember.
All I remember is that the pain was not merely pain; it was a living entity, crawling from my hand to my shoulder, then to my chest, then gnawing at my head from within.
"Come on! Dance… dance!"
The old man shouted in his hoarse voice, rough as a throat burned by smoke.
"For the gods have returned to save us! And this is but their first offering! Dance… laugh, my dear people!"
What a mad old man…
I remembered his face. Yes… I had seen him before.
He was among the arena's crowd, cheering my name, demanding the blood of my opponents, laughing every time my blades sank into another man's flesh.
He applauded me then… and now he applauds my crucifixion.
The second strike.
The other nail.
"Damn… this hurts…"
It wasn't only the iron that pierced me, but their gazes.
They stared at me as the starving stare at a feast long denied.
Some of them wept with joy, others smiled wide smiles revealing broken, blackened teeth.
Heavy chains were tightened around my chest and legs, until I felt my ribs would shatter before the nail could sink any deeper.
But… how do I convince these madmen that what they see as a god… does not see itself that way?
Even that being they speak of never once claimed to be a god.
Yes, its dominion was real… terrifying… it moved what could not be seen… but a god? No.
Perhaps the solution is simpler.
Perhaps… I just need to break these chains.
"You… nameless young man…"
The old man approached me, until I felt his foul breath strike my face.
"You who were sent to save us from the spreading darkness among us… your blood is what will heal us. Your blood is the key. Your blood is the covenant."
His eyes…
There was a strange longing in them, like one awaiting a miracle, like a child waiting for a mother who died long ago to return.
But behind that longing, there was something else… something rotten.
Blind, mad, poisoned faith.
My blood began to fall.
A drop…
Then another…
Then a thin stream flowing from my palm to the ground.
They did not let it go to waste.
They stepped forward with stone bowls, hands trembling with anticipation, filling them with my blood as wine is poured in a sacred celebration.
I saw their faces gleam beneath the red light, their lips trembling in expectation.
I was about to lose consciousness.
The world began to fade, sounds turning into distant whispers, shadows swallowing the edges of my vision.
But I held on.
I will not die here… not while hanging like a slaughtered offering.
Suddenly, the old man's voice rose again, sharper:
"Bring him!"
His soldiers stepped forward…
Or rather, their corpses did.
Rotting bodies, sunken eyes, mouths open emitting nothing but dry groans.
They held that creature I had seen before… the one that devoured them without mercy, tearing into their flesh as if they were nothing but food without souls.
How useful… to possess the dead as your servants.
They brought it closer to me.
They poured the blood into its mouth, over its face, over its open chest.
They emptied bowl after bowl, until it was drenched in my blood.
The people screamed with excitement.
Some knelt.
Some raised their hands to the sky.
"Return to us!"
"Rise!"
"Bring our brother back!"
Moments passed…
Then minutes.
Nothing.
The creature swallowed what it could, then… lay on its back.
It let out a disgusting belch.
Closed its eyes… and slept.
"Um… Father?"
A small child's voice, frightened, trembling.
"Shouldn't my brother come back to us?"
The old man didn't even turn to him.
He said with forced calm:
"Wait, my son… your brother hasn't digested what he ate yet."
Time passed.
Silence stretched between us.
Then the whispers began.
The corpses that had served him… disappeared.
Nothing remained of them except muddy footprints.
The faces shifted from euphoria to confusion… then to fear.
The old man looked at me.
This time, there was no longing in his eyes.
There was something else… something colder.
"You…"
He stepped closer.
"You were not an offering? You were not sent to save us? Then… you are nothing but a slave. Your place is there… where the arena awaits you to entertain us."
All sounds vanished.
I could hear nothing but his voice.
It was like the very chain that bound me, coiling around my neck.
And then… I decided.
I pulled my arms.
The chains screamed before they broke.
The metal bent, cracked… then shattered.
The nails tore out of my flesh, leaving black holes bleeding slowly, but I did not scream this time.
Pain had become part of me… it had become fuel.
I dropped onto my feet.
The wood cracked behind me.
The old man stepped back.
The people scattered, hiding behind walls, behind one another, like rats that had seen fire.
I smiled.
"It seems you waited for me to turn my back… to strike, didn't you?"
He laughed a short, cold laugh.
"But you are mistaken, nameless slave. I am no wish-granter… but my desire to see the arena's champion stand against me… that could be a magnificent experience. I will return you to it… even if I must break your bones piece by piece."
I raised my head, blood running down my face.
"I am no slave… nor am I nameless."
My voice came out hoarse, but steady.
"I am a soldier who failed to protect his emperor. All I want… is to rebuild the empire. Even if I must crush this world beneath my feet."
He laughed louder this time, almost coughing.
"How ridiculous you are, boy. That goal of yours was nothing but an experiment… a game in the hands of giants. And today… your life has been decided."
He stepped closer.
The black aura around him began to spread, like smoke that would not dissipate.
I said, clenching my pierced hand:
"Stop your rambling… and bring what you have. This time, I am far more prepared. You will see… who will return to the arena… and who will be buried beneath it."
No one told him the temple no longer stood.
That the arena had become ruins.
But you cannot argue with the logic of the mad.
He lived among the dead…
And I lived to fight.
And in that blood-stained square, beneath a starless sky,
the battle began… between one who clung to the illusion of a god, and one who clung to the dream of an empire.
A heavy silence fell…
The silence that comes before the storm.
The old man did not move first.
His smile widened, the wrinkles of his face cracking like dry earth, then he slowly raised his staff and struck the ground with it.
One strike.
The ground trembled.
From beneath the stones, from between the black cracks, fingers began to emerge…
Stiff, rotten fingers, their nails black as coal.
Then arms, then heads, then whole bodies crawling out, dragging the remnants of their flesh with them.
They returned.
His soldiers…
The dead who had vanished moments ago had now returned in greater numbers, more deformed, their eyes glowing with a pale color like moonlight over an open grave.
"Do you see?"
The old man said with disgusting calm.
"I do not fight alone."
elia clenched his fists.
The dried blood on his palms cracked, and the wounds opened again.
But he did not care.
"And I… never needed an army."
The first corpse lunged at him, its mouth open like a rusted trap.
elia did not wait.
A swift sidestep.
A fist slammed into the lower jaw.
Crack!
Two teeth scattered into the air, and the head twisted at an unnatural angle.
But the corpse did not fall.
Another advanced from behind.
elia sensed its movement from the shift in the air, turned with a rising elbow like a hammer, smashing its nose inward, then grabbed its neck and twisted it violently.
Bone shattered with a clear sound.
He shoved the body into those coming behind it; they stumbled and fell into a heap of rotting flesh.
But they did not stop.
One of them lunged at his leg, its teeth sinking into his thigh.
elia gasped in pain, then grabbed its head with both hands and slammed it into the ground… once… twice… three times…
Until the skull split open and a dark liquid like tar poured out of it.
"Feel it!"
The old man shouted in ecstasy.
"Remember your place, slave!"
elia leapt over a corpse and charged straight toward the old man.
But the ground suddenly opened before him, and two hands emerged, grabbing his ankles and pulling hard.
He fell to his knees.
Ten… no, twenty corpses wrapped around him all at once.
Their fingers dug into his shoulders, into his chest, into his open wounds.
Their teeth tore into his flesh without hesitation.
He screamed…
A scream that was not weakness, but rage.
He tensed his muscles with everything he had left.
One of the corpses burst apart when its back slammed against a stone under the pressure of his body.
Another had its arm torn off when he pulled it in the opposite direction.
He bit into one of their necks with his own teeth ripping out a piece of rotten flesh and spitting it away.
Then he rose.
Carrying two corpses hanging from his shoulders like broken weights.
He spun his body in a full turn, smashing everyone who came near.
He charged toward the old man again this time faster.
The old man raised his hand…
And the corpses suddenly stopped.
Then they screamed… a collective scream that tore through the air.
They leapt all at once.
elia did not retreat.
He slid beneath one of them, struck its knee, broke it.
He grabbed another's skull and smashed it against a third.
He kicked a corpse in the chest so hard its ribs pierced into its dead heart.
But they were many.
One managed to drive its fingers into his left eye.
It pulled it outward slightly.
Blood ran down his face.
"Kneel!"
The old man commanded.
But elia… laughed.
A short, bloody laugh.
"You hide behind them…"
he said, pulling the corpse's finger from his eye and tearing it apart with his teeth.
"Do you not have the courage to die by your own hand?!"
The old man's face trembled with anger.
He raised his staff high, and the spirits gathered around him like a black vortex.
The air grew heavier.
The shadows stretched, clung to elia's feet, binding him.
"I am the one who walks among the dead!"
the old man shouted.
"I am the one who commands the spirits! You… are nothing but living flesh waiting to become one of them!"
The spirits surged toward him, piercing his chest like knives.
His body froze.
He saw faces…
The faces of his opponents in the arena.
The faces of soldiers who fell under his command.
The faces of the imperial family.
They whispered to him:
"You failed…"
"You are the reason…"
"You were not enough…"
His knee nearly touched the ground.
But another image appeared.
A shattered throne.
A torn banner.
An empire burning.
He slowly opened his remaining eye.
"I… am not finished yet."
He screamed a scream rising from the depths of his chest and the spirits trembled, some retreating.
He pushed forward despite the restraints.
Every step shattered a shadow.
He finally reached the old man.
One strike…
crashed against his staff.
It shattered.
A second strike…
sank into the old man's chest.
He felt the ribs breaking beneath his skin.
The old man coughed black blood.
But he smiled.
"The god… will not forgive you…"
elia stepped closer, grabbed him by his torn clothes, lifted him off the ground.
His voice came out calm… terrifying.
"If you wish to meet your god… then die faster. Perhaps you will see him there."
Then he added, his eyes burning with a distant memory:
"Or perhaps… you should have been there that day… to shape him yourself."
The old man's lips trembled.
"The one who walks among the dead…"
he said in a broken voice,
"…is the only one who has the right to command the spirits… the slave who has never died… has no right to command me…"
His breath stopped.
His eyes went dim.
His body fell, weightless.
And in that same moment…
The spirits screamed.
The corpses began to convulse violently, then exploded into scattered chunks of flesh.
But from within the smoke, other beings began to form…
Taller, thinner, without faces.
They surrounded elia.
He stood…
but his legs could barely hold him.
Blood dripped from his eye, from his thigh, from his pierced palms.
His breathing was heavy.
The beings drew closer, whispering in voices that could not be understood.
One of them touched his shoulder.
He felt the cold of death pierce his bones.
He tried to raise his hand…
he couldn't.
"Not now…"
he whispered to himself.
"Not… before I rebuild it…"
The empire.
His vision began to narrow.
The sounds drifted away.
The shadows swallowed his limbs.
The last thing he saw…
was the black sky, without stars.
Then… his sight vanished.
Darkness fell upon him like a heavy curtain.
And he fell with it.