Chapter 64: Finals - Only God Forgives (3)

The cracking sound of bone meeting knuckles echoed clearly into the first three rows of seats.

Aelrindor staggered wildly, his eyes rolling back for a split second as his knees buckled.

Silence crashed over the arena.

For one surreal heartbeat, seventy thousand screaming spectators forgot how to breathe.

Then the noise returned, sounding unlike anything the tournament had ever produced.

Every single section screamed at once, mixing aristocratic horror with bloodthirsty joy from the lower tiers.

Shaking off the dizziness, the prince managed to recover his footing.

Reaching over his shoulder, Kane finally wrapped his hand around Mjoldr’s leather grip.

Pulling the weapon free, he didn’t charge forward.

Instead, he hurled the axe with terrifying speed.

He didn’t aim for the prince, but rather targeted a solid stone pillar standing twenty feet to Aelrindor’s right.

Whoosh.

The weapon spun rapidly through the air, its aura leaving a vibrant trail before it slammed handle-first against the stone.

"A miss!" a noble laughed nervously.

"Did he just throw his only weapon away?" the commentator yelled.

Then Mjoldr froze completely in midair, hovering inches above the ground for one second.

With blinding red light, the axe rocketed backwards.

It ignored the laws of physics, flying away from the pillar and shooting straight back into Kane’s waiting palm.

Catching the handle effortlessly without even bothering to look, Kane spun the weapon once and threw it again.

"The axe came back!" someone shrieked from the stands, pointing a trembling finger at the arena floor.

"Did you see that? The axe came back!"

Aelrindor tracked the obvious trajectory, shifting his weight to dodge.

But the weapon was redirected in mid-air by the Primal Resonance bond.

The flat of the blade caught the prince right across the back of his injured shoulder.

Kane deliberately avoided using the razor edge, opting for blunt trauma over a quick execution.

"Gah!"

Aelrindor dropped to one knee, gasping for breath.

The stadium lost its mind.

"This is... this is impossible!" a high-ranking noble stuttered, pointing a shaking finger at the sand.

"He’s using it like a boomerang!" a beastman roared from the general admission tiers, punching the air.

Taking his time, Kane walked toward the kneeling royal at a slow, unhurried pace.

Mjoldr snapped back into his waiting palm, casting a red glow across the pale sand.

Looking up from the ground, the prince breathed heavily. His injured shoulder showed debilitating damage now.

That flat strike did some serious work on already compromised muscle tissue.

Despite the obvious agony, Aelrindor stood up anyway.

Bleeding from his lip and dragging his left arm, the prince raised his twin blades once again.

The general admission sections made a strange new sound.

Stopping a few feet away, Kane rested the axe on his shoulder.

"You can stop."

"I know," Aelrindor smiled bitterly, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the sand.

Then he attacked.

The second phase of the fight felt different from the first. Aelrindor was severely damaged, and both men knew it.

That blunt strike, stacked on top of Rutheus’s brutal quarterfinal damage, reduced his left side to merely functional rather than effective.

His speed remained extraordinary, while his footwork still generated angles most opponents couldn’t even process.

But he wasn’t trying to win anymore.

The crowd felt the sudden shift without being able to articulate it.

The noise changed register, turning less frantic and much more intense.

Activating Berserker Rage, Kane let his instincts take over.

The physical change was immediate.

His muscles tightened, the aura radiating from Mjoldr deepened, and his movement pattern shifted from reactive to something far more primal.

His responses grew shorter, his strikes faster, projecting the specific aggression of a fighter who had decided to close the show rather than extend it.

Reading the shift, Aelrindor responded in kind.

Compromised muscles produced compromised strikes, but the prince used the pain as fuel.

It turned into a three-minute brawl.

Real, ugly violence followed. It was the kind of fight that costs both men something precious.

Taking a hit to the ribs, Kane felt two of them crack.

In return, Aelrindor took a brutal Mjoldr strike across his chest.

The Soul Brand flared upon making contact with his royal blood.

The divine bloodline was destabilized in the way that Grieselda’s fallen energy produced.

Staggering backward, Aelrindor gasped for air.

He caught his balance just in time.

Refusing to yield, he raised his twin blades again.

Moving forward, Kane stepped completely inside the prince’s guard this time. He bypassed the flashing blades and the tricky footwork, stepping directly into the tight space where the royal had zero options left.

Hooking the prince’s lead ankle with the curve of Mjoldr’s blade, Kane pulled hard.

The golden boy crashed into the sand.

Kane immediately pressed the red edge against Aelrindor’s throat.

Seventy thousand people fell silent.

One full second passed.

Then two.

Then three.

Every single section of the sprawling arena held its breath simultaneously.

Kneeling in the sand with a blade resting against his windpipe, the prince looked up.

His expression was not what Kane expected to see.

It was relief.

"She found someone," Aelrindor whispered, his voice quiet enough that only Kane could hear it over the rushing wind.

Looking down at him, Kane let the words process in his mind.

’He wanted to be stopped,’ Kane realized, keeping the blade perfectly steady.

"Yield," Kane ordered softly.

Aelrindor closed his eyes, leaning his head back.

The stadium remained deathly silent. Seventy thousand people were terrified to exhale.

"I yield," Aelrindor announced, his voice carrying just enough to reach the nearest officials.

The arena exploded.

Deafening roars shook the foundations of the ancient building.

Glancing up toward the royal box, Kane saw the queen standing up.

Dropping all ceremony and political performance, she stood near the edge of her balcony and met his gaze across the vast distance.

Then he looked down at his axe.

Swinging the crimson blade in a controlled arc, Kane did something the screaming crowd never anticipated.

He didn’t aim for the prince’s head, nor did he strike the ornamental brace on his injured shoulder.

The blade cleanly severed the prince’s arm right at the elbow.

Slash.

An eye for an eye.