Anthesis of Sadness
Chapter 111: The Vampire Tournament (3)

Chapter 111: The Vampire Tournament (3)

In front of us, already, several vampires had rushed into the arena, as if sprung from the shadows themselves, their movements quick but precise, almost choreographed, bearing that ancient knowledge that can only be learned through the silent transmission of forgotten castes. They were minor spell-wielders, builders of night, those who go unseen, but without whom no confrontation could take place.

Using glyphs engraved directly onto their arms, and living stones extracted from the circle’s depths, they began to mend the damaged surface. The ground, wounded by Gayar’s rune and Lysara’s destructive spirals, was cracked, broken in places — a battlefield that had retained the memory of the clash.

But slowly, stone by stone, the debris began to rise into the air.

Not all at once.

Slowly.

With that strange gentleness unique to mastered magic — the kind that does not seek to impress, but to restore order. They floated, twirled slightly, then settled back into the original structure, as if drawn by a logic only they could understand. In less than a minute, the circle returned to what it had been: black, smooth, ready.

Then, in a single, barely perceptible breath, two men stood.

No surprise.

No announcement.

Their eyes had already met — up there, between two benches — and something invisible had passed between them. Not a provocation. Not a fear. An agreement. An ancient pact that only those who have known duels without audience know how to recognize.

They descended the steps side by side, without speaking, without ever slowing down.

Their steps, heavy, rhythmic, echoed against the stone like two war drums slowly approaching one another. A restrained rumble. A flameless ceremony.

Oltrad and Rizork.

Their names were enough.

The second fight could begin.

The two vampires stood facing each other, anchored in the black circle, each grounded in their own world. Nothing linked them — not a word, not a breath — except the invisible line drawn between them, that light tension, almost imperceptible, which always floats before the first blow.

The first to speak was a man as straight as a blade. His voice, when it rose, seemed to come from another century.

He wore rigid armor, perfectly fitted, with matte gold and blood-red reflections. No unnecessary ornament, no overly bright gleam: everything was measure, authority, gravity. He had the bearing of a war chief one recognizes without ever having learned it — the kind of gaze that pierces through men without seeing them, of those who stand tall even when everything falls apart.

His aura was heavy.

Heavy like the silence after an order. Like the respect one does not question.

— Rizork. Chosen of Fillin. Strategist of the Red Siege.

His voice was deep, steady, carried by a regular, precise breath. Each word fell with the weight of a decree. He didn’t need to convince. He asserted. His mere presence imposed. The way he stood, the way he breathed even, betrayed the discipline of a man forged by conflict and held by rules he had never broken — even when he could have.

Then it was the other’s turn.

Oltrad.

He advanced as one walks through a familiar alley, with a fluid, almost lazy step, scanning the arena as if entering a bar, not a battlefield. Everything about him said: I have nothing to prove — or maybe nothing to lose.

He wore a long black cloak lined with white fur, heavy, trailing, almost theatrical. Tinted glasses masked his eyes, and a slightly tilted hat gave him the look of an overacted gangster from a forgotten movie. The contrast was grotesque... and yet, something worked. Something improbable held together.

A silent laugh vibrated in my throat.

I couldn’t help but think of those visual clichés we cherish despite their absurdity. He looked like one of those eccentric pimps straight out of an old decadent action film — a walking stereotype. But a stereotype with style.

He stopped in the center, pivoted slightly toward the crowd, then declared:

— Oltrad. Vampire of the Underworld.

And that was it.

No Lord’s name. No proclaimed origin. No reverence. Just that title, thrown like a slap, a cocky smile hanging at the corner of his lips, and that final wink — addressed to the whole arena, or maybe to no one.

He was in his place.

Because he had none.

But I knew.

I knew what he hadn’t thought necessary to say, what he preferred to let linger like an indecent perfume over shoulders too broad for a mere extra. He was the Chosen of Nymphael. The Goddess of corrupted pleasures. Of deals sealed in the dark, of pacts carved into flesh, of moans silenced with wine and venom.

And in a way... yes.

They suited each other well.

He had that nonchalant flair, that provocation made to seduce but never to apologize. She, that power that only forgives what it has already devoured. It was a bond of velvet and fangs.

I smiled, inwardly.

The arena was ready. The air grew denser, heavier. Silence did not fall again: it sealed. Like a blade. Like a door. Like the signal that the game was about to begin, and that there would be no return.

The battle promised to oppose two extremes: the strategist of a burning empire, shaped by war and rigor, and a vampiric gangster who, on his own, could have warmed any alley with the sheer heat of his vice.

Ornée rose then. In a single movement.

No haste. No surprise. Just that way of holding herself, upright, piercing, as if nothing in this world could escape her. She raised her chin, and her voice rose, pure, clear, cutting.

— Let the battle begin.

She hadn’t finished the sentence when already... there was only one man standing in the center of the arena.

Rizork.

Oltrad had vanished.

Purely. Simply.

I frowned, gaze sharpened, but without real worry. This kind of eclipse, I knew it too well. I knew what it meant.

He belonged to the same class as me.

Assassin.

The word pulsed within me like a familiar blade.

Decidedly... that role suited him too well.

And that idea, deep down, amused me more than it worried me.

Suddenly, a flash.

Brisk. Sharp.

A flash of metal, sharp as a blade of lightning, sliced through the air barely a second before he appeared. Oltrad had just reappeared, exactly where he should have — behind Rizork, in the spot where the guard would be most fragile, most vulnerable.

A light smile floated on his lips, almost childlike in its casualness, and his dagger, short, thin, perfectly held, descended toward the spine with the precision of a surgeon who has repeated this gesture a thousand times in the dark.

But Rizork was not caught off guard.

His two-handed sword sprang from his back with a speed owing nothing to instinct — it was pure calculation. A reflex not animal, but military. A reaction forged in training, in discipline, in scenarios anticipated even before the battle began.

Steel intercepted the dagger in a spray of silent sparks.

Then Oltrad vanished again.

And the hunt began.

He leapt from shadow to shadow, like a thought too fast to grasp, always appearing at odd angles, where the eye no longer looked. He struck, jabbed, sometimes grazed, then vanished before metal could return the blow.

A slash to the shoulder.

A prick to the hip.

A gash to the leg.

Nothing fatal.

Nothing spectacular.

But everything was deliberate.

Each wound was laid with care, like a note on a macabre score. A slow bleeding, orchestrated. A patient dismantling.

Oltrad was not there to impress.

He was writing pain with method.

And I realized he wasn’t only striking with his blade.

He had a skill.

Something that enhanced every strike from stealth — faster, sharper, cleaner hits, that passed through armor as if it were soaked leather. He became swifter, deadlier, more insidious, each time he emerged from shadow.

But Rizork did not yield.

No cry. No grimace.

He endured. He observed. He waited.

His stance remained upright, anchored, rigid like a structure built to withstand. Each wound seemed to glide over his mind leaving only data. He bled, yes, but he was not wounded.

He analyzed.

And I, watching him, knew.

He was building his response.

Then came one strike too many.

A strike too direct.

Too confident.

Oltrad leapt once again, in that style that had become his signature — fast, cutting, stealthy, weapon aimed at the throat like a snake in mid-strike, convinced that, once again, speed would suffice.

But Rizork was waiting.

And his heel struck the ground.

With brutal, dry force, as if summoning something buried. The shock was immediate — a circle of invisible energy burst from his footing, a controlled wave of impact, perfectly circular, that cleaved the air and threw Oltrad off balance in a fraction of a second.

He faltered.

And that was enough.

Rizork leapt at once, blade already in hand, soldier’s stance forgotten for an ancient violence, direct, deliberate. A charge without embellishment, without flourish, just the full weight of his body hurled into the moment.

Oltrad tried to retreat.

But not fast enough.

His cloak tore in a single line — a sharp whistle, almost beautiful — and his flank opened in a dark red burst. A brief, wide splash, hotter than the burning stone beneath his feet. He grimaced, recoiled, then vanished again, swallowed by his own shadow.

Rizork did not move immediately.

He stood there, stoic, feet planted, blade still extended. Then, slowly, he drew it back. He examined it — blood still beading, fluid, dense — and in a strange, almost ceremonial gesture, he brought the weapon to his mouth and licked it.

Slowly.

Eyes closed.

As if he were absorbing something.

As if he were reclaiming, piece by piece, lost energy — drawing from the blood’s properties, using what his lineage had given him: the ability to regenerate, to draw strength and clarity from the enemy himself.

But I...

I knew.

I saw it at once.

It was a mistake.

It wasn’t chance.

It had been Oltrad’s plan from the start.

And it had just succeeded.

When Rizork opened his eyes again, a different light inhabited them. More clouded. More unstable. Something in the balance of his gaze had broken.

His face tightened.

His lips pressed together.

And his muscles... vibrated. Slightly. But enough for me to understand.

The poison had begun its work.

Not a poison to kill. No. Something more subtle. An alteration. A slowing. An invasive torpor, like an invisible hand around the nerves.

I knew that kind of toxin.

I knew that feeling.

I possessed one myself.

Oltrad’s blood was not blood.

It was a weapon.

And now...

Time itself tightened.

Like a cord ready to snap.