Runeblade

Kaius gasped, his body aching with a fire that sapped his strength. Half an hour of battle. Half an hour of slain challengers and spilt blood. That was all it had been. Just a few minutes, yet already his body ached with a weakness that he hadn't felt since he was a boy.

Not even his experiences in his first delve came close to this unstoppable march of weakness. Even when he had fought on with empty stamina as an unclassed, he'd still had his natural stamina regeneration to lean on. It might not have been enough to fuel him indefinitely, but each blip of energy had been a reprieve. A momentary rest for body and soul.

With his resources locked down more thoroughly than any restriction-formation could hope to achieve, he had none of that. Every movement, every dodge and slash, wore deeper into his bones.

His breaths came in heavy gasps, the sunbaked heat sinking into his lungs with vicious claws. His heart thundered — pounding continuously. His blade, once carrying a comfortable heft that let him lean more fully into his swings, now felt like it weighed a ton. His muscles burned, every footfall falling heavy and plodding on jellied legs.

And still he fought on — rushing through an unending mob as blood fell like rain in his wake. Exhaustion was nothing. Pain and discomfort were nothing.

He'd long since cut himself a rhythm, where there was only the next movement — the next spray of blood and falling body. His general Skills rose to the forefront once more. In the rush of battle, he moved on instinct — heeding the whispers of Explorer's Toolkit that lead him to openings and vitals. Flowing through the growing mass of bodies, he moved swiftly — guided by Tempered by Dissonance and Uncanny Dodge to avoid the wounds he could, and endure those he could not.

Heavy it might have been, but his blade reaped life after life — honed and driven by Liturgical Bladeform.

Eyes cold and focused, Kaius clenched his jaw as he stepped to the right. A small movement, one that let the approaching spear tear through the edge of his hip. Blood spilled from the shallow cut, running down legs that were already caked in a red crust.

A cost to conserve his energy, one he spent gladly.

Health was a resource, and between Lesser Regeneration, and Tempered by Dissonance hardening his body, the wound drained little of his reserves. Hells, it was low enough it would only take a couple seconds longer to recover than the time it took for the wound to heal.

He cut from high to low, A Father's Gift tearing through the challenger's chest as more blades raced towards him. One challenger leapt ahead of the pack, whirling a poleaxe into a heavy overhead. Kaius caught its haft with the edge of his blade, biting halfway through the wood.

The challenger's weapons were well crafted — almost certainly inscribed with powerful Durability and other enchantments. They were no match for the calibre of his own weapon. Even their forged steel chipped and cracked when he met their blades edge to edge.

A haft of hardwood? It may as well have been a reed.

Twisting his wrists, Kaius levered A Father's Gift. The splintered haft snapped — he lunged into a thrust.

Another body fell to the arena's floor, blood flowing from a shadowed cowl.

**Ding! You have defeated Human - Challenger: Level 200 - Experience Denied, Tier Limit reached!**

Kaius fought on, lumbering through an army of flowing blades. If the ache of his exhaustion and the constant stream of attackers wasn't enough, the trial had seen fit to raise the stakes.

There weren't just five challengers anymore. Oh no, that number had doubled. A full ten. He'd caught the change quickly. Every few minutes, five at his best guess, another door to the arena had opened — releasing yet another infinitely replaced combatant into the melee.

And still he fought on — he refused to let something like simple exhaustion do him in.

It was still a building war that pushed back at his every efforts. Every minute that passed he was forced to dig deeper into his reserves — burn more energy to capitalise on ever-shrinking windows of opportunity, to evade an ever-growing field of blades.

Still, the shift in advantage hinted at the nature of the battle. Five doors open from the beginning, with another of the twenty-nine opening every five minutes. Two hours. Just two hours.

It had to be the goal — to survive and last until every door had opened. A victory against twenty-nine combatants at the peak of the first tier, each fresh and well rested — while he lingered at the precipice of collapse.

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An impossible task — for most.

He could have focused solely on evasion: for all he knew, the trial was simply about lasting. It didn't feel right. He knew himself. Running would not provide the heat he needed to temper; would teach him nothing about Corporus.

Kaius tasted iron as yet more viscera splashed against his face, a nigh-permanent grin plastered on his face.

The challengers might have had numbers — might have benefited from a constant stream of energised replacements — but they didn't have his strength, his skill. He was the better warrior, and he would prove it with every scrap he had to give.

Kaius moved with the heaving tempo of war, slipping through the crowding warriors that faced him. His own blood spilled like water as he dipped through the narrowest of openings that Explorer's Toolkit revealed, every suffered wound offered freely. A sword cut deep through his navel, lighting with burning fire as his health made the wound bubble and writhe. Twisting through his hips, he smashed aside a hewing axe — directing the strike into another challenger's knee.

Warning flared in the back of his mind. Kaius spun on his heels — catching a descending greatsword, only to pivot into a scything riposte that split the skull of the would-be challenger.

**Ding! You have defeated Human - Challenger: Level 200 - Experience Denied, Tier Limit reached!**

He'd long since thrown all prospects of forfeit to the side. A battle like this was as much mental as it was physical. It needed everything — and he would always hold a piece of himself back unless he fought with his life on the line.

So too had he abandoned all possibility of retreat, for this was a lesson.

It was only two hours. He could handle that — no matter how much his lungs burned, or sweat poured from his bared skin, or blood spilled from a dozen aching wounds.

Besides, he could feel it. The pillar within him. The eternal fire of manic perfection that scrubbed at his every movement, refining him closer to an impossible ideal with every cut and step. The Struggler's Madness was in its element, visible and prominent like it had never been before. He embodied it, moved with its power and seared under its brutal attention. It was more than a construct in his soul — it was blood, life, and breath. A physical ignition of the self.

Every movement he made was just that much more efficient than the last — an ongoing refinement fueled by desperation and the weight of his own ambition.

Something ripped through the back of his right thigh mid step. Kaius stumbled, throwing himself into his descent. Controlling his momentum, he rolled over his shoulder to throw himself back to his feet — weight held on his left leg while the other recovered.

A spearman rushed him, attempting to capitalise on the momentary weakness — thrusting in a perfect mirror of the attacks that slain duplicates had made a hundred times. Kaius whipped his blade down contemptuously, slapping the spearpoint with the flat of his blade.

It shot straight down, driving deep into the arena's sand — sticking fast.

The kick of the weapon's sudden halt ripped the weapon from its owner's grasp. Momentum carrier the challenger forward another two steps. It was all Kaius needed.

He stepped in, striking the spearman's head from its shoulders with a lazy swipe — only for a warning to blare in his mind in the same second the system confirmed his kill. Kaius leapt to the side. Too slow. Something sharp and hot plunged into his back. A knife, buried to the hilt right above his hip. Kaius coughed, tasting hot metal as he spun away.

The turn ripped the weapon free — health burned. His pommel descended like a sledgehammer, crunching through the rogue's skull. It slumped — he stepped back and whirled his blade into a cleaving chop.

**Ding! You have defeated Human - Challenger: Level 200 - Experience Denied, Tier Limit reached!**

Another victory, but one that had come at a cost. The deep stab to his back had penetrated deep into his torso — pulling deep on his health as bloodvessels, lacerated organs, and flesh reknit.

It was more than the light bloodletting he had gotten away with until this point — and worse it should have been avoidable. He was slowing — yet the added challenge only inflamed the song that filled him to the bursting, that coated him like armour.

He bared his teeth, rushing back into the fray. The challengers might have been ruthless in their assault, unending in their aggression, but he would win. He refused to believe that the Crucible would best him, not with how far he had come. If he couldn't do it, no one could.

Kaius rushed the group, knocking aside another spear. One swung its warhammer into a high arc, coming down in a crushing slam. A sidestep took him past the blow, his blade blurring as he nocked aside another three hacking strikes that tried to take advantage of the opening. Cracks resounded through the arena, lesser blades chipping against his own.

Corporus flared with the action — brightening for a moment as Kaius half consciously tightened his stance to slide into a counter thrust.

**Ding! You have defeated Human - Challenger: Level 200 - Experience Denied, Tier Limit reached!**

Another body hit the floor; Kaius continued his assault.

Yet for all the heat that raced through his veins, for all his manic fury, it did nothing for his growing fatigue. He grew more exhausted with every clash — constrained by the limitations of mortal flesh, his body rebelled against him.

His mouth was parched and his throat ached from the dry heat of the air.

With the exhaustion came a fugue — a fog that sucked at his mind, leaving only his song untouched. Through the haze, the rhythmic stomps of the crowd synchronised with the pounding of his heart to drown out the world. There was only the next stumbling dodge, and the next hacking cut. A grueling brawl where he was whittled away to his most ingrained movements — the primal instincts of a warrior.

He would win.

A promise and a mantra. A lifeline that threw him into a mauling storm of blades again and again — more challengers emerging to replace the fallen every time another body fell.