Runeblade

Kaius screamed as the axe bit into the back of his right hand. It's honed half-moon edge cleaved through flesh and bone with equal ease. Blood spurted from the open wound as he jerked back — his blade slipping from his grasp.

It glinted in the light as it clattered to the blood-red arena floor — joined by three fingers and most of his palm.

Biting off his howl, he clenched the remnants of his fist, pain and exhaustion leaving him reeling.

It was a moment of distraction he couldn't afford. Steel blurred towards him — a challenger burying their sword a stride into his belly only moments before a leaf-shaped spear ripped through his thigh. Pain bloomed, joining the well of agony that radiated from his maimed hand as his flesh writhed with healing potency.

Not that it would do anything for his missing fingers!

Slamming back into the moment, Kaius's stomach lurched as he registered a warhammer racing straight for his temple. He threw himself backwards, a desperate dive caused his still healing wounds to scream in protest.

His off-hand scrapped through sodden sand, wrapping around the hilt of A Father's Gift. Ignoring the agony as sand rubbed at the raw bisection, Kaius slammed his right hand into the ground — leveraging all of his enhanced strength to shoot himself backwards.

A greatsword rammed pointfirst into the ground, right where his heart had been a moment before.

He hauled himself up, sliding into a reversed fencer's stance — his off-hand bicep aching as he kept his blade-point up and steady. He spun, watching the challengers that encircled him.

Thank the gods that Father had insisted he practice fighting with both of his hands.

There — the one with the shortsword. The weak link.

Shoving his exhaustion deep, he kicked off the ground — rocketing forward into a deep thrusting lunge. He might have been drained and clumsy, but he was still strong. When his target tried to parry, he threw himself forwards — bodily slamming it back with his shoulder.

A stumbling run brought him away from the mob. His legs were wooden — fighting against him. Soft sand gave way under food — he tripped, spraying more of his blood against the arena.

Grunting, Kaius sucked in a great heaving breath as he found his footing and faced the approaching challengers once more.

Everything had long since become a blur — the fight devolving into animalistic aggression. A contest of instinct and reaction as mettled response and reasoning was abandoned. He only lived because his instinct had been hammered deep — refined, into a thing of flowing grace and conserved movement.

His fatigue was total — a physical weight that resolved itself into a droning whine in his ears, broken only by the pounding feet of hundreds of faceless spectators.

Still he fought on; tunnelled vision focused only on his next target.

He wasn't even sure why — what drove him onwards, why he must cut and kill and be cut. There was only the goal, and the burning song in his heart — he must fight, it was all that mattered: all that remained in the grey sea that swallowed his sight from all angles.

He would win. Urging his flagging legs, Kaius pushed himself to run — the crystal point of his blade still levelled at his enemies.

The challengers had long since faded into a sea of heaving bodies, his focus only on his blade and those close enough to kill.

Death and fire, that was it. And oh, how it burned.

Corporus shone like the sun within him, a thrumming pillar that dominated all — directed him with instinct and half-heard almost-remembered whispers. He'd found it deep within the sweet tang of exhaustion— a waiting call of madness: of perfection and unyielding perseverance.

A gleaming smile split his face as he stumbled into another crescendo of clashing steel and rising song. He thrust, twisting at the last moment to cut — his shimmering blade cleaved through the haft of a halberd, screaming unhindered to split the neck of its wielder.

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

Pain bloomed in his ribs from weapons unseen. He swung, remembering to look down a moment later when the stinging tension in his gut failed to abate and hot blood filled his mouth.

He found a blade buried in his flesh, half an arm still gripping desperately to its hilt. Lunging out of the fray, he ripped the shortshort free with two fingered grip — hurling the weapon at the approaching black smear.

The world wavered.

He blinked.

Only to find himself halfway across the arena, fire shining bright and true upon a pillar of iron — staring at a trail of corpses.

He felt so heavy. He felt so real.

Shades approached, moving to the beat of the ritual drum. He spilled blood — fueling the fire with his own and others with equal disregard. Black flooded in, only to retreat with the cyclic certainty of the tide — every forgotten gap leaving more black and red to be consumed by sand and fire.

The ache of his wounds, the weakness of his flesh — it all fell away. There was only the fire of his aspect: the pressing need to move and cut; to struggle and strive.

It was a will of adamant, unbreakable and true. It drove every stumbling step — every head splitting thrust. A need to improve, and insistence to push on. It was all that kept him going, allowed him to keep fighting and living.

It was so palpable — a pyre of immolation and strength.

There was a Truth there, hidden in that madness. One he had long ushered in — nurtured with acceptance and love.

Heat flooded his mouth. Kaius blinked, tasting a gush of iron as meat gave way beneath his fangs. Cartilage crunched as he ripped his head back — tearing out the throat of a shadow-faced shade. Blood baptised him. A sweet wine, full of revitalising life. He cut and was cut, shearing through the knee of another.

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They came unending, and he welcomed them — fuel and sacrifice both. A procession that fanned his flame.

Heat roiled on his back — an itch that lasted longer than he was used to. His brow scrunched as he tried to fight through the cloying fog. He saw only flickers: moments of death and battle.

His blade quavered, dragging down towards the sound.

A spear thrust.

He cut, and another fell.

He would win.

…

There was definitely something strange happening with Corporus — he could admit that. Even if his mind moved like treacle, and he drowned in a sea of bodies, he could still tell.

No fire should have such weight.

Kaius spun on the ground and launched himself back, digging the long healed stumps that had once been ankles into the sand. He still had his blade: he didn't need to walk to kill. He'd drilled the groundwork, the training of Warforged was engraved deep.

His half frog-leap sent him sailing a half a dozen longstrides across the arena, and over twice as many black-cowled bodies.

He could still kill.

Blurring shades rushed in — a long familiar taste for weakness spurred him on, directing his fury. He slammed into a limping challenger, tackling them to the ground. A knife plunged home, cold spilling from the wound in his belly. He barely noticed the injury, pinning his prey to the ground with a finger and thumb.

His blade cut a furrow through the dirt as he dragged its unwieldy weight up — and slid it home. A subtle crunch filled his ears as he forced A Father's Gift into the challenger's skull.

Doom flared — he rolled to the side as a heavy waraxe crunched through the ribs of his kill.

He skittered away on a tide of heaving burn, sapped strength, and cutting blades.

There was definitely something very strange going on with Corporus.

It wasn't his unyielding, maddening need to win. His bitter refusal to even consider forfeiting the endless fight. It wasn't his reckless disregard for his injuries, nor his bitter fury at his maimed flesh, nor even his maddened pursuit of death and blood. That was him, and only him. It was his instincts and bloodsong fully unleashed, a desperate fury and clawing thunder to grow and live — unburdened by the faculties of higher thought that had been lost in his exhaustion.

He had refused defeat, and him alone. Corporus might have represented that part of him, but it did not create or empower it.

There was still something strange — he knew that even drowning in dissociative battlefury. It was there in the way the fire of his aspect filled him. The burning pressure of weight — in how he felt more real than he ever had before.

A sensation he could remember being present, simmering away in the background, lingering and waiting. Now that he was pushed to the brink of total collapse, it was an embodiment so obvious it may as well have physically struck him over the head.

Corporus had never been something confined to his soulspace — how could he have been so clueless? He'd been a fool to think it a soul-construct with some tenuous, vaporous link to the body.

It was him — his physicality, his action, his movement — and it was doing something he didn't understand; was pulling on something he couldn't give a name to. All to give him more weight.

The fog broke for a moment as something hot and red splashed in his eyes, iron-tang dripping into his roaring throat. A dozen new agonies made themselves known to him — coated by only the barest of itches.

Primal instinct dumped clarity-inducing adrenaline into his veins. The battle-fever broke, and Kaius saw the reality of his wounds. Ragged tears littered his front and side, each leaking heavy drops of precious blood, revealing grey-pink bone.

He gasped, throwing himself away from a gathered crowd of challengers as his mind dropped to his resources.

Resources:

Health - 624/10620 (63.6/min)

Stamina - [LOCKED]

Mana - [LOCKED]

When had he gotten so low? He would need to end things quickly.

Quick as his flagging mind could, Kaius spun, counting the doors that lay open on the field. There were only open portals of black. He grinned — not all was lost, he could still win this.

Just to be sure, he focused on the mob that was charging over the field of dead.

He counted — twenty-nine, with the last still approaching. Perfect — he still had more to give.

Digging deep, Kaius willingly surrendered himself to the soothing fog and roaring fire within them. A howl on his lips he threw himself into the frey, blade dragging through the flesh and sand that covered the arena floor.

It was a strained fury — his body was spent, and every twitch brought the creeping black closer in from the corners of his vision. He couldn't even hear the thunderous crowd anymore, all sound compressed into a low drone that covered all.

He sliced through the ankle of a cowled shade, dropping a challenger. Another retaliated, driving the tines of its trident through his leg.

A low growl rumbled free of his ruined lips. He spun, cleaving his crystal blade through the weapon's haft — and the knee behind it. Hauling himself forward, he thrust.

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

One down.

The weight pressed heavily against him — filling him to bursting as it gloried at his fighting spirit.

Gasping, Kaius fought through his fugue, willing himself to focus. He'd been fighting for so long — the end had to be coming. Two hours. Just two hours.

How many were left?

He counted — twenty-nine, with the last still approaching. Perfect — he still had more to give.

Yanking his head to the side, Kaius howled in fury as an axe sank into the body beneath him — severing the tip of his ear. He shoved against the ground with the stump of his right elbow. When had he lost it? The sand burned, caking in his open injuries. He still had his blade. He cut.

Every flare of Corporus was doing something strange — commanding the world in some way he didn't understand. So much weight. It was reaching for something — whole, yet incomplete.

He felt so real.

Kaius flicked his blade, tearing out the throat of another challenger.

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

Another dead. How many were left?

He just needed that final wave — that end. Twenty-nine would be the end, he knew it.

He counted — twenty-nine, with the last still approaching. Perfect — he still had more to give.

….

A quaking spasm rocked his chest. Cold crept deeper by the moment, flooding in through an uncountable smear of white hot holes in his flesh.

Another spasm, his heart desperately trying to pump blood that had long since been spilt.

The black closed in as he drowned under the searing weight.

He knew no more.