As his weapon struck empty ground, I saw the flicker of frustration in his wild eyes. He swung again, faster this time. I raised my blade just in time, the collision jarring my arm and sending shockwaves. The strength behind his attack was a brutal reminder of how fragile flesh and bone could be.
“Focus, Roman,” I told myself, shaking off the numbness creeping up my arm. There was no room for hesitation or error. I had to be faster, sharper.
I retaliated, my gladius cutting through the charged air. Each strike was calculated and aimed at the vulnerable gaps in his defenses. My blade met its mark with a satisfying bite, but the Executioner bore it all without faltering. Each blow seemed to fuel him further, the crimson streaks on his garb nothing more than decoration to his relentless assault.
Again and again, I struck, my sword a blur of motion. Blood speckled the ground, a grim testament to my efforts, yet he stood unyielding, a monolith defying the sea’s battering waves. His body seemed to ignore pain, his movements as wild and unrelenting as before.
“Olivia… Rosie… Baby Luna…” Their faces flashed in my mind, a momentary reprieve from the carnage around me. For them, I could not falter. For them, my blade would sing until the bitter end.
The Executioner’s silhouette moved like a marionette gripped by the strings of madness, his movements as erratic and unpredictable as a tempest. He feigned a strike to the left, muscles coiling with deceptive intent, only to unleash his fury in a lunge to the right. His eyes—a maelstrom of wild rage—locked onto mine, and he screamed. The sound was not human. It was the guttural cry of a beast dragged from the depths of a nightmare, a sound that clawed at the air and made the arena’s walls shiver.
I braced, feet digging into the blood-stained sands, and met his charge. My blade absorbed the impact of his mace, the collision reverberating through my bones like the toll of a death knell. The force threatened to unbalance me, but I gritted my teeth, grounding myself with the thought of Olivia and our daughters. Each thunderous clash pushed me back, my boots scraping the ground as I fought to maintain my stance amidst his relentless assault.
It became painfully clear with every blow—I could not forcefully overpower this berserker.
Giving up was not in my nature, but survival demanded adaptation. I pivoted and retreated, circling the arena’s perimeter to buy precious seconds to regroup. The Executioner pursued his run disjointed and staggering yet terrifying in its single-minded intent. He was chaos personified, a storm I had no choice but to weather.
I weaved through the debris scattered across the arena floor, remnants of past battles now serving as my refuge. Darting behind a pillar, I felt the rush of his spiked mace as it missed my head by inches, the force splintering the stone where I’d stood moments before. Dust choked the air, mingling with the metallic tang of blood and sweat. I reached down and scooped up a handful of sand, the coarse grains biting into my palm like tiny blades.
As the Executioner rounded the pillar, his howl splitting the oppressive silence, I flung the sand into his face. His roars shifted to cries of fury, the blinding particles rendering his swings frenetic and aimless.
This was my chance.
I stepped back, creating distance, while he clawed at his eyes, his frustration and rage palpable. My heart pounded against my ribcage, not from fear but from a grim determination. Observing him now, his vulnerabilities began to emerge—the slight limp from an earlier blow, the way his guard dropped when his swings grew too wide.
In the dance of death, I found his madness’ rhythm. Now, it was time to make my move.
The Executioner charged with the force of a hurricane, but I was no longer a man caught in the storm—I was the calm in its eye. As he brought down his mace with the full weight of insanity, I sidestepped, my movements fluid and deliberate, my boots tracing familiar patterns on the blood-streaked sand.
“Is this all you have?” I taunted, my voice low but cutting through the din of his rage.
His growl was guttural, primal—a sound unshackled from reason. It was the confirmation I needed. With a swift arc of my gladius, I struck, the blade slicing through the air and biting deep into the exposed flesh at his side. Crimson erupted across his tattered garments, staining him with the undeniable mark of his mortality. Yet, he did not flinch or falter. If he felt pain, it was drowned in the abyss of his madness.
“Fight, then,” I spat, circling him like a wolf stalking its prey. “Fight until the end!”
Each strike was precise, deliberate, and deadly. My gladius sang as it met flesh—one hamstring, then the other. His movements slowed, his towering form wavering like a crumbling monument to chaos.
A sudden, thunderous crack split the air. The ground beneath us gave way, a deep chasm tearing through the arena floor. I leaped back, and the displaced air rushing past brushed my skin as the earth crumbled beneath my boots. Shards of stone rained from above, each one a deadly projectile. I twisted and dodged, survival instinct guiding every move as the arena became a weapon.
The Executioner, oblivious or indifferent to the destruction around him, stumbled forward. His foot caught on a loose stone, and with a grinding rumble, the floor beneath him collapsed further. He staggered, a jagged rock slicing into his leg. His roar shattered the tense silence, agony, and defiance echoing through the arena like a dying beast’s final cry.
“Watch closely,” I whispered to the shadowy figures that lined the stands above.
My gaze never wavered from the Executioner. His erratic gestures, once terrifying in their ferocity, now painted a picture of a wounded animal—cornered, desperate, and lashing out in its death throes. The chaos of his being had finally met the precision of my resolve, and the end was drawing near.
“Your champion falters,” I said, louder this time, though the arena remained silent. No one would answer, and I knew this fight was mine to finish. As the Executioner’s breaths grew ragged and his steps faltered, I steeled myself to deliver the final blow—the culmination of the violent spectacle they had all come to see.
His silhouette wavered like a mirage in the heat of battle; the ferocity that had once defined him was now reduced to languid, unfocused swings. Blood dripped from the gashes in his legs, pooling in the sand beneath him. His breath came in labored gasps, each one a reminder of how far he had fallen from the monstrous force he had been.
My heart thundered in my chest as I surged forward, gladius in hand, every step a declaration of intent. The distance between us evaporated, and his massive arm arced feebly through the air in a last-ditch attempt to defend himself. But the effort was sluggish, the swing a shadow of the terror it had once inspired.
This was my moment. Years of combat had honed my instincts to a blade’s edge, and I moved without hesitation. Ducking beneath his wild, clumsy swing, I felt the rush of displaced air against my skin. In one fluid motion, I drove my gladius forward, its sharp edge slicing through resistance until it found its mark—his chest, above the armored waistline.
The blade sang as it pierced his flesh, the note resonating in the arena’s stillness. A gasp escaped his lips, more of a shock than pain—a warrior’s realization that the end had come. His wide eyes, reflecting the flickering torchlight, burned with fading defiance before dimming into the resignation of a man confronting his mortality.
His knees buckled, and he fell, his massive frame crumpling onto the blood-soaked sand. I stood over him, my gladius still embedded in his chest, its hilt an unyielding promise that I would strike again if he dared rise. My every muscle remained taut, my senses attuned to any hint of deceit or final treachery.
But there was none. No last burst of strength, no defiant roar—only the rasping, uneven breaths of a defeated warrior. Slowly, his gaze turned inward, the madness that had consumed him retreating behind the veil of looming darkness. The Executioner’s final moments were silent, save for the faint whisper of life leaving his body.
