Fiend's Fourth Hurdle

Sand still danced like fire, each grain swept into spirals of fury, wild and gold under a storm not born of nature but of something older, something forged from blood, hatred, and will.

Caelvir's legs dragged across the torn earth, one boot sliding as he skidded back. His breath was gone before it reached his lips, snatched by the whirling storm that howled louder than the crowd ever had. His skin was a canvas of wounds, his arms coated in dry streaks of red.

Garrik charged again.

His cursed blade cleaved downward, carving through air and sand with the ease of wind through cloth. Caelvir raised his sword just in time; steel rang out like a scream, and the ground shuddered beneath their clash. Caelvir reeled, feet dragging, and his arms trembled.

Garrik did not stop.

The claymore, massive and alive in his grip, swept horizontally now in a wide arc of death. Caelvir ducked just barely, but a whip of sand carried rusted iron slivers into his cheek. He spun sideways, deflecting the follow-up jab, though another jagged shard caught his shoulder and a hiss escaped him.

Garrik laughed, stronger now and faster, as if the storm itself fed him.

The sandstorm did not obscure Garrik; it obeyed him. Winds shifted with his movements, and the ground trembled beneath each step. The sand at his feet swirled like loyal hounds, and a twist of his heel sent a rush of particles into Caelvir's eyes. While he blinked back pain, Garrik closed the gap.

Steel met steel again. A parry, then a sidestep. Caelvir deflected the strike upward, only for the flat of the claymore to slam into his ribs. He felt something give, maybe bone, maybe hope.

Garrik advanced with another blow, a wild slash, a twist. Caelvir danced, but barely. His steps slowed by fractions now, his shoulders sagged beneath a weight too cruel to bear. The Seren Sword moved only defensively, cutting to survive rather than to kill.

Sand rose like steam, and old blades, broken and ancient, flickered through the storm. One impaled near his knee, another scratched his thigh. They danced like ghosts, whispering past his flesh and nipping like wolves.

Garrik's arms gleamed with shallow wounds, mere whispers on his skin. But Caelvir bled in a dozen places, and it was too much.

Then came the end.

A final clash. The Seren Sword met the claymore in a last desperate parry, but strength failed him. The cursed blade slammed forward, and Caelvir felt his grip loosen.

His sword, his one sword, flew.

It spun, tumbling end over end, before landing with a sharp shhkk, point-down in the ground.

Caelvir dropped to one knee.

Everything in him wanted to stand, but his legs no longer obeyed him. His arms hung loose, and his vision danced in black.

Before him stood Garrik, arms raised.

The cursed blade shimmered with stormlight, his figure framed by the swirling sand like some ancient statue risen from the desert. His stance was wide and final, that of an executioner.

The storm circled and narrowed. The crowd could now see a ring of dust and steel enclosing the two.

Caelvir lowered his head.

So this was how it ended.

There was no glory, no fire—only silence and wind, with the weight of his own weakness crushing him like stone.

And then—

A flash.

A boy.

Smiling, his arms open, laughter on his tongue.

Then the blood.

That same boy's face, now split and drenched in red.

Then her.

Her hair, black and wild in the wind. Eyes like glass stars. The sound of her giggle faint.

She drifted further and further, until there was nothing.

Only darkness.

The cursed blade rose.

Garrik swung from the left, aiming toward the neck in a clean beheading, an executioner's blow.

CRACK.

A jolt split the air. Then another.

CRICK. CRACK.

Caelvir's eyes opened.

Garrik's body was frozen, arms stuck mid-swing.

The claymore vibrated.

And then it dropped.

Thud.

Garrik's body jerked as his legs gave out, his arms now useless. His knees hit the ground.

He spat blood, confusion etched across his face.

"Wh... what..." he managed.

The crowd gasped. Though the storm still swirled, it had weakened and slowed.

"The blade knelt," someone muttered.

Caelvir did not wait.

He moved, rolled toward where Seren Sword still stood planted in the ground.

His fingers closed around the hilt.

He rose.

And brought it down.

Executioner's blow, reversed.

Clean.

Garrik's mouth twitched. "Wai—"

The head fell before the word ended.

The body followed, a mass hitting earth and raising dust like a drumbeat of finality.

The arena waited.

Then came cheers. Uncertain at first, then surging.

Roars. Cries. Victory.

"He did it!"

"The sword knelt!"

"What the hell did we just see?!"

Caelvir stood holding Seren's sword, his grip light.

The storm had ended, yet something lingered.

A whisper.

In his skull.

It called to him.

Not the crowd, but the blade.

The cursed claymore still lay beside Garrik's headless corpse. Black veins pulsed in its hilt. Its voice came not as words, but as temptation, as a wheeze in the wind, a promise in the silence.

Take me. Throw away the old. I made you win.

You deserve better steel.

Caelvir's hand twitched.

He looked at Seren's sword and held it lightly.

It shivered in plea.

Do not let go.

It asked. It begged. In the way it felt in his grip—how the metal warmed, how it hummed against his palm.

Please.

He gripped tighter with all that his arms, cut and tired, could offer.

He stood tall.

Before him lay the body of Garrik.

Strangely, even in death, his lifeless hands still clutched the cursed blade.

Knuckles white. Fingers locked.

One gripped a cursed thing,Faithless steel that waits for kings.

The other—once hers, the soft and fair—Seren's blade, from blood stripped bare.

Caelvir had chosen.

He turned and stepped away, far from the cursed blade.