Page 276 of Scorching the Alien Empire
“You took my honor. My father. My pride.” My voice is hoarse, trembling. “And now this—my brothers in bone?”
With a shaking hand, I seize his spear, twist it hard, shattering it into a hundred broken pieces, casting it at his feet.
Krogoth stares. Bloodied. Bruised. As broken as I am.
“I always knew,” he rasps, voice raw as ash, “you could be the best of us, Dracoth.”
He gestures weakly with a bruised arm. “Look at you. What you’ve done. What you’ve become. Rising from shame. Standing now as my equal, head held high.”
His lips curl into a weary, bloodstained smile. “I give this to you... my gift of purpose.”
“You?” I growl, leaning onStormcleaver, gulping air. “You dare take credit for what I was always destined to become—for what I alwayswas?”
I charge.Stormcleaverraised high. My wounded leg nearly gives, but fury drives me forward.
Krogoth, unarmed, does not retreat. He stands defiant, eyes ablaze—purple and hazel flaring into the screaming wind.
I roar. A cry to split the sky, to cleave flesh and fate alike.
Last moment, he surges forward, violet lightning incarnate, blood-soaked hands latching ontoStormcleaver’sshaft. I try to shake him loose, but he clings tight. Our eyes lock—crimson versus purple, hazel nebulas glowing in the gloomy light.
I press down with the weight of worlds. My muscles scream, veins bulge, wounds tear open anew. Blood spatters the cracked earth, greedily devoured by this dying world.
He’s strong—one of the strongest. But he’snothingcompared to me.
Teeth clenched, I snarl into his face.Stormcleaver’ssolid arcweave shaft groans between us, bending. Inch by inch, the blade drops toward his neck. His muscles ripple, tendons straining against my titanic might—but the blade descends.
He feels it kiss his throat.
Then he shifts. I sense it. A brutal headbutt arcing upward toward my towering face, intending to drive nose bone into brain.
But I releaseStormcleaverand twist aside.
He misses—turns too slow.
My claws rake across his chest. Deep. Hard. I feel his flesh tearing like paper, the warmth of his blood coating my fingers.
He stumbles. Falls.Defeated.
A collective breath is drawn by the crowd—a world exhales. Except my Princesa and Rocks. A squeal of crystalline joy. A cry of pure, heart-wrenching anguish.
Unfortunate. I will honor her courage with a swift, clean kill.
Elation surges through my ruined body. My claws flex wide. One final thrust.
Vision blurry, I see Krogoth’s chest rising and falling in shallow breaths. I stumble forward, limbs screaming tombs of granite. Blood oozing like molten tears of suffering.
Krogoth stirs.
I freeze. Gulp air. Is it death throes?
No. Gasps rise around the arena.
Krogoth rises.
An unbreakable demigod, rising from blood and ash. His crimson skin, bruised and blackened, glistens with green blood. A savage triple gash crosses his chest—a mirror of the ancient scar gifted by my father.
Yet he stands. Claws extended. Head tilted forward. Eyes burning. Obsidian hair lashing in the howling wind.
