There was only breathing. No, not just breathing—synchrony. In the void left by chaos, amid the crumbling hush that followed destruction, two heartbeats resonated as one. Benjamin inhaled, and so did the being beside him. Their breath was not simply rhythm—it was declaration.
The arena, a sunken coliseum of jagged stone and iron-laced walls, still echoed with the shrieks of beasts and the yells of men from just moments earlier. Blood smeared its floors, both human and inhuman, much of it fresh. Moments ago, two Tinnins—massive, bioluminescent predators with reptilian grace—had been locked in combat with Boyan, the Black Flame officer, his lone arm drenched in grime and gore as he cleaved with unmatched precision.
And then, like a rupture in time itself, the first shockwave had erupted.
The air had cracked inward upon itself, collapsing like the breath before a scream. It had knocked slaves, beasts, and soldiers from their feet. Thralls, already half-mad, turned rabid, screaming and clawing at each other, or fleeing as though chased by ghosts. Dawads burst from crevices in a fury, trampling anything in their path.
Then the second shockwave came. Like the first, but cleaner—reverent, even. It wasn't destruction. It was revelation.
The wind that followed whispered through the tunnels, swirling dust and silence like cloaks over forgotten statues. The beasts froze. The thralls stopped moving. Even Boyan, who moments ago had twisted a Tinnin's neck with his armored boot, halted his slaughter.
And then the eyes of the world turned to the center of the arena.
There, Benjamin stood.
He was a portrait torn from the seams of logic. His body was cloaked in tattered rags, blood-soaked and dust-matted. Yet those same rags could not hide what he had become. His skin had gained a strange, healthy pallor—slightly tanned, the lean musculature beneath it like stone carved from thought. His hair, once black, now flowed silver-white, floating upward in still air as if stirred by divine breath. His eyebrows and lashes shimmered the same argent hue, crowned by gold-and-silver eyes that seemed to see more than they should.
Encircling his form, like a mantle of metaphysical silk, was an aura—symbols floating and folding into each other. They were indecipherable yet known to the soul, carrying meaning without language, beauty without symmetry, and power without violence. His chest rose and fell slowly. His expression was cold, steady. A tranquil storm.
"By the Stones…" a Black Flame archer muttered from a ledge.
"What… what is he?" whispered a wrangler, hand frozen above his beast's neck.
"Is that… the same boy? The thrall?"
"No. That is no boy."
"It's him. It's 199," said a shaken guard. "It's the slave."
"Impossible."
"What in the Khial..."
"I don't believe what I'm seeing."
But none could truly deny what they saw.
And then, from behind Benjamin, the air bent again. Light collected, dancing on the edges of vision like liquid fire, and expanded into a sphere three times Benjamin's height. The orb twisted, rippled, then unfolded like a blooming star. Feathers of silver and gold emerged first, then a form beneath them—wings powerful enough to cast shadows like mountains, eyes that burned like suns, claws of steel-white talon.
And at its center: Atty.
No longer small. No longer broken.
He had become myth, a creature not known to any race of Khial, not even in song or legend. A Gryphon, but not the kind of earthly beast spoken in Benjamin's old tales—this was something new, birthed of the Unmade's tapestry, sculpted from Benjamin's mind and the Laws themselves.
Atty exhaled. The screech that followed was not sound. It was revelation. It struck the ears like a blade and the heart like a prayer. The arena trembled under its weight, and beasts—all of them—lowered their heads, eyes wide and wet.
"Is that… is that a Law Beast?" someone choked.
Benjamin had read about Law Beasts in the annals of Khial back at the academy. The term Law Beast referred to creatures that had, through instinct or chance, achieved perfect attunement to a single Law. These were not mere animals—they were living extensions of the world's will, manifestations of the Laws themselves according to same Sages, shaped into fur and fang, scale and sinew. A serpent entwined with the Law of Fire might exhale searing breath capable of melting steel and transform its body into fire itself; a stag bound to the Law of Silence could tread unseen even across broken glass. Though they varied wildly in appearance and power, all Law Beasts shared one trait: they were final—pinnacles of Law-directed evolution tied to their aspects, unable to change further. They didn't need to change after all.
But Atty was something else. He had not evolved into a Law Beast—he had become a vessel of potential crafted by the Unmade, a creature forged through Benjamin's imagination and the blessing of the Maker, touched by the deep mystery of the Logos. His growth was not tied to mastery of a single Law but to his bond with Benjamin, to experience, sacrifice, and will. While Law Beasts were legends shaped by the world, Atty was a myth still being written, unbound by limitation—dangerous, untested, and, above all, still becoming.
"No. I've never seen anything like it."
"Did he create it?"
"The boy summoned it."
"Careful! It's moving!"
Atty stretched his wings—wider than any creature had a right to—and the power around him bloomed into a halo of heat and distortion. The air itself bent, like the shimmer above the sands in the high desert. But it was not heat alone—it was will, intent, and wrath.
They stood together—man and beast, twin souls woven into something unspoken. And the world knew it.
Boyan, breathing hard, stepped forward, a wide gash down his shoulder. He stared at them for a long time, his expression unreadable.
"...So," he said finally, his voice graveled by smoke and blood. "You return. You were dead."
Benjamin didn't speak.
"You were dead," Boyan repeated, slower. "I saw it. You fell. You gave everything. And now... you come back."
No answer.
"Didn't know luck took sides." He spat blood.
Still, Benjamin stood silent.
Boyan's eyes narrowed. "Are you here for me, boy? To finish what you started?"
Atty's talons scraped the ground. Benjamin stepped forward, the glyphs around his body pulsing once with light.
That was when the silence broke.
"By the Laws…"
"Should we run?"
"No. Look at Boyan. He isn't afraid."
"Then he's mad."
"Maybe. Or maybe he knows something we don't."
Boyan tilted his head, then laughed—just once. "I don't care what you think you are but rou're still 199. A slave. My slave. And if you want to be something else…" He grinned. "You'll have to kill me." Boyan activated his powers going all in from the start. A cutting wind circled him sharp like razors as the beasts and humans closest to him were shred to slices.
Benjamin's eyes narrowed. His aura flared like wildfire countering wind.
"We'll see about that "
The world held its breath.
--
Benjamin's breath was steady. Outside, the world was unspooling into chaos, a tapestry torn at every seam—thralls shrieking in confused panic, beasts thrashing in bloodlust, and flames licking at the remnants of order. But within him, all was silent. The tremors of the arena, the roars of the maddened Dawads, the barked commands of slavers, even the voice of Boyan—all muted by the stillness coiling at the core of his being.
He turned his gaze to the outer rim of the coliseum, where the cracked tiered seating, once populated by slavers, masked nobles and Black Flame officers, had been overrun by fury. There, among the dust and fire, two familiar figures fought with every shred of strength left in them.
Number 71, her green eyes wild with her head shining eith sweat dripping on her short black hair, slashed a crude blade against the side of a slaver lunging at her. The blade barely cut—but it was enough. She ducked beneath the man's roar and slammed her elbow into his stomach, sending him tumbling into the pit. Her movements were rough but not inexperienced.
Beside her, 98 moved like a crumbling statue that had remembered how to fight. His heavy arms swung a broadsword low and wide, pushing thralls off the platform and catching slavers in the neck. His face was emotionless, distant, like a machine obeying a memory.
Benjamin's eyes locked with theirs.
And then something... happened.
It was not light or wind or power that surged from him—but a presence. A pull, like a tide guided by the moon. He didn't know what he had done, only that he meant it—and that was enough.
Their eyes met his. 71 faltered for a breath, and then—she stood straighter. Her blade, once clumsy, danced with newfound weight. She felt faster. Sharper. 98, too, stopped stumbling; his footing shifted into something rooted, solid, practiced. They didn't speak. They didn't need to. Benjamin was with them.
Transference, he now understood, was not only unity with Atty. It was something more. He was a conduit—not only of force, but of purpose. He could lend will. They didn't get stronger because he pushed power into them. They got stronger because he believed in them, and the Laws answered.
Hold off the slavers, he whispered, not with words but with thought, his voice folding itself into their minds. Guide the others out. Use Atty. He'll help you. It's about to get worse.
They both nodded at once. No confusion. No surprise. Only understanding.
"Right," 98 said aloud to no one in particular. "He's awake."
Benjamin turned his attention forward. The air split like a sigh. The sand of the arena hissed. And Boyan was moving.
He emerged from the settling dust like a devil sculpted from war. His form, tall and broad-shouldered, bore the dust of battles long past. His blackened military fatigues, once clean, were torn across the chest, exposing a lean but muscular torso painted with sigils—tattoos of his allegiance to the Black Flame. A jagged one cut across his left cheek, curling into his bearded jaw like a smirk drawn in charcoal. His eyes—both sharp, both cruel—glimmered with mirth and menace.
The right sleeve of his shirt was absent, revealing the stump where his arm should've been. But there, dancing with the fury of a storm, a phantom limb of wind had replaced it. It wasn't a prosthetic. It was an extension of his will. A wind-forged arm, swirling with blades of pressure, roaring silently.
"Did you come to save them, 199?" Boyan called, sword raised. The blade in his hand was long and jagged, crackling with air pressure so dense it made the light bend. "Or did you come to finish our little dance?"
Benjamin said nothing initially. He stepped forward. The ground under his foot incinerated instantly, the heat of his aura so intense it melted the sand into sheets of glass with every stride. Symbols spun around him, unreadable yet ancient, a halo of cosmic grammar.
"Benjamin. My name is Benjamin."
BOOM.
The world exploded.
The two figures vanished, leaving only afterimages and a sound like mountains clashing. Wind howled. Heat spiraled. Spectators, friend and foe alike, ducked behind shattered pillars. The air was a battlefield of its own now, sliced apart by shockwaves and sonic booms.
They flickered, appearing and reappearing in flashes across the arena. One moment on the eastern ledge, trading punches and sword slashes so fast the stone itself cracked. Ben could not use his broken short sword. He had not sufficient mastery of his powers to try and envelop the blade like Boyan did. But he intuitively could wrap his body in his aura acting like a blade and armor at the same time. Moreover Benjamin was better with his punches than blade. He had knowledge of both but used not his punches and felt more confidence. His heart and confidence were important for his powers after all, Benjamin felt.
In the next moment , airborne—Boyan was riding whirlwinds, Benjamin flaring forward on trails of blazing light. The arena groaned with every clash. The ground where they met became an obsidian scar, a trail of mirrored stone and smoke.
"I see it now!" Boyan roared mid-spin, his wind arm slicing through the air like a scythe. "You don't understand what you are! Well I do. I'm your demise, slave!"
Benjamin blocked the strike with his forearm, light surging up his veins. He could barely breathe. But he didn't need to. His body moved on understanding, not strength. Martial knowledge flooded him—footwork, counters, feints—seamless and reflexive.
"I'm done running," Benjamin muttered, ducking low under Boyan's arc and driving his shoulder into the man's gut.
Boyan skidded back, laughing like a lunatic. "Good! GOOD! Then stop surviving—and start fighting!"
A gust erupted around him, shredding the air. The force was so immense that the torches on the walls were snuffed, and debris spiraled upward like stars caught in a whirlpool.
I have to make this quick, I can maybe hold this up for 10 minutes, Benjamin thought.
Behind them, Atty soared.
The gryphon was a storm given form, all wings and rage and silent communication. He wasn't attacking blindly—he was orchestrating. Beasts fell under his talons. Slavers caught unaware were torn apart mid-sentence. Tinnins screeched in fury before being hurled into the walls with a single beat of his wings. Thralls were spared, herded gently but forcefully toward the exits. Atty was not just muscle. He was clarity. Precision. Purpose.
His 5 meters body circled, watching 71 and 98 as they fought to control the flow of fleeing slaves, protecting them from both monster and man. They needed no further instruction. Atty was there. Benjamin was with them. That was all that mattered.
Back in the arena, the battle reached its crescendo.
Boyan charged again, using his wind-arm to anchor himself midair, twisting into a descending slash. Benjamin leapt, pivoted off a stone shard, and caught the blade with his forearm, letting it slice shallowly as he spun in mid-air and kicked Boyan square in the ribs.
They fell together, colliding into the center of the arena, sending a crater of glass and fire outward.
Benjamin stood over him, panting, sweat and blood mixing on his face. His stubble was soaked red. His eyes—still silver and gold—narrowed.
"You can't win," he said.
Boyan coughed, blood spattering his lips. But he smiled.
"Maybe not," he said. "But I can make you lose."
The battle was reaching its climax.