The sun burned high above, merciless and unblinking. The ground trembled beneath from countless stamping feet, and the air—it pulsed with anticipation, riddled with bloodlust. The Drax tribe had become a frenzied mass of primal howls, screaming in their savage tongue, some frothing at the mouth, intoxicated by the scent of imminent death.
The arena had been formed—not of stone or wood, but of flesh and muscle, a tight circle of Drax warriors baying for blood. At its heart stood the monstrous giant, now smeared in a thick, black, tar-like substance that clung to his skin like the blood of demons. Markings slashed across his face and arms in jagged symbols, transforming him from a brute into something infernal. A living nightmare to those who feared him.
Lucian, the bard, and the ginger stood alone and terribly mortal at the circle's edge.
A tribesman approached and thrust a clay pot into the bard's hands. She opened it—and instantly recoiled, gagging at the stench. Rot, death, madness in liquid form. She glanced at Lucian. He didn't notice. His eyes were locked on the giant, on the axe still slick with fresh gore.
She steadied her breath, dipped her fingers in the muck, and painted his arms slowly, deliberately. Two black sleeves just like the giant, a ritual of war.
Behind them, the ginger trembled like a leaf in a storm, sweat pouring from his face. "We… we are so dead."
The bard shot him an angry glare.
Feeling her disdain, he shrank, then turned desperately to Lucian.
"You know I'm right, don't you? Look at you—you're barely standing. You're bleeding everywhere. No offense but… you're not exactly confidence-inspiring right now."
Lucian didn't turn his head. "Offense taken."
The ginger moved closer to the bard, his voice frantic.
"We should be figuring out how to beg for our lives, not dressing up for this sick pageant. This is just… just delaying the inevitable."
No one answered.
The bard finished the war-painting, her fingers stained black. She stepped in front of Lucian and looked up at him, her voice a low whisper.
"What is your name, Golden Eyes?"
"…Lucian."
A smile crept across her face—wide and wild, a flicker of light in the darkness. "Fitting. Lucian means light. Either fate has a cruel sense of humor… or it believes you're our only hope of survival. The light that will cut through this fucked up situation that we find ourselves in."
"I'm Eric," the ginger muttered, almost pitifully.
Neither of them acknowledged him.
Lucian tilted his head back, eyes drifting to the shards of sky through the twisted canopy above. He could feel the weight of this moment crashing down on him. Losing meant they would all die. But winning also meant crossing a line that couldn't be uncrossed—taking a life. His first.
'Fate's never done me any favors. So to hell with it. I decide my own destiny. And I've decided—I will not die here.'
The bard—grabbed his face. Her hands were small but steady, forcing his forehead to press against hers.
"Don't overthink anything, kill him. Survive. And when it's over, I'll sing about it in every corner of this cursed world. I'll make sure they remember what happened here and the slave handsome slave Lucian who defied death itself."
Lucian still locked with the bared wondered if she could have heard his thoughts, but somehow felt reassured by her words and also decided to stop calling her the bard but now by Anne.
Then the crowd hushed.
The wall of warriors parted, revealing a figure soaked in black markings, radiating malice. The giant. His eyes were locked on Lucian with cold, eager anticipation.
Lucian's grip on the bone daggers tightened.
'This was it.'
Without breaking eye contact, they stepped into the circle—one clockwise, the other counter. Slow. Ritualistic. Every step a heartbeat. Every heartbeat, a countdown.
Lucian knew he couldn't drag this out. The ginger may have been an asshole but his words did carry some truth. If this fight lasted more than a minute, he was already dead. He needed to end it.
Now.
Lucian dashed forward—fast, sharp, a blur of motion. The giant moved almost instantly, the axe whistling downward in a brutal vertical arc—not at Lucian, but where he would be. Anticipation.
But Lucian was no fool for he had been honing his skills for years on end.
He pivoted mid-dash, the axe missing by inches—enough to shear a few strands of hair. The blade cratered the ground, kicking up a storm of dirt, dust, and shrapnel.
Before the giant could react Lucian burst from the dust cloud from behind, blades raised, eyes wide with the fire of desperation. He slashed—both daggers in perfect unison—aimed straight at the nape of the monster's neck.
Crack!
For a moment, he felt it. No resistance at the point of impact.
'I did it!' he screamed inside. (this blind optimism again).
The dust cleared, and so did the illusion of victory.
The giant stood, unmoved. Two shallow scratches marred his neck. That was all.
Lucian looked down. His weapons—shattered. Bone splinters in his hands.
'What…?'
This wasn't a trial, but just another ploy. It was a rigged execution.
And he'd just played into it.
He didn't even have time to react before the giant's axe came sweeping in from the side, low and brutal. Lucian tried to move—tried to close the distance again—but his body betrayed him, stumbling forward.
The blade missed.
But the bone handle didn't.
A sound like wet firewood snapping echoed through the arena—his ribcage shattered in an instant. The force lifted him from the ground, air exploding from his lungs. He flew like a ragdoll, crashing through the crowd and slamming into a tree trunk beyond.
Blood sprayed from his mouth. He gasped. Once. Twice.
Anne and the ginger gasped in disbelief and terror as their last chance at surviving shattered with Lucian's ribcage. With the crowd parted from where Lucian tore through he could see them screaming at him but could not hear it. At that very moment family voice uttered
"ill-fated deck activated."
Clear as day Lucian could see 28 domino tiles set out in front of him, they were then flipped over hiding their numbers then shuffled by some unseen hand then they stopped.instinctively Lucian knew he had to choose one.
He chose, the tile flipped over to reveal a 5 and a one, and instantly Lucian fatal damage was healed yet a more amplified pain lingered.
At that very moment, two Drax tribe men walked over to Lucian, laughing and mocking his bloody battered body. One crouched down and grabbed Lucian by his hair to drag him back into the ring but in an instant Lucian launched a surprise attack with his teeth, ripping the man's jugular wide open and covering the area in crimson.
The man gulped as he choked on his own blood. The other stumbled backward dropping his weapon, terrified, and in that moment as if the towers of Babel had crumbled, Lucian understood the words uttered in the man's native tongue. He's Mazzaroth. He's the shadow of death.
Anne's scream caught in her throat, eyes wide with horror. The ginger's body beside her sank to the floor as their last chance at surviving shattered with Lucian's ribcage. Lucian's body layed against the tree, twisted and broken. The crowd parted where his limp form had torn through, faces frozen in a mixture of awe and revulsion. He could also see anne shouting, screaming his name… but Lucian heard none of it. The world had gone silent.
Then came the voice.
Not a whisper. Not a thought.
A declaration.
"Ill-Fated Deck: Activated."
Time fractured Before Lucian, suspended in a void beyond reality, twenty-eight spectral domino tiles arranged themselves in perfect formation. Each hovered silently in the ether, gleaming with an otherworldly sheen. Without warning, they flipped—blank ivory faces turning to conceal their marks—and shuffled by some unseen hand.
Lucian didn't need instruction. He remembered the words of the curse: he had to choose.
His fingers, though battered and bloodied, reached out into the spectral mist.
A single tile moved.
It flipped.
5 | 1
The numbers blazed with ethereal fire.
The larger number, 5, pulsed with salvation—fate's mercy extended, granting him an 80% chance to escape death's grasp.
The smaller, the 1, carved itself into his nerves.
The pain came not as a scream but as a flood—hot, sharp, and laced with vengeance. His ribs knit back together in unnatural silence, but the agony remained, coiled around his soul like a serpent.
His breath came in shudders.
At that very moment, Lucian could hear footsteps and Laughter.
Two Drax tribesmen approached from the edge of the ring. Warriors by blood, jackals by spirit. One crouched low, he spat on Lucian's face. His filthy hand snaked through Lucian's hair to drag him like spoil.
Mockery died in the man's throat.
Lucian's eyes swang opened—brighter, darker, illuminated by rage.
And he lunges, catching the man by the neck.
His Teeth tore through flesh with animal fury. Blood gushed from the man's throat as he fell back, clutching at the open ruin that once held breath and voice. Crimson soaked the earth.
The second man stumbled backward, eyes wide with horror, weapon clattering from trembling hands. And in that moment as if the towers of Babel had crumbled and a veil lifted, Lucian understood every word he uttered in his native tongue.
"He's [Mazzaroth]. He's the [Shadow of death]."