Kirin walked with a limp. His robes were torn, his left arm was bruised deep purple, and dried blood crusted the corner of his mouth. The middle grade beast from earlier had left its mark. Even though he’d survived by unleashing a controlled wave of black lightning, the price had been steep. His body screamed with every step, but he kept moving. He didn’t know what else to do. Stopping meant dying. And Kirin was nowhere near ready to die.The underworld stretched endlessly before him, jagged rocks rising like broken teeth from the cracked black earth. The sky hadn’t changed since he arrived, forever shrouded in a reddish gray storm with no real light source. Everything was ash and dust, the very air a reminder that this place didn’t want him alive.But then, he saw something that made him pause.'Smoke?'Not the thin trails of burning sulfur or scorched monsters, but the thick, heavy coils of cooking smoke. The kind that clung to roasting meat.He crouched behind a rock formation and

The fire had burned down to faint red coals. Most of the tribe had gone to rest in their shadowy huts, their silhouettes curled up like sleeping animals under thin blankets of bone and hide. But Kirin remained seated beside the dying fire, staring into the darkness. Gorran sat across from him, staff across his knees, unmoving like he had fused into the ground.Kirin’s eyes were tired, but his mind wasn’t. There were still too many questions burning in his skull.He leaned forward. “You said you were exiled. Why?”Gorran didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he rubbed a hand along the edge of his horn, thinking.“Because we were weak,” he said simply. “We could not fight the way the others did. When the Maw tribes clashed, we lost. Our homes were burned. Our children taken or eaten. So we ran.”Kirin narrowed his eyes. “That’s it?”“That’s it,” Gorran said, voice calm. “The Underworld has no place for mercy. No one gives you a title. You take it with your strength.”Kirin stared into the

The silence after war always felt the loudest.Smoke drifted above the cracked village. Embers still flickered in the half burnt huts. Bodies... Ashborne and raiders lay scattered across the ground, lifeless reminders of the chaos that had just unfolded.Kirin stood in the middle of it all, blood and ash streaked across his arms. His chest rose and fell slowly as the last traces of black lightning faded from his fingertips.He had won.But it didn’t feel like victory.Gorran lay beside a collapsed wall, tired and somewhat wounded but alive. A young Ashborne girl knelt beside him, holding a cloth to his side. The rest, maybe fifteen in total stood in small, shaken groups, some missing arms, others with cracked horns or burned skin. The rest of the tribe was gone. Dozens of Ashborne had died fighting, protecting their homes, their families. Their blood still stained the dirt beneath Kirin’s feet.He turned slowly.And saw him.Tarn... the traitor. Of course Taken had survived, all he ha

The iron gate groaned open with a metallic screech that echoed through the massive arena. Dust swirled under the blazing, red sky, casting everything in a rusty hue. The crowd above, a cacophony of savage demons and deformed monstrosities, roared with anticipation, fangs bared and claws clapping against the bone-made stands.Kirin stood shirtless in the centre of the arena, chains dangling loosely from his wrists like forgotten shackles. His eyes scanned the grotesque coliseum with a bored kind of disdain.“Figures,” he muttered. “They give me a stage but no audience worth impressing, just a bunch of battle-hungry low scum demons.”He cracked his knuckles. Pop! Pop!The sound echoed louder than it should have, as if even the ground listened when his fists spoke.Opposite him, the first gate opened.A beast the size of a wagon lumbered out, its hide an amalgamation of steel and rotten flesh, eyes glowing an unnatural green, and a mouth lined with layered jaws. The announcer, a bloated

The dust hadn't even settled from the exploded body of the arena master when silence fell.It wasn’t the kind of silence that follows awe. No. It was terror. The kind that crept into the bones of even the loudest demons in the colosseum, the kind that made ancient beasts stop breathing. Because what they had just seen… wasn’t something that could be explained.But even after that deafening silence, a deafening roaring screams that exploded from the demons. Because it was in their nature to constantly seek the thrill, to seek pain in others and take joy in the suffering of others.Kirin stood at the centre of the blood-soaked ring, his body steaming with leftover black energy, his fingers twitching like they were still itching for another kill. He didn’t even look at the remains of the arena master, who had tried to take his power and ended up nothing but meat pudding splattered across the first row of demon nobles.Kirin stretched his arms up and cracked his neck like he’d just finish