We never deserved this. Looking back, we lived peacefully in the woods, far removed from their twisted world. Maybe if I had never been born, maybe if I had been stronger, larger, like them, Mother wouldn't have suffered this fate.

Now, I stood in the Arena, locked in a death match against my own brother.

Only one of us would leave alive.

I could never understand what kind of father would force his own flesh and blood to fight to the death. But the worst part? He had invited spectators from across Caelum to watch. Was it his own lack of love, or were the ancient laws of our ancestors truly beyond his control?

Then it happened. Something I could never have expected, something that left me paralyzed, hollow.

She fell.

From the very top of the Arena, my mother's lifeless body plummeted to the ground. I stood frozen, staring at her still form as a storm of emotions consumed me. My heart pounded wildly, anger burning through my veins. I had lost the last thing tethering me to reason. Adrenaline hijacked my body, my mind reduced to a single, pulsing command:

Kill.

I had forgotten the difference in size, in strength. But this was no longer a battle between siblings, no longer a contest between the weak and the mighty. No, this was a battle of equals. David and Goliath, if you will.

My fingers wrapped around the handle of the massive battle axe that had long been abandoned in the Arena. Its weight should have been unbearable. Its size should have been impossible. And yet, I lifted it with ease.

The Arena fell silent. The spectators, those who had come to revel in our suffering, watched in stunned disbelief. A miracle, they must have thought. The impossible made real.

But my father… my father stood motionless, horror etched into his face. As if, for the first time in his life, he had finally encountered fear.

I was no longer one of them.

I was their enemy.

And I would one day bring about their extinction.

This was the end of my old life.

And the beginning of something far greater.