Chapter 47 - From Within

 These fond memories lasted but instants, creating a thin smile on an otherwise despondent Alexander. The once proud sinews that had held fast against the tides of battle now screamed their dissent, every fiber alight with the searing testimony of his downfall. His blood, the sanguine proof of his very mortality, was dyeing the already stained sand, an oath to his faltering life force that continued to spill forth with the unyielding passage of time.

"What a strange feeling…"

 His words, a mere whisper, slipped from his lips, the same that had once bellowed commands that'd rend the very Heavens. Those very same lips now parted to exhale the ghost of his indomitable spirit, the breath of a man who had fancied himself a deity among mortals. Reduced, he had been, not by the mere clashing of steel, but by the piercing revelation of his own arrogance.

 Where had he gone wrong?

 Amidst the cacophony of his shattered illusions was brewing a tempest of rage, its violent winds lashing at the inner walls of his psyche, with wrath also coiling in his chest like a serpent, its venomous fangs sinking deep into the flesh of his pride. The poison of realization that it was his own hubris, his own errant belief in the infallibility of his strength, that had laid him so low — a feeling more agonizing than any physical wound could ever hope to be.

 Meanwhile, Rudy loomed over him, a grim harvester poised to reap the tattered remnants of his ego. The despicable anticipation of the final, crippling blow was also mirrored in the wide-eyed, feverish excitement that rippled through the Sanguis. The spectators had come seeking violence, and they had found their hunger sated by the prowess of an outsider. Mixed alongside was palpable disbelief, as a thick shroud of awe had settled over the arena, laden with the question of his origins.

 Why was he a bodyguard in the first place?!

"Do you have anything else to say?"

 Kask's inquiry, draped in a cloak of feigned composure, was the knell of Alexander's doom, which stoked the fires of his indignation even further. With fists tightly clenched, he was but a man clinging to the last vestiges of his shattered dignity, as he felt the venomous sting of defeat. It was a new sensation, foreign and bitter on his tongue, for he had lived as the predator, never the prey; the eagle soaring high above, never the lamb to the slaughter.

 But as his senses heightened, time dilating in the face of his end, there surged within him an old ally, a force untamed and feral. It surged through his veins with the ferocity of a cornered beast, rekindling the embers of his warrior's soul and its wild, untamable spirit. It was the vitality of a man who had once bent the world to his will and, in this final moment, promised either salvation or a glorious end.

[NEW! Alexander the Great (32) — Human (Currently capped at 40% (20 >>> 40). Progression 2/5: 0%.]