Chapter 2:
GODLESS : THE SAGA
A figure burst from the crowd young, fire eyed, sword already drawn. His blade flashed silver as he lunged at Akhen. Akhen twisted away, his dagger slipping into his hand like a shadow given form. The boy swung wide, chopping downward like an executioner.Akhen sidestepped, dagger raking the boy's ribs, a shallow cut, a warning.
The boy feinted left, then swiped horizontally Akhen ducked, feeling the wind of the blade part his hair.He retaliated with a palm-strike to the elbow, numbing the sword arm. The boy gasped but spun into a kick, boot cracking against Akhen's knee.
Akhen staggered ,just enough. The boy roared, raising his sword for a final cleave,
Akhen's dagger flickered upward.
A wet thunk. The blade pierced under the jaw, severing tongue and spine.
The brute from earlier crawled forward, meaty hands clutching his dying son. Tears carved paths through the grime on his face.
In the far corner of the Covenant’s hall, a figure stood motionless.The only thing highlighted is his crimson coloured hair, which isn’t common.
An informant slithered close, lips barely moving:
“He’s the one we’re looking for.”
The red-haired man didn’t blink. His eyes tracked Akhen as he wiped his dagger clean off of the dead boys body. With a smirk on his face ,
“Let’s watch… for now.”
Akhen fled the Covenant, knowing his exposed identity made Ashvale too dangerous to stay. He sprinted into the tangled back alleys, ripping a strip of cloth from his sleeve to cover the tattoo on his forearm. The path ahead led to the city's outskirts—his escape route. He had to leave Ashvale now. Every second wasted risked more bloodshed.
Ahead, the alley opened to a wider road leading to the city's edge.
A scream sliced through the alley on the left, Akhen froze. Every instinct told him to keep moving. But that sound... it wasn't fear. It was the hollow, broken cry of someone who'd already given up.
He turned.
Seven men crowded around a slight form pressed against the filthy bricks. The woman's dress hung in tatters, two men held her wrists. Her eyes were already dead inside.
Akhen's dagger found his hand before he'd made the decision.He dashed towards them , full speed. The first man died with a dagger entering just above the ear, a quick twist, and out before the body crumpled.
The second thug barely had time to register his companion's collapse before Akhen's boot crushed his knee sideways. As the man screamed, Akhen's left hand clamped over his mouth while the dagger punched upward under the chin. The man's eyes rolled back as his body convulsed once, then went limp against the alley wall, sliding down to leave a smear of blood.
Then two men rushed Akhen together.
For the first , Akhen ducked under his wild swing and drove his dagger up under the ribs, piercing the heart. The man gasped and collapsed.
The second barely had time to react before Akhen grabbed his hair and yanked his head back, slicing his cervical nerve. A quick shove sent him stumbling back, choking on his own blood.
Two kills. Five seconds. No wasted movement.
The alley fell silent except for the woman's shaky breaths.
Three guys remained , all of them rushed at akhen together.
One came in high with a butcher's hook swing. Akhen ducked, letting the cleaver whistle overhead as he drove his dagger through the man's armpit. The blade slipped between ribs, finding the heart. He fell without a sound.
One among the remaining two roared as he swung a rusted hatchet in a two-handed arc. Akhen didn't block, he guided. His left hand slapped the attacker's elbow mid-swing, altering the weapon's trajectory just as the seventh man lunged from behind.
The hatchet buried itself deep in the last man's sternum with a meaty thunk. For a frozen instant, the two thugs stood locked together one wide-eyed at the sudden weight in his hands, the other staring dumbly at the axehead on his chest.
Akhen didn't wait for either to scream.
His dagger flashed.
The woman trembled, tears cutting through the dirt on her cheeks. His eyes met the woman's :
"You never know how strong you are," he said, voice rough but not unkind, "until being strong is your only choice."
He didn't wait for her reply. Those words weren't meant to be comfort, they were a blade of their own, honed by experience.
He walked down the alley to the outskirts an then out the city.
Ashvale faded behind him as Akhen stepped onto the dunes, the wind pulling at his cloak. He glanced back one last time.
"Another city. Another escape."
The familiar anger stirred in his chest—slow, like a beast waking from long sleep. He clenched his jaw and turned away, walking into the endless desert. The sand swallowed his footprints as if he'd never been there at all. Various thoughts flooded his mind as he walked through the desert. He felt the rage buried deep down inside him finding the surface—it was slow, but it was coming.
After some distance had been covered, he dropped his satchel onto the desert sand. Kneeling in the whispering dunes, he rustled his hands among several maps, their edges frayed from constant use. At last he drew one out - its surface marked with X's at various locations, the parchment stained by sweat and sun.
His finger traced one particular X situated near Ashvale, the ink slightly smudged. A deep breath swelled his chest, then escaped through clenched teeth as he rolled the map away. The satchel swung back over his shoulder as he continued his ramble across the barren desert, leaving only shallow footprints that the wind began erasing before he'd taken ten steps.
After walking for hours , he reached seemed to have reached a sort of path along the desert. The road stretched like a scar across the desert. Akhen walked its length until dusk bled the sky . In the dark, a dim light wobbled—a caravan, its beast-drawn carts groaning under heavy loads. The creatures pulling them stood rib-thin, foam dripping from their muzzles. The guards looked no better, their eyes darting at every shadow.
One nodded to Akhen, gesturing to an empty space on a cart. He boarded without a word.
As night deepened, the huddled figures began to speak—not to him, but to the dark, as if confessing. Farmers turned smugglers. Fathers trading things living and nonliving to survive. A woman with knife-scarred hands offered Akhen a strip of dried meat. He took it silently.
A wail erupted within the cart.
A gaunt man lurched up, his hair and beard a single tangled mass. "Enjoy these final moments of peace..." he rasped, fingers clawing at his own face. "For He has arrived for vengeance!".
The man kept repeating the words over an over.
”Don’t worry,he used to be a priest , now all he does is say such nonsense from time to time. ”, another guy said.
As dawn bled across the horizon, Akhen stepped down from the caravan. The woman who’d given him food nodded once, her face still shadowed beneath her cloak. He returned the gesture, then turned toward the rocks.
The dunes had given way to jagged hills, their surfaces gleaming crimson where the sunlight struck. The color stirred something in his chest—old memories, half-remembered. He unfolded the map again, the marked X glaring up at him.
Hours passed. His boots scraped over stone as he climbed, eyes scanning until—there. A lone tree clung to the hillside, its gnarled roots clawing into the rock. He searched beneath it, fingers digging through dirt.
Nothing.
Exhausted, he slumped against the trunk of the tree. As he started to loose hope,
a glint.
Sunlight struck a boulder, revealing a sunstone embedded in its surface, carved with impossible precision. Noone would have been able to find it without the help of the sun as it was invisible without the direct light. Akhen was on his feet in an instant.
He hurried down to the gaint boulde. He ran his fingers along the stone, it was fixed on to the boulder as such it is not able be take out .
He tried to press down on the stone, It didn’t budge .
He stood there for a moment , with a deep exhale he exerted his entire strength to push it down .
It worked this time
A thud shook the ground. The sound of Gears and cogs groaning could be heard. It seemed to be some sort of ancient mechanism. Akhen stood there as the boulder came into life , Stone scraped against stone as a hidden door yawned open, revealing darkness within.
Akhen knew it wasn’t the time to hesitate.
"First step to find the truth,"
he whispered, and let the shadows swallow him whole.
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