Oath of the King-Chapter 40: Blood on Black Stone

The duel grounds were savage and simple:

A wide circle of cracked basalt, blackened from centuries of slaughter.

No fancy enchantments.No healing runes.No mercy.

Above them, the officials watched from iron balconies — their robes embroidered with golden suns, the symbol of divine authority.

A heretic's blood would stain the stones today.One way or another.

Alden faced his opponent across the ring.

A towering young knight, muscles packed into steel-plated armor, a smug grin twisting his mouth.

"Look at you," the knight sneered, raising his blade lazily. "Barely standing. Half-dead already."

He turned slightly, speaking louder, for the crowd.

"A rat who cheated death once, clawing back for more.Maybe we ought to fix that mistake."

Laughter rippled across the watching survivors.

Alden said nothing.

He didn't have the strength for banter.Only enough to fight.

The bell rang — a deep, bone-rattling clang.

Begin.

The knight charged immediately, his sword a flashing wall of steel.

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Alden moved on instinct.

Ducking. Sliding sideways.

Pain screamed in his ribs — the infection from his earlier wounds flaring — but he forced it down, breathing through clenched teeth.

The knight swung again, heavier, crueler.

He wanted to crush him in one blow.

Alden narrowly deflected the strike — but the shock ran up his arms, nearly dropping his blade.

Too slow. Too weak.

Use it, something whispered in the back of his mind.Call the power.

The raw wellspring of energy he barely understood — something that wasn't "divine" but older, hungrier — pulsed in his blood.

But if he used it openly...

The judges would see.The crowd would see.

They would brand him heretic.

They would execute him.

The knight lunged again, aiming for Alden's throat.

In that instant — heart hammering, lungs burning — Alden made his choice.

Not to summon power.

But to focus.

The way Sylvie taught him.

The way survival had forged into his bones.

He sidestepped, pivoted around the knight's heavier frame — fast, too fast — and smashed the hilt of his sword into the knight's exposed ribs.

CRACK.

The knight bellowed in shock, stumbling forward — and Alden was already moving, already turning, already driving the blade low and hard behind the armor plates at the waist.

SHUNK.

A clean, brutal stab.

Blood gushed.

The knight dropped to one knee, gasping, confused, furious.

Alden yanked his sword free.

The knight toppled sideways, unconscious or dead — it didn't matter.

Silence.

Then a roar from the survivors.

Alden stood there, breathing hard, face blank.

Above, the officials whispered to each other.

One of them — a thin man with a silver-tipped staff — narrowed his eyes sharply at Alden.

Suspicious.

But Alden had not called the forbidden power.

Not yet.

And so, for now... he lived.

Leonhardt exhaled a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.

Althea simply smirked.

"Not bad for a half-dead rat," she muttered.

Far above, in the highest balcony, General Holy Knight Argelius watched the scene with mild amusement.

But the molten-silver-eyed woman beside him leaned forward, eyes gleaming.

"That boy," she murmured.

Argelius glanced at her.

"What of him?"

The woman smiled coldly.

"I want him kept alive... until the third trial.After that...""Let the pyres burn."

The Tournament of Phoenixes had only begun.And Alden's war was far from over.