Chapter : 837
“The official stories, the legends they tell in the taverns… they are all lies,” she continued, her voice dropping even lower, her gaze darting around the empty alley as if she feared the very stones were listening. “They speak of a bound Demon, a creature of raw, elemental power. But that is not the whole truth. It is a sanitized, palatable version of a reality that is far, far more terrifying.”
She stepped closer, her eyes wide with the remembered horror of a story she was not supposed to know. “What I am about to tell you is a state secret of the highest order. It is a whisper I overheard in the Queen’s own private chambers, a story told by the Archmage himself. To speak of it is treason. But I will not let you walk to your death in ignorance.”
She took one final, ragged breath. “Last year, the Jahl Challenge was not a public spectacle. It was a private test. The kingdom’s greatest champion, the Captain-General of the Royal Knights, Sir Kaelen the Valorous… he was sent into the arena. He was not a common challenger. He is a Commander-level Transcended user. His spirit is a Griffin of pure storm-magic. He is said to be the most powerful warrior the kingdom has produced in a century.”
She paused, the weight of her next words a physical thing.
“He did not go alone. He went with his entire honor guard, a dozen of the finest Ascended-level knights in the realm. They went in with the full blessing of the Sultan, armed with holy relics and blessed steel, confident in their absolute power. Their mission was not just to survive, but to truly test the limits of the Demon’s bindings.”
Her voice dropped to a barely audible, horrified whisper.
“It was a massacre. The Demon… it did not just fight them. It played with them. Its power was not just raw and chaotic. It was intelligent. It was cruel. It shattered their holy relics with a laugh. It melted their blessed steel into slag. It tore through the honor guard as if they were children made of paper. Sir Kaelen, the great champion, the Commander… he barely escaped with his life. His spirit was grievously wounded, its very essence corrupted by the Demon’s unnatural flame. His body was broken. He has not been seen in public since. They say he is now a cripple, a madman who screams in his sleep.”
She looked at Lloyd, her eyes filled with a desperate, pleading terror. “Do you understand, Zayn? The kingdom’s greatest warrior, a Commander-level Transcended user with a dozen elite knights, was almost annihilated. And you… you, a healer with a single, Ascended-level spirit… you think you can succeed where he failed? It is not a challenge. It is a slaughterhouse. And you are volunteering to be the next lamb.”
She had laid her final, terrible card on the table. A truth so powerful, so secret, that it should have been enough to shatter the resolve of any sane man. She had shown him the bloody, brutal, and undeniable proof of his own certain death.
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The secret that Sumaiya had revealed was a bomb that detonated in the quiet, moonlit alley. It was a piece of intelligence so potent, so fundamentally game-changing, that it should have vaporized Lloyd’s entire plan. The story of Sir Kaelen the Valorous was not a cautionary tale; it was a final, brutal, and unequivocal verdict. The Jahl Challenge was unwinnable. Not just for a humble doctor, but for the most powerful, decorated warrior in the entire kingdom.
Sumaiya watched his face, expecting to see the dawning horror, the slow, sickening crumbling of his resolve. She expected his insane, heroic ambition to shatter against the cold, hard, and undeniable truth she had just presented him. She had just shown him a ghost of his own future, a vision of a broken, maddened man, and she expected him, finally, to be afraid.
But she saw no fear.
Lloyd’s expression did not change. He listened to her entire, horrific story with a calm, almost serene, attentiveness. The cold, hard gleam in his eyes did not waver. The quiet, unshakeable certainty of his posture did not falter. He simply stood there, a mountain of quiet resolve, and let her storm of desperate, terrified words break against him.
He was not hearing her story as a warning. He was hearing it as a tactical report. He was dissecting the failure of the kingdom’s greatest champion with the cold, detached curiosity of a general studying a failed campaign in a history book.
“Zayn!” Sumaiya’s voice was a sharp, incredulous cry. “Did you not hear me? He was broken! The greatest warrior of our generation was turned into a shattered, screaming wreck! And you… you find it ‘fascinating’?”
“I do,” he replied, his gaze finally meeting hers. And the look in his eyes was not one of madness, but one of pure, absolute, and almost terrifying clarity. “Because it tells me something vital. It tells me that the Demon is not just a beast of raw, elemental power. As you said, its power is unnatural. It is intelligent. It is tactical. And it possesses an ability that is not just fire, but something… more. Something that can corrupt the very essence of a spirit. That is not a flaw in my plan, Sumaiya. That is a critical piece of intelligence. And I thank you for it.”
He had taken her greatest weapon, her most terrifying piece of proof, and had calmly, logically, and maddeningly, reforged it into a tool for his own purpose. He had thanked her for giving him a more detailed map of the hell he was determined to walk into.
The last of her strength, her hope, her will to fight him, drained away. She slumped against the cold stone wall of the clinic, a profound, weary sense of defeat washing over her. She could not win. His resolve was not just a fortress; it was a different plane of existence, a place where fear and logic as she understood them simply did not apply.
“Why?” she whispered, the question no longer a plea, but a soft, broken sound of pure, uncomprehending grief. “Why are you so determined to die?”
He walked to her, his movements slow and gentle. He did not touch her. He simply stood before her, his presence a quiet, unshakeable mountain of purpose.
“Look at this city, Sumaiya,” he said, his voice a low, soft murmur. He gestured to the dark, sprawling labyrinth of the slums around them. “Listen to it. You can hear the heart of it, even now. You can hear the children coughing in their sleep. You can hear the quiet, desperate prayers of their mothers. You can hear the slow, grinding sound of a million lives being worn down to dust by poverty and ignorance.”
He looked back at her, and his eyes were now filled not with the cold light of the strategist, but with the profound, sorrowful compassion of the saint she had first fallen in love with.
“The kingdom’s greatest champion failed,” he said, his voice a gentle, sad thing. “He failed because he was a warrior. He went into that arena to fight a battle. He met power with power, force with force. And he lost. But I am not a warrior, Sumaiya. I am a healer. And a healer knows that not all sicknesses can be cured by the sword.”
He gave a small, sad smile. “Perhaps… perhaps a demon of fire does not need to be fought. Perhaps it needs to be understood. Perhaps it needs to be… healed.”
The statement was so profoundly, beautifully, and utterly insane that it left her breathless. He was not going into that arena to be a challenger. He was going in as a doctor. He was planning to treat the single most powerful and destructive entity in the kingdom as a patient.
“You are a madman,” she breathed, the words a mixture of absolute horror and a dawning, terrible, and magnificent awe.
“Perhaps I am,” he agreed softly. “But someone has to try. The world is full of brave champions who know how to fight. But it is a world that is still broken, still suffering. Perhaps what it needs is not another champion. Perhaps what it needs, for once, is a madman with a stupid, impossible, and utterly unshakable hope.”