THE GENERAL'S DISGRACED HEIR

(For a better experience listen to the novel's theme song on YouTube while reading the chapter: https://youtu.be/8yA-MWB7EAo?si=LHB1cBfh9u1Gx-ig )

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He refused to be defeated, not by a mere mortal who defied the natural order. This fight wouldn't end until David lay broken and whimpering at his feet. The air crackled with raw power as Draven closed the distance, his gleaming blade poised to deliver the final, crushing blow. The battle had entered its final, desperate act, and David stood on the precipice of oblivion.

Draven charged like a bull but David remained a statue of cool. Then, with a dancer's fluidity, he slipped into the shadows, becoming one with the darkness. Draven skidded to a halt, his momentum leaving him briefly unbalanced.

He planted his boot like an anchor, its thud echoing in the cavernous room. He grasped his sword, a stabilizing force in the swirling chaos. Without hesitation, he activated his own skill, Aegis Stance, to counter David's dark attribute skill.

The air hung thick with silence. Draven's eyes, honed by years of combat, darted around the room like raptors scanning for prey. He searched for any hint of movement, any distortion in the inky blackness. "Where'd the little rat go?" he snarled to himself. Just then, a sardonic voice sliced through the tension.

"Looking for me, tin can?" It came from below. David. With a mocking tone, he taunted Draven as he propelled himself from the ground with his hands, using them as springs. This wasn't just agility, Luna realized with a spark of respect. This was predatory grace, the controlled ferocity of a wolf stalking its prey.

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With a resounding thud, David connected with Draven's chest, unleashing a double-kick so potent it sent the larger man rocketing upwards. Debris rained down as Draven blasted through the ceiling, a grotesque ornament adorning the shattered upper rooms. The silence returned, punctuated only by the distant groan of crumbling stone.

It was a brutal ballet, a testament to David's newfound awakening. Draven's world spun. Pain, a white-hot poker jabbing his side, anchored him to the wreckage of the upper floor. How? The Aegis Stance, his unyielding skill, whispered through countless battles, had crumbled. It thrived on his opponent's assault, turning him into an impenetrable wall.

Yet, David had bypassed it with an ease that bordered on mockery. Was the boy a mage or a swordsman, a wielder of forbidden arts? Draven knew better. David had no mana...or could not use it.

A sudden, loud sound from below jolted Draven from his thoughts. David, using his formidable strength, leapt through the gaping hole in the roof. David landed meters from Draven with a bone-jarring thud that sent tremors through the broken floor. The impact seemed to shake the very dust motes clinging to the shattered remnants of the ceiling.

The silence that followed was a living thing, heavy and pregnant with unspoken questions. In that suffocating quiet, Draven could only stare, a horrifying realization dawning: this wasn't just strength, this was something else entirely. Something dark, something born of the shadows.

David stalked towards Draven, each measured step a deliberate hammer blow on the shattered silence. The battered warrior willed his body to obey, to rise and meet the challenge, but it remained a traitor, a limp puppet dangling from broken strings. Crimson paint, as vibrant as a mocker's laughter, bled through the cracks in Draven's visor.

David stopped above him, a chilling statue carved from gloating cruelty. His earlier grin had evaporated, replaced by a glacial coldness that penetrated Draven's core like a spectral touch. "Get up," David rasped, the command devoid of warmth, a mere formality before the inevitable.

"You thought...you could fight me?" David chuckled, the sound devoid of humour, more a hiss than a laugh. His eyes, once playful, now mirrored the frozen wasteland Draven felt within. "Half-assed skill? That's a generous way to describe your pathetic attempt." A cruel twist of lips followed, a mockery of a smile.

"No one can match me, Draven," he declared, his voice a low growl that reverberated through the shattered room. "My bloodline has never seen such power, such...perfection."David loomed, a predator admiring its fallen prey. "Nothing can stop me," he proclaimed, a hint of mania creeping into his voice.

He reached towards his own face, a morbid caress, and Draven felt a primal surge of fear. "I will destroy them all," David vowed, his words dripping with a venomous certainty. Crouching with predatory grace, David gripped Draven's breastplate, the cold metal a stark contrast to the inferno that burned in his eyes. With a single, brutal motion, he lifted the fallen warrior a fraction off the ground.

"I am the light that shall hunt the darkness," he snarled, the words laced with a dark euphoria. "There will never be another like me."The final blow was a punctuation mark to his deranged declaration. David's fist, wrapped in a shroud of shadow, connected with Draven's helmet in a sickening crunch.

The impact sent a shockwave through the room, spiderwebbing the stone floor beneath Draven's crumpled form. A gasp, choked and wet, escaped Draven's cracked visor. He lay sprawled, a broken warrior at the mercy of a madman.

"I am the best," David declared, his voice an echo in the dead silence, a chilling finale to his twisted symphony of power. The weight of his victory, however, felt strangely hollow, a hollowness that mirrored the growing darkness within his own eyes. David surveyed the wreckage of Draven.

The warrior's once-proud form twitched pathetically on the broken floor; a marionette with its strings severed. "So weak," David sighed, a sound more akin to a predator sniffing out weakness in its prey.

He knelt, fingers brushing against the gleaming metal of Draven's warblade. It felt impossibly heavy, a stark contrast to the feather-like lightness of his own newfound power. Hefting the weapon with disdain, David admired its craftsmanship for a fleeting moment before aiming the tip directly at Draven's chestplate.

The thrust was effortless, the blade slicing through enchanted armour as if it were mere parchment. Draven's eyes, wide with a mixture of shock and a strange, sorrowful acceptance, locked with David's.

A crimson bloom erupted on his breastplate as the blade found its mark, a grotesque rose blooming on a battlefield of despair. Life drained from Draven's body with agonizing slowness. Scenes flickered behind his dimming vision: the betrayal that led him down this path, the countless battles won, the alliances forged in blood and ambition.

All of it, a tapestry woven over a lifetime, unravelling in a single, horrific night at the hands of a mortal boy. But as the light faded, Draven wasn't filled with fear for his own demise. No, a deeper dread gnawed at him – the chilling premonition of a world consumed by this new terror.

David, a monster birthed from darkness, would leave a trail of devastation in his wake, and Draven, in his final moments, could only bear witness to the rise of a nightmare he could no longer oppose.