Threxian inspected the harpoon while the drones adjusted above him.
The weapon still fought in his hands. Its red line pulsed along the shaft, trying to answer the Death Sentry’s raised palm. Threxian let it pull for another breath, enough for every camera to catch the strain in his fingers.
Then he tossed it aside like the room had finished reading it.
The harpoon struck the floor near the witness boundary, bounced once, and tore itself back toward its owner.
The Death Sentry caught it without looking at the weapon.
Threxian nodded once. "A fine weapon. You aimed for the body because you trusted it to keep moving after impact."
The Sentry lowered the point toward Threxian’s face.
"Next throw goes higher if you give it back."
"That would have been smarter on the first attempt."
The Sentry moved as soon as the weapon settled.
He used the recall as part of the attack, letting the harpoon pull his shoulder forward before his feet followed. The point swept for Threxian’s neck, then dipped toward the chest wound it had already made.
Threxian stepped inside the sweep before the point turned.
The shaft clipped his shoulder. Red light scraped across his armor and cut a bright line through the outer plate. The Sentry turned with it and drove the blunt end toward Threxian’s knee.
Ty leaned forward despite himself and felt the boundary warm.
The man with the harpoon fought clean. No wasted speech. No show for the drones. Every motion asked the same question from a different angle.
Ty heard the same question in every strike. Can your coin answer this too?
Threxian caught the shaft before it reached his knee.
The Sentry pulled, and the weapon tried to come home through Threxian’s hand. It dragged skin from the king’s palm. Blood marked the grip, dark against polished metal.
Threxian’s expression changed by a fraction near the mouth.
Aldric saw it and gripped Ty’s sleeve. "He felt that through the armor."
"Was it the harpoon or the camera catching it?"
"With Father, both wounds matter in different ways."
The Sentry used the locked weapon to pivot. He planted one boot on Threxian’s thigh and threw his weight backward, trying to wrench the king off balance. Threxian let him pull until the Sentry’s hips committed.
Then the king stepped with him and ruined the angle.
The move turned the harpoon into a lever against its owner.
The Sentry hit the floor on his back but rolled with the impact. He kicked up, caught the shaft with both hands, and sent a red lash from the weapon’s point across Threxian’s chest.
The lash cut a shallow line through the armor.
The room reacted before the king bothered to answer.
Black Bulls shifted forward. Contestants pressed closer to the boundary. The drones dipped. Medical staff looked at the blood and then back to the waiting line, hands still held in forced patience.
Threxian touched the new cut with two stained fingers.
"Good. You found the part of the room that still believes in you."
The Sentry drew the harpoon back again. "I only need the part that bleeds."
"Then you need a sharper point and better timing."
Threxian took the next throw in both hands.
This time he moved first. He caught the harpoon near the head, stepped into the pull, and drove his shoulder through the line of force. The Sentry tried to recall it, but Threxian’s grip changed the return path.
The harpoon came back wrong, dragged off its chosen path.
The blunt end slammed into the Sentry’s ribs.
Ty heard the impact through the floor and into his teeth.
The Sentry staggered and kept hold of the shaft. Threxian kicked the weapon down, pinned it under one boot, and struck the Sentry in the chest with the heel of his hand.
The Sentry slid across the floor and struck the base of a stone rib.
The Sentry still pushed himself up with the broken rhythm of an injured man.
Gears coughed from the wall. "Stubborn means stupid after the third impact."
The Sentry lifted the harpoon again with shaking arms.
Threxian reached him before the weapon rose all the way. He took the shaft with one hand, struck the Sentry across the jaw with the other, and pulled the weapon free.
The red line inside the harpoon flared as Threxian bent it down.
Threxian bent it over his knee until the shaft buckled.
The shaft cracked once, then broke across the red line.
The light inside went out in pieces along the floor.
The Death Sentry sank to one knee like something had been cut behind his spine. He stared at the two halves on the floor and reached for the nearer piece.
Threxian kicked it away before the Sentry’s fingers reached it.
"That is three breach assets removed from the board."
The Sentry lunged with empty hands and no useful angle.
Threxian caught him by the front of the armor and drove him down into the floor hard enough to break the stone under his shoulder. The Sentry went still. His fingers twitched once near the broken harpoon, then stopped.
Ty’s stomach tightened as the room accepted another body.
He had wanted the Black Bulls stopped. He still wanted that. Watching Threxian turn each one into proof for the feed made the wanting feel less clean.
Heriean stepped over the boundary of the Black Bull formation.
He had red-streaked sleeves rolled to the elbow and old scars layered across both arms. Fresh blood gathered at his fingertips in thin strings that bent upward against gravity. Each string moved with his breathing.
The red-collared man said his name through clenched teeth.
Heriean ignored him and kept walking toward the boundary.
Threxian looked at the blood gathering around him. "You plan to spend yourself faster than I can spend you."
"You have taken three of us in front of everyone."
"I counted them so everyone understood the price."
"Then count slower when you reach me, king."
Heriean opened both hands and let the blood answer first.
Blood snapped outward in four lines. Threxian turned through the first two and let the third cut across his sleeve. The fourth hooked behind his ankle and pulled.
The king shifted his weight before it could take him down.
Heriean’s left hand closed before Threxian finished shifting.
The blood line around Threxian’s ankle hardened into a red cuff.
For the first time since the king arrived, his boot stuck to the floor.
The Black Bulls saw it, and the drones dipped to catch it.
Heriean struck his own chest with two fingers. More blood pushed through the cloth and rose in a tight coil around his forearm. His face drained at the edges, but his hands stayed steady.
Aldric watched the shaking lines and muttered, "That is unsustainable."
Ty watched Heriean’s knees and answered, "He knows what it costs."
"Knowing the cost makes the choice worse for him."
"It makes the choice belong to him alone."
Heriean sent the coil forward before his knees failed.
It split into blades halfway across the room. Threxian raised one arm to block, and the blades wrapped around the forearm, pulling his guard away from his chest.
The next line cut across Threxian’s side under the damaged plate.
Blood appeared under the armor in a thin line that changed the room.
The red-collared man’s hand closed into a fist at his side. Gears laughed once, then coughed hard enough to fold over his broken wrist. The doll woman lifted her head from the floor.
Heriean saw all of it and let himself believe the opening.
That belief became his mistake before the next breath.
Threxian tore the hardened blood from his ankle and took the space Heriean had left between attacks. His palm struck Heriean’s chest and drove him back three steps.
Heriean stayed standing because the blood coil anchored him to the floor.
He used the anchor to pull himself forward.
The move cost him. Ty could see it in the way his hands shook after the recoil. Blood magic was still blood. Every line he threw was a piece of him leaving and being forced to act useful before it failed.
Heriean slammed both hands down and spent more blood.
Red spikes burst from the cracks around Threxian’s boots.
The king jumped back, but one spike caught the torn side of his armor and ripped the plate wider. Another scraped his forearm. A third broke against his knee.
Heriean pulled them all into one blade that barely held together.
It was rough, too heavy, and already losing shape.
He swung it anyway before the edge came apart.
Threxian blocked with both forearms and planted his heel.
The force pushed him back a step across broken stone.
The room saw it, and so did the feed.
Ty saw Aldric stop breathing for that one step.
Heriean tried to press the blade down. His arms shook. Blood ran from his nose and soaked his upper lip. The blade thinned, then thickened as he forced more into it.
Threxian’s eyes changed as the public mask slipped.
The performance dropped from him in one clean piece.
Heriean looked up through the blood and said, "There you are under the crown."
Threxian broke the blood blade with his forearms and stepped through the red spray. He caught Heriean by the throat before the man could rebuild the weapon.
Heriean clawed at the king’s wrist with both hands.
Blood rose from the floor behind Threxian, slow and uneven, trying to form one last spike.
Threxian lifted him higher until Heriean’s toes dragged.
"You have reached the end of what your body can pay."
Heriean smiled through blood on his teeth. "Bodies are terrible banks."
The last spike rose behind the king’s shoulder.
Threxian turned his head enough to notice it, then tightened his grip.
Heriean’s hands went weak around the king’s wrist.
The spike fell apart and splashed across the floor.
Threxian drew his free hand back for the finishing strike.
A voice from the Black Bull line cut through before the king’s hand fell. "Enough."