"Do not stop because the insect is bleeding, boy!" Pho roared, his voice cutting cleanly through the gloom. "Do not let mercy dilute your ascendancy! Push your absolute threshold! Show this broken court what you were forged to become!"
The words cascaded down into the pit, vibrating through the stone beneath Rhys's boots.
They did not merely echo in his ears; they penetrated the deepest, oldest layers of Rhys's memory.
He remembered the relentless, agonizing nights in the sub-zero trenches of Floor Twenty-Four, where Pho had crushed his ribs with bare hands, where the freezing drafts had turned his breath to ice, where he had collapsed hundreds of times into the snow only to be dragged back to his feet by an iron claw.
He remembered the early years in the capital courtyards, the cruel laughter of the pureblood squires, the heavy wooden training swords cracking across his skull. At the same time, Theo looked down from his horse with unyielding arrogance.
