Chapter 34: [34] You Came Here with Your Stupid Face
He began to crawl.
Not walking, not even trying to stand—crawling on his hands and knees like some broken animal, dragging his useless legs behind him. His fingernails scraped against the cobblestones, leaving thin trails of blood as he clawed his way toward Pierre. The sound was worse than the statue’s fall—a wet, desperate scratching that made Pierre’s skin crawl.
"I’ll kill you," Hardy gasped between breaths, still crawling forward. "I’ll tear out your throat with my teeth. I’ll make you watch as I burn this whole town to ash. I’ll—"
His words dissolved. The threats bled into curses, a meaningless, frothing stream of sound. The great Captain Hardy, terror of the Dawn Sea, had been reduced to a gibbering madman crawling through the wreckage of his own legacy.
Pierre watched the pathetic display, his ribs still screaming with every breath. The tyrant who had terrorized an entire island for three years now dragged himself across broken stone like a wounded dog. Hardy’s Navy uniform hung in tatters, oil stains from his ruined prosthetic mixing with blood and dust. His captain’s hat had fallen off somewhere during the fight, leaving his gray hair matted against his skull.
The laughter died in their throats. The crowd pressed closer, a morbid curiosity pulling them in. The baker, his apron still dusted with flour, had a look of profound disgust. An old woman clutched her shawl, her face not triumphant, but deeply, deeply sad.
"You destroyed everything!" Hardy’s voice cracked like an adolescent boy’s. Tears mixed with dirt on his cheeks as he continued his desperate advance. "Twenty years! Twenty years building respect, building order, and you—you came here with your stupid hair and your stupid face and you ruined it all!"
Pierre didn’t even need to evade. Hardy’s crawling pace was slower than an elderly turtle’s stroll. Instead, Pierre took one step forward and delivered a single, precise chop to the base of Hardy’s neck.
Hardy’s charge ended instantly. His arms went limp as his face hit the cobblestones with a wet smack, the tyrant’s body going slack amidst the wreckage of his own monument.
And with that pathetic sound, the duel was over.