God of Trash

Rhys left the stadium with dampened spirits. He’d feared this reality, and now that it had come to pass, he wasn’t any happier for having correctly predicted how horrible a position his region held. If anything, the Schoolmaster’s absence had only confirmed how terrible their standing was. He’d already figured out that this was more-or-less a helpless fight, but seeing their own officials flee before the attack sure confirmed it. He didn’t know the status of general nobility around Purple Dawn to know how high a rank the remaining nobility, like the Coyales, were, but he was pretty sure all the people who could, or who didn’t have a kid in the tournament, had cleared out. Now that he was looking, the stands were pretty empty, save for the Sword Saint and some people whose faces matched contestants’. The Empress had made it very clear she had a plan to remove the Sword Saint from the equation. Once he was gone, did she attack? Did she wait for the final day of the tournament?

Rhys sighed. He rubbed his forehead, frustrated. There was nothing he could do. He saw it coming—it was so obvious—and all he could do was watch the wave roll in. He was powerless to do anything against someone so powerful, and it sucked. I’ll escape. Train up. Come back and destroy her later. But even that was little comfort, knowing that she would march across the region until however-many-years it took for him to get strong enough to overcome her.

After a few seconds, he shrugged to himself. Oh well. At least it was only Purple Dawn! True, she’d probably roll over Infinite Constellation, too, in short order, but his sworn enemy would get taken down! …By another, more powerful enemy, but hey. It was important to remember that there was always a bigger fish. Maybe a yet more powerful enemy would gobble up the Empress!

Rhys paused, then shook his head. “No, I don’t think I want that.” More powerful than the Empress, when the Empress was already unimaginably more powerful than him? He didn’t want to see that at all.

“It doesn’t matter what you want. You thought you could get away with humiliating my son, and sealed your fate in that moment.”

Rhys looked up. Cassian Coyale stood before him, his arms crossed, his son half-cowering, half-smug beside him.

Unhesitatingly, Rhys turned a sharp right and took a different road.

A man stepped out of the shadow, blocking off his path. He checked the other directions, only to see flunkies stepping out of the shadow in all directions.

Turning back to Cassian, Rhys casually strolled back to where he’d begun. He rolled his shoulders back, puffed his chest, and struck a pose. If they were going to do this, might as well do it right. “To what do I owe the honor?” Rhys asked, as if he didn’t know.

“You thought you could humiliate the Coyale family in front of everyone. Regret your poor decision before you die.”

“Incorrect. Your son humiliated your family in front of everyone. I tried to rectify his poor behavior by instilling a little bit of humility in him. Far be it from me to tell you how to raise your child, but if you keep coddling him like this, he’s going to grow into a total brat,” Rhys said, shaking his head at Cassian.

“What?” Cassian asked, his voice dangerously low.