Chapter 8, The Trials of Flesh and Glory, part 2.
Panathenaic Stadium – Early Afternoon
100-Meter Dash Event Begins
The chalk from the discus landing still hung in the air when the marshals began moving with sudden urgency, blowing whistles and waving flags to direct the crowd back to their seats.
Spectators who had been on their feet moments ago, clapping and shouting, now shuffled back, murmuring, heads twisting toward the field—not because they were ready for the next event, but because they weren't done talking about the last one.
The air was hot now, not from the sun, but from the weight of expectation.
Would he run, too?
The 100-meter track was narrow, simple—just a strip of compacted dirt bordered by hand-drawn chalk lines, carved into the length of the stadium floor with humble precision. There were no spikes, no sensors, no rubberized surfaces. This was old-world competition, a straight line where pride, power, and precision collided.
But today, it looked more like a stage than a track.
A ceremonial path.A corridor meant not for runners—
But for something more.
A Greek official stepped forward, holding a scroll in his hands, voice echoing beneath the marble arches:
"Edward Strong – United States of America."
There was light applause. A tall, muscled man in a white sleeveless tunic jogged to the line, confident and cocky, nodding to the judges with a smirk.
"Francois Beret – Republic of France."
A shorter, lithe runner with narrow hips and fast-twitch legs took his place, rolling his shoulders and adjusting his sash.
"Georgios Papadakis – Kingdom of Greece."
The crowd gave a patriotic cheer. The hometown favorite raised a hand and touched the cross around his neck before stepping up.
And then—
"Arthas Menethil – Russia."
The official hesitated, the name foreign on his tongue. The scroll wavered slightly in his grip.
The silence that followed was not empty.
It was tense.Expectant.
Then, murmurs.
Low at first, like wind beneath heavy curtains.
"He's running that too?"
"He's too big for it."
"Speed needs smallness. Fast-twitch fibers. Look at his legs—those are built for deadlifting a warhorse, not sprinting."
"Look at him—he's barefoot again."
And he was.
No tunic. No sandals. No belt.Just bare skin, bare feet, and her cloak still tied low at his hips, dusted with field dirt and trailing slightly at the edges.
His body was too large, too solid—his shoulders wide enough to cast shadow over the men beside him. But he didn't walk with heaviness. He walked like mass didn't matter to him.
Like gravity didn't pull him the same way it pulled others.
And when he reached the line—
He didn't crouch.
He didn't bounce on his heels.
He just stood.
The athletes exchanged glances.Some amused.Some uneasy.
The Frenchman muttered, "This should be quick."
The American stretched one leg behind him and smirked.
But the crowd was no longer laughing.
They weren't cheering either.
They were just—watching.
Because if what had just happened in javelin and discus meant anything…
Then nothing could be assumed anymore.
---
The Competitors React
Panathenaic Stadium – 100-Meter Dash Line
The sprinters prepared the way they always did—ritualized, measured, bodies honed through thousands of repetitions. Muscles loosened, calves flexed, fingers tested the chalk line. Joints popped. Breath was controlled.
Every man on that line had trained for this. Had dreamed of it. Had fought for it.
This was their discipline. Their domain.
And then he stepped forward.
Arthas.
No tunic. No sash. No polished shoes.
Only a dust-streaked cloak tied low at his hips, swaying around his thighs like it belonged to a gladiator, not an athlete. His chest was bare—bronzed by sunlight, striped with dust, and glistening with the faint sheen of sweat.
And his feet—
Naked.
Not calloused or bruised—unscarred, like they'd only ever touched sacred ground.
The sprinters looked up.
Edward Strong—the American—grinned as he spotted Arthas walking slowly to the line.
"What's this guy doing?" he said, loud enough to draw a few chuckles from the surrounding runners. "Thought we were racing, not wrestling."
He elbowed the Frenchman, Francois Beret, who smirked back.
"Let him run. We'll pass him in two strides."
Another Greek muttered to his teammate, "He looks like a statue they forgot to nail down."
A few athletes rolled their eyes.
And yet…
None of them could stop watching him.
Because as Arthas reached the start line, he didn't prepare.
He didn't crouch.
He didn't pace.
He didn't bounce on his heels or shake out his arms like they did.
He just stood.
Upright.
Still.
His legs loose. His posture natural. Shoulders square. Head high. Arms relaxed at his sides.
And his eyes—they weren't watching them.
They weren't glancing at the officials or checking the flags for wind.
His gaze was fixed far ahead.
Not on his opponents. On the finish.
He stood there like he wasn't about to run.
Like he was about to chase.
A predator at the edge of the woods.
And the moment they saw that—
The moment they lined up beside him—
The laughter stopped.
Because they felt it then, even if they didn't understand it.
He wasn't here to win.He was here to end the question.
The Crowd Holds Its Breath
On the edge of the lower stands, a young Greek boy stood on his tiptoes, his hands gripping the railing.
He tugged at his father's coat, pointing.
"He'll lose this one, right? He's too big…"
His father didn't respond right away.
Because he was staring—jaw tight, brow furrowed—not at Arthas's body, but at the stillness in it.
The silence.
The certainty.
The way the air around him seemed to still, as though the race were already over, and they just hadn't seen it yet.
"Papa…?"
The man swallowed once.
Still watching.
"We'll see," he said quietly. "We'll see."
---
The Starting Pistol
The marshal stepped forward with the poise of a man trying to maintain ceremony in a moment that no longer belonged to rules.
His white-gloved hand raised the starting pistol into the sun, the metallic glint catching the eye of the first row of nobles. The murmuring crowd fell into a hush.
He shouted in French-accented Greek, the voice practiced, but thinner now against the weight of what stood on the line.
"Sprinters—ready…"
Edward Strong—the American—crouched low, his muscles bouncing with coiled tension. He rocked on his heels, breathing through his nose, already visualizing the win.
Georgios Papadakis, the Greek favorite, knelt in silence, fingers splayed against the chalk line, lips whispering one last Orthodox prayer.
Francois Beret flicked his fingers, settling into form like a dancer ready to launch.
And then—
There was Arthas.
He didn't crouch.
He didn't breathe harder.
He didn't twitch.
He stood like marble painted in sunlight, legs long and loose, arms at his sides, gaze fixed on the finish line. His muscles didn't flex. His jaw didn't clench.
He was still.
Not from tension.
But from perfect readiness.
"Set…"
The crowd held its breath.
For a fraction of a second, it was absolutely silent.
And then—
BANG.
The Run
Arthas moved.
Not surged.Not exploded.Not fought.
He moved, as though gravity were a suggestion.
His first step struck the dirt like thunder—but not violent thunder, not cracking chaos. It was deliberate, perfect, and final.
The dirt beneath his foot cracked with pressure, sending a spray of dust into the air. The cloak at his hips lifted behind him like a banner catching wind.
And then—
He was gone.
Not literally. Not invisibly.
But to the naked eye, it looked like the space he'd been standing in had simply rejected him—and left only motion behind.
His stride wasn't sprinting.It was warpath.
His knees lifted high with elegant, mechanical precision.His arms moved with disciplined minimalism, swinging like weights, not flails.Every muscle in his back and legs fired in perfect harmony, not a single ounce of effort wasted.
He ran with the terrifying grace of a natural predator, the ground not pushing against him, but yielding to him.
Edward Strong had a phenomenal start.
But by the twenty-meter mark, he wasn't glancing forward—he was glancing sideways.
And Arthas was no longer beside him.
At forty meters, the American's focus cracked.His rhythm faltered. His breath hitched.
Arthas was ahead—not by a step. By strides.
The Frenchman, running hard, felt a wave of humiliation creeping up his spine as the impossible happened: he couldn't even see Arthas's footfalls.
At sixty meters, the crowd once again forgot to cheer.
There was only stunned silence.
Not from boredom. Not confusion.
From fear.
The way you grow quiet when you realize you might be witnessing something your brain can't yet accept.
At eighty meters, Arthas's hair flowed behind him, and his muscles moved like waves—no strain, no break in form.
He did not falter.
He did not waver.
And when he reached one hundred meters, he didn't leap across the line.He didn't stumble.He didn't break stride.
He just stopped.
Two feet on the earth.
No celebration.
No gasp for air.
He simply turned—slowly—and looked behind him.
The others?
They were still running.
---
The Silence That Follows Speed
No cheers.
Not at first.
Just a sudden, complete absence of sound, so unnatural that even the birds above the stadium seemed to hold their wings still.
Tens of thousands stared across the sun-drenched track, not quite believing what they had just seen. No one clapped. No one shouted. No one even moved.
The finish line still shimmered in the heat.
And he stood there.
Arthas.
Calm. Breath steady. Cloak barely stirring at his hips. Eyes unblinking.
Alone.
The runners behind him were still coming in—Edward Strong lunging across the line with an audible grunt, Francois Beret gasping, knees shaking, and Papadakis stumbling the last three meters in disbelief.
They looked to the officials.To the judges.To the timekeepers.Anywhere but him.
Because to look at him now was to look at something that shouldn't be real.
A Greek judge with a white beard and trembling fingers stared down at the stopwatch in his palm.
It shook.
Not because of the time it displayed—but because he couldn't trust his own hand anymore.
"He ran it in…" his voice cracked.
The assistant beside him leaned in.
"No. That can't be right."
"Read it again."
The judge swallowed, then lifted the watch for all to see.
"Eight point four seconds."
The words didn't echo.
They rippled.
Through the crowd.Through the field.Through the minds of every man and woman present.
It was too fast.
Too clean. Too effortless.It wasn't sprinting.
"That's not sprinting…" someone whispered."That's falling forward through time."
The Crowd Reacts
The reaction didn't start like before.
There was no sharp applause. No patriotic anthem. No carefully-timed ovation.
Instead, there was a roar.
Not from the throat—but from the soul.
A sound that was less celebration and more worship.
It rolled through the stadium like a quake, rising in the chest, breaking through disbelief and shame and expectation. It wasn't just awe. It was surrender.
Some spectators stood—and did not sit back down.
Others wept. Quietly. Shamelessly.
One young girl in the third row fainted, her father catching her before she hit the stone.
Two photographers, still bent behind their tripods, dropped their cameras, lenses shattering on the ground.
A British noble—flushed red from the sun and three glasses of French wine—stood abruptly and shouted:
"WHAT IS HE!?"
And no one had an answer.
And at the Sideline…
She hadn't moved.
Xania stood just behind the rope.
Hands clenched. Shoulders still. Back straight.
Her dress clung to her like a second skin in the heat, dust clinging to the folds, but she didn't feel it.
Her mouth was slightly open.Her breath came shallow.Her pulse beat against the hollow of her throat like a war drum.
And her eyes—
Glowed.
Not from magic.Not from power.
From knowing.
You're not a myth anymore, she thought.You're mine. And now they all know.