For several long seconds after Diddy’s unconscious body struck the stone floor, Riven remained completely motionless, his chest rising and falling violently as every breath sent another wave of searing pain racing through the four fresh stab wounds across his back, while the violent surge of aggression that had consumed him only moments earlier gradually began to subside now that the immediate threat before him had finally been neutralized.
His clenched fist slowly loosened.
Although his heart continued pounding wildly inside his chest and adrenaline still coursed through every vein in his body, a small part of him wanted to believe that the fight had already ended. Diddy had attacked him. Diddy had lost. Surely that should have been enough.
However, just as Riven took a small step backwards, intending to leave the unconscious prisoner where he lay, a deep, weathered voice suddenly broke the silence surrounding the prison yard.
"If you let him live," the voice said calmly, "he’ll stab you again the very first chance he gets, and next time you may not survive long enough to throw another punch."
Riven instinctively turned towards the speaker.
Seated exactly where he had been from the very beginning, Boss Pei rested both forearms upon his knees while watching the scene unfold with remarkably little emotion upon his scarred face.
"You’ve already beaten him," Pei continued, his voice remaining slow and steady. "Now kill him, because the moment he wakes up, every waking thought inside his head will revolve around finding another opportunity to put that knife in your back. Men like him don’t forgive humiliation, they don’t learn from defeat, and they certainly don’t become better people after having their teeth knocked out. They simply wait until your guard drops before trying again, and eventually they succeed."
Riven remained silent, his eyes slowly drifting back towards Diddy’s unconscious body while the old man’s words echoed repeatedly inside his mind.
"Prison isn’t like the gladiator arena that nobles fight in," Pei continued, as although his tone never became louder, every prisoner within the yard listened to him without interruption. "Out there, mercy might earn respect. Out there, sparing someone might make them grateful enough to repay the kindness one day. In here, mercy is remembered only as hesitation, and hesitation is something every predator eventually exploits. If you leave him alive after what happened today, then you aren’t ending this fight. You’re merely postponing the next one until a day when his knife finds your throat instead of your back."
Riven slowly lowered his gaze once more.
Diddy still breathed.
His chest rose faintly before falling again, entirely unaware that his breath was soon to be snuffed out.
As without saying a word, Riven quietly walked back towards the unconscious prisoner before lowering himself onto one knee beside him, as one hand gently slid beneath Diddy’s jaw while the other settled behind his neck, and for the briefest of moments his movements came to a halt while the last traces of hesitation lingered within his heart.
Then, as the burning pain across his back reminded him of the four stab wounds that could easily have claimed his life had fortune not favoured him today, Riven slowly tightened his grip before twisting with all the strength his reconstructed body possessed.
CRACK!
A sharp crack echoed across the prison yard.
Diddy’s body convulsed once before becoming completely still, while the last faint rise and fall of his chest quietly disappeared.
"Yeah alright! Let’s go new blood!"
"Rot in hell, Diddy you useless cocksucker!"
"Hahahaha! I like the new kid! He has some spice to him."
The inmates cheered, as instead of mourning the death of a fellow prisoner, they cheered like a bunch of rowdy hooligans, which only made Riven feel even more disgusted by their behaviour.
"Come, boy."
Boss Pei said, as he slowly walked towards Riven before placing a reassuring hand upon his shoulder.
"I’ll personally take you to the infirmary."
Riven instinctively glanced towards the prison guards standing beside the gate separating the yard from the rest of the prison, half expecting them to object after witnessing him kill another inmate in broad daylight.
However, not one of them so much as acknowledged what had just happened.
They neither questioned him nor Boss Pei.
Neither offered words of condemnation nor approval.
Instead, they simply unlocked the gate before silently allowing both men to pass, behaving as though the death of a prisoner was little more than another ordinary occurrence within the Castle Gallows.
Seeing that nobody intended to stop them, Riven quietly decided to trust Boss Pei just this once before following him through the narrow stone corridors leading deeper into the prison.
Several turns later, the pair eventually arrived outside a modest wooden door bearing a faded iron plaque that simply read:
Infirmary.
Boss Pei pushed the door open without knocking.
Inside, a middle-aged man sat reclining lazily behind a cluttered wooden desk with both feet resting comfortably upon its surface while a half-smoked pipe hung loosely between his lips.
The room itself smelled strongly of medicinal herbs, alcohol, dried blood, and burnt tobacco.
The doctor slowly lifted his eyes towards the newcomers before removing the pipe from his mouth.
"I’ve never seen this one before, Pei.
A new member of your gang?"
Without waiting for an answer, he casually cleared the operating table beside him before gesturing towards it.
"Lie down, kid."
He instructed Riven, while Boss Pei slowly shook his head.
"No.
I haven’t asked him to join.
And..... I probably won’t.
He’s still got too much humanity left in him. Someone like him won’t survive long in gang politics."
The doctor’s eyebrow rose ever so slightly.
"Oh?"
Riven remained silent throughout the exchange before slowly climbing onto the operating table.
Only then did the doctor step forward before cutting away the torn fabric covering Riven’s back.
The moment the wounds came into full view, even the man’s relaxed expression disappeared.
"Sheesh...
You haven’t even joined a gang yet and somebody already tried carving you up.
You’re lucky, kid.
The blade missed every vital organ. If this lowest stab wound had landed only a little further to the left, it would’ve punctured your kidney, and you’d have bled out before anybody could’ve carried you here."
Without wasting another moment, the doctor immediately began cleaning the wounds.
The alcohol stung like fire, causing Riven to instinctively clench his jaw, however, compared to the agonizing pain he had endured beneath the Imperial Anatomist’s hands, this barely registered.
What did stand out to him, however, was how rough the doctor was.
There were no careful movements like those he had grown accustomed to back at the laboratory, nor any reassuring words or active efforts to minimise discomfort.
Instead, he worked crudely, almost like Riven was an animal and not a human.
The needle pierced flesh.
The thread tightened.
Another stitch immediately followed.
Everything about the treatment felt crude, efficient, and entirely devoid of grace, as though the man had long since stopped caring whether his patients experienced pain so long as they survived.
"Arghhh..."
Riven grunted from time to time, as he tried to bear the pain without any anaesthetics, while Boss Pei tried to impart an important life lesson to him.
"You listen to me now, boy, and you listen well.
I don’t know what you’re in here for, and I don’t know how long you’re going to remain inside these walls, but if today’s taught you anything, it should be this. Mercy won’t keep you alive. You’ve got four stab wounds across your back to prove it, and I’ve got this scar across my face for exactly the same reason.
My younger brother gave it to me. His wife convinced him that she had been sleeping with me, and although it was nothing more than a filthy lie, the fool believed every word she said.
He came after me in a fit of rage and nearly split my face open. I beat him. I could have killed him that very night, but I pitied him instead because I convinced myself that he had only acted the way he did because the woman he loved had manipulated him.
But that decision destroyed my life.
The very next morning, while I was still thanking the gods that I hadn’t stained my hands with my own brother’s blood, he walked into my home and butchered my wife and my children before they even had the chance to understand why they were dying.
That’s whose murder I’m imprisoned for.
I hunted him down before sunset and killed him with my own hands, but by then there was nothing left to save.
So believe me when I tell you this, kid. In this world, mercy is too often mistaken for permission.
When someone truly wants you dead, sparing them rarely changes their mind. All it does is give them another opportunity to finish what they started.
So if somebody forces you into a fight where only one of you walks away...
Make damn sure it’s you."
The old man advised, as by now the doctor finished his work.
"All right. That should heal nicely in a few weeks..."
The doctor muttered before giving Riven’s shoulder a firm pat as he stepped away from the operating table.
"Try not to come here too often, kid.
Funny thing about this place is that the ones who end up on this table once usually end up here again... and again... until one day they don’t leave.
These wounds will heal nicely, but you won’t always be so lucky.
So try not to die on my operating table...."
He advised, as Boss Pei supported Riven back to his feet before gesturing towards the doorway.
"Come."
He said simply, as together, the two men quietly left the infirmary behind, while Riven quietly absorbed the true cruelty of this world.