Jasper Redgrave likes to call himself an artist.

He walks into a room, knife in hand, smile across his face, and he talks about creation. He talks about masterpieces. He talks about painting his canvas in crimson, about shaping something beautiful from agony.

But I don’t see an artist.

I see a dirty old paintbrush.

You ever try painting with a brush that hasn’t been cleaned? The bristles are stiff, caked with old colors. Every stroke is clumsy, every line is broken, and no matter what you dip it into, it always comes out the same. The red seeps through. The stain never leaves.

That’s you, Jasper.

You are so covered in blood, so weighed down by your history, that you can’t create anything new. Every “work of art” you talk about—it’s the same. Another body. Another scream. Another masterpiece that looks exactly like the last.

You think you’re unpredictable, but you’re not. You’re a one-note artist, painting the same stroke over and over. Pain. Agony. Blood. That’s all you know. That’s all you can do.

And you want to know the truth? It’s lazy.

Real artists evolve. Real artists grow. They learn from their past, but they don’t repeat it. They create something new. They inspire. But you, Jasper—you’re stuck. Trapped in your own filth, in your own obsession. Your art doesn’t inspire. It doesn’t grow. It doesn’t live. It just bleeds.

And that’s why you’ll never beat me.

Because I’ve lived in that world. I know what it is to drown in the same colors, to suffer the same agony day after day until it all looks the same. My childhood was a gallery of bruises and broken bones, every night another canvas painted by my father’s fists. And for years, I thought that was all there was—pain, blood, suffering.

But I learned.

I evolved.

I cleaned my brush.

I turned my pain into hope. I turned my suffering into fight. I turned my scars into strength. I stopped repeating the same painting and I started writing a new story. That’s what makes me dangerous, Jasper. That’s what makes me the champion.

Because unlike you, I can create something new.

You’ll walk into Ascension and do what you always do. You’ll talk about blood, about death, about how the canvas will be red when you’re finished. You’ll lift your dirty brush and try to paint the same picture again.

But I’ll be there to tear the canvas apart.

At Ascension, the world will see you for what you are—not a brilliant artist, not a tortured genius, but a dirty old brush that’s forgotten how to do anything but ruin what’s in front of it.

And me? I’ll be the man who finally cleans it up.

You can keep dipping yourself into blood, but the outcome will never change. It will always be the same tired creation, the same tired “art,” and at the end of the night, the only masterpiece left standing will be mine.

Because Jasper Redgrave isn’t an artist.

He’s a brush.

And brushes break.