The colossal arena was a pressure cooker of frozen anticipation. A heavy, suffocating silence pressed down upon the sprawling sands, stretching the nerves of the massive crowd to their absolute limits. It was the calm before a devastating tempest, an unnatural quiet where even the heartbeat of the colosseum seemed to stop. Hundreds of thousands of eyes stared downward, their collective focus creating a physical weight in the air.
Silarias stood frozen, his hands clenched tight against his chest. His fingers trembled violently against the fabric of his robes. His thoughts shot wildly in all directions, a chaotic maelstrom that drowned out the little ambient noise. The words of the lion god continued to rumble through his head like a heavy echo.
Hmm, so I am something else, but what then?
An intense, frantic inner monologue raced through his mind. He looked at his own fingers, which were now shaking uncontrollably.
You get like one question answered and you immediately get two more in return. Mmhm. What did he mean by that experiment? What on earth am I if that stone is not anting? Am I… a monster?
The icy silence was ripped to shreds with brutal violence. A magical voice exploded through the open air, a sonic wall of sound so intense that reality itself seemed to vibrate. The vibrations were not only audible but also visible. The air around the source of the sound distorted in waves, as if the atmosphere itself were boiling.
At the bottom of the arena, the sand reacted instantly. The pattern of Chladni figures formed in fractions of a second, perfect, geometric circles etched into the surface by the vibrations. The sand seemed to be alive, a pulsating sea of shapes constantly changing form with the fluctuations in the announcer’s voice.
Up in a floating, glistening crystal box that flashed like a cut diamond in the sun stood the hypeman of the tournament. He was no longer a man, but a being possessed by pure, unadulterated adrenaline. His arms were spread wide, his fingers clawing toward the hundreds of thousands of spectators, his face a mask of ecstatic madness.
“THE CONTESTANTS ARE TOGETHER!” the announcer roared. His voice, amplified by hundreds of strategically placed sound crystals, did not sound like a human, but like rolling thunder rumbling over the stands, a physical force pressing down on the lungs of the spectators.
“BUT LISTEN WELL, CRUELDERS AND MORTALS! THE GATES REMAIN OPEN! INJOINING IS ALWAYS POSSIBLE! PARTICIPATION IS FREE FOR EVERYONE UNTIL THE FINAL SKY CLASHES! IF YOU DARE, AT LEAST!”
The crowd reacted with a collective, bloodthirsty roar that rattled the foundations of the granite structure. It was the sound of tens of thousands of throats screaming simultaneously for blood and spectacle. The air above the arena filled with a haze of kicked up dust and the smell of sweat and excitement.
The hypeman began to list the twelve official main factions at a theatrical, breakneck pace. It was a verbal waterfall, a staccato of names and titles that pushed the tension to the boiling point.
“Look at them standing there!” the announcer screamed, throwing his arm wildly toward the eastern flank where a group of figures stood in the shadows. “The shadow knights of the Shinto team! Ready to crayon the sand with the blood of their enemies!” A wave of purple fireworks exploded directly above their heads, an ominous glow that enveloped their black, rune covered armor in a purple light. The runes began to pulse with a sinister energy, as if they themselves hungered for battle.
“And on the opposite side!” the man continued, his voice cracking with pure excitement as he pointed to the western side. “The legendary Sage Malaka with his young warriors, flanked by the royal Kali and her triple elemental sisters!”
Malaka, who stood next to Silarias, cast a quick, sharp glance at the boy. His eyes were cold and focused, a stark contrast to the madness around them. He hissed under his breath to Silarias, “Head in the game now, Flamo! Save your inner monologue for when we are not being buried alive! This is not a drill!”
Jeshua, standing on the other side, drew his sword slightly from its scabbard with a slow, metallic sound. The sound of steel on steel sliced through the din. Completely focused on the rival groups, he muttered with a cold, arrogant gaze, his eyes fixed on the other teams, “Let them come. The whole world is watching. They will see what real power is.”
Meanwhile, the hypeman’s list rumbled on mercilessly, whipping the crowd into a hysterical frenzy. Murderous gangs and notorious bandits from literally every corner of the known world were called forward. Criminals from the deepest slums with scarred faces and brutal weapons, and exiled killers from far beyond the borders with strange, terrifying tattoos stamped their heavy weapons on the ground. The sand flew up with every stomp, a rhythmic tribute to the coming slaughter.
And then, as if reality were playing a sick joke, the spotlight atmosphere fell entirely on a figure that squeezed the breath right out of the audience’s throat.
“And completely alone in his own starting block!” the hypeman shrieked, his voice now a shrill screech. The entire arena suddenly fell dead silent. It was an abrupt, unnatural silence, as if someone had turned off the sound. The bewilderment was palpable, a collective shock rippling through the stands.
Standing completely alone in the bright light was an extremely pale, unnaturally cute child. The boy, who looked no older than six or seven, wore simple, white robes and had a fragile, almost translucent appearance. He looked around completely unmoved with large, hollow eyes, seemingly unaware of the hundreds of thousands of staring eyes. His pure, icy presence was so bizarre, so grotesquely out of place amidst the brute monsters and hardened warriors that Silarias felt the hairs on his arms stand on end. A cold shiver ran down his spine. The air around the child seemed to freeze, a thin layer of frost forming on the sand around him.
As the heavy silence settled over the sand, the child suddenly looked straight at Silarias’s group with a wide, enthusiastic smile. His eyes glinted in a way that did not seem human, a cold, dead glaze that radiated no warmth. He raised his far too large sleeves in the air, hopped up and down cheerfully, and called out loudly across the sand with a clear, overjoyed child’s voice, “OH, I BET WE WILL BE BEST FRIENDS!”
The words echoed through the silent arena, a bizarre, innocent sound in a place of death and destruction.
But through his enthusiastic jumping, the boy misstepped right on the edge of a loose stone. With a clumsy, exaggerated swing of his little arms, he completely lost his balance. He flailed wildly through the air, his face contorted in a comical look of panic, and tripped backward painfully hard.
At the exact moment his rear would touch the sand, the flashing crystal above his head reached an absolute boiling point. The light became so intense that it blurred the contours of the child, enveloping him in a cocoon of blinding white light.
FLASH!
With a loud, magical bang that sounded like breaking glass and shook the arena to its very foundations, the child disappeared in an eye searing beam of white light before he could even touch the ground. The light left an afterimage on the retinas of everyone watching, a ghostly memory of his presence.
“What in God’s name is that creature?” Jeshua whispered. His arrogant stance had completely vanished for the first time. His face was deathly pale, and he tightened his grip on his hilt until his knuckles turned white.
Tara, who stood a few meters away, let the boulders around her feet spin more wildly. The stones collided with a dull thud. Her voice trembled slightly as she said, “That child is not right. That clumsiness is a mask. His spiritual pressure, it is heavier than that of the giants. It is suffocating.”
After that bizarre disappearance, the crowd truly exploded. The silence gave way to an all blinding, ecstatic frenzy that made the air shake. The entire Colosseum went absolutely wild. Millions of arms waved through the air, torches were swung in manic circles, and everywhere, meters high flames shot up from the walls, saturating the air with the smell of fuel and adrenaline. It was an inferno of sound and light.
Right at the absolute peak of this chaos, the giant, floating crystals above the heads of all the other factions also began to flash frighteningly fast. The light of the stones intensified from a soft glow to a pulsating, blinding rhythm, in sync with the heartbeat of the crowd. The humming of the magical energy became so high and sharp that it cut through bone and marrow, a grating sound that made teeth vibrate.
“Get ready!” Malaka roared, his voice half drowned out by the building energy. He gripped his weapon tighter, his muscles tensed like steel cables. “This is it!”
FLASH!
In a fraction of a heartbeat, the whole of reality flipped with the force of an explosion. The immense sandy surface, the roaring crowd, the burning spotlights, and the smell of the mass disappeared as if wiped away with a sponge.
The Puzzle Box of Medusa
Silarias slammed his boots hard onto a cold, damp stone floor. The bright sunshine was instantly traded for a dim, ominous atmosphere. The air was cold and smelled of moss and old stone.
They were no longer standing in the open center of the arena but had been dumped deep into the notorious Puzzle Box of Medusa, the dynamic arena labyrinth known as a living murder weapon. Immense, meters high walls of ancient, moss grown granite reached far above their heads, forming wide and narrow corridors that wound away into the void in intricate, dark patterns. The walls seemed to breathe, a soft, stony rasp echoing through the passages.
Everywhere in the air, floating between the massive structures, hung the mechanical crystal birds. Their cut, glass eyes rotated in sync with every movement the warriors made, flashing in the semi-darkness. Everything they did was recorded in sharp detail and directly projected onto the giant crystal screens hanging high above the stands for the ecstatic audience. They were not alone. They were prey in a glass cage.
The voice of the hypeman made a magical breakthrough at that moment, resonating through hidden runes straight through the massive walls of the maze, louder and more commanding than ever. The walls themselves seemed to speak.
“LET THE GAMES BEGIN! LET’S GOOOOO!!!”
The starting bang was not just a sound. It was the signal for a visual explosion of epic dimensions. Right above the maze, millions of bright light particles shot through the air like flashing meteors. Firecrackers as large as houses exploded in immense cascades of neon blue, deep purple, and golden yellow against the invisible ceiling of the dimension. The flashing light particles rained down in burning streaks and pulsating showers of sparks, illuminating the twisting corridors of the Puzzle Box with a terrifying, constantly changing sea of colors. Every shadow was elongated and shortened with sharp jolts by the flashing violence above, creating a disorienting effect.
As the glowing particles died out over his shoulders, Silarias heard a deep, mechanical creaking beneath his feet. The ground trembled, and cracks formed in the stone floor. The massive granite walls behind him began to shift at a rapid pace with a loud, grinding sound of scraping stone. The paths immediately changed position, corridors closed, and new ones opened, making the labyrinth a living, breathing organism.
Malaka looked around, his eyes blazing. “The layout is changing! We have to keep moving! Jeshua, lead the way! Tara, cover the flanks! Silarias… stay in the middle and try not to die!”
Jeshua grinned coldly, his sword now fully drawn. The steel reflected the flashing lights above them, a gleam cutting through the darkness of the Puzzle Box. “Finally. Let’s see what this maze has got.” He tensed his muscles and shot forward into the darkness.
The stopwatch was running, the walls were shifting, and the hunt was officially on.
Silarias ran through the corridors, his heart pounding in his throat. Suddenly, a portal appeared before him. He stepped out the other side, and the cold floor of the maze touched his boots. But before he could even take in his surroundings, the icy silence of the corridor was rudely shattered by a loud, overjoyed shout.
“FLAMOOO!”
Startled, Silarias shifted his gaze toward the sound. There, a few meters away in the gloom, stood Jeshua, waving with a broad grin on his face.
“Monks among ourselves!” Jeshua called out enthusiastically across the stone floor. “We look for as many allies as possible and make a solid team! Together we go in peace! Or well, after that, then!”
At the exact moment Jeshua finished his sentence, a shadow loomed from a side corridor. A giant, bearded barbarian came rushing in at high speed. His eyes were wild, and in his massive fists, he clenched a heavy, iron clad club. The club was covered in blood splatters, testimonies of past victims. With a brutal, primal roar, the barbarian swung, determined to shatter Jeshua’s skull. The air buzzed from the force of the swing.
The club cleaved through the air but missed entirely. Jeshua had not even turned around, yet his whole body moved at a speed that defied human perception. An afterimage of his body remained behind where he had just stood, throwing the barbarian into confusion.
Silarias instinctively wanted to close his eyes to avoid the brutal impact, but his gaze remained pinned. He simply could not stop watching, fascinated by the visual escalation of the fight.
Jeshua avoided the heavy club by a hair’s breadth. His movements were terrifyingly fluid, a deadly dance that left the barbarian with no chance at all. Without a trace of panic, he slipped right under the barbarian’s swing. At that exact moment, Jeshua’s limbs began to glow brightly with a sharp, magical energy. The energy took the form of flashing runes and symbols, spinning around his arms and legs like a protective cocoon.
With explosive force, Jeshua kicked the barbarian straight into the air. A shockwave of magical energy exploded upon impact, vibrating the walls of the Puzzle Box and causing pieces of stone to crumble. The barbarian shrieked in pain and surprise as he flew weightlessly through the corridor.
While the giant warrior sailed weightlessly through the passage, Jeshua executed a flawless, razor sharp backflip. His body was a blur of movement and glowing light, a brilliance cutting through the darkness of the corridor. He came down with both feet perpendicular to the barbarian’s face, stomping him into the floor with the force of a meteor. A deafening bang echoed through the corridors, followed by a cloud of dust and debris.