"A…human"

"You people are so racist. Its sad at this point. Not to mention oddly obnoxious."

Perhaps it was the adrenaline, but I could oddly feel my lips curve into a smirk time and time again. Or perhaps, it was just some sort of twisted satisfaction seeing the flabbergasted expressions on their faces. The expressions that they'd take to their grave.

Taking a step to the right, I brought my arrow up and caught a blurring strike of the aglow mace as it struck down, the movement so fast I only saw the big, ugly man holding it after our weapons had already collided.

My feet dug into the muddy ground and Gunnar immediately jumped back. My senses flared outwards and I dove to the side, avoiding a barrage of arrows from Birta that followed each other in such quick succession that the arrows seemed more like a single spear than tens of arrows flying at blinding speed.

"How dare you sully our land with your pathetic and dirty presence!" His voice came out in a low growl.

If the colosseum—Black Pit of Death—was so important that trespassing guarantees death, then why were there only two people stationed here. It wouldn't make sense, unless…

Bringing my arm up, I caught the mace hurtling down at me like a meteor from the sky. The surface of the mace was scalding hot, and my skin immediately blistered even underneath the layer of Arcanum.

How interesting.

Removing my hand from the weapon and letting it crash into the ground, I turned around and once again stabbed at his neck. However, this one was a feint. As soon as he brought his hand up to get a hold of my hand, I slightly nudged the arrow into his grip and then held him by his long beard.

Pulling it towards myself, I kicked him in the face. The impact of the kick sent a shockwave in every direction and I saw a torch getting snuffed out in the near distance.

I need to end this quickly. However, his weapon was too intriguing to not understand even more.

Pulling him by his beard once again, I punched him right into his jaw. The sickening crack was followed instantly by a flick of his wrist as a dozen more needle-thin spikes rained down from above me.

I kicked towards his gut but he blocked with his mace and then pushed me back.

At the same time Birta launched another barrage of arrows at me.

I looked in her direction and immediately understood.

She was using a [Skill] of some sorts.

Skills were different from Arcane Arts.

Anyone could have or develop a Skill, unlike Arcane Arts which were both rare and difficult to control.

A Skill was a sequence. Like a code in a machine. It helped someone execute a sequence of events in a systematic manner with varying range and power. However, it was a tight mould. In terms of raw strength, if poured with enough Arcanum, it could rival an Arcane Art.

However, the one flaw it had was that unlike Arcane Arts, Skills were inflexible. If there is a sequence, the Skill has an obligation to complete the procedure before executing the action.

And from the looks of it, Birta can rapidly fire around 50 or so arrows before going on a 30 seconds cooldown.

And now that she has just fired it…

I lunged at Gunnar. His mace swung over his head and then hurtled down at me. Using my arm to absorb half of the impact and redirecting it towards the ground, I kicked his mace further into the muddy flooring.

Without wasting a second, I jumped at Birta like a wild predator. The tips of her own arrows swirled upwards and converged towards me, forming long claws over my fingers.

Slashing in one swift motion, I clawed at her face, carving four lines deep into it. Her left eyes ruptured and then spurted outwards, followed by the clean incision into her nose and lower lip. Stepping to the left, I let Gunnar's mace crush what was left of Birta's mutilated face as her entire body was smashed into the ground with a huge crunch, followed by an undulating tremor throughout the ground.

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The claws over my fingers configured into a small blade as I pushed it into Gunnar's throat. The shock of seeing Birta's body squashed into a pulp had rendered him unable to move as he fell to his knees.

I grabbed a hold of his hair and crouched down. "Using your body weight to pivot your hefty mace is a good idea." Giving him a slight consolatory tap on his shoulder, I continued. "But it's useless against an opponent who's faster than you."

Taking the small dagger out of his pocket, I slit his throat open before pushing his body backwards. His broad frame fell like a tree, causing dirt to jump up.

Taking a deep breath, I pulled my hood up once again and started running towards the black pit of death. Although I was curious about his weapon, extending the fight or staying back to study his weapon was a big loss for me. The commotion would definitely attract more people. I need to get out of this place as a whole before that happens.

A small flash of orange light blipped behind me. I casted a look back and saw the mace shatter into a few fragments alongside Gunnar's corpse.

Peeling my eyes away from it, I increased my speed.

What a waste of a good weapon. If only I had enough time to spare, I could've discerned what the spike spell and the weapon was about.

But alas, fate is a very cruel thing.

Weaving around a sharp corner, I arrived in front of the Black Pit. I looked around but there was no door. The solid pathway that led to this place ended into a wall. A dead end. I looked back and saw a few people with huge torches in their hands, walking on the pathway and their synchronised steps causing an eerie echo.

They were already coming here.

Of course they were.

Those dwarves were using such high Arcanum amounts in their fight. They not only relayed the location, but also the fact that something was wrong. Since guards would only fight if someone tried to enter the Black Pit and refused to step back.

Using the dagger I had stolen from Gunnar; I threw it upwards. With as much force as I could. Creating an artificial magnetic field around my hand, I propelled myself upwards. However, there was one slight problem.

The mass of this dagger was barely 1 kilogram so it was easy to make it accelerate towards a certain velocity. However, I needed an initial propulsion of around 20 metres per second to even hope of getting somewhere close to the top of this structure.

But that wasn't the hard part. The hard part was the fact that there was a huge difference in our mass. I was around 86 times heavier than this dagger. I couldn't exert too much force using the magnetic field since it would break the dagger due to multiple resisting factors.

The only thing I could do here was to continuously repeat a rigorous set of motion.

Before I knew it, instead of propelling upwards the dagger was flying back to me. Catching it with the other hand, I threw it upwards once again and extended my right hand.

It was like pulling myself via a rope. The dagger was a moving rope. However, it could only hold for so long. The time taken by our combined momentum to equalise before the difference in mass started to catch up was around 0.7 seconds.

That means…

The dagger almost zipped past me, escaping my clutches. Catching it just barely, I threw it with all my force upwards once again.

The only way to overcome this small-time frame was more force. The more force I exerted, the more time it would take for the momentum to equalise and break my ascent.

I could just lodge it into the highest point but again, the material of this dagger is not 100% metal. Only the blade is. And the wall doesn't seem so thick. It will dislodge from it. And stabbing the wall again and again would alert people and give out my location.

Repeating the process a few more times, I increased the output of my strength. And when it felt like I couldn't do it anymore, I augment my arm with more Arcanum.

With one final throw, the dagger lodged itself into the topmost area of the structure. Using one final, powerful tug, I pulled myself upwards. Catching the handle of the lodged dagger, I barely held on for my dear life.

Throwing one leg over the oval top, I tried to gain footing. After a few fleeting seconds of pure, strenuous struggle, I finally stood atop the Black Pit.

The top from afar looked like a close dome, however, there were empty spaces between the dome like structure that allowed me to look down. Placing my foot over the edge, just before the first gap, I peeked downwards.

My heart almost jumped out my chest in fright, as I closed my eyes, took in a deep breath, pressed my palms against my eyes and then opened them once again.

Inside the spacious colosseum structure was a giant swirling whirlpool of Wujins, encircling around each other hungrily. The low rumble of their snarls made my entire body shudder and the magnetic field around my arm that strapped that blade to my hand loosened, making it fall down and produce a dull clatter.

It wasn't a colosseum. It was made out to look like one. Instead, it was just a giant wall with ¾ of the dome structure made to fool perception.

A 2D colosseum that was actually a 3D wall. And on the other side were hundreds of thousands of Wujins. I took an instinctive step back, my eyes blinking so rapidly that they could barely register any detail in the murky dark ambiance.

My eyes flicked to the other side. There were some men, around 50 metres above the whirlpool of Wujins where they were encircling around something. Or someone. The men were pushing people in robes downwards. As they pushed each robed person down, the echo of their desperate cry transitioned into a mess of wild snarls, muscle tearing and bone breaking.

And one after another, the same process happened without change, until all that was left was a harrowing silence and a sense of emptiness.

It all made sense now.

They are planning to use the Wujins as the first weapon against humanity. Just like how we were gathering intel, they were going to use these creatures as a measuring net to probe for our strengths and weaknesses and then retaliate with proper precautions while knowing everything about us.

I took another step back. Looking down, I saw a squadron of people reach the place where I had killed Gunnar and Birta.

Grabbing the dagger tightly into my hand, I looked back.

I need to get Michael and return back to Earth.