He walked to the block, stepping over severed heads. Lily White took the elixir, but Malum immediately knocked the flask out of her hands. It crashed. She looked at him questioningly.

"Don't drink," he said.

Then he looked at Devana, at her sword burning in her hands, the heat of which Malum could feel from 20 paces away, and which perfectly reminded him that at any second his head might roll on the sand and his story would end.

"What are you doing?" Devana shouted.

“I'd like to talk about…”

Before he could finish, Malum saw the woman rush at him with a single desire that had been planted in her and her kind since birth - the desire to kill; after all, she is the lost God of Slavic mythology, its true form, cruel and bloody, as Malum's grandfather, whom went through two wars, once described the Gods, and as his history teacher once described them to Malum, and at last he saw it with his own eyes, believing in every word he heard. At that very moment, the will for violence flared in Devana's eyes, drawing Malum into its vortex of madness, and he finally succumbed, he accepted the rules of the game that he had shunned. A black sphere shot out of his pocket, which instantly expanded in size, and shot faster than the speed of sound toward Devana. There was a sonic boom. The audience screamed. Devana managed to dodge at the last moment, but her sword arm was torn off. She fell and screamed.

Rod rose from his seat, and growled. The audience immediately fell silent.

"You've finally revealed yourself. I thought it would happen much sooner.”

Rod's face, like everyone else's, became very serious. Supreme authority kept their eyes on the newcomer, who had the same power as Rod. Lily White took a couple of steps away from Malum, not understanding what was happening.

"What do you want?" Rod asked.

"These children, including this girl," Malum pointed at Lily White, "are descendants of people from Earth, aren't they? Or whatever you call my planet.”

Rod paused. No one allowed themselves to interrupt him; everyone was waiting for an answer.

"She's from where you're from. From the place where monkeys live, miraculously evolving into people.”

"And you think you have the right to use my kind as expendable material?”

Rod laughed, and Perun bowed his head and said in a whisper: "Should we kill him?" Rod motioned for them to wait.

“What do you plan to do, Malum? Revenge a thousand civilians that I took five and a half thousand years ago from your planet to save my own? What kind of leader would miss such an opportunity? I'll answer for you – none.” Rod paused for five seconds, and then continued. “The last time I came to your planet, I saw crows catch a pigeon in one of the streets and peck at its already bloody back. He kept trying to run away from them, waving away with his wings, trying to take off, but to no avail, he did not have enough strength. Dozens of people passed by the scene, seemingly oblivious to what was happening, with the exception of one woman. She stopped and started throwing stones at the predators, scaring them away, but they flew off to the branches of a tree that grew nearby and waited for her to leave. When the woman moved a few meters forward, the crows returned to finish what they had started. She noticed this and again scared them away. This went on three times, until her little son called her, and she finally left.” Rod paused and looked at the audience, then at Malum again, and continued. “The crows pecked at their still-living prey for the next half hour, until the pigeon finally accepted its own destiny and stopped resisting. Now they were eating him alive. The other pigeons sat on the roofs and watched the show with me. Then they flew away. The street emptied. This scene is a pure example of natural selection. The strong use the weak to benefit themselves and their needs. All living things are predators in one way or another, including you and me, with the only difference that the crows have divided the prey among themselves, and people, they are like pigeons, take care only of themselves. Do you think we're all stupid enough not to understand why you're here? Oh, we understand perfectly. You wanted to learn how to use the sphere from us and then go back to your planet, didn't you? Only one thing you were wrong about. In the face of true power, pigeons either run away in the hope of escaping, or become prey.”

And everything froze in a motionless picture: Rod and his retinue stared hungrily at the last black sphere made on Alaval. Malum stood at the place of execution, scared and frozen like a mindless bird on a perch, his body trembling, but his mind was concerned with something else – how to delay time and escape. In this deathly silence, the sound of the wind was heard, and the horizon was covered with red clouds. In the distance, crackling thunder rumbled, and a bright blue light illuminated the arena of death. Only, because of the huge walls of the amphitheater, it was not visible that a powerful sandstorm was coming at a furious speed under the clouds. A shadow fell over the city.

In the gathering gloom, Malum saw a smile on Rod's face, but didn't immediately understand what was happening. Suddenly Lily White fell to her knees and began to choke.

"What the hell?" Malum said, then he saw that the girl had already drunk from his flask. She was getting worse.

Rod stood up and continued:

"You're afraid. You don't see what's happening a meter away from you. You think I haven't met someone like you? I've seen enough, believe me.”

Malum rushed to the girl, hugged her dying body, and spoke quickly, hoping to cheer her up. She gasped for air, her eyes rolling back in her head. Her mouth opened and closed, and Malum could see that Lily White was trying to say something, but instead of her angelic voice, there was a heart-rending, plaintive squeak, moans, and wheezes.

"Hold on, hold on!”

The black sphere hummed, trying to heal the girl. But suddenly, there was an explosion near them. He was thrown back ten steps. He fell, unable to get up immediately. Tinnitus rang in his ears. A second later, he looked around, trying to find Lily White and saw her lifeless body lying next to a three-meter wall. Devana laughed heartily. And Malums’s black sphere grew to a huge size, filling a third of the space of the arena and, breaking the speed of sound again, rushed towards the armless woman. A second explosion occurred. The sand rose into the air, and through this dusty haze you could see the outline of a large black shadow. Silence fell. As the wind blew the sand away, Malum saw the local female executioner protected from the blow by a wall of black cloth. He did not hesitate and sent the sphere in an arc towards Rod and his retinue. Third explosion. The audience gasped in fright. Fragments of the parapet flew in all directions. Devana continued to emit heart-rending laughter. She trembled with delight, as if she missed the slaughterhouse, as only a mother can miss her child in a long separation.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"What's so funny?" Malum asked.

She didn't answer.

"I hope you'll burn in hell.”

The black sphere shrank and flew back to its keeper. The podium was destroyed. After a few seconds, the dust cover lifted and Malum saw that no one had even been hit. Perun, Rod, Veles, Jarilo, Jehuti and Svarog, stood still. Then Perun jumped to the body of Lily White.

"Still breathing," he said, “amazing will to live.”

The bright blue sphere activated, Lily White rose into the ground as if levitating, then her fragile body trembled, and in the next second she split into molecules, becoming an eternal part of the arena, like sand and dust.

Malum flinched, his body paralyzed in horror. He looked at Perun with reddened eyes and burst capillaries, hating him with all his being.

“The most important thing is to understand that it is only a consumable item. This is the first time for you being in such a situation, as I can see. I see it in your eyes.”

At this moment, Malum noticed a black dot near his foot, which in one second, like a black hole, began to suck him in. Malum was about to jump away, but gravity pinned him to the ground.

My body is getting sucked in! He said to himself in horror.

His sphere slammed into the ground next to him and the shock wave threw the thin archaeologist out of this infernal funnel. His body shivered, and his mind was one step away from sinking into an endless void. Malum looked down at himself and saw that his leg had been torn off. Blood poured out of the veins in a powerful stream, and the fibula and tibia could be touched by hand.

“Oh shit, for fuck sake!” he shouted.

The other rulers were standing next to Rod. He grunted and said very softly, so softly that he could barely hear his own phrase in this cycle of madness and explosions: "Lucky for him that I can't see a damn thing."

Not having time to recover, Malum raised his head and saw a bright blue sphere above his head, tried to dodge in the roll, pushing off the ground with his only remaining leg, but the concentrated beam ripped open his back, and the body was immediately paralyzed. Malum vomited blood. He felt his organs spilling out of his body. A dome of dark matter rose up around him and protected him from the next explosive attack. The black sphere touched his palm and completely healed his wounds in ten seconds.

“Thumbs up. You learn to use the sphere on the go!” Rod shouted. He turned to Jehuti and said in a lower voice, "don't let him recover next time.”

Jehuti nodded.

“Your future is already predetermined,” Perun said, standing next to the black dome, waiting for it to disappear. “Stop delaying the inevitable. A miracle won't help you.

Malum was silent. He looked at his watch. 12:38.

I'll sit in the dome for another two minutes and teleport out of this place.

Rod grunted again. An enemy sphere flew out of the ground, which was not protected by anything, so quickly that Malum didn’t immediately understand what had happened. What happened was that Rod's sphere smashed through the poor man, and the dome shattered like a glass shop window. Malum clutched at his stomach and felt his guts fall to the ground. His breath caught in his throat.

“We have a minute left,” Rod shouted. “Finish that son of a bitch!”

The gravity increased many times, pinning Malum to the ground, he could not move. He fired the sphere at Rod, and again there was a sonic boom.

"It flew through him!" he shouted, holding the falling entrails from his stomach with his left hand. “How is this possible?”

Behind Malum, a man-sized Jehuti formed out of the dust flying everywhere, and in the same microsecond, a spear materialized out of the sand in his hand, which immediately went to the back of the enemy's head. However, Malum’s black sphere protected him once again by creating a dome around him. His head was spinning. He could feel his clothes already soaked with blood. His hand reached up and at the same time the sphere touched it, healing all the wounds again. He looked at his watch. 12: 39: 31.

Malum removed his guard just in time to avoid getting caught in the same move twice. However, Perun expected this; his sphere immediately blinded Malum, and then released a disintegrating beam, trying to cut off his head with a cutting motion. It didn't work, he dodged without realizing it. At the same time, Veles used his sphere and a powerful gust of wind threw the black sphere to such a distance that it did not have time to save its keeper from the next attack. Jehuti threw a spear and pierced Malum in the small of the back.

Why can't I hurt any of them! Heck!

Next to Malum, Svarog appeared, the same height as Jehuti, raised his hammer, and then felt how he and the rest of the people began to be sucked into the black hole formed in the sky, with great force. He didn’t have time to finish the enemy and together with him left the ground and flew up.

Rod stood in the arena, seeing how his people were about to die.

“Veles, protect the people!” He grumbled.

The yellow and white sphere activated. And the magical wind enveloped every person with its veil.

“I'll take care of the hole,” Rod added.

Svarog, along with Malum, flew closer to the air funnel dragging people, dust, clouds and everything that was ten kilometers away from it. Svarog's brown sphere activated, and he shouted to Malum.

"If we're both destined to die, you're going to die in agony."

Clots of brown gas engulfed Malum and penetrated his entire airway with his next breath. His lungs were in extreme agony, his chest was tight, about to burst from the inside! But Svarog did not have time to see the death of his enemy, because there was a colossal explosion, and the destroyed funnel shock wave threw everything that had time to drag to itself away.

A few minutes later, the amphitheater was engulfed by a sandstorm. Rod stood in the center of the arena. Veles approached him and said that none of the locals were injured.

"We shouldn't have made a show of it. I should have killed him while he was sleeping in his room.”

"What happened to Malum?"

"I smite his lungs," said Svarog, coming up to them. “If the bastard wasn’t finished off by the explosion, then I definitely finished him off.”

Rod was silent for a long time, but finally asked Svarog to tell the audience that the enemy had fallen and there was nothing to worry about anymore, let them go home; and then he disappeared.

***

Ismila was completely desperate. Her head sank down, her body exhausted from all the small stab wounds. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness around her, through which she could see the iron walls of the room. She wept and was hurt by Malum's betrayal, for she believed in him, believed that he was the last hope of her people. There were footsteps in the corridor.

"Two," she said to herself.

The door opened. A torch was lit. Ismila was able to make out Ravon'o'Pitris and a strange man in ragged black and white clothes in the light of the fire. The head was bald, and the body was stocky, like a mighty oak.

- Ravon!" she shouted. “Dad! I thought you were dead.”

"No, I'm not. Surprise or something like that.”

"Who's with you?"

“He’s a friend. We should go.”

Ravon untied his daughter from the chair, and examined her body.

“Infection started.”

He turned to Pitris and pointed a finger at the wounds.

"Do you see this? The skin turned black.”

“Yeah. I see.” He replied coldly.

"I'll take her where she can't be reached."

"What are you talking about, father?"

"I'll tell you when you'll feel better."

She fell into his arms and hugged him tightly. Pitris looked at them and said:

"I never would have thought..."

"Then don't" Ravon answered.

They fell silent, looked into the dark abyss that lurked in the gloom of a long corridor littered with torture chambers.

“What are you going to do, Daimonion?”

The man looked at him and then said:

“You know what I am going to do.”

Ravon said nothing. He took his daughter in his arms. A portal opened in front of him. He turned and looked at his friend again.

"Where are you going this time?"

"I have some business to attend to."

"If you need help, you know where to find us."

“I know.”

They were silent, but only for a few seconds.

"How are our people?" asked Daimonion.

“They called you back to your homeland.”

"I'll return, someday."

"That's up to you.”

Daimonion'o'Pitris disappeared into the darkness. Ravon'o'Pitris holding Ismila in his arms, entered the portal.