“Time to die, time to die, time to die!”

Troy stood within a massive pit that was lined with cages. The slaves and captives of the strongest students in Adroit Academy’s Secret Halls all filled the cells made to keep wild beasts detained; while above an audience of countless students roared an oppressive chant.

The only sections of the pit that didn’t have cages, were the eleven gateways, that surrounded the pit and sporadically placed from small to large. These gateways were used to introduce creatures and monsters to further bring difficulty to the fights. They were primarily used in two instances from what Troy had seen so far.

The first being when one fighter was forced to fight someone they knew and associated with. The second was when a weaker opponent was doing their best to flee from an enemy they didn’t want to engage.

Neither case resulted in anything but a bloody mess. Troy had seen Harpies released from a certain portal that had ended with seven students massacred without a fighting chance.

Even as she walked forward she couldn’t help but glance at the gateway that spawned the portal the Harpies flew through. When she blinked and changed her focus, she noticed the bloodstains that defied reason in her mind. The stains still showed on the mana barrier above that trapped all contenders within the pit.

Though Troy knew something was wrong with her mind currently, the flickering flashes of memory disturbed her even more than the gruesome nature of what she’d faced so far within the tournament zone that was the Secret Hall’s Pit.

She’d been in situations similar to this, her mind randomly showing her a time where she must have been a prepubescent child forced to face others her age. Thus with the lack of memory to draw on she wondered if maybe her entire life was as that of a slave. Continual transitions between one pit of brutality to another.

They say you normally end up where you begin, don’t they?

The thought for Troy was an annoyance as she couldn’t place who’d told her such a saying, or why whomever had shared the statement even felt it necessary to impart the seeming fact about life.

Who is to say that you would remember even if something wasn’t wrong with you, Troy. Just focus on the battle ahead, and try not to lose your life.

Troy sighed as the announcer yelled over the crowd's vigorous chanting. The details of the match were given and Troy sighed as she looked around at two other contenders as they approached the center of the ring.

The first was a young woman Troy felt was emanating with a potentially dangerous amount of mana. She was covered from head to toe in scars, knife belts,, and blood, her darting eyes telling Troy that she was either incredibly aware or skittish, but Troy assumed it was the former by the delicate grip being maintained on the twin blades in her hands.

The second was a broad shouldered young man that had only given Troy and the dagger wielder a single glance before he focused completely on the portals around them all; most likely wondering what monsters they would be forced to face. The glaive on his back looked broken, but still carried enough of the nearly rectangular blade it had once held at one end, that Troy felt it was no less deadly, and since he was much taller than she was, she couldn’t get a true impression from the angle she stood.

Troy had given up on knowing the eye color or even the hair color of those she faced. Dirt and grime made it impossible to distinguish one person from another when students and slaves died in the pit so often, that she couldn’t remember if she’d seen even the pair in front of her before.

I wonder if my eyes look that dead…?

“Looks like one of you pissed someone off,” said the young man. His eyes drifted over to the one portal that Troy did not want to face, and a beautiful red, blue and yellow glow spiraled to life within the boundaries of the gateway.

“What in the sparks are they doing?” Troy said speaking her thoughts aloud.

“They want you dead, slaves aren’t supposed to last as long as you have. If you were a student of the halls you’d have been let go already, but since you're not—“ The young woman across from Troy raised a single hand toward the gateway, just as a group of Harpies jutted their heads and winged arms through the portal.

“Time to die, time to die, time to die!”

The chant grew louder, and Troy clenched her hand around the pole of the scythe she held. She turned slightly to be able to both see the other contenders, and step away from the group of Harpies flying through the open portal.

“So rather than even give you all a chance to kill me off, they’ve decided to send beautiful ravenous demonic bird women at all of us. Aren’t you two students, how is that fair to you?” asked Troy preparing herself. She had a feeling that neither contender would fight each other until she and the Harpies were killed off, which was confirmed by the nearly imperceptible nod the two gave one another in her periphery.

This is going to be fun.

Troy let the weight of the weapon she held slide free of her hand, summoning a HardLight clone to take the weapon as she summoned another scythe. Repeating the action twice more before she begun her attack on the Harpies.

Now backed by three clones that used a crescent moon formation, facing the opposing contenders, Troy and the clones began to swing.

With each swing from the HardLight scythes she and her clones used, brilliant waves of light rippled through the air toward her enemies.

Grabbing the end of the scythe she held personally, Troy swung toward the first group of incoming Harpies. A large wave of blue light raced toward a group of three harpies that had barely made it off the ground, and Troy couldn’t help but smile as the wave collided with two of her three targets.

The blue light scattered the moment it struck the flying monsters, multiple waves of light darting off in different directions from the collision points on the Harpies bodies.

Troy didn’t wince at the sight as the other contenders did. The blue light struck the bodies of the monsters like blunt weaponry, snapping bones and leaving some harpies with sunken in skulls from being smashed into with great force.

The different colored light being used by Troy and her HardLight clones all had different effects, blue being her most utilized currently due to its incredibly mana-efficient properties.

Another of her clones used a very minimal green light, and though it came out in the shape of a wave that streaked through the air as the other colors did, this light was more volatile, and punctured whatever it struck. The explosion on contact was nearly like a grenade that exploded with fully intact spears rather than shrapnel.

The effect was rather violent, and Troy had to force down a laugh when one of her clones sent the wave toward the female contender within the pit; the young woman cursing at the series of attacks all being sent her way.

Another of Troy’s clones used a yellow light that washed over her opponents like a rippling wave, causing a visible haze, that made it hard to see. The yellow light unfortunately was rather expensive in the mana department, but if used properly became a very invaluable tool in any kind of altercation she’d used it in thus far.

Finally of the types of light Troy was willing to use there was a clone using a red light. This light came with a searing heat that caused anything it touched to either catch on fire, melt, or even explode if intensified enough. It was somehow the cheapest of the various light types, but only if she was trying to cause an increased heat. If used to create explosions however, it became the most expensive of the light types she was capable of using, including black light, which she no longer felt comfortable producing.

A single use of black light was tremendously expensive mana-wise, and could leave her completely drained if her attack missed. If a wave of black light didn’t miss, it lit weakened and corrupted living cells up, showing weaknesses within Cultivators and monster bodies, all while draining the life-force from the target slowly, at first. If the black light wasn’t dispelled or dispersed, the Cultivator or monster would eventually fade completely and turn to dust, leaving Troy recharged, yet her own body never felt right after ingesting the foreign mana and life force, so she’d stopped using the creation pretty early on from what she could remember from her life within the pit.

The female contender in the pit was using some sort of metal manipulation, or magnetism skill or ability, floating on two daggers while she controlled almost a dozen daggers that flew through the air all around herself.

“What’s wrong with you, dummy? We have monsters pouring in by the dozens and you're attacking the only people who can help you defeat them,” the young woman yelled in frustration, forming a tornado of daggers in the air as she flew about. Troy ignored the woman’s obviously annoyed cries, knowing that the moment she wasn’t watching, the expertly controlled knives would have a new target.

“Wish I could believe you, but I’ve seen more backstabbing in the last fortnight of my life than ever before!”

Troy didn’t know if that was entirely true, but it felt to be so as she yelled over her shoulder. She’d since the start of the match been focusing on the Harpies primarily herself, but used her clones to fight the other contenders.

“What does that have to do with either one of us? Just because you haven’t made any friends in here doesn’t mean that you should assault every person by your side!”

The young man had a point, but not a solid enough basis of reasoning for Troy to stop attacking everything that moved within the pit. She’d literally seen a young woman slit the throat of her own twin within the pit; all seemingly for the applause from the even more voraciously murderous spectators above. The sight had set the standard for where the bar for loyalty was set within the pit for Troy, making her feel as if nothing or no-one was to be trusted.

Troy had formulated a plan since seen a group of 21 contenders being swarmed by the Harpies, and wasn’t going to let even her own fear stop her from following through.

So Troy slashed and cut through the air before herself over and over again. The blue waves of light making every group of Harpies that managed to escape the portal they spawned from pay a brutish cost. Very few Harpies making it even a few yards from the portal before explosions of light caused them to experience crushing defeat. Broken monsters falling from the sky, as Troy didn’t relent for anything.

Her mana was nearly half way empty as the portal’s light slowly began to diminish. Her clones were managing to keep the other contenders at bay. A flurry of slashes flowing through the air silently until they made contact and caused considerable amounts of damage was enough to keep Troy’s adrenaline pumping and her confidence high enough to continue.

A knife sliced across her arm, leaving a trail of blood to splash across the sand, but Troy ignored it. The young woman still cursing behind her.

Troy kept swinging. Even when the same knife that had just cut her lifted itself from the sand and stabbed her in the arm. It wasn’t until the lodged blade began to twist that she even stole her sight from the Harpies still rushing through the portal. The pain was enough for her head to spin and her vision to blur momentarily, and she knew that she couldn’t continue to ignore the gush of blood sloshing down her arm, yet as the name of the person she couldn’t remember left her lips unconsciously, she did.

The pain was moved to the back of her mind and she continued to cut down all of the Harpies . She slowed and enough Harpies had now gotten through that her use of smashing the monsters in a confined choke point was no longer proving to be advantageous, and was finally forced to change tactics.

“What are you doing now!”

The young man had just gotten close enough to one of Troy’s clones to attack it, when the three clones turned and rushed toward the dozens of Harpies that had made it through, while Troy now rushed him.

“Your little friend over here took away the only upper hand I had at closing the portal easily, so now I have to knock you two idiots out before you can make this any harder to survive.”

The young man’s eyes went wide as Troy became a blur, almost vanishing from sight in an all out blitz in his direction. He cocked back his massive weapon to swing its sharpened edge in her direction, and Troy raised a single hand up in what the young man thought to be a block, only to smile as he went to swing his blade directly toward Troy’s head.

The hand Troy raised was in fact not a block, but her summoning more HardLight clones. The group of a dozen clones were split into two groups. Six materialized to either side of his massive glaive, wrapping their arms around the pole of the weapon; while the secondary six all fell from the sky toward the young woman that thought Troy was no longer paying her any attention.

A boom when out as the young man’s weapon was stopped dead in its track. The sound made by the immense force of his swing only being able to move an inch before the majority of the weapon’s length shuttered to a complete stop, rattling between the inch of space the clone’s bodies left for the weapon to move.

The clones she’d used were cheap to summon, as they did not need to move from where they were summoned, but instead only needed to be heavy and immovable. Which could also be said for the secondary group of clones as well.

The young woman who’d had a vantage point well above the carnage had felt safe flying above the battle on two daggers, but wasn’t particularly perceptive underneath the duress of combat it seemed. While attempting to assassinate Troy by diving from the blades that held her aloft, she hadn’t noticed the figures being summoned above her.

Not only had Troy made the secondary six in her new group of summons nearly transparent, they too were incredibly heavy for two reasons.

The first being, Troy didn’t want the young woman to be able to use her numerous daggers to lift the dense light bodies. While the second reason was simple, she didn’t know how strong the young woman was at first glance.

So in the moment before Troy was nearly stabbed in the spine, two things happened at the same time.

The young woman felt arms wrap around her body as she dove toward Troy’s back , and Troy spun her weapon in hand, leaving the blade of her scythe to be pointed away from her target, just before she wrapped her free hand around the scythe, and heaved the heavy weaponry with all her might.

The young man’s eyes went wide as he let go of his own captured weapon, trying to bring his own hands up to block, but the pole of Troy’s scythe smashed into his temple, causing his eyes to roll back up into his head. The young man began to crumple, but before his knees could even touch the ground a scream was heard behind Troy.

The young woman had the air knocked from her lungs as she was spear tackled from above; smashed into the ground, and held in place, making a perfect target for the still spinning Troy.

Troy roared, bringing her weapon down in an arcing sweep that ended with the flailing girl behind Troy who stared up at her with widened eyes being struck in the side of her head. Yet Troy couldn’t help but see the smile that flickered across the young woman’s face even as Troy knocked her out.

The blade sunk into her lower back, missing Troy’s spine by a fraction of a finger length and Troy knew then why the young woman had been smiling when the pain flowed through her like sipped water on a extremely hot day.

Troy felt her knees shake, and was forced to use the weapon in her hands to keep herself upright.

The roar of the crowd could no longer be heard above her heartbeat in her ears, and Troy felt her mind shut off entirely for a few breaths. Her vision went black and even as she focused on her breathing, she could feel nothing.

Yet the name that thrummed through her mind like a power source, caused her to push mana through her body and her vision returned slowly, even as the number of Harpies around her grew even more deadly to overcome; she pushed herself to focus once more.

She turned her head, and watched as she bled onto the sands. Her HardLight clones fought as if they were in a battle for their own lives, and Troy spread her legs to add stability to her stance, and keep herself upright without the support of her weapon. She lifted her weapon pointing it toward the mass of Harpies all working to escape the onslaught of her clones and the crowd erupted.

Arson…

“I’m not going to die today…”