Not a Colosseum?

Well, he understood why once he took in his surroundings. He was standing outside of an arena that was entirely too big. He couldn’t even see all of it because he was too close to it, so he had no clue just how large it truly was. There wasn’t anyone around outside, but there was a distant sound of cheers. He wasn’t sure why the cheers sounded so far away, considering how close he was and how good his ears were now. Was there just a small audience?

He figured he had to walk in to learn more about what was going on.

When he made it to the entrance, he was stopped by a ghastly looking man. Was he some kind of phantom?

“Will you be entering as a contestant or an observer?”

He had to defeat the Champion so that probably meant that he had to compete and go through the rankings from the beginning.

“Contestant.”

“And this is your full party? All summons used must be pre-registered.”

He received no notifications about summon limits, so went ahead and summoned his full party. Seru, Blue, and Jack.

Seru and Blue were clearly happy to be back with Amon. They positioned themselves closer to him while glancing around quietly at their surroundings. Jack didn’t move an inch from where he was summoned. He looked around with a blank stare in his eyes and Amon honestly couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

He couldn’t tell Jack what to do, but he’d most likely enjoy a fight.

“This will be my full party.”

“No,” interrupted Jack. “I’ll enter on my own.” He didn’t wait for Amon to respond. He simply walked forward, disappearing into the tunnel that served as the entrance.

Does my summon die forever if they die or can I resummon them?

He had never thought to question this until now, but the realization that his own carelessness could possibly cost him Seru’s life forever was a hallowing one.

He needed to get stronger to make sure he didn’t lose any other people he cared about.

“Okay. Your buddy left before he could get the full rundown, but you’ll be entering an arena. When you clear the battle in one room, you can choose from branching pathways where you’ll go next. You will be able to see the difficulties of the arenas you choose from, and if there is anyone currently occupying that room. Each arena is instanced, and if you die you will be returned here and unable to re-enter. Results will be tallied once all contestants are done, and the rewards will be given out accordingly. There’s no limit to the amount of arenas you can enter, but if you score a million points without dying you’ll gain access to fighting the Champion.”

He nodded to show that he understood. When nothing else was added, he walked into the tunnel and found himself looking at 7 branching hallways, all of them with their own number of stars embedded into the arch above the entrance. He saw a flashing red light on the 7 star doorway, which probably meant that someone was in there.

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He figured it was Jack. If he had to be honest with himself, he wasn’t on the same level as Jack, so a 7 star might have been too much for him. He wanted to get stronger, but he didn’t want to recklessly throw his own life away.

He had no time limit, he just had to survive for as long as he could. He didn’t know whether or not there would be rest areas between rooms, so there was no real reason to start off on the harder side of things. He needed to understand the baseline he was working with.

He chose to start off with a 1 star room and soon found himself entering a gladiatorial arena filled with a ghost audience. His opponent was an orc, which was a foe he knew for a fact he could handle.

Blue, subdue the enemy.

The pup grew to his normal size, which was easily large enough for both Amon and Seru to ride with some extra space as well. Compared to the orc? Blue was bigger, but the orc was bulkier. Blue growled as he approached the orc, closing the distance steadily before Blue found himself jumping into the air to dodge the spikes that erupted violently from the ground in response to the orc’s stomp of his foot.

Amon and Seru dodged as well since the attack fanned out toward all of them. While they were airborne, Amon felt a sudden outburst of bloodlust from Seru’s direction. When he looked over to her, he found that she was simply gripping her blade so that it was ready to be drawn once the order was given. Why was she emitting so much killing intent?

He wasn’t the only one that noticed it. Blue shivered slightly and the orc faltered, which gave the wolf enough of a window to lunge his target and bring it to the ground. His teeth sank deep into the flesh of the piggish brute while the rest of his body crashed over the orc. The orc attempted to punch at Blue’s side so as to free itself, but Amon used the flat end of one of the spikes now jutting out of the ground as a platform to propel himself forward with his new burst skill and land a mana cannon right against its head.

The crowd cheered violently, encouraging his slaughter.

Blood and grey matter splattered against the ground as the body fell limp. He wanted to collect it in his inventory, but it disappeared soon after, leaving nothing but a few bloodstains in its wake. He was then presented with 8 pathways. The extra one was labeled as an exit, which meant that he could leave whenever he so chose to.

He noticed that, as he looked at each of the paths, the crowd began to cheer louder and louder whenever he set his eyes on a more difficult room.

This room wasn’t difficult so he chose a 2 star room next. He had to give the audience a show, plus it was his plan to work his way up anyways.

The next stage had the same gladiatorial theme, but the floor was littered with corpses this time. A cloaked figure floated in as his opposition. As the figure raised its hand, zombified fallen warriors began to rise. There were probably a dozen zombies, but they weren’t exactly powerful. They just had numbers.

Amon knew how these things usually worked. The longer they fought, the more tired they would become since the corpses would just continue to rise again and again unless they were completely obliterated. It wasn’t like he had any holy powers, and fire would only be so effective. The only solution was for him to go for the leader of it all, with a magic attack that could kill it.

I’ll take the leader. You two handle the rest.

There were no objections. If anything, Seru gave him the impression that she was going to complain if she had to go much longer without fighting. She was all too eager to free her blade and rush into combat. She coated her sword in fire, making it much easier for her to cut down the enemies before her. Before Blue could even finish taking a swipe at his first zombie, she had already sent three of them into a state of immobility and forced the mage to focus on mending the ones she’d rendered useless.

Amon focused himself. Seru was an overwhelming presence on the battlefield because she possessed a level of ferocity rarely seen. He didn’t have that in him, so he had to affirm his presence in another way. He decided for that to be an absolutely dumbfounding level of power. He had to be completely unparalleled in every conceivable aspect, to the point where one would struggle to even begin to fathom the true depths of his power.

How could he give the crowd that impression with the power he currently possessed?