I was under the Red Sands arena floor, in the Hypogeum, talking idly with some workers. We all were just briefly having a break before they were going back to work and myself to go to fight soon.

“And your name is?” I asked a newcomer to the conversation.

“Hadrias.” The man said.

“I’m Commodas.” I said, shaking his hand.

“I’ve heard of you. Brazen Chainer.” Hadrias said.

“Yes.” I said. “I’m a part of that brotherhood.”

“Lots of good fights from your brothers.” Tellias, another worker, said.

“Have a favorite gladiator?” I asked.

“I like Flaema.” Hadrias said.

“I root for the Infernal Beasts.” Tellias admitted.

Hadrias elbowed him. “That’s sick. You’re talking to a gladiator right now.”

“I feel bad for the poor bastards. They’re just animals really, just freaky and weird looking ones.” Tellias said.

“You handle them a lot?” I asked Tellias.

“Yes. That’s my main job, moving Beasts out of containment through the shipping elevators and up to the Hypogeum.” Tellias said.

“Well, I hope you all will root for me when I’m up there, whether I’m facing man or Beast.” I said.

“Will do, chief.” Tellias said.

“I like the whole mystery aspect you have going on.” Hadrias complimented me.

“Thank you.” I said.

The two of them moved on and others passed me. One of them was Velias, come from just above on the arena having just descended into the Hypogeum.

“Velias!” I hailed him.

“Commodas.” He acknowledged, a little coolly, but perhaps that was just from being in a fight recently. Distracted, perhaps.

“How was your fight?” I said.

“Good.” He replied. “I won.”

“Who was it against? I didn’t see the listings today.” I asked.

“A newbie fighting to pay off debts. Galias Berion. Put him on his ass and then held my sword to his throat and he yielded.” Velias said.

Most fights between gladiators, if they weren’t explicitly otherwise, were non-lethal or at least were intended to be. Didn’t want to kill off half the athletes of your sport every time they fought. That didn’t mean that there weren’t accidents though. And again, sometimes it was otherwise and the pay off was bigger to justify the risk of entering the Underworld.

“Who are you fighting today, Commodas?” Velias asked me.

“I’m doing a double shift. Two fights. One against three Adamant Leonid Infernal Beasts and one against a fighter called Alcides.” I said.

“Hm. I’ve fought against Pyric Leonids, but not Adamants. Good luck with that. Can’t say I have any particular advice. Alcides on the other hand I’ve heard nothing but bad things.” Velias said.

“Bad things as in good for me, or more incoming terrors.” I said.

“Incoming terrors. He’s a beast and a brute. Inhuman. I’m surprised Gaias let you fight him.” Velias said.

“He seemed eager.” I said. I guessed Gaias thought an Imperator was superior to Alcides, freakish warrior or not. Seemed a fair assessment.

“I’ll see you later, Velias.” I said and walked to the platform that would take me to the arena. It elevated me to the roar of the crowd.

I waved to them, and I heard my fake name of Commodas announced on the loudspeakers.

Across from me, an opening formed in the sand and a second platform raised itself up. Chained to the platform were the three Adamant Leonids. The Adamant Leonids were metallic silver lions sized as tall as a stallion and with blank white eyes and diamondoid claws. The locks on the chains around their neck securing them to the platform were remotely disabled and the Leonids darted towards me.

I leapt, flipping in the air, onto the back of the Leonid in the center. Its lion’s mane felt like steel wire. I bashed it in the head as it bucked and thrashed and roared. It didn’t seem to be doing much. One snaked up at me in a blurring motion and I jumped from the back of one Leonid to run on the back of the other and then leapt off, planting my feet in scarlet sand of the Red Sands arena.

The Leonid I had just ran on whipped its tail at me and I ducked. I slashed at its legs, but my blade was ineffective. I couldn’t pierce their skin. That didn’t make sense. The Red Sands organizers always detailed the necessary gear to your ludus owner or provided for you the weapon you needed to win. Gladiators always had a chance of winning even if it was far too slim to be wise or healthy. Now I just needed to figure out how they had planned to give me an out of this. The path to life.

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I started running, chased by the Adamant Leonids. The Infernal Beasts were fast, but I was faster. I ran the whole of the arena’s side five times before I caught sight of one of the Adamants roaring and realized their weakness. Their silver skin was uncuttable to the weapon I possessed, and my strength wasn’t enough to pummel their insides to bone mulch and organ stew, but the inside of their mouths were pink and fleshy. Vulnerable, woundable, weak.

I charged them, slipped under a diamondoid clawed paw swiping at me and stabbed my sword into one of the Leonids’ slavering mouths. It pierced up through the roof of the bastard creature’s mouth and into its brain, killing it.

I lured the other two in and disposed of them much the same.

The announcers said my false name again and I raised my sword in triumph as I walked off.

I went back to the platform and descended. For a few minutes I talked with Turias who was going up next to face a Midnight Ursa, and then I went off to get water.

As I drank in preparation for my fight with Alcides, I thought about the fire from a few days ago and the strange images I had seen in that blue flame. I thought about how when I told the other Imperators about Antonias conjuring flame in his hand, none of them were surprised or questioning. Clearly it wasn’t a weird concept to them. I suppose I could ask them for more information… I shook my head. That was a stupid idea, I didn’t want to get any closer to them or be anymore stuck in their web of excess.

I checked the time. It was time to go.

I exchanged my sword and shield to a worker for a new, more specialized pair of equipment.

Going again to the platform in the Hypogeum, I ascended to the arena. My opponent was already there when I arrived. I felt confident when I saw Alcides was smaller than me by a fair margin.

We both wielded special weapons designed to make combat between two superior cultivators with strong Foundations possible. The swords were Keenblades first, which meant they were monoatomic edged blades fit to cut through stone like butter. They would cut a Gold Servus’s skin and flesh but not his bones. Second was two attached mechanisms to the Keenblade. The bondflicker effect was one, a molecular bond dissolution field that would let it cut our high-tech armor’s composite material. The other was Thanatosian particles leaking off the blade. The particles inhibited clotting and regeneration and killed living human cells that it came in contact with. All three would make this legitimately possible for a Golden Servus or a Copper Imperator to die if they did not submit. I had no intention to submit given I had no intention to lose either.

We dueled, pressing our blades to blades and our blades to shields in a force of wills and cultivated might. The balance soon shifted in the favor of Alcides. He was stronger and faster than me. How? I wondered if he was an Imperator, but he had natural strawberry blond hair, tan skin unlike my pallor, hair on his arms and face, and he wasn’t tall enough to be an Imperator. I was in shock then how a Golden Servus could be this strong. I thought that perhaps he was some kind of lab rat experiment, I had heard rumors in my lifetime of breeding programs and gene editing to create superior Foundations or more useful Pathed humans.

Slash! Slash! Slash!

I took dozens of wounds, the Keenblade in Alcides’s hand cutting deep into my Imperator muscle. My sharp sense of smell told me that Alcides had not even started to sweat.

Bash!

He knocked me down, sending me reeling in the scarlet dust.

“Yield,” rumbled Alcides.

No. No, I would not yield. Not if it killed me. My advancement fed on victory and dominion, loss would unravel my steps towards an Imperator’s Bronze.

I stood and traded more blows, pushing my body faster and faster. He struck me in the head, and I went down again.

I got to my feet and took a sword to the gut. I flopped to the ground.

“Yield!” He said again.

I clambered back up, dogged. I did not fall again but neither did he. We fought on and on, loosing blows that made our Cultivator bodies bleed with our blade’s monoatomic edges, and molecular distortion fields and death god’s dust.

Finally, I punched him in the skull and then knocked his sword out of his hand.

“Yield.” I said triumphantly.

“No,” Alcides said and picked up his sword.

We fought on and I saw in his eyes that he would never yield. I looked into my heart and saw the same. I recognized that neither of us was willing to give up or to admit defeat so I made a choice. I stabbed him in the heart and he slumped to the ground, Thanatosian particles eagerly devouring his cardiovascular core. I watched the life fade in his eyes and stepped back. The crowd cheered for me, but I merely felt tired and a little sad.

I fell to my knees and a medical team of Medici Pathed doctors retrieved me from the sands and brought me below. I didn’t really need medical attention, just time for my system to eliminate the Thanatosian particles. At any rate, I had to fight off the doctors’ attention to avoid them discovering I was an Imperator. Forcing my way out of the Hypogeum’s medbay with slowly closing wounds and a slight feeling of lightheadedness, I walked to the Brazen Chains ludus. The time it took gave me moments to gather my thoughts and feelings and for my wounds to completely heal. I went through Gaias’s office and down the hatch and changed into my normal attire in the tunnel. I took out the contacts and rubbed my eyes.

I came out of the passageway through the pivoting trap brick wall and turned into the alleyway to find Velias waiting for me.

“I knew you were hiding something big!” Velias said. “You’re an Imperator! A whitehair!”

“Now hold on, let’s talk this through-“ I said.

Velias’s eyes widened. “You’re the Imperator from the news! The one that saved people from the fire at the Orphic Theater.”

I sighed. “Yes. That was me.”

“You’re a hero.” He whispered.

“I wouldn’t say that.” I said. “Now what’s going to happen? What are you going to do now that you know?”

“I… I don’t know.” Velias said, bringing his hand to his blond beard.

“You said you thought I was a hero, don’t you think I’ve earned the right to some secrets?

His eyes darted back and forth, bouncing off details of my face. “I’ll keep your identity a secret, Commodas.”

“Thank you.” I said. I debated my next step but decided to go ahead. “My name isn’t Commodas, it’s Adrias. Adrias Lucion.”

“Adrias.” Velias repeated. He held a hand for me to shake and I met his grasp firmly.

I walked off, leaving a stunned Velias behind me in the alley.

I went home and entered my apartment. “I’m home!” I said to Livia.

I froze when I realized Livia and I weren’t alone in the room.

Antonias, the Imperator I had saved from his heart stopping after an overdose, was sitting on the bed.

He smiled. “It took some work to track you down.”

Livia was standing to the side, looking nervous as she looked back and forth from Antonias to me.

“I couldn’t stop him from coming in, Adrias.” Livia said.

“It’s not your fault.” I said, reassuring her.

Looking to the other Imperator, I spoke. “What do you want?”

“To thank you.” Antonias said.