Okay so you know those big fucking raptor things from Jurrasic Park?

Imagine if one of those split in half right in front of you, and then two separate big fucking raptor things were stood where there was previously only one.

And now imagine the process repeated again.

And again.

And again…

Markus lost count after the fourth split, but if he had to guess, there were sixteen of these big fucking bastards staring him down right now. Watching them split apart before him, bodies slick with a light, membranous tissue that peeled from them as each new raptor pair finished separating, was one of the most horrifying experiences he’d witnessed since arriving in this place.

He tried his absolute hardest to keep an eye on the main raptors that had started the split, as he imagined one of those two might be the leader, but it was difficult to figure out which was which as they continually moved around one another.

Markus didn’t wait for the announcer to finish talking, and neither did the raptors. As soon as they’d finished separating from one another, the hefty creatures charged Markus, sprinting forwards in unison, and Markus immediately activated Frozen Tomb.

He had plenty of Frost Mana saved up at this point, and this was a fight where he could certainly use it, but he knew from the start that he had to be careful. He had two fights today. If he wanted to have any chance of surviving the second, and if it was anywhere to the degree of this shit, then he’d need to conserve some energy.

More than anything, Markus needed a means to take on this many opponents and live through it.

Markus activated Pride, knowing he wouldn’t get another chance to do so once him and the monsters had exchanged opening blows. The stacking strength and slowing aura would be of immense benefit to him if he could fell some of the monsters, but this meant he couldn’t be too defensive.

His own movement would be slowed if he attempted to flee from them. That was the double-edged sword of Pride and what denoted it as such a terrifying ability.

Knowing that, Markus stepped forwards, advancing on the leading raptor the moment the ice struck out from beneath his feet entrapping the lead few and swung with his glaive, embedding his blade in the creature’s side and then raking it back to thrust forwards and stab it in the gut.

It fell to the ground, and as soon as it did so, the nearest raptors stopped in their tracks and made a beeline to their fallen comrade.

What were they…

Before Markus could question the creatures’ actions, they’d begun to consume the fallen raptor, blood and viscera clinging to their faces as they tore into its open belly and fought over chunks of flesh and meat, guts and intestines.

Markus didn’t know whether to be relieved one was dead already or shitting himself at the display before him, but he didn’t get to contemplate.

He barely had time to summon a flaky Stone Barrier that the leftmost raptor smashed against hard, cracking it, as all the while two more charged him from the right, intent on diving straight into him and tearing him limb from limb.

Markus watched as the raptors drew closer, their movement barely slowed by the ice. Frozen Tomb didn’t seem to affect them much, at least the terrain of it, but he kept the ability going for the small edge the movement speed of his Cold Heart gave him.

He used said movement to execute a last-second plan that he was nowhere near solid on, dissipating his stone barrier and diving straight to the left the moment the raptors got within range to jump him.

He didn’t see the result immediately, focussed too much on rolling once he’d hit the floor and getting back to his feet, but he got up in a slight daze to find that the two raptors that had jumped him had both collided with the third raptor attempting to smash through the barrier, and the three of them were now locked in combat, rolling around on the icy floor kicking and scratching one another.

Markus walked over to the downed targets, intent on finishing them. He drove his glaive into one, stabbing it right through the neck, but before he could ice a second target, his right arm erupted in immense pain, shooting all across his body from the sheer intensity of the impact as a piece of the first dead raptor was shot at him at breakneck speeds, spat from the mouth of one of the four others that stood around the corpse, taking turns to bite and tear at it.

[You have been inflicted with Corrosion I. Affected body part will continue to burn for as long as corrosion remains untreated. Corrosion I will worsen to Corrosion II after—]

[Corrosion I has been resisted by tri-core.]

[E Grade Caustic Mana Absorbed]

E grade? And there were over ten of these things?

This was nothing like his second or third fight… was Drathok actually just trying to get him killed now? Had he figured out how strong Markus was somehow, or was he simply trying to get rid of him for some reason? What the fuck was going on here?

The 2 living raptors to his left were still fighting over the corpse he’d left behind there, while four or five more continued to eat the dwindling remaints of his first kill, spitting bile-coated bits of searing hot body at Markus as all he could do was try to dodge or evade the strikes.

He attempted to back up from the ranged attackers while also moving in the direction of a new set of targets, looking to avoid his Pride penalty, but the raptors simply dragged the body with them, keeping up the pressure and continually pelting Markus with burning bullets of flesh.

He sighed and panted as he approached a new pair, these two having stayed on the sidelines until now, and attempted to swing at each of them.

They were too fast for his initial strikes, but it wasn’t long until Markus was incorporating Triple Strike and even Acid Slash through his constant barrage of stabbing attacks, Thrust King working overtime to ensure that he were able to cast as quickly, effortlessly, and often as he possibly could.

He could feel the Strength difference that Pride was affording him already, but what he was really looking for in spades was speed. His running and jumping were improved in this terrain, but the speed of his weapon swings was something that was holding him back as landing a single strike capable of tearing a portion of the raptor’s maw away only gave another ample opportunity to bite down upon his shoulder.

Markus dropped to one knee as the raptor released him, rearing back to strike again, but in the time it extended its body, Markus was able to tighten Stone Skin around his upper torso to protect himself from the worst of the strike.

Still the raptor tried its luck, scraping claws down his meagrely protected chest as Markus bit the creature in turn, sinking his teeth into its neck and tasting its putrid, acidic blood as he activated [Rend] and began to tear ligaments and flesh, [Devour] beginning to take the monster’s core from it before it had even hit the ground dead.

They weren’t very durable, and they were a little enjoyable to tear apart. At least in the moment. His [Feral Soul] told him as much and he couldn’t help but agree. That instinct might not have even been there once, using his teeth as he just had, but the rejuvenation he received from the creature was enough to bolster and tide him over as yet another of the raptors raked its claws against his Stone Skin, ripping through the barrier and causing it to slip away as Markus felt his body being torn messily into.

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He cast Empower on his left hand, used the momentum and power it afforded him to smash his glaive’s handle into the creature’s face, but he was set upon by yet another raptor before he could capitalise on staggering the first, his shoulder bitten into once more, then his arm as a third ran into him, then a fourth smashed into the lot of them and sent them all tumbling to the floor like pins.

The writhing mess of bodies atop him sought to sunder and brutalise his body, but Markus wasn’t going down so easily. Drathok wanted to test him, and Markus was about done with other people deciding what he could and couldn’t do, what he was and wasn’t capable of…

Markus pushed a bevy of energy from his right hand into the monster atop him, channelling an unholy cocktail of power into the creature’s bloodstream as it continued to bite into him. He pulsed Frost Mana and maintained Frozen Tomb all the while, slowing the rate at which they chewed through him, keeping his body intact just long enough for him to be able to fire off [Detonate], taking the topmost raptor’s fucking head off.

The creature sizzled from sheer heat as it flailed in midair and toppled to the ground, dead, displacing yet another of its brethren as Markus took the opportunity to grapple the third, pounding it into the ground and smashing its ugly, rancid head against the sand. He proceeded to choke the life from it even as it attempted to snap at his wrists in a futile effort to preserve its own life, salvation desperately out of reach.

How many dead… he didn’t know, he couldn’t keep up, even his vision was barely able to match the bedlam unfurling around him, all he had to go off was sensation.

He had to focus through the roar of the crowd, the pressure of the sun, locate the next creature attempting to take him out and stomp the fucking life out of it before it could do the same to him.

That was the nature of these games. There was no time for mercy, for second thoughts, not when his life was on the line, not when the enemy was transfixed with murderous intent. It was kill or be killed, and Markus would kill again and again to secure his freedom. That was the game they wanted him to play, well fuck them, he was playing it, and he wouldn’t be satisfied until he was playing the same game with the ones that kept him locked in this perpetual fucking torment.

The creatures around him slowed a touch as Freeze I finally came into effect, giving Markus enough time to get back to his feet, moving with the momentum of a charging raptor as it attempted to smash into him, wrapping his arms around its neck and using the creature to swing himself back to a standing position.

He threw it forwards with his enhanced strength and watched as it smashed into the magical ice below, the immediate area cracking under the force of his attack.

He couldn’t help but marvel at his own prowess. Was this an effect of [Pride] at play? Or just a side-effect of being a fucking badass? Hard to say. Either way, he hoped Drathok was quaking in his boots watching how a real fucking warrior got this shit done.

He hoped the bitch crowd watching him felt scared too. They fucking should. They were lucky he didn’t plan to destroy the whole fucking city once he got done with the arena.

Markus got smashed in the jaw by the head of a charging raptor. He tasted blood in his mouth. He smiled, licking his lips, barely able to feel anything in his face.

He headbutted the raptor in turn. The creature didn’t take as much of the impact as he did, but it was enough to stagger the monster, enough that it stumbled, and that was all he needed to raise his glaive high and bring it down on the creature’s neck, slicing it halfway through and then bringing it back up to decapitate it fully, separating neck from bone.

Around half of the creatures laying around him were now dead or injured, and the others appeared no worse for wear, no fear in their eyes, only disdain.

They were like him. He almost respected the monsters for how devoted they were. They wanted nothing but to maim and kill, and they didn’t care who or what was put in front of them, even a monster that could tear through droves of them, even the standing, groggy, grinning personification of their demise.

Markus walked towards them.

They ran their way through the Freeze, unrelenting, barrelling straight for him, as Markus Manifested a small ramp on the ground and shot it forth in their direction, intent on tripping a couple.

It worked a charm. Two falling raptors had a nasty domino effect that led to over half of them soon hitting the ground, and before long, Markus was down there in the sand and the muck and the vitriolic, tangled, screeching mess, tearing limbs, stabbing hearts, [Devouring] raptors and being bitten so much that the monsters began to recoil from all the acidic energy they were injecting into his body. Even still, true to their ferocity, they continued to bite at him even when it hurt.

Markus ripped a head back so far the raptor’s neck snapped, then screamed a vicious cry as he clawed his fingers into an open wound on yet another, [Rend]’s blood working in tandem with his desires to replenish his energy and close up his absolute worst injuries.

The pain became more ritualistic than feared after a time. A process, a rite of passage for his thumping heart and his tarnished mind, a means by which he could feel the drum of battle raging in his heart and know that he fought for a reason, that he fought to inflict that same sensation upon those who hurt him. There was nothing he wanted more right now. No substitute or compromise for sweet bloody revenge. The thought possessed him, pushed him to move in ways he didn’t know himself capable of and commit acts he’d have once considered impossible.

Markus drove the handle of the glaive into a raptor’s chest so hard that its ribs began to crack beneath him, then crumpled and rolled as its hind legs knocked him off balance and flailed and gasped as a tail was wrapped around his neck.

It took everything he had to dislodge the creature’s tail, ripping it until bits of it hung off like tattered jerky. His vision flashed with floating spots as he pulled himself back from strangulation’s cold release, brandishing his weapon and staggering to his feet, staring down his remaining foes.

He began the dance once more, roaring and slicing and cutting and shaking and screaming and smashing and stabbing and slashing and thrusting and stomping and repeating the motions again and again and again, a declaration to life so wondrously effusive that the candles it snuffed only made his glow so much brighter for its hopeless, impossible, flickering survival in the face of inevitability.

It was Markus who would turn the tide. Who would best this world. Who would be what everyone expected of him and more. Who would stand at the peak of all living things. Who would never disappoint anyone ever again.

…

Combat was a sheer panic attack at times, a continuous pounding blur of tear-streaking movement that defied logic and reason, a stab and a kick and a scream the only means by which he could process anything.

At a time like this, however, the battle felt tantamount to his own spirit. Markus felt as if he became the battle, as if all of his life he’d been walking around in a living dream and only now had he shed that dreary static for something that truly brought him to clarity, to focus, to purpose.

[Pride] didn’t control his mind. It only exemplified what was already there. Brought it to the surface. Made his quiet confidence his bellowing strength, overtook that weak pussy shit that resided in the back of his brain usually, his worries and his concerns and his insecurities and blah blah blah boo fucking hoo.

Why shouldn’t he be confident. Look how hard this world was trying to put him down. Look how much he’d managed to endure. What he’d managed to keep on fighting through.

He tore through raptors one by one, taking each injury as it came and returning it with compounding interest as his blows flurried together in ecstatic, furious motion. He ripped and he shredded upon his gruesome stage, taking glory in his executions and painting fresh blood upon the sand for any that dared watch, feeding the earth the scornful beasts it had raised to challenge his power, rather than offer anything up to the sick, sadistic gods that had tortured, tried, and tested him.

Three raptors left, and one got at his neck. It bit into him like he was a wet rag, ragging him in its mouth as it tore into his throat. Another raptor bit into his leg at the same time, mauling him, seeking to finally subdue him once and for all as his throat bubbled with each attempt for him to draw a shaky, drowning breath.

He cast Fortify on his neck even as his thoughts began to slip, jamming his fingers into the raptor’s eye and pushing with such force that the creature’s neck began to crack even as its eye turned to mulch between his fingers, dripping to the floor.

Markus hurriedly drained the essence of the dying monster atop him as he stuffed blood back into his neck, attempting to plug the wound, but his leg was only becoming increasingly mangled and savaged as he continued to focus on stemming the near-lethal injury.

The one remaining raptor was beginning to split again, repeating the damnable process that had put him in such an uneven fight in the first place.

Fuck…

Markus could feel rationality encroaching somewhere beneath the chaos. He’d fought without caution. He’d been as bestial as the monsters he’d faced, and he’d been mauled by them in just the same way that he’d torn through each of them.

Only, it wasn’t over. Things hadn’t come to a close. Yet more raptors were spawning, he’d spent a fair deal of his mana, and he was hurt. He wasn’t in Overcharge anymore, he was sure, and he didn’t have the strength to shake off the raptor’s lockjaw on his leg, nor to retract his glaive from beneath the heavy body it currently laid under.

He could feel something else besides simple rationality, however. A stone in his pocket glowing hotter, and a portion of resolve beyond that of his apparent limits beginning to shine through him as he kicked with his other leg again and again in an attempt to dislodge the horrific creature.

He cast the crystal from his pocket, debating what to do with it. Did he swallow this one too?

His answer came in a sudden flash, as all the while the arena began to fill with yet more raptors, perhaps twice as many as before, each of them foaming at the mouth and demanding his blood be theirs.