Chancellor Damius Marks watched the efforts of the Talea girl the way a skilled gambler can watch every hand for the evening be dealt only to offer him nothing each time.

How could it be possible, amidst the blood and chaos running below, that this child could handily survive the onslaught? On top of that, she made it look easy.

Everyone knew the monks had their own special martial art, but no one knew they were capable of manipulating the environment around them this way. It was like…magic.

Marks’s eyes narrowed and he suddenly thought this girl with the black hair and fierce determination looked all too familiar.

Almost twenty years it had been since that champion had been around and almost twenty years old she was. Damius Marks stroked his chin in deep thought as he watched Susi fight four different people at once. Each of them ticked down and collapsed around her without so much as landing a single blow.

The girl was like a demon. The entire stadium was filled with the clacking of that staff upon bone every time she took someone down.

The audience was beginning to change. The girl was interesting at first, but now they wanted to see her fall. Marks slid the tips of his fingers together while watching but not really watching the spectacle of an unarmed monk eliminate dozens and dozens of men.

He realized that the orb was not showing him a potential future: it was showing him his destiny. Somehow, even in trying to put her to death, this propelled her even closer to that destination that seemed so unlikely just fifteen minutes prior.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

While he hesitated to sick Rhenos upon her, it was the last opportunity he might have to remove the threat that was this girl from his field of view. Rhenos had never failed…but if he did, Marks would need to escalate things.

“Aren’t those Talea monks extremely dirty?” Ersonia asked.

Marcus was in a state of concentration that few had witnessed from his usual airy, bored demeanor. He watched the Talea girl with eyes that so many champion trainers had viewed through when seeing a potential gladiatorial candidate fighting for the first time.

But there was something else other than dollar signs in those eyes. Yes, Marks could sense that Marcus was infatuated by her. He wanted to peel off the girl’s silly koromo and see what hidden secrets lay beneath.

If she was as high in their order as she looked, she would be celibate. That didn’t stop the likes of royalty from taking interest, and it wouldn’t stop Marcus from falling for her in some way as he had like the fool he was for so many women who easily became problems.

And so the rush of the river toward this impossible destiny grew stronger. No wonder the orb had warned him. It had come so suddenly and violently, this obscure unlikelihood that was the Talea girl. She had slithered through their defensive awareness like a snake sliding silently through the grass. And now she was upon them with her dripping fangs bearing down on unsuspecting prey.

So Omne’s will had arrived as Marks knew it tended to do.

The gray storm clouds from the west had stretched over the arena, bringing a dimness to the early afternoon. Marks felt a water droplet on his cheek. He lifted his right hand from the armrest of his seat to create a telekinetic force field above their box to prevent them from getting too wet. Marcus didn’t notice, but shook his head and clapped as the girl finished the last of her attackers.

Marks watched Rhenos enter the field as the roar of the crowd could be heard all the way to the mainland.