Inside the coliseum looked like one would expect. It had countless seats, and several balconies for important guests.
Currently there was a battle between two fairly famous fighters happening on the grand stage. Tia and the girls were seated on a private balcony that overlooked the fight.
“This is a nice view. I haven’t done something like this in ages.”
She said with a bright smile.
“I prefer to be down there fighting, rather than posing like royalty from up here.”
Ishma complained.
“It can’t be helped. Miko said he wanted to do this all by himself.”
Regis responded.
“Hmph. He’s being stingy.”
Ishma was obviously in a bad mood because Miko was hogging all the fun.
“These two are so boring to watch. Can’t they die already?”
She said with a cold tone.
As if they heard her, one of the fighters cut his opponent from the shoulder down to his waist.
“Oh? That was a surprisingly good slash.”
Ishma eyes sparkled when she saw the corpse laying on the stage. It was at times like this that her demonic nature made itself clear.
“Looks like Miko’s debut will be next.”
Said Tia.
“I wonder if he’s nervous?”
At the same time, Miko was in the waiting area for the fighters. He was shirtless and wore a loose pants without boots. He looked like a poor slave, it was hard to believe that he was once a great emperor.
“This attire is quite comfortable.”
He said as if he was enjoying the fresh experience.
When he had inquired on how to become a gladiator, he was told that he had to give up all of his possessions and become a slave. Of course he refused. However, he was soon told that he would only be a temporary slave, and that he would be given his freedom and possession whenever he wanted to leave.
Since he wasn’t being forced to walk in shackles and chains, Miko decided that it wouldn’t hurt. However, if he felt like his freedom was being threatened, he would destroy this coliseum.
He was currently sitting on a bench, looking at all the gladiators around him.
“Other than becoming a slave, I needed to have an owner who would register me and profit from my victories. Tia is my owner, so that means that everyone here has an owner.”
Miko was curious about what kind of people owned these slaves. But more than anything, he wanted to know if Mozart had a slave here.
“Hey, newbie.”
While he was deep in thought, a large vicious looking man approached him.
Miko looked at him for an instant and immediately stood up.
*BOOM!*
He slapped the man and sent him flying across the room, where he crashed into the wall. He then sat back down like nothing happened.
Miko didn’t wait for the man to speak, that was because what he had to say wasn’t important. The fact that he approached Miko the way he did, meant that he either wanted to intimidate Miko and force him to submit to him, or he wanted to crush Miko here so that wouldn’t become a threat in the future.
Either way, Miko didn’t care. So he skipped the talk and went straight to end and destroyed him.
His actions and attitude had immediately caught the attention of both the fighters and the authorities.
“Hey, you!”
As expected, some of the guards in charge of keeping the order approached him. They all had angry expressions.
Miko had his head down, as if he was ignoring the guards. This obviously made them angrier. One of them couldn’t take the disrespect and stretched his hand towards Miko.
“?!”
However, once he was a meter away from Miko his body froze. He suddenly felt like it became hard to breath, and cold sweat covered his body.
“W-What the hell is this?”
The guard said with a trembling voice.
“Despite being disturbed earlier, I’m still in a good mood.”
Miko spoke slowly and lifted his head and looked at the guard.
“?!”
The moment the guard looked into Miko’s eyes, he felt his soul leaving his body. Miko’s eyes were cold and carried an unbelievable darkness within them.
The guard suddenly felt like he was in a bloody world filled with seas of flames and mountains of corpses. It was like he was brought to a hellish world.
“I’ll let you off since you’re just doing your job. However, try to be stubborn and I’ll destroy your entire existence.”
“Ekk!”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The guard fell on his butt when Miko said that. All the other guards were frozen in place with trembling bodies. They started to question just what was this monster doing in a place like this?
They retreated and started running, leaving him alone. Seeing that, Miko sighed.
“This isn’t good. I was in war for so long that I’m naturally aggressive and subconsciously leak bloodlust. I need to calm down a bit.”
He said.
He sat in silence for a while, like he had became a statue. Everyone was looking at him with both curiosity and fear. Even though he was motionless now, they could sense an overwhelming bloodlust leaking out from him.
This wasn’t being done by Miko, it was how he currently was. After fighting in the intercontinental war, he had turned into a killing machine and was now finding it hard to contain himself when battle was once again in front of his eyes.
“Malus Domine.”
Miko heard a guard call his name and looked up.
“It’s your turn to fight.”
Said the guard.
Miko replied with a simple nod and stood up. He began walking towards the exit that led to coliseum. He walked through a hall with no expression on his face. The guard that was guiding him, felt like death itself was closely following behind him, and was too scared to look around.
He was afraid that the reaper behind him would steal his soul.
Miko ignored the frightened guard and quietly walked to the end of the hallway, and stepped out into the stadium.
“Ohhhhh!”
He was met with the cheers of the crowd.
“Oh, Miko’s out.”
Ravel waved at him with a bright smile. Despite being far away, she could see Miko smiling at her.
“Today we have a new fighter making his debut today! He’s someone who volunteered to be a fighter, the mysterious Malus Domine!”
An announcer introduced Miko to the crowd.
“Today he faces a veteran to this stage, who has fought over 30 matches and survived! Ova!”
Miko saw a man walked out of the tunnel opposite to him. He laughed when he saw who it was. It was actually the man who he slapped earlier. It looks like he was tougher than what Miko gave him credit for.
The man stared at Miko with hatred. He obviously wanted revenge for what Miko had done to him.
Miko found his hatred amusing.
“I have seen similar expressions countless times in the last couple months. It doesn’t faze me in the least.”
He said to the man with a mocking tone.
“Since Malus is a new fighter, he won’t be given any weapons or armor and will have fight barehanded!”
Said the announcer.
This was a rule here at the coliseum. This was to make the newbie matches more exciting, as everyone wanted to see if the newbie will be able to overcome the odds. It’s like the underdog effect.
Tia looked at a panel that was in front of her, on the balcony.
“Oh? So you use this to make bets?”
She immediately understood what the purpose of the panel was.
“There’s all kinds of stuff you can bet on in this match.”
She said.
“Who will bleed first, who will land the first attack, how long the match will last, will either fighter lose a limb, will either die, etc.”
She looked amused as she looked at the options.
“Miko came here to resharpen his skills and relearn the basics. Having been borrowing all kinds of power for so long now, he had forgotten how to fight with his own strength, and needed to get reacquainted with his real self.”
She smiled and started placing bets in Miko’s favor.
“Knowing him, he’s going to take his time to perfect his skills. Hence this fight will last longer than five minutes, with Miko killing his opponent in the 20 minute time frame.”
Her smiled showed confidence in Miko and her ability to comprehend him.
“Now without further ado, begin!”
The announcer shouted.
“I’m going to kill you!”
The man called Ova roared and took out a gigantic axe. He charged towards Miko and swung it down on him.
Miko leaped back a couple meters and landed on the edge of the stage.
“I don’t get a weapon, so I’ll just have to make one.”
Miko stomped the ground and an alchemical sigil appeared on the ground. From it, a sword rose up in front of Miko. He held it by the handle and approached the man wielding the axe.
“Since I’m going to revisit the basics, I’ll make good use of you as my punching bag.”
An evil grin appeared on his face.
“All of you will help me resharpen my skills.”
Elsewhere in the city, the City Manager Mozart was sitting on a couch in a dark room. He looked relaxed and had a bright smile on his face as he watched what was playing in front of his eyes.
“Oh? That bastard actually went to the coliseum?”
He said as he watched Miko fighting his opponent on the screen.
Miko attacked his opponent with fast attacks which chipped away at his flesh little by little. Mozart noticed that the more he attacked, the sharper his attacks looked.
He was moving around using some strange footwork as well.
“An assassination technique? On such a weak opponent?”
Mozart suddenly looked more intrigued.
Miko was literally dancing around his opponent attacking with all kinds of attacks from every angle possible.
“His swordplay is quite unique as well. It doesn’t have a set rhythm and is hard to predict.”
He said while paying close attention to how Miko wielded his sword.
“If it was me on the receiving end of such a swordplay, how would I react?”
He mumbled to himself.
He soon started imagining himself in the place of Ova. After less than a minute, he pictured himself breaking through Miko’s swordplay and dealing a deadly blow to him.
“He’s playing around, because of that I can’t seriously simulate how our fight would go.”
He said while shaking his head.
“The opponent is too weak. He’s currently only a practice dummy in Malus’ eyes.”
He continued to watch the fight. He saw Miko stab his sword into the ground and lift his fists.
“A melee? That bastard really enjoys toying with people.”
Mozart suddenly laughed.
He watched Miko attack his opponent with fast jabs and swift attacks which hit his opponent’s vitals over and over again.
“But I must say, this guy sure can fight.”
Mozart praised.
“It’s obvious that he has lots of battle experience under his belt. It also seems like he was trained by multiple people. Not only that, some of his moves are obviously self-taught from the way he moves. Which means that he can switch between orthodox and unorthodox styles of fighting. If you’re not careful, you could lose your head at anytime.”
A big grin appeared on his face.
“Amusing, really amusing. I suddenly feel like crushing him even more.”
At that moment, Miko thrust his hand through his opponent’s chest and crush his heart. He then lifted the body and threw it into the crowd.
The crowd was obviously unhappy with what he did and started booing him. Miko turned his back to them and ignored their shouts.
Mozart started laughing when he saw Miko’s behavior.
“He discarded his punching bag once it broke. How heartless.”
He said while looking at Miko.
“This guy is really interesting. From what I can see, he learnt several forms of power and fighting styles. It makes it hard to gauge his strength.”
He turned off the monitor that he was watching.
“I don’t know why though. I can’t see him as someone older than me. It feels like he has so much potential to grow.”
Mozart had a perplex expression on his face.
“While hiding one’s identity isn’t that uncommon here, I can’t shake the finally that I’ve met him before. Could it be because of the strange feeling I had when we first met?”
He stood up.
“Well, whatever. If he’s anything like how I think he is, he’ll find away for us to fight through a gamble that I can’t refuse.”
He started walking out of the room.
“I can’t say that I’m not interested in seeing what he will offer.”
He stepped out on a roof that looked quite close to the Stars. This was the tallest building in city, the Lottery Tower.
“He has to hurry though. It’s almost time for me to leave this city. If he dilly dally, he’ll miss his chance.”
He stretched his right hand into the air. A Dark and sinister feeling immediately engulfed the entire building. It made the building look like it was being tainted.
Mozart clenched his fist, and the Dark feeling disappeared into thin air.
“The time for the grand festival is approaching. Malus will be my entertainment until it’s time to leave.”
He said to himself. He eyes suddenly turned cold.
“Before I destroy Genesis, I’ll crush their prize possessions under my feet. Malus might be their creation, because of that he’ll die.”
A wicked smile appeared on his face.
“But before that, I’ll help the captain destroy the Dragna clan as repayment for all he did for us.”
A new threat is silently approaching the weakened Dragna clan. Will it lead to the clan’s downfall?