Fights were taking place all over the arena. Blood rained down from the sky as those with wings battled for aerial superiority. Whenever a body part fell, it wouldn’t be long before the rest of the body came to claim it.

The arena quickly filtered down to less than two thousand people.

It was brutal and messy, but not chaotic. People would leave whenever they sustained enough damage to put them out of the fight, and they stayed out of it even when their bodies had healed, and they could return. Nobody complained when they lost, or if they got stabbed in the back by a third party. Instead, they sat back down in the audience with their heads held high, accepting the result and enjoying the fights going on before their eyes.

The imp’s tail scraped across the axe as Zara pulled it back to protect her chest. She reached out and grabbed the tail, pulling the imp forward and slamming his face into the side of the axe. The imp shook off the pain and jabbed the tip of his tail into Zara’s hand, forcing her to release her grip. Both parties took a step back before charging again.

Ed ducked under another sword strike as he swept the skeleton’s legs out from under them. He wrapped his threads around one of the calf bones, ripping it out and tossing it at someone coming up behind Zara. The bone ricocheted and came back to the skeleton as it stood back up.

Those in teams stuck to fighting among themselves, only ganging up on individuals whenever the individual initiated the fight. One team steamrolled through the competition until there was no one left who was able, or willing to fight them. Seeing that they had beaten all of the other groups, they immediately broke off and started fighting each other.

Zara and the imp battled back and forth, neither party managing to land the finishing blow. Getting reckless, Zara coated herself in her healing glow and charged forward once more. Blocking one of his punches, she bashed his head in with the grip of her axe, sending him tumbling backward. She then swung her axe around, hooking his leg and sending him crashing to the ground.

She swung the axe down, planting it through his head. At the same time, her chest exploded with pain, as she looked down to see her heart dangling in front of her on the tip of the imp's tail.

The imp smiled up at her from either side of the axe blade, his brain dripping onto the sand. He pulled her heart back into place, her healing getting to work reattaching it the second it fell into place.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Sighing regretfully, she pulled her axe out of his head and helped him up. They scooped his brain back into his body, then she patched him up before he walked out of the arena.

“I lost! Keep going, you’ve got this.” Zara flew over Ed’s head as she returned to her seat to cheer him on.

Taking advantage of the moment his opponent turned their attention to Zara, he exploded into a burst of threads that wrapped around the skeleton. Keeping his head on a swivel to watch out for other people, he disassembled the skeleton, isolating the parts from each other. After a few seconds, he felt them start to pull towards each other, so he let go and returned to his original form.

Spinning their head back around to face him, the skeleton nodded, picked up his sword, and left the arena.

Looking at the chaos around him, Ed took a moment to rest, avoiding all of the battles and assessing the overall situation. There’s still a lot of people left, and some of them look really tough. I don’t think I’ll be able to win. He looked up at Zara who was cheering him on. I might as well have fun. It’s not like I’m gonna die.

Deciding to have fun, he threw himself into the thick of the fight. Steel and limbs flew through the air as he dove into the area where the large team had imploded.

It quickly devolved into an all-out brawl. He was completely surrounded, ducking and weaving between the shots that were thrown at him, his threads launching out to sow chaos wherever he went.

He tripped and pushed people, interfering in as many fights as possible, using this as a chance to see what he could do. Several attacks slipped past his defences because of this. He forcefully dodged into the ones that he thought he could take to avoid the obviously dangerous strikes.

He began to slow down as he was left battered and bruised, but still in the fight. His opponents this time were considerably stronger than those he fought in Envy, but at the same time, they weren’t trying to kill him, so the fight wasn’t as difficult as it could have been.

More and more people were eliminated, dropping the total to below a thousand.

Bumping someone onto a flaming trident, he dodged someone’s axe, but was forced to take a slash across his Achilles. He stumbled forward, blood oozing from the slash as he struggled to stay standing. He turned his leg into threads in an attempt to regain his balance, but a bright flash later, and he felt something pierce his throat.

His vision swam as he looked down at a sword hilt coming out of his neck. HIs body was skewered by several more weapons, while at the same time the person holding the sword was also run clean through and taken out of the match.

Everyone pulled out their weapons at the same time, leaving Ed a bloody mess.

Looks like that’s the best I can do. Ulric would’ve been able to do better. Seems like I’ve still got a long way to go before I can fully grasp my powers. Shuffling out of the brawl, he made his way to the outer regions of the pit.