The wind blew through her hair as she stood on the precipice of the sphinx’s ledge. There was already blood in the air, but Scarlet wanted more—oh, so much more. She chuckled as she pulled a strand of black hair before her eyes.

“Black is your color, Rina. I have a different aesthetic preference.” As she flicked the hair back behind her, a wave of bright crimson extended from the roots out to the tips. She then closed her eyes and changed the color of light her eyes emitted to the same bright red. “Now people will know that it’s far too late for mercy.”

She took the next step and dropped into the colosseum’s arena. Her landing sent out a shockwave of debris now that she weighed sixteen hundred pounds after Rina’s choice of augments.

She licked her lips as all eyes were now on her. Everyone in the stands stood up and stared down at her. A slow, wicked smile spread across her face. It was time for her to kill for real this time. The thrill of impending violence made her skin tingle.

Every single person was going to be after her, and they all wanted her dead. They were all going to die. Her mind danced the thought, It’s going to be so much fun to see their blood flood the arena!

Rina sat back as she watched the madness unfold from her perspective safely within her mind.

One by one, the fighters filtered into the arena. They came from every corner of the floor—heavily armored warriors, shifty assassins, mages cloaked in magical symbols, ranged fighters with bows, guns, and crossbows. They looked deadly in their own right. But their eyes betrayed their hesitation.

They glanced at each other as much as they did the android, waiting patiently for them to approach her. Scarlet waited for each one to enter their final resting place. She didn’t want to scare them yet. Good things come to those who wait, she thought.

Scarlet pulled out the two rapid-fire pistols. There were only two hundred shots in them, and by what she was counting, there were nearly that many people heading towards her. Sure, she could use one bullet per person and kill them efficiently like that, but then where would the screams be? Where would she hear them begging her not to kill them?

No, the pistols were simply just the appetizer for the buffet of violence she was about to gorge herself on. If the people saw that she used ranged weapons, they’d rush her. Right into her waiting six perfectly sharp blades. It took so much effort for her to put on a blank expression. Her laughter would have to wait.

And it looked like she wouldn’t have to wait long. A group of ten fighters sprinted for her. There were a myriad of different species. One even looked like a centaur, except instead of a horse, their lower half was that of a stag.

Scarlet unleashed a hail of shots on them. Each of the thirty bullets found a nesting spot in flesh. Nothing lethal, just crippling. They all hit the ground and writhed in pain.

Another group charged from behind her. A giggle slipped from her as she let them get close and even swing their weapons at her. Several of them were possibly speed specialists. But that only put them at a fraction of her speed.

Scarlet spun a hundred and eighty degrees around and drove her stinger blade through two different people at the same time. Neither blow was deadly. Now, they were now impaled and held up by her. Before they could let out a scream, she cut off each of their legs. Her hand plunged into the chest of one before she ripped out their heart before crashing the other's head into the ground. She tossed both bodies into a nearby group of people as she ate the heart in a few greedy chomps.

Her next challenger, a burly man with more hair than any human on Earth wielding an ax nearly as large as himself, charged forward. Scarlet’s smirk deepened. She waited, watching his heavy steps thunder closer, and at the last moment, struck out with her stinger arm. The tip of her blade slit his throat just deep enough to open the windpipe. With a gurgling gasp, he crumpled to his knees. Scarlet’s face twisted in satisfaction as his blood sprayed, painting the sand. He would die drowning in his blood before he bled out.

Stats, shards—none of that mattered. She didn’t care. They would collect, and she would deal with them later. For now, it was time to enjoy herself.

She moved as a blur with savage precision, her stinger darting in and out, severing limb after limb. Her blades sliced flesh as easily as if it were paper. Everyone who got close was lying on the ground, clutching a stump or a gaping wound, desperately trying to keep their precious blood from pouring out of their bodies like a facet.

Twenty-five people lay on the ground around her. Twenty-three voices screamed in agony in a horrifying wail that would give Rina nightmares if she continued to watch. Scarlet just tilted her head back and laughed. She could hear each voice and relish in how each one had its own unique flavor of fear.

The sand was darkened with slick crimson. She wouldn’t kill them. Not yet. She wanted them all to suffer and beg for death first. Those first two were just a test to see how fragile they really were.

As Scarlet looked on from the carved-up first wave, the remaining fighters’ faces all looked drained of color. At least those that she could see their skin. She zoomed in to see through some of the ones with fur and was delighted to see the same effect.

Scarlet’s giddy delight only intensified as each warrior flinched and stumbled. She let out a mocking laugh, flicking blood from her stinger arms.

“Is this all you’ve got?” she sneered. “Didn’t you come here to see some blood get spilled? Isn’t that what this building’s made for?”

The fighters huddled together, gripping their weapons tighter, some casting desperate glances at the exit. They weren’t going to get close to her again, not if they could help it. But they couldn’t. Scarlet wanted their blood on her blades. Every scream was like a hit of the most additive drug.

And she lived for that drug.

The ranged fighters opened fire with a spectacular volley. Scarlet didn't bother moving. She only chuckled as the bullets, bolts, and arrows bounced off her. Some of the mages started tossing fireballs at her, and even that was more annoying than anything else. It dried up some of that sweet, sweet blood soaking the sand.

Stolen novel; please report.

She sighed and rolled her eyes. Then she took aim with her pistols. Thirty rounds, thirty victims. All the ranged attackers fell to the ground with their kneecaps blown off. A corus of thirty more screams were added to the performance.

Large balls of flame soared towards her. Ice shards rained down all around her. Boulders bounced along the ground. None of that was threatening. But someone started throwing bolts of lightning. Scarlet scowled as she avoided it by the slimmest of margins, hoping to make it look like they missed. The other magic just bounced off her metal skin and visor.

“Use lightning,” they shouted. “Everything else isn’t working. She avoided it; I saw it.”

“I doubt that,” Scarlet scoffed under her breath. But she did have to give them credit for still trying. “It just means breaking them will be all the more savory.”

As the next barrage of spells was preparing to assault her, she fired off a dozen rounds from each pistol. Many of the spellcasters lost a hand or two. Those that didn’t, stopped all their spellcasting.

And that was all it took. They were done. Even as more people showed up, the remainder of those who were at the colosseum for the initial challenge were dead or running for the exit.

Scarlet finally cut loose. She put the pistols away and extended her arm blades as she strode towards the cowards, her body moving faster than the eye could follow. She danced through the remaining people. Some of them noticed that she was chasing them and tried to fight back.

It was pathetically easy for her to dodge every clumsy attempt to retaliate with ease. Her laughter filled the arena. The way it clashed with all the frantic screams and anguished cries of her victims had even the sphinx turning away.

The fighters were little more than toys now, and she was intoxicated by the carnage. And she wasn’t about to stop drinking in more. People kept stupidly funneling in. Those who tried to escape found an invisible wall preventing them from leaving.

It was the rules of the death match challenge. Nobody could leave until there was only one left. If anyone stuck their hand into try and save someone stuck on the wrong side of the wall, they would be pulled in and bound by the rules.

The entire time, Scarlet left all of them alive. Crippled, maimed, or dying slowly, each strike was calculated to inflict the maximum amount of pain. Blood started pooling across the arena as some of the screams died off as people were passing out and dying due to blood loss. But for every one that died, three more were added to Scarlet’s symphony of violence.

Near the end, the final group of powerful misguided fools banded together, forming a final line of defense. They gripped their weapons with white-knuckled fear.

Scarlet slowed, tilting her head with a twisted smile. She would enjoy drawing this out. “Come on,” she cooed. “If you can make me bleed, I might show you mercy.”

She was playing with them, letting them think, just for a moment, that they had a chance. And stupidly, they took the bait. With a cry, they charged Scarlet. Her grin widened, and she waited, allowing them to get closer. At the last moment, she darted forward. She spun, twisting her body and twirling her stinger arms. Blood sprayed over her.

Her first victim died before he realized she moved. The next was a man who lost his hand after trying to block one of her strikes. The third, a woman, had her throat slit from behind. The fourth man took a blade to the heart. The fifth lost both legs.

Hope faded from their eyes as they realized the truth—they were nothing but pawns in her game. Soon there was just one left. A younger-looking elf with blue skin and gills. He had a long, thin sword in one hand; the other was bleeding from the four missing fingers Scarlet cut off with her leg scythe.

Scarlet strutted towards elf. His body shook as he audibly quivered. She leaned forwards and pointed to one of the seams of her skin where her neck and torso met. “Right here. Give it a good stab with the pointy end. You can do it, can’t you?”

The elf looked at her, then back to his sword. His eyes fell on his friends who lay in a pile of mangled bodies and pools of blood.

Scarlet grabbed his blade and pressed it against her neck. Tears streamed down his cheeks. He tried to pull away. Scarlet gripped tighter and whispered, “Come on, just one good push.”

The elf let out a pathetic whimper and closed his eyes before driving his blade forward. A soft hiss sounded as it pierced Scarlet's metal skin; it even looked like it did too. Except there was no blood.

Scarlet pulled the blade out of the elf's hands and threw it to the side as she put her mouth next to his ear. Her voice was velvety soft as she whispered, “I’ll let you in on a little secret; I don't have any blood. So I can't bleed.”

With one fluid motion, she drove her arm blade through his chest. The elf's eyes widened in surprise, then dimmed. Scarlet ripped out the elf's heart and bit into it like an apple. Blood sprayed all over her face.

A moment later, she licked the blood from around her lips. With a deep sigh, she looked down at those still alive. “All good things must come to an end. Oh, well. Time to get creative with the clean up.”

There was one woman still breathing, her voice long since gone horse from the screaming. She had green skin with small tusks protruding from her bottom jaw. The woman was also quiet muscular, but her hamstrings and rotator cuff muscles were severed; effectively paralyzing her.

Scarlet flipped the woman onto her stomach and ran her stinger arms down the woman’s back, one on each side of the spine. Each blade only went deep enough to cut through the ribcage. With one hand, she pulled the woman off the ground enough to poke her sternum to crack it down the center before putting her back onto the ground, face first. She then reached into the woman and pulled both halves of her rib cage through the openings in her back.

The woman’s own body slowly pushed down on her lungs and suffocated her as Scarlet moved to the next closest person. One by one she walked over to each of the people still screaming and began her sadistic torture.

***

Orange appeared next to me as I sat in a simulation, unable to stomach watching Scarlet do whatever it was she did. She put a hand on my shoulder as I sat in a dinner stool, looking at the empty counter. “She’s finished. But you may want to stay in here a little while longer. She’s ‘cleaning up,’ as she she put it.”

I rolled my eyes. “It’s probably best; I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean.” I ran my fingers through my hair. “If I didn’t need her…”

Orange sat next to me. “You made your decisions. The plan came together. Now, it’s time to see if it works.”

I folded my arms on the counter and rested my forehead on them. “Hundreds are dead now because of my decisions—my plan. Two hundred and ninety more in just the last few minutes. I watched the shards count in. It seems like such a long time ago when I criticized Bark for saying the ends justify the means, but here I am doing the exact same thing. The Nexus won. It corrupted me in a monster I never thought I could be, and then some.”

“Survival is all that matters,” Orange said.

I scoffed. “It’s not about living forever; it’s about living with yourself forever. And right now, that’s really hard to do with two other voices in my head.”

Orange stood up and headed for the door of the diner. “Scarlet exists now. There’s nothing we can do about her now.”

“You’re right. There’s nothing we can do.”

Orange paused at the door before leaving to stare at me. An emotion showed on her face. Worry. She’s genuinely worried about me. There’s no point in worrying over the dead. I’m sorry, Orange, for keeping all this a secret from you. You found out you have a soul, and I’m about to take you down with me. Sorry you had to learn this way, but life—life isn’t fair.