There wasn’t any time for me to spend understanding the blue walls of text hovering in front of me. A hoarse male voice boomed across the arena, energy crackling with each word as some external energy increased the words to a deafening volume, echoing them across the vast space. It was too far for me to tell whether it was heart energy, or something else. I figured it was likely a good amount of people in the city were skilled with magic since no one yet had managed to build a Core for their heart energy.
“Laaaaaaadies and gentlemeeeen,” the voice screamed, and the audience roared in response, “Welcome to the 103rd annual Sun Setting Arena battles! My name is Jarold Evergreen, and I will be your play-by-play caster tonight. This year we have a special treat for all our bloooooooodthirsty fans.” Jarold, the caster, punctuated each word with so much excitement and frenzy I was surprised he could still talk after the first word. His throat must have been incredibly raw. “Princess Aurora of our gorgeous and powerful Cael Kingdom is here to witness our famous reenactments of the Kingdom's bloodiest wars and our fiercest noble warriors.” He paused, and amazingly the crowd went silent in response. The air was tense with anticipation like a predator prowling in the night. “For our first fight, we will see the great battle between Cael Kingdom and the Rednatch Tribe.” The caster’s voice spat "Rednatch Tribe" with clear disgust, and the sound of boos filled the air. “Many of us were not born yet during the Great War between our people and the elves of Rednatch, but we all have heard the stories of how those barbarians would break into our cities, break into our homes. And then…” a silence fell over the crowd once more, and even I couldn’t help but feel entranced by the story. The caster did his job well. “And then they would kill our children, our parents, our brothers, and sisters. Then, they would eat them, those vile, vile barbarians.” More booing. “But then a hero stood at the forefront of our armies and fought them off. He pushed them back into their forest and burned it all to ashes!” Before the man had even finished his final word, the crowd had jumped to its feet screaming.
“GI-DE-ON. GI-DE-ON. GI-DE-ON,” the mob of people chanted, stomping their feet and clapping their hands over and over. The colosseum vibrated with the force of that pure, rage-filled excitement. Despite my situation, despite the horror of that story, despite knowing if I fought and killed, I’d be serving the needs of slavers, the sheer, burning exhilaration overflowing from the stands was making me eager. By the sound of that story, I was going to be fighting a death match with warriors – probably slaves with more experience, ones the audience favored.
"[Defeat your enemies to gain energy toward your Core]," that voice had told me. It sounded like a lie. Probably was a lie. Even if it was real, I should despise it. Whatever it was, it had spawned from the blood of a progenitor, who was an enemy of all living beings. I doubted such a thing could be anything but a promise of lies.
Still, I couldn’t deny that what coursed through me at that moment was anticipation. I wanted to see if it worked and if the promise was true. If it was a true promise, I had somehow stumbled on the opportunity to build my remaining heart ring weeks in advance. Maybe even combine them into a core, though there was no way I’d trust some unknown entity with the creation of my base core. Considering my present circumstances, I’d have to take a temporary risk on this System thing. Good or bad, I’d deal with the consequences after. Sometimes risks needed to be taken for victory to be obtained.
Besides, it had been injected into me already. I wasn’t in a place to do anything about it yet. Might as well use it for all it’s worth in the meantime.
I suddenly felt myself grinning. A familiar feeling of peace and thrill for battle flooded through me like an uncontrollable tsunami. These fools were in for a surprise if they thought their Cael Kingdom would be victorious in the reenactment. My grin widened as my arena enemies filed out from the other side, clad in scant armor. Parts of their bodies were covered in rusted steel, but the majority of the coverage was done by thin leather.
There were twenty of them in total, ranging from 20 years from youngest to oldest, give or take a few. I guessed the youngest was in his twenties. None of them struck me as particularly well-trained. They walked too lazily and held their myriad of weapons either too tightly or too loosely, and the smiles on their faces were full of relief from being on the winning side. Some of them might die, but most of them would probably live, and they likely knew it.
Unfortunately, I was going to make sure none of them walked out of the arena. Not if my own life depended on their deaths. The worry I’d felt about my situation drained away with the crash of the tsunami, and I could feel nothing but the frantic buzz in the air as the audience roared with the approval of the newcomers.
“GI-DE-ON! GI-DE-ON!”
I realized then that the audience had not stopped chanting the name Gideon since the end of the Caster’s introduction. One of the enemy fighters raised his eyes as the crowd cheered and was running in wide circles, though taking care not to approach us. Unlike the others, he was covered in a completely golden suit of armor. His golden visor bounced and clanked as he ran. The crowd ate it up.
I thought he looked like an utter fool. That was probably why the crowd loved it.
“FIGHTERS,” Jarold shouted over the screaming crowd, “GET READY.” That was when the door at the far side near the opposing soldiers opened again, and a chariot was rolled out, pulled along with two war horses, black as night. Eight more of the beasts followed. And then, at the very back, something that made my jaw drop. Again.
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A long, snake-like creature slithered into view out from behind the horses. The creatures gave it a wide berth, as did the soldier slaves. The creature was covered in dull gray scales that slinked along its twelve-foot length and ended where the torso split. Two heads tittered from the scaled body, each without a single eye. The entirety of the “heads” was a giant mouth filled with sharp red teeth that seemed attached to some type of spinning jaw. In between the horrendous maws was a single, black eye encircled in a bright white lining. It stared directly at me, and a whirring sound erupted from the two mouths.
“Holy Ashwash,” I swore, taking a step back as some of my earlier bravado slipped away. “A desert tunneler?” An image of myself running away from the Demon Progenitor sprang to mind. I grit my teeth and forced myself to take two steps forward.
Not again. Never again.
“We have the Soldiers of Cael Kingdom,” Jarold introduced, and a golden light flashed down on the other slaves with a thunderous boom. The crowd roared, the magnitude of it dwarfing Jarold. After a moment, when the audience’s applauding had died down, he switched to us, and an ominous red light flashed over our heads in silence. “And the nasty, dirty elves of Rednatch.”
His words were met with a scattering of boos, but it was clear the audience was ready for the bloodshed to begin. Most of them were watching the desert tunneler spitting red fluid everywhere. The liquid splashed around it, sinking into whatever it hit with an acidic squelch.
“In the year of the Sun God, YSG 263, the Great War began. Five years later, the Hero-King, Gideon of Cael, stepped in and fought back against the elven scourge.” The man playing Gideon climbed onto the chariot and was given a long spear with a point that gleamed with a dangerous, enchanted aura.
Great.
“It wasn’t until YSG 270 that the final battle occurred. The Massacre of Flith, where our soldiers tracked down the vile elven savages and destroyed them all, one by one in vengeance for our family, our friends, our children." A pause, letting the audience warm to the rage Jarold was building with his words. "Warriors,” the caster shouted, the golden light illuminating the slaves playing Cael soldiers flashing even brighter. “Bring salvation to our lands! Fight for glory! Fight for salvation! Fight for your kingdom and your lives!”
The earth once again shook beneath me as every person in the stadium jumped to their feet, and the opposing soldiers surged forward on their horses, the golden soldier on his chariot.
Some of those around me still stood in shock, poking the thin air in front of them. I momentarily wondered if they were seeing the same blue and red boxes that I was. I pushed the thought aside as an arrow whistled over my head by inches.
I took a chance, figuring ‘class’ was referring to what combat specialization someone had.
“Just choose my original classes,” I commanded the system. The red box vanished for a moment. Then a white one replaced it.
[Granted. Lunari class approved.]
[NEW! Abilities grante- ERROR. Original Class override. Core system will progress.]
That sounded like the Blood of Orpheus was going to allow me to progress the same way I had in Ordite.
Despite the moon not being in the sky, I was shocked to find lunar energy flowing into my body from everywhere in the arena. Not a lot, but more than should have been in the air during the day. I pulled in all that I could up to the very last second; until one of the mounted combatants was only a few feet from me.
The soldier atop the horse was clearly untrained and not in good control of the war beast. With a flick of my wrist, I released a small burst of light energy and threw myself to the side, rolling with practiced ease back to my feet. The horse made a panicked sound, and the man shouted.
I couldn’t hear what he said, though I knew it was about his eyes when his hands rubbed at them frantically. His horse bucked from underneath and the man was thrown from the horse, slamming heavily into the ground as his armor clanged in discontent.
I didn’t give him time to recover. I pushed off from my position and leaped at him, a crackling yellow-white light spreading around my right hand. With a thrust, I buried my empowered hand into the soldier’s chest, piercing the leather armor without an obstacle. When I retracted it, there was no blood staining my skin. Whatever flesh or gore remained quickly burnt to ashes in the inferno of light energy radiating around my arm.
[You have received a percentage of heart ring energy]
I didn’t pause to observe what I’d done. I was on my feet dodging blades and batting them aside with my empowered hand. All but one of the slaves from my side were, surprisingly, still alive. Bloodied and injured, but alive. As we fought, I noticed some of them improving at an impossible rate. The realization that they were experiencing the same phenomenon as me came late. I grinned even wider. Oh, what a mistake the slavers had made.
The glint of gold flickered in my peripheral vision, and I instinctually ducked. A long, deadly golden point speared overhead, skewering the man I’d just been fighting. Hooves stomped by, and then wheels followed. The crowd broke out into cheers of GI-DE-ON. I looked up, laying my eyes on the golden warrior. That spear strike had been too accurate for an untrained slave. I noticed the golden flecks in the man’s eyes as his gaze met mine, and he smiled back at me, teeth polished with a clean white.
That was when the desert tunneler lashed out, its whirling noise temporarily interrupted by the sound of tearing flesh and the dying screams of slaves. Apparently, the tunneler was not particular about who it ate.
The energy empowerment around my hand winked away, and I grabbed a shining steel blade that had fallen a foot from me. The man playing Gideon didn’t move. He stood there on his chariot; an arrogant smirk permanently plastered on his face as he looked at me. At the twelve-year-old girl, he was trying to kill.
Filth.
An enormous beast burst from our end, a massive hammer clenched in each hand. It stood at least ten feet taller than Gideon on the chariot and possessed a muscled humanoid body covered in thick, fur-covered skin, the matted silver fur spotted with stains of crimson blood. The creature's head resembled that of a goat more than a man, with a flat face and amber eyes made small by the large, curved horns spiraling outward and then sloping slightly downward at the end. It lowered its head with a scream and charged the chariot.
“Oh no, folks,” Jarold said, “it looks like the vile elves had a trick up their sleeves. Does anyone remember how Gideon dealt with the beast king protecting the elves?”
As one, the crowd chanted, “Kill. Kill! KILL! KILL!”