As Kalen’s fingers closed around the sword’s handle, the glowing lines etched across the surface of the blade erupted in bright light.

VFOOOOM

“Yeah!”

Kalen heard someone shout behind him, presumably from his own team, but he was too preoccupied to look.

Overcome by a strange sensation, Kalen’s eyes widened.

‘What is this feeling?’

Quicker to react than any of his opponents, the announcer’s voice boomed overhead, swiftly interjecting to narrate the new development.

“Members of the audience, would you look at this! In a shocking sprint for the pedestal, the yellow team is the first to grab a hold of the objective. But can they hold onto it for an entire minute?”

“No you can’t!”

Kalen ducked as a javelin was tossed over his head and plunged into the wall.

He jumped down from the pedestal and instantly realized he had been put in a terrible spot.

‘Was this the reason they were hesitating to grab it?’

Like he was surrounded by ravenous beasts, the whole enemy team had turned their attention toward him.

With the sword in play now, they had to tear it from his grasp or kill him before the minute was up if they wanted to win.

All the gladiators rushed forward.

“Delay them!”

Kalen heard someone from his own team shout, prompting several gladiators with yellow armbands to jump in front of the other team.

Though they couldn’t stop everyone, even with their quick reaction.

By the time he started to run, Kalen already had three chasing him from behind.

Kalen ran across the arena with no destination in mind, panting, he searched for an opening to pass the sword to someone else, but no other member of his team was close by.

‘We can win if I just keep running! If they don’t catch up, I won’t even have to fight back in the next minute!’

Kalen hoped as he sprinted under the heavy plates of his armor.

Unfortunately, his hope was dashed as one of the men caught up with him.

For as fast as he could run normally, in full armor speed was greatly impeded.

Out came a spear, thrusting toward Kalen’s sword-hand.

‘Damn it!’

Kalen realized he couldn’t run away for the whole minute, abandoning his hesitancy to fight the pursuers.

As the match itself seemed designed to make use of the inscribed weapon, whatever it was, he would go along with it. It was still a sword after all, even if Kalen didn’t understand the inscriptions that ran through it, he was still far more comfortable with it in his hands than he had been holding the spear.

He stepped back from the opponent’s stab, drifting through the sand on his back foot, he attempted to get a better read on his opponent.

One of the first things he had been taught: never strike until you can see your next move.

And it was clear that running out the clock was not an option. Maybe he could have outran a single enemy for that time, though it wasn’t likely with all of the armor he had on.

But to outrun three?

No chance.

‘I have to use the sword.’

Kalen’s grip tightened around the gladius, memories of his training flooded his mind, of proper stances for different situations.

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How best to deal with an approaching enemy that had a longer reach than him.

Kalen selected a stance in his mind. Lifting the blade in his hands above his head, he sidestepped one last thrust from the first pursuer.

‘Let’s see what you can do!’

WOOOSH

A flash of light arced before him as Kalen sent the blade down into the man’s exposed shoulder.

“Aaaahhhh!”

As the gladius traveled through the man’s body it met no resistance from his armor, cutting through the chainmail and breastplate like they were nothing.

It was almost like traveling through a cloud, and Kalen nearly dropped the sword from the weightlessness of the weapon in his hands.

“Goh!”

The man’s face drained like a white sheet as all the air escaped through his lungs.

The single swipe had passed through his armor in one blow, killing him in an instant.

Kalen shifted back, wide-eyed as he examined the sword in his hands again in shock. The surprise he felt at the ease of the kill was soon replaced by a different sensation.

‘This feeling again?’

Kalen repositioned the gladius firmly in his hands as another wave of refreshment passed through him.

The sword had been giving off a cooling feeling to his arms, even passing through the gauntlets he wore.

The slash he had just performed had only heightened the feeling.

‘What is that sensation-eh!’

Kalen had no time to think as the next member of the enemy team caught up with him.

Instead of rushing in, he chose to throw his halberd like a spear at Kalen after seeing what had happened to the other man.

“Woah!”

Kalen was caught off-guard, errantly swiping forward with the inscribed sword, shocking both him and his opponent as the blade passed through the thrown halberd cleanly and broke its momentum.

But Kalen didn’t pause there, and jumped from his spot at the man.

In an instant, he had buried the tip of the blade into the other gladiator’s visor.

For an instant, Kalen caught a glimpse of the man’s open eyes beneath his visor, but the blade met no resistance once again and came out the other side effortlessly.

The space within the helmet was quickly dyed red.

‘That’s two down! Have I reversed our numbers?’

Kalen pulled the sword out from his dead opponent’s cassis. Seeing the third pursuer had stopped, he looked around.

But someone on his team had fallen during that short amount of time. The match was quickly intensifying.

‘No, but we’re even now!’

Kalen felt a rush of excitement flood through him.

It was a cool, refreshing feeling. Was it really excitement he felt?

He looked down at the gladius.

‘Is this thing influencing me?’

Kalen looked up at the last pursuer. All the other survivors were still locked in combat, aside from Kalen and the man before him.

“What, are you going to just stand there?”

Kalen yelled.

His expression was impossible to tell beneath his visor, but from the hesitant body language of the man, he had seen what had happened to the two before him.

He slowly raised both of his hands, dropping the javelin he held down on the ground before them both in a non-threatening manner.

‘He’s surrendering in the middle of a match? Just when he was prepared to take my life, now he expects me to show mercy?’

The idea disgusted Kalen.

Why had he never thought of it before? If someone else was ready to kill him, then they deserved the same.

It only sounded logical in his head.

Kalen kicked off the ground in a cloud of sand and dust, holding the blade of the gladius in front of him as he thrust it through his opponent’s breastplate and punctured his heart.

“Ah!”

A weak groan escaped the man as he fell back into the sand.

Kalen kicked the man’s chest downward in order to pull the sword out. With a flick to the side, he sent the residual blood of his last three opponents off from the blade.

Again, a soothing feeling flowed into his body from his hands.

“Now we outnumber them! Who should I pick next then?”

Kalen grinned as he looked across the open arena.

But a boom of an overhead voice narrowly interrupted his next course of action.

“Aaaaaand that’s a minute! With a valiant performance, the yellow team takes their victory by means of the objective! Give it up for the yellow team!”

YEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH

Roars of the crowd drowned out the latter half of the announcer’s voice.

The announcement halted all fighting in the arena at once. Kalen watched as the gladiators suddenly looked up, and then over at him.

Even the remaining members of the enemy team looked over, humbly waving at the crowd as the gates started to open.

Guards started to come out, signaling officially that the match had ended.

A storm of thoughts thundered through Kalen’s mind all at once, before his grip on the gladius suddenly went soft.

Merely a single thought was left to summarize how he felt.

‘...What?’