Chapter 10 Getting Owned

Strike… Block…Strike

I had forgotten what was the real world and what was the Great Game.

Strike… Block…Strike

I had forgotten about Wolf and the bounty of Zeus.

I had even forgotten about fear, that blessed maiden that had been an ever-constant presence casting her shadow upon me.

Strike… Block…Strike

All that existed was the wooden sword in my left hand that was four times the weight of a normal Gladius. On my right was round buckler woven with willows, twice as heavy those used in real service.

Strike… Block…Strike

Then the rhythm changed and we went from drilling forms into a mock battle.

Clang!

His blade struck upon my shield as I slid backwards in the sand. I flicked my head slightly to push the sweat dripping down my head away from my eyes as the sun cast a merciless and scorching heat upon me.

I faked an overhead swing and then thrust forward. My opponent sidestepped my thrust and backhanded me with his shield but I ducked and was nearly skewered as his blade which had been hidden behind his shield snaked towards my eye.

I continued going with my momentum and threw myself to the left and hit the ground rolling up instantly in a defensive posture. Sword and shield fighting was very different to the tai chi sword style I excelled in. The use of a small buckler shield changed the dynamics considerably and opened an enormous range of attacks and counter attacks.

I rushed forward again trying something new. I held the point of the blade low rather than in behind my posture and shield. As I neared I skittered to the right and flicked up a handful of sand off the ground with the tip of my blade. My opponent moved his shield slightly to protect his eyes and I faked a stab at the shield. Again the shield slightly shifted to counter my blow and I flexed my wrist and altered the path of the blade.

It was a technique that would have probably put my wrist out of commission for months if I had tried it when I first arrived in the great game. It required amazing wrist strength and flexibility. The effect was a strike that was unpredictable and looked like a snake as it changed targets halfway through a strike.

Rather than getting flustered my opponent did something unbelievable. He lowered his shield even further and simply moved forward into the swords path. As he moved forward his body shifted position slightly and the strike carried past his head.

Shit!

As he moved in so close I tried to curve my blow to slice the back of his neck and shoulders but he smashed the underside of my elbow with his hilt as his other arm brought his shield up and forward at full power to smash me in the chin and face.

I flew through the air for a moment before my body crunched hard into the ground.

“Futuo!” I cursed under my breath. I had gotten used to the Roman swear words by now and this was one of my favorites.

I spat blood and slowly dragged myself up and dunked my head into a large bucked of ice cold water.

“I will beat you one day Crixus!” I declared as wiped blood off my face.

“Oh does everyone hear this? The child thinks he can slay his father!” Crixus said and the other Gladiators began to laugh.

“Fuck your mother!” I spat and Crixus stepped in and grabbed me in a wrestling headlock. I struggled to sweep him but his strength was so far above mine it was like an ant trying to move a mountain. He lifted me up and slammed me into the water barrel before forcing my head into the water.

I struggled to get out as he held me their. Fortunately my breath had been leveled up to such an extent that I could hold my breath for almost an hour underwater if I needed to.

With a yank he pulled half my head out of the water.

“Look how dirty my son is, he forgets to take his bath!” Crixus laughed. As he plunged my head in a few more times then finally he ripped me out and I staggered and fell on one knee only to have a wooden sword slam painfully into my backside and send me sprawling.

“Argghhhh.” I protested and went for his throat but he just laughed and shrugged me off, throwing me to the side.

“I your father have punished you for your insolence!” Crixus said as he roared with laughter. I lay on the ground panting as all the Gladiators exploded with laughter and began to throw taunts of their own.

“Crixus your son’s cock is so small, what woman will want him!” one yelled.

“Indeed, it is true no woman wants him,” Crixus said and then paused for effect as he looked at the surrounding men, “That’s why we bought him the goat!”

The whole area erupted in laughter as I lay their panting. Madmen, they were all fucking madmen.

Crixus walked over still smiling and offered me his hand as he pulled me up from the ground. I stood completely demoralized as I always was after fighting him.

“Go relieve that fat bastard from his task and bring him here. You are both level 99 now, it is time for your final initiation. Bring the fat man here and we will begin the final stage of your training.”

I simply nodded and limped out of the arena as I headed towards the outer wall. It has been 9 months since Ray and I had joined the Gladiator school for ‘basic’ training. In that 9 months I had been beaten to within an inch of my life virtually every day. Bones broken, my teeth kicked out and I had even had my right hand completely sliced off my body by accident one day. Another time I would have easily lost a leg but my bone stopped a blade from penetrating any further thanks to the increasing toughness of my physical body. If it wasn’t for my regenerative ability I would have been crippled several times over.

I thought I had understood training and what the limits of the human body were but I had re-evaluated what was possible after training with Romans. Every day training was like torture, drill work, sparring, weight lifting, gymnastics, wrestling, striking. They trained with every weapon imaginable, not just the gladius but sabres, spears, long swords and shorts swords.

I had never once gotten close to defeating Crixsus, but I could go toe to toe with many of the other Gladiators. Their physical abilities were completely broken and their lowest level Gladiator was level 150, with the rest ranging from level 200 – 300. Crixus himself was level 400. I believed my Tai Chi Sword play would rival Crixus with a Gladius and Shield in terms of skill, but I had been banned from using it. Crixus had seen it once and called it a woman’s style and said if I used it again he would cut off the arm that held the sword.

I believed him.

It was a good enough excuse to force myself to master other styles in any case. And although I had not used my Tai Chi sword style at all in the last 9 months, I felt my understanding of it had grown by leaps and bounds. There were countless ways the tips and tricks I had learned from other sword styles could be applied to Tai Chi sword.

My level and my stats had risen exponentially over the last 9 months. My resilience was so high now I didn’t even fear gun-shots unless it was a gun based skill user. My skin was like a thick armor and my body felt like a superman after being relentlessly pounded on every day.

The worst moment was when Crixus had discovered my class skills and that my stats went up like crazy whenever I was injured but did not die. Crixus’s training methodology had made me carefully review the Bond of Brothers that had formed when we had joined. Unfortunately after the fourth time I nearly died at the hands of Crixus’s training I realized there was nothing in the bond that preventing them killing me accidently through harsh training.

One training session he had simply tied me to a pole and beat me for seven days straight in order to raise my resilience. He had starved me, burned me, buried me in ice and electrocuted me. He even flayed the skin of my back a few times to see if it would raise my stats but was disappointed when it only improved my resilience marginally.

As much as I hated his methods I had to admit they yielded results.

At level 99 I could hold my own against any Gladiator under level 200. A new stat had also been created – Power Level. Crixus had explained that a person’s power level was an unknown mysterious calculation that took into account your overall potential and generated a number. That was why at lvl 99 I have a power level rating of 200 due to my high combat potential.

The same was true of Crixus, Gladiator’s drew down on an energy system called ‘Glory’. Crixus Glory resource was so deep that at level 400 he could go toe to toe with people at level 500.

After my initial meeting with Belisarius I had also realized how important class specialization was. As a close combat fighter type training in long-range weapons was useless and would only be effective against low leveled enemies. The fastest route to power was to diligently raise your abilities related to your class. For me that was my physical stats, my cosmic energy and my cellular regeneration skill.

The sheer amount of physical damage I endured every day in training had forced me to almost constantly draw down on cellular regeneration. Crixus seemed to enjoy sparring with me until he could sense my cosmic energy reserves had been tapped out and he knew I would begin to slow down as my self-healing capability dropped drastically.

This training however had improved my cosmic energy stat and also my level of control over it. When I had first utilized Cellular regeneration the power had rushed out and drained in an instant. Now I was getting more and more adept at drip-feeding the power into my body for small healing boosts and being more targeted in directing the energy to where it needed to go to fuel larger healing requirements.

I often felt as if I was on the verge of understanding something in regards to my cosmic energy, but the feeling constantly eluded me leaving me frustrated.

I finally made my way to the outer wall and found Ray doing his regular duty of moving large boulders from one area to another to support the outer wall. While my training had focused on combative arts almost 24 hours a day, Ray’s training consisted of simply moving large things and then getting destroyed sparring with Crixus at the end of each day.

“Well if it isn’t the favored son.” Ray sneered as I approached. He was standing at rest with one foot on a large boulder. Despite having the mind of a 12 year old he had always had a big body which had earned him the nick name ‘fatty’ by the other gladiators.

But there was nothing fat about him. He had gotten even more enormous and his muscles had thickened considerably. 9 months of heavy lifting had transformed his body into a hardened fortress and his daily sparring with Crixus had honed his hand to hand fighting capability to new heights.

When we had fought before back in the caves when I was in hiding I had easily manipulating his strength with some basic grappling techniques. Even when I had suppressed the nannites and his physical capabilities improved again, I felt confident that in hand to hand fighting I still had the edge on him, though if guns were included he became far more dangerous.

Now though, it was a different story. His training with Crixus had focused on the two-handed sword and an enormous two handed hammer, unarmed fighting and wrestling.

Could I beat him now?

“Its graduation time.” I said simply with a smile and saw a huge grin spread across his face.

“FINALLY!” he boomed and bent down and lifted an enormous boulder before shot putting it off his arm and into the distance.

“If I have to move one more fucking rock I swear I will kill myself.” He said with a painful expression.

“Yeah well I would have taken rocks over the shit I went through.” I said equally grim.

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“Fucking Romans.” Ray spat. Then we looked at each other and laughed. We had thought each other crazy. But no one was Roman crazy.

“Do you need more blood?” I asked.

“Yeah best to take some now.” Ray replied.

I cut open an arm and dripped blood into his water container. The small wound tried to heal instantly but I drew down ever so slightly on my cosmic energy and prevented my body from healing so that the blood would flow.

We had worked out that the blood suppression lasted around a month before Ray became vulnerable to possession again. Just in case I had been feeding him my blood three or four times a week for the last 9 months.

It was a strange feeling, the more blood of mine he ingested the more I could sense his presence. It was like I could feel my own blood calling to me even though it was outside my body and circulating through Ray.

Ray took a big swig of the blood water and drained it dry.

Nannite status permenently suppressed by blood of a TitanThe cosmic energy within a Titan's blood has purged the nannite's from User 'Ray Monaro'

Due to the constant ingestion of Titan Blood and its deep interaction on a cellular level in eradicating hostile lifeforms a special bond has been created

User Ray Monaro has now become your Pet!You have obtained a Pet!Pet NameRay MonaroClassMarineLevel99

You have learned a new skill - Summon Pet

I looked up at Ray as the blue boxes cascaded in front me. His face started to turn red, then purple before finally it almost looked as if his face was turning black. The veins on his head were almost bulging out of his skin.

“I’LL KILL YOU!” he screamed in a strangely high pitched voice as he charged at me and bowled me over onto the ground and started to strangle me.

“R…aaayyy.” I squeezed out as he choked me. He didn’t realize I needed hardly any oxygen to breath compared to a normal person, so his choking wasn’t really doing anything.

“Raa…..aaay. Liiiisten. We…cannnn…..ffiiiixxx…..thiiiisss.” I forced out.

But Ray’s eyes only bulged further. Fuck. The man had totally lost his shit. Clearly whatever this pet status was it did not allow me to actually control him in any meaningful way. I hadn’t been too worried about him choking before but now I realized that from the extreme pressure his hands were transmitting he wasn’t trying to choke me. He was trying to rip my head off my body.

I twisted in his arms and knocked his group loose and then rolled back and up onto my feet.

He stood their panting in rage, but somehow also helpless.

“Ray. Think about it. This is not like the nannites. I can’t control you at all, in fact you got some bonuses!  You are not a slave, you’re more like a …..” I stopped speaking abruptly.

“A Dog? That’s what you were going to say right? A fucking dog!” He spat.

“Alright, alright, I was going to say a dog, but shit man look at it like this, now the nannites are gone so you don’t have drink my blood anymore. You are truly free from Wolf and its likely whatever this pet bond is you can’t ever get re-infected. So on the whole you have come out ahead.”

I could see him thinking about it, but it didn’t seem to lesson his anger.

“I’m not happy about this Nakamura. But there is fuck all I can do it about it at the moment isn’t there?” He said and brushed past me and headed towards the main camp.

I tried not to grin as he walked ahead of me. He would make an awesome pet. I wonder what other options might unlock as I leveled his pet status up.

We strolled up back to the main camp and stood in front of the arena gates where Crixus waited for us.

“Alright little ones it is time for your final battle in the arena. I should warn you, we haven’t fucked around with this last test.” He said as the gates opened and he shepherded us in.

In between drilling and training we had been forced to fight against random monsters collected by the Gladiators. These battles were what had allowed us to level up so quickly. None of them had been easy, but we had beaten them all so far.

Crixus closed the door behind us before vaulting into the raised seating that filled with the rest of the gladiators who had come to watch.

“I should warn you little pricks. We decided we have been going too easy on you. There hasn’t been a single Gladiator in our ranks who hasn’t died at least once during training. Neither of you have died yet so let’s just say this last test will be a little above your level.” Crixus said with a grin.

“LET THE GAMES BEGIN!” Crixus roared. The surrounding gladiators in the stands began to bang on their shields.

Without waiting I sprinted towards the back end of the arena where the weapons were usually located. Ray tried to keep pace with me but I left him in the dust as I slid into the weapons rack, only to find it empty.

Behind me I heard the sound of the other entrance being opened and I knew whatever we were going to fight had just entered.

“No weapons!” I yelled to Ray.

“Futuo!” I heard him curse as I spun around. Only to look up and up and up.

At the entrance running towards was an enormous Cyclops. I squinted trying to inspect its level, a trick that Ray had taught me. It seemed to be around level 150. As it ran it projected a stifling aura that ripped through me.

I tried to sense its power level which was much harder than just determining its level. I let its aura drift into me as I quested with my senses and numbers cascaded through my head getting high and higher until it stopped at 230.

Ray sprinted directly at the Cyclops and launched a fly kick with his whole body behind it. He hit the Cyclops with his full force, but simply bounced off. He lay their stunned for a moment until the Cyclops back handed him and he flew through the air to the other side of the arena like a soccer ball kicked into the distance.

“My legs, ohh fuck my legs!” I heard Ray screaming in the distance. I could vaguely see his leg bent at an odd angle with a broken bone sticking out of his leg and pointing up towards the sky.

Holy fuck.

The one huge eye on the Cyclops turned in my direction as it thundered over. I sprinted towards it like Ray had before but just before I got in range

I changed my angle and side stepped.

BOOM!

The ground shook as it blew past me and sunk its enormous fist into the ground making it tremble.

I hit the Cyclops fourteen times in under three seconds, punches and kicks that simply bounced off its super thick skin.

It swung an enormous backhand towards me as I danced around it. It was big and fast but its turning speed was poor. Ducking between its legs, I slid though and climbed onto its back but it jumped in the air and threw itself on its back trying to crush me.

Panicking I threw myself off and rolled up off the ground.

Too slow.

A kick was coming for me that I couldn’t dodge. I drew down on cosmic energy and desperately tried to angle myself out the way but was only partially successful as I copped a glancing blow that sent me careening through the air and across the ground.

I swallowed a scream as the pain ripped through me. That one hit that barely connected had broken half the bones on the right side of my body.

I activated Cellular regeneration under my own strict control so that my power wouldn’t flood and directed it into the damaged areas and felt them knit back together.

Unless I did something drastic I would die soon.

As the Cyclops closed in again I leapt through the air dodging its strike and threw a blow directly at its eye.

Ding!

My fist simply bounced off and the Cyclops head butted me in mid air as I slammed into the ground causing a small crater to form underneath me from the impact.

Even its eye was so strong that my blow couldn’t penetrate it. I staggered up as Cellular Regeneration surged drawing down on my cosmic energy at an alarming rate.

A hammer like fist descended as I tried to edge backwards.  You are going to die the terrified part of me whispered in mind.

“Summon Pet!” I screamed as the fist descended.

Out of nowhere Ray appeared right in front of me with a confused look on his face half standing on his mangled leg.

“Whaa…” was all he had time to say before a fist exploded through his flesh. At the same time I made one last desperate gamble. I instantly drew down on every last bit of cosmic energy I had channeled it through my entire body in one massive surge.

I screamed as I felt my entire body ripped apart under the onslaught of energy too powerful for my body to contain as it broke down.

I stepped onto the fist of the Cyclops and again flung myself towards it eye, this time extending my fist into a knife hand.

My first burst through the Cyclops eye directly into its brain and I grabbed a huge chunk of its brain matter with my hand as I ripped it out.

The Cyclops screamed and then fell to the ground jerking spasmodically.

You have created a new skill - ExplosionBurn all of your cosmic energy in your cells in an instant, increasing your physical capabilities by 200%, but causes an equal amount of strain on your body once skill duration expiresSkill duration:  3 seconds

Just as the blue box appeared the backlash hit me and I screamed as bones popped and snapped and muscles tore and my body began to shut down.

I twitched and grunted as I lost control of my body and lay in a pool of Ray’s blood and flesh on the ground of the arena.

I don’t know how long I laid like that trapped in my world of pain. But eventually a shadow loomed over me. I felt hands lift me and I saw the ground slowly moving away.

“You who were once my son, are now my brother.” The voice of Crixus said as I blacked out.