A giant Minotaur, nine meters tall, emerged. Prepare yourselves for the attack! The wizards are preparing their spells while the attackers and defenders distract and assault the Minotaur’s legs. Our hero joined the attack, targeting one of the legs and cutting it off. The wizards completed their joint spell, electrocuting the Minotaur until its face was charred. Our hero noticed something strange about the team, especially the leader, but he didn't pay much attention to it.
The gate opened again after a while, and another monster emerged. They continued in this manner for ten rounds. At the end of the tenth round, they held an emergency meeting to analyze the situation. It seemed that, according to the ancient stone inscription, they would face forty-four rounds, leaving thirty-four more rounds to go. The disaster was that the monsters grew stronger with each round, nearly doubling in strength. Additionally, the three wizards had exhausted their magical energy, meaning only the five attackers and defenders were left to fight.
The leader ordered them to rest until the cell opened. Our hero sat away from the team, analyzing everything that had happened in the previous rounds. He realized what was strange about this team: they weren’t strangers to each other. Their movements were flawlessly synchronized, unlike teams randomly assembled or recruited based on skills. He asked himself why they pretended to be strangers, even though some joined the mission after him. Analyzing the situation and recalling the stone inscription about sacrifice and the bartender’s warning about the leader’s cunning, he pieced together the puzzle. Just then, he heard the gate open, signaling the next round.
"Damn, I need to finish these rounds, but I can't do it alone. I have to fight alongside these jackals and then deal with them in the end," he thought. They all rose to fight, except for the wizards, and continued battling round after round until they reached the twenty-fourth round. Exhausted, they rested after the round to recover some stamina. The leader told the rejuvenated wizards it was their turn to fight for the next seven rounds while the attackers, defenders, and our hero rested. Time passed, and as the rounds continued, our hero regained his stamina. He planned not to use all his strength in the final rounds to save some for eliminating the leader and his gang.
After the thirty-first round, as planned, the wizards sat to recover their magical energy while the attackers and defenders rose to fight. From the leader's new plan, our hero understood he was being targeted. They would fight until the forty-fourth round, with the wizards assisting in the more challenging rounds, aiming to wear him out for an easy kill. He had no other choice. Round after round, his stamina waned until they reached the final round. Severely exhausted, he could barely stand or hold his weapon. He thought about giving up at the start of each round until the last one. When the final monster, a massive wyvern, appeared, the plan changed: the wizards would restrain it while the leader would slit its throat.
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Our hero, feeling extreme fatigue and dizziness, nearly gave up but remembered the little girl, the bartender, and his past. He decided he must take the lives of those on this mission with him. He wielded his weapon and targeted the wizards. The leader successfully slit the wyvern’s throat, and a table appeared in the arena's center. The leader grinned wickedly, saying, "We did it. Let’s sacrifice that fool." But when he looked around, he couldn’t find him. Turning around, he saw our hero had decapitated the wizards. The leader screamed hysterically, "What do you think you're doing? You were the sacrifice. I would have killed you painlessly, but now you’ll see hell."
Our hero could barely stand, and the leader approached, cutting off his right arm, then his left, and finally his legs. The leader dragged him to the sacrifice table, picked up a dagger lying on the ground from previous battles, and stabbed him repeatedly, surpassing eighty stabs. Despite this, our hero remained conscious. The statue smiled, and the leader knew it had accepted its reward. They had gained their freedom, expecting money and power, but it seemed the statue’s gift was their death. One by one, they died, their bodies decaying rapidly. The leader, seeing his followers’ gruesome end, screamed, "This isn’t what you promised me, monk. I won’t forgive you!" He began to decay, losing his mind, begging the statue, "Please, I'm sorry. Don’t kill me... please," until he fully disintegrated. The arena was now filled with decaying bodies and our hero, teetering between life and death.
He began to remember his mother and his father, whose face he had forgotten. He recalled memories with the infant and the annoying waiter. He remembered his goal as the scenes of his life flashed before his eyes in moments. He was on the verge of death when he felt something entering through his eyes, resembling a small snake headed towards his brain. He didn't care because he was in his final moments. Our hero started to feel pain again after moments of extreme cold, a severe pain he hadn't felt even during his torture. The pain was in his head, then it suddenly stopped. Everything became silent, and all he could hear was the sound of dripping water. But it wasn't water; it was blood dripping from the tomb. He then heard a voice in his head, like a child's echoing voice saying, "Do you want to know the story of this place? Please agree, please." The echo was annoying, and our hero thought to himself, "I must have gone mad. No matter, just stop bothering me. Who cares about the story of this place when I'm about to die?"
The voice said, "If I save you, will you listen to me?"
Our hero replied, "I really must be mad. I think I should have listened to the waiter."
The voice said, "Do you want to live?"
Our hero said, "I don't think living again is a bad idea."
The voice responded, "Alright, I will save you."
Our hero began to feel a tickling sensation inside his body, as if a tree was growing within him. He felt a comfort he had never experienced before, thinking this must be his final moment in life. He opened his eyes to find himself completely healed. All his limbs were intact and as they were before. He looked at his hand and found tooth marks, saying, "Welcome, host."
[to be continued]